The fae are powerful, but they are also limited. The pawns are easy to banish back to the Fairwoods. Expose a Child of Winter to light and they will dissolve. Inflict darkness upon a Spawn of Summer and they will weaken. The stronger members of the Courts might be outright immune to certain things, but even those who cannot be slain or banished by physical or magical force can be overpowered.
And none of the Fairest will emerge unscarred when touched by the narrative-fraying material that is cold iron—dead metal born and still stained with lingering entropy from Pre-Integration ages. It is a rare metal for most to procure, but for those of you who know the Deep Routes or have contacts near Cape Hope or the Chernobyl Nexus, you know what I am going to recommend.
But even without this, understand that it is the nature of a fairy to be consumed by hubris. For what consequence is there? They do not have ends. They live in cycles. Even if destroyed, they will simply return when the seasons reset. And so they will strike bargains and make agreements that seem absurd to us Patternists.
And this is how you capture them. Because a fairy is bound to their domain and Court, they cannot step beyond those boundaries. You, as an individual with free will, are not bound by such restrictions: you can accumulate any number of skills and experiences incomprehensible and unattainable to them.
Ultimately, in times of desperation, it is best for you to provoke and then challenge their honor in something they are utterly unprepared to face you in. It will not work every time, and the consequences of failure are bleak and worse than death, but it has been done. And you might just stand among the few to best a fairy unscathed…
Fairest the Eternal: The Fairwalker’s Guide to Interacting, Hunting, and Avoiding Fairies
232 (I)
Feed
As the mold and yeast receded and the cooking stations revealed themselves, Shiv felt his heartbeat rise, climbing to his throat, as he beheld the kitchen in its resplendent glory. The Anointed One continued his arrogant mouth noises, but Shiv was no longer listening. Instead, he felt a building feeling inside his gut, a floating sensation. It was similar to what he'd felt when he walked the streets of Weave with Uva. It was the beginning of romance: the budding seed of love.
It took less than a glance for Shiv to see just how successful Monster Mystery Meat was. The Sauce Station was stacked full of gravy, stews, sauces, and more. They ran along the leftmost wall of the room, stretching from end to end, and there was even a curve along the sides, allowing it to surround the other stations, seeming a bit like a pair of handcuffs.
At the center, opposite of the Sausage Station, was the place where the fish and seafood were prepared. To its right: the Roast Station. To its left: the grill. And beside that was the Fry and Vegetable Station. The Pantry was on the other side of the room, in the upper-right corner. Here, all the cold items were stacked and partially prepared: there was a salad left sprawled over the table with a smear of blood splashed over it. Shiv suspected that the chefs were still working when the Faebread began their uprising.
The only station he couldn't see was the Pastry Station, the place where all the desserts, breads, and baked goods originated. There was a good reason for that: it was that station that the cold iron cage had been built around like a jail cell. It occupied its own place in the leftmost corner of the room, just a few steps away from the curving edge of the sauce station. And there, a bulge of yeast and sprawling bread hid its presence.
Even so, Shiv knew it was there. The Chef Unwavering allowed him to sense the station's presence, but it was diminished and wrapped tight in unnatural foodstuff. The cage itself was barred from his sight, doubtless to prevent him from using it against the fae. But he knew where it was, and should the Anointed One prove to be a liar, Shiv would be driving the toasty-fuck’s crust face into those bars until he discovered what color of diarrhea blood sprayed out of a fairy-bread-man-thing’s ass after it was kicked enough.
The Anointed One continued prattling on behind Shiv, but his words were little more than drowning noise.
Shiv decided to take stock of his inventory. The ingredients were all well-supplied, and Shiv fell into a cooking trance as he counted nearly every available resource around him in a half-second with his The Chef Unwavering.
- Olive oil
- Neutral oil
- Basilisk oil
- Butters (so many different varieties)
- Harvested from slimes: vinegars, salt, onions, garlics, lemons
- Peppers (so many different variations and colors)
- Sugars
- Rices
- Spices
- Pastas
- Dried beans
- Tomatoes
- Broth
- Cabbages
- Eggs
- Milk
- Cheese (Republic, cheddar, hullvard, and more!)
Multi-Tasking 46 > 49
This place was a wonderland, and his skills began to feel like they were being strained to their limits.
Shiv used his Biomancy to unfurl his helmet. It folded around him and collapsed behind his head. He breathed in, ignoring the breadcrumbs surging down his lungs, filling his insides. The fragrances of the kitchen were delightful and myriad, and he was finally here, finally at peace, finally in a place beyond the touch of war and destruction.
