NOVEL NEXT 217 (I) Enrolled [II]
The best cover identities allow you to be adaptable, for there will be unforeseen circumstances in your future that you will have to adjust your backstory to overcome.
The most common pitfall some little birds stumble into is when they select a region their cover is from. They spend so much effort developing the history for themselves, such as creating a false family lineage. They seed so many pieces of information that their past looks real, and then they are faced with a local, and some minute things simply stop adding up. You speak the language, but not the lingo. You melt into your role and profession, but part of you cannot integrate with the culture. And then come the questions, "Oh, and which part of Diego are you from? Really, you did that 30 years ago? My father was in charge of the Debrinch Torrent at Huaqing Station in High Harbor as well. Maybe you've met him before."
These are very common issues, but these are issues that are so often ignored in the face of so-called greater difficulties. But it is in the small things that our covers thrive or sustain erosion.
And for those of our birdies who think they're going to be clever by choosing to be an orphan or someone alienated from society, well, how are you supposed to get another to trust you when you have no past, even within their culture? People don't even need to be suspicious of you for doors to be closed, and people merely need to doubt who you're pretending to be for everything to collapse.
Tradecraft is a very fragile thing.
And the worst covers of all are the ones you know in breadth, but fail to grasp at the depth. A life is not a collection of major events. A life is everything your cover has done. And if you treat your masquerade like a resume, then ultimately it will have the durability of paper, and someone will rip through.
-The Mallard, Aviary Instructor
217 (I)
Enrolled [II]
Strider of the Unbending Path 163 > 164
The Creeping Void 115 > 117
Strider of the Unbending Path continued to be one of Shiv's most indispensable skills. It didn't matter if it was in combat or if he just wanted to get away from someone. Being able to freeze the flow of chronology, even for a brief second, allowed him to slip from crowd to crowd and reposition.
The massive wards projected by the academy meant he couldn't remain within the time-frozen state indefinitely. Perhaps he could try to contend with the wards using his Shapeless Tides. But if he damaged it in any way, that would probably reveal his presence more than anything else he could do. After all, there were only so many things, or people, that could stop an academy-spanning set of wards dead.
After Shiv's third time stop, he leaped down into a trench leading into a nearby building. He thought he was standing in front of the Manticore dorm, judging from the emblem plastered over its front door. He was going pretty fast, so he didn't get a good chance to have a look, but that didn't matter. He wasn't heading for the dorm itself. Instead, he was going for one of Phoenix Academy's greatest conveniences: its on-campus jump network.
He landed hard in the trench and cracked a few of the boards. He winced but didn't stop. Shiv slipped between two students speaking to each other, knocking a book out of one of her hands. He caught it before it could hit the ground and tossed it back to her.
"Sorry," he said, "being pursued by a bunch of people I definitely don't really know. Don't tell them I came this way."
The student blinked at him with wide eyes and an open mouth. He didn't wait for her to respond. He kept running.
The trench curved left, veering under Manticore Dorm. He saw a few other students coming from that direction, and one of them staggered to a halt, looking at him with concern. He was a short, human male with chocolate-colored skin, white hair, and a pair of large, round spectacles. Unlike the other students, his robes were the purest white, and he had a silver patch over his shoulder, identifying him as Adept-Medicus John Brambly.
"Whoa, are you okay?" he said aloud as Shiv zipped by him.
"Yeah, just a throat abscess."
"It's a lot of blood for a throat abscess," the medicus called. "You should go to the—"
"Later," Shiv cut him off. Then Shiv saw his path ahead fork in two different directions, and he briefly stumbled. "Hey, uh, Adept John, which way to the jump station?"
"To your left," John said, looking at Shiv uncertainly.
"Thanks a lot." The Deathless tore off in a controlled sprint down the left hall. Soon, he began to feel waves of pressure building in the air, and even more students headed his way. "Yup, that's a jump station, alright."
He practically somersaulted over two goblin students and through a set of wide metal doors and nearly barreled an automaton student over, eliciting a surprised trill in response. Shiv apologized and grunted as he dodged members of the student body as if they were an obstacle course.
"Coming through! Coming through! Just a bit of a nosebleed running down my chest, don't mind me! Coming through!" Shiv called aloud. Heads whipped as he passed by, trying to track his movements. Shiv forced himself to slow down just so he could maintain their suspension of disbelief. The honest truth was, he was moving fast even for an Adept, but people had a tendency to exaggerate or misremember things. At least that was what he was telling himself at that moment.
Right then, he just needed to get away from this area. He'd had enough for a day. He'd already stopped a mass casualty event on campus, though no one would ever know, and he didn't want to deal with Marcus Unblood's personal problems as dessert. As he shimmied past the walls of an antechamber, he found a small line forming along the right side of the room. From the left came another flow of students departing the teleportation station.
The Deathless briefly thought about just running for Carrot on foot, but dissented against it when he saw there was no Prismatic Guard here. That meant he could take advantage of a few things. Once more, he froze time, and it took him a half-second to get to the very front of the group.
When he resumed time once more, a student standing behind him briefly flinched, surprised at Shiv's sudden appearance. "Hey, you alright?" Shiv said, reaching out with a hand to steady the other student.
She was a very tall, gangly elf, and she clutched a set of books tight to her chest. One of them was titled Practical Dimensionals and Dimensionality. This one was a Jump Mage in training. What she wasn't, however, was a Chronomancer, and she probably wasn't prepared for all the bullshit Shiv was about to throw her way either. "You look a little light-headed. You nearly tumbled over for a second. You should probably go to the Biomancers and get checked out."
"I should?" she murmured.