He had been yearning for this moment for so long, so long. It didn't matter that he had to deal with the stupidity and absurdity of the Faebread. It didn't matter that his life was constantly embroiled in struggle after struggle, battle after battle. If he could have a moment, just one second here, make one dish, he would feel more himself. He would be nourished, his spirit restored.
For that singular instant, Shiv’s animosity toward the System lessened.
"Are you listening to me?" the Anointed One finally snarled.
Shiv heard that. "Just barely," Shiv answered honestly. He looked around and finally frowned. Something was missing. Actually, multiple somethings were missing. "The hells did you clowns do to the utensils?"
He then noticed how the Gingerbread-Knights and the baguettes they rode upon were slowly walking up along the walls. He couldn't see any of the utensils glistening behind the layers of yeast and mold. And even as he swept the ceiling, the only things there were the other chefs. They were wrapped tight, writhing and struggling, but their bodies were devoid of that pale, glistening glow that indicated a tool or substance that could be used for cooking.
"You think we would provide you with utensils for our destruction?" The Anointed One chuckled grimly. "You are a greater fool than I thought, Deathless. We allowed you to initiate this challenge, but that is all we will grant you. Everything else must be spawned from your own resources. You decided to issue this challenge, so you must provide for yourself. We will not allow you to simply take from what we have claimed."
A snort of derision escaped Shiv. He used it to hide the genuine anger flaring inside him. The fact that the Anointed One was behaving like a bastard wasn't unexpected. But still, it wasn't that much to ask for—to have a set of tools provided to him. They were already going to let him use the kitchen. This only made things pointlessly inconvenient. Just felling petty.
"Fine, I'll provide for myself," Shiv said, folding his arms. He briefly saw a patch of shadows gliding in the corner of his vision, and he realized Adam was moving into position, melding in with the lengths of darkness projected by the grilling station. It was a good spot for the Gate Lord to shoot from if everything went south. It hid the quivering darkness that Adam was submerged in quite well. "But I'm going to need a source of vitality. All you fae are empty of that stuff, so....”
“And why do you need the kindling of passing existence?” the Anointed Knight asked with derision.
“If I can't drain some life force, I can't come back. If you're going to deny me that as well, I'm going to start draining from reality directly. And the System usually doesn’t like that. Because the mana storms that come out of the ruptures and stuff.”
The Anointed One threw his head back and let out cackling, scornful laughter. "You think to threaten us with Vitality Drain. You do not possess such an ability. That is a power only—"
Shiv didn't bother letting the idiot finish. Instead, he summoned his Last Morsel to his hand and casually beheaded himself. His head came free of his body, spraying blood in a wide arc. Some of that blood splashed upon the Anointed One's chest. The Knight of the Summer Court took a surprised step backward—just in time for Shiv's corpse to strike the ground.
It helped that Shiv used his Biomancy to guide his blood spray.
“Whoops!” Shiv huffed. “Got some blood on something.”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
"You impudent mongrel! You dare?" But before the Anointed One could bring his halberd to bear and descend into violence, Shiv reached out using his Vitaemancy, and his Vitality Drain Skill roared to full power. He ripped the thin veil of life sustaining the System’s existential membrane asunder, and as a nourishing flood of vitality flowed into Shiv, drawing him closer to a new resurrection, a rupture formed within the kitchen as well.
It tore slowly at first, and the Deathless drank in every drop with greedy, slow, savoring gulps. Every second that followed, the rupture got a bit wider, and the anomalous mana spilled in just a bit quicker. The pathway leading into the room was mostly covered now, and Shiv continued on with his game of chicken.
Vitality Drain 122 > 123
The Faebreads flinched. The Gingerbread-Knights pulled on their reins as their baguettes began to panic and buck as if horses beholding an oncoming storm. The Anointed One froze. He suddenly realized that Shiv did, in fact, have the Vitality Drain skill. More importantly, he realized that Shiv was more than willing to use it within the confines of the kitchen.
Warning: Rupture forming—Mana Storm imminent!
"Enough! Enough!" the Anointed One bellowed. "I heed your words! I see you are no liar! Enough, I say!" Though his words sounded hot with anger, he couldn’t hide another part of his emotions: genuine alarm.
But Shiv didn't comply. He ignored his adversary and continued sapping vitality from existence. "I got to resurrect somehow," Shiv said casually. He cast his thoughts out using his Psychomancy and waited to see how the fae would respond. If they didn't have any vitality to offer, this was what he was going to do. He wasn't going to drain from the chefs. If they offered them to him, he would ignore them, and if they were willing to go to violence over this, then so be it, but there needed to be consequences for the Faebreads’ impudence.
They assumed they were the dangerous ones—that they held all the cards. They didn’t. Shiv would like to protect the people here and preserve the lives of the customers and chefs. However, if push came to shove, he would do everything he could to screw the fairy bastards over, even if it meant exposing himself. If he didn’t do this, there would be no incentive to stop the fae from escalating this matter—from changing the terms of this competition.
Until Shiv was forced into an untenable position where even victory meant certain defeat, he would push. There needed to be a cost, and they needed to understand that he wasn't here because he had no choice.
He intended to be here. He chose to be here. He was here because he wanted to save the chefs and the customers. He wasn't here because they held any power over him.
"Enough!" the Anointed One cried aloud. Suddenly, he raised his upper left arm high, and then he drove his fist into his own chest. The plates of toast that encased his body broke apart.
Shiv winced. He prepared to throw himself at the Anointed One and attempt to stop the fae from tearing the chefs he had fused within his body asunder.
Yet it didn't rip the trapped chefs apart; instead, it drew forth a beating heart that glistened and pulsed with billowing waves of life-force. At once, the room became sweltering with life-giving heat. Shiv stopped sapping from reality and took in the artifact as the Faebreads’ leader held it out toward him.
At a glance, it seemed like a heart, its glistening flesh pulsating with every beat. But upon closer examination, it was more than just an organ of flesh. A series of chains encircled its form, their links alternating between ones crystalline and ones of mithril, with each one bearing a fluid, silvery thread running along their middle as well. It was a weaving of different materials, and they glowed with mercury-colored mana—a variety Shiv had never seen before. Another lore of fae magic, he guessed.
And the Deathless felt a building sense of thirst the longer he looked upon it. More than the chains, however, there was another anomaly marring the heart. There were several faces dotting the sides of the pulsating muscle. Shiv could see eyes blinking at him, brilliant blue eyes. And then there were the small mouths. They opened and closed, trying to mouth words, but he couldn't read them. They lacked lips and were devoid of teeth and tongues. Beholding them filled Shiv with an uncanny sense of dread.
"What the felling shit is that?" Shiv asked. The longer he stared at the chained heart, the more he desired it, and the more it left him disturbed. He could hear faint mental echoes coming from it. They weren't thoughts—not fully formed thoughts anyway, but they were like imprints of emotion. They were howling screams, an urge to be released, to be freed, or to be slain.
Anything to bring the suffering to an end.
“Suffering… Please…”
Shiv faintly heard something that reminded him of… The feeling was lost. He wasn’t sure about what that reminded him of. He couldn't hold on to it. It was like trying to cling to moisture in the air with bare hands.
"You asked for a source of vitality, did you not?" the Anointed One asked. There was a hint of something in his voice. If it was frustration at being outplayed or a hidden snarl, Shiv couldn't tell, but he was hesitant to accept anything the Knight of the Summer Court offered willingly.
Psycho-Cartography: Remember that the Anointed One despises you. You, and everyone like you. He wishes to inflict loss upon the people of this world for the other bread taken from him. The likelihood that he's offering you a free piece of equipment as a sign of good faith is about as likely as Helix suddenly being supremely humble the next time we see him. Perhaps even less so. You want that piece of equipment, but the atmosphere here is pulling at your greed. It is affecting your emotions, and you cannot trust whatever enchantments it possesses. Worse, if you touch it, you may very well find your vitality ripped away from you as well.
And that sharpened Shiv’s focus. His paranoia and his combat experience proved greater than any greed he possessed. He shuffled away from the beating heart and started cultivating Overflow Tides, just in case a magical attack would be unleashed from the organ. "Yeah, I don't think so," Shiv said. "I've no idea what that is, and I'm under no obligation to accept any gifts from you."
The Anointed One let out a rageful snarl as he chucked the heart across the ground. It bounced a few times before coming to a stop before him. “Then be without it. But if you continue breaching the veil, we will decide this through arms and destruction. And you will taste nothing but ash before the end.”
Shiv moved to avoid the heart, slithering to the other side of the room. He carried his body with him and made sure to snatch up his severed head as well. When he got to the other side, he resumed draining reality, making the rupture grow ever wider. The first spills of stormstuff crossed over. A gelatinous membrane of condensed electricity crashed and crumbled, lashing at the mold crusted over the walls.
All around the throneroom, the Gingerbread-Knights drew back their arrows. They calmed their baguettes and prepared to descend upon the Deathless. The breadcrumbs in the air shivered and collapsed around Shiv, forming so many small pieces that it was like he was a hive coated in insects. Everything was on the precipice of violence.
"I heard that you fairies can't lie," Shiv said, recalling Cullywier’s words from earlier.
The Anointed One hesitated. A tense beat followed as the only sound in the chamber was the crackle of looming thunder. "We are never untruthful."
"So you claim, but what my friend said earlier was that lying would hurt you in a way it can't hurt me. So I'm going to ask you, is that heart a trap? If I touch it, will it rip my vitality away, trap my mind, attack my soul, inject me with a dose of Necromancy?"
"No," the Anointed One declared with a growl of frustration. "If I wished to use schemes against an adversary, I would have woven a plot so immaculate—"
"I got it," Shiv cut the bread man off. “Not interested in trading barbs with a piece of bread. This isn’t going to negatively affect me in any other way, right? Because looking at it is messing with my emotions. It makes me feel like I haven't had a drink of water in days. You tell me that there are no enchantments messing with my mind, and if there are, you tell them to me—explain what they do. Otherwise, I'm not touching that stuff. And if you choose violence, I'll tear this rupture open wide. Everyone in this room be damned.”
The Anointed One snarled with anger, but Shiv wasn't done. “I know that you can't be destroyed through conventional means because of whatever story bullshit that's protecting you, but I can tell you this much: If the restaurant here gets exposed to the Ascendants, they'll come in, and they'll keep you in their own little prison for a good long while. Long enough that you're going to probably miss the next seasonal cycle too. So you think carefully and tell me all about that thing."
"There is no trap; it is simply a reservoir of vitality." The Anointed One fell quiet for a moment. "It also allows one to store vitality within it. Additionally, it protects you from being scryed by Diviners. Finally, it allows you to burn a specific thing, trading vitality for Loreflame. Should you feed it the heart of another, it will be able to trap them within."
That threw Shiv for a loop. "What do you mean by 'trap them within'? This thing isn't just a vitality cage; it's some kind of spirit mind cage too?"
"It is a cage of narratives and memories. An imprint of someone is retained, and an echo of their being is swallowed by the enchained heart. Their life story will be remembered by you, and you may converse with it, if you wish to find out about the pasts of your victims."
Shiv's paranoia climbed new heights. "And you were going to use that to trap me?"
"No," the Anointed One declared with clarity and without hesitation. "Again, I would not have formed such ridiculous schemes. I would have faced you directly, inflicted harm upon you by wielding my righteous blade. You are not a worthy threat, and I will not flatter you with deception. Besides, I have doubts that you can be contained. Undying thing, your soul is wrong. Your being is an alloy. I cannot tell your heart, your life force, and the narrative of your existence apart. Your skills and vitality are mingled. It is more likely you end up damaging the construct instead."
Shiv regarded the heart once more and flinched as all its eyes fell on him. "Where the hells did you get that thing?"
The Anointed One barked a vicious laugh. "Oh, it was a seed I took from a Fairwalker—one of your Patternists that dared to brave the cycle to steal some of our wonders. I hid it within myself when I went to sleep, and when I awoke for the start of this cycle, I realized I was not where I was supposed to be, and so the seed became my weapon against my captors. At first, it was such a small thing, barely larger than a speck hidden within my breadstuff. But then one of the chefs proved themselves a fool. One of the chefs was careless. They reached too deep, and in their moment of distraction, I thrust the seed into them, and it began to grow. You should have felt his insides boil and suppurate. The power that it filled me with was—”
"Wait, you've been using that to feed yourself power?"
The Anointed One didn't say anything, but the Deathless felt a sense of pride and loathing radiate out from the Faebread. Yet, with that came something else: A faint trail of unattuned mana connected Shiv to the Anointed Knight, and the first chains of fear bound them together. The Anointed One tried to mask himself, but the Deathless had unnerved him, and with each exchange, that terror between them only grew stronger.
And if I scare him, I can break him, Shiv said to himself.
Shape of Monstrosity 142 > 144
Shiv extended a Vitae tendril toward the heart. Slowly, he touched it. After brushing it once and realizing his life force hadn't been ripped away from him, Shiv wrapped his white and red strand of mana around it and drew it closer. It was like clutching a small star within the heart of his palm. With every second, it radiated warmth; an overwhelming life force that nourished him from the very roots of his skills to the flowing currents of Vitae that composed his shape.
Equipment Obtained: [Chained Heart of Lifegiving]
Tier: Heroic
Condition: Perfect
Composition: Narrativium; Mithril; Focus Crystal; Faeblood; Fulcavium; Elderflesh; Human Flesh; Elf Flesh; Raptor Flesh
Enchantments > Nourish the Heartblood; The Story Thus Far; Enchain the Transgressors; Life for Loreflame; Binding; Fusing; Regenerating; Counter-Scrying
Book 5 of Path of the Deathless is fully written and available on ! Book 6 is ongoing. (Over 400,000 Words Advanced). Current release schedule is 1-2 full chapters/5,000-10,000 words daily.
For discussion of the novel, join the official
If you're enjoying the story, remember to leave a Follow, a Favorite, a Rating, and to write a Review!