"Yeah, called out to you several times earlier. Just kind of stared ahead blankly." Suddenly, she looked very concerned. "Anyway, get checked out." Shiv walked forward, successfully deflecting another student asking him where he came from through the powers of blatant lies and induced self-doubt.
Deception 37 > 38
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As soon as he stepped onto the platform where that shimmering sphere of Dimensionality waited, a notification appeared before his eyes, and a much smaller constellation of jump stations materialized as well. Immediately, he selected his stop, Carrot, and with that, he waited. A second later, the elven jump mage followed.
"Was I really spacing out?" she asked, sounding worried.
"Yeah," Shiv said, tapping his foot and waiting for the transition to follow. Once it did, he would be home free, at least for a while.
The elven student bit her lip and looked down at the ground. "Then the migraines might be returning soon as well."
"Migraines?" Shiv asked.
"I had brain lesions from a plague in my hometown," she said, coughing awkwardly. "Biomancers said they healed, but I knew something didn't feel right."
And now Shiv felt like shit. He just wanted to induce some doubt. He didn't want the girl to actually suffer some kind of health anxiety. Well, what the hells did we think was going to happen, Shiv chided himself. You lie to someone hard enough, and they believe you. They're going to start questioning things. You need to come up with a better set of lies for situations like this.
Just then, Shiv heard a loud bellow coming from the trenches beyond the room. "Marcus Unblood! We're going to kill you!"
The student Jump Mage flinched at the sheer rage in the voice. Shiv just sighed.
"Who was that?" the elf stammered, betraying a hint of fear.
"Stupid drama," Shiv replied nonchalantly. "Some felling idiot couldn't keep it in his pants. Got a girl pregnant. Now he's trying to get away from her."
"Oh, how horribl—"
Jump Initiated - Carrot Station
The teleportation process began. The dimensional sphere above them swelled wide and swallowed Shiv and the elven student. Whatever else she had to say was cut off as they were both projected toward their destination.
Shiv didn't travel for very long. He was squeezed across what felt like a narrow tunnel for around three seconds before he suddenly arrived at another jump station. This time, he was utterly alone, and the room he found himself in was sparse and clean. He also couldn't hear any music in the distance nor sense any vitality signatures within a five-meter radius. As he looked up, however, he could see glinting signs of life force dotting all the levels above him. If he had to guess, there were a good few hundred people inside the dorm right now. What it didn't have, though, were people trying to pursue him.
And Shiv let out a heavy sigh as what remained of his tension slid free from his body.
"Looks like I got away from that," Shiv muttered, and then he slammed his jaw shut. He eyed the jump station warily, and immediately, he fled from the room. A set of heavy steel doors opened before him, revealing a long hallway as clean as the room behind him.
The layout of the architecture right outside the Carrot jump station was much the same as the Manticore counterpart. He found himself back in wood-paneled trenches again, but this time he went the other way, taking the path to the right instead of the left. That's how he found himself in the true basement of the Carrot Dorm. He approached a set of glass-paneled doors, and on them were a mess of stickers, pictures, doodles seemingly depicting Ascendants, profane marker scribbles, and a half-smeared "you can be whoever you set out to be" in the upper right corner.
As he drew close, he felt his pin briefly pulse, and the door swung open, granting him entry. The lights inside were dim and cast from small orbs of Pyromancy mana. Shiv looked up and thought he could see some hydro dispensers as well. They were modest hydro dispensers compared to the ones at the Swan-Eating Toad. They looked like little studs with holes on the side. Far less conspicuous than the massive hose-shaped things pointing down like spikes from the roof of the restaurant.
Shiv pulled up his interface again and focused on his housing options. In all his excitement earlier, he forgot to double-check which room he was in, and his gaze lingered. It expanded before him. B-4-0-0-2. "Alright," Shiv said, "time to figure out which B I'm in."
He explored the bottom of Carrot and soon found a very helpful map showcasing the building's interior pinned against the wall. Presently, he was on B-2, and this section of the building was dedicated to a central charging station that occupied 80% of the floor, while the rest were sound- and light-warded study halls, along with one public restroom.
Shiv found the stairs soon thereafter, but also noted that there was a mana elevator as well. As he got there, he was surprised to see that the elevator wasn't actually one that used a platform, but simply had a low-gravity field projected upward from the very bottom. Amused by the novelty, Shiv decided to take a hop over the edge, and he felt his body go weightless. "It feels a little bit like Gravitic Wrestler, but a lot weaker."
He swam downward, passing another level and finally getting to B4. He counted another level underneath B4, and it was totally dark. He wondered what that was for, but decided to explore it another day. Right now, all he wanted to do was get checked in, maybe sit in his chair for a while, and stare at the wall to decompress before touching base with Adam and the others.
His dorm room wasn't particularly hard to find. He simply needed to follow the numbers. However, as he walked along the hall, the unmistakable smell of onions and potatoes called to him. As Shiv rounded a corner, he looked to his right and realized there was a communal kitchen here. Within, he saw two students with their backs turned to him. They both had robes with Longinus the Traveler emblazoned on the backside. Shiv saw the snake-like Ascendant holding a lance in one hand and hefting a beer high in the other.
It was only after noticing that, however, that he realized one of the students was a bit odd as well. They were far too large to be human, bigger than Shiv by twice over and rounder than most orcs. Their skin was green, and they had these little tube nubs that stuck out from where their ears should be. Shiv stared as the giant, burly student hummed a low tune that sounded like an earthquake trying to sing, carving away at an onion without suffering any deleterious effects.
Is that an ogre? Shiv thought to himself.
"Done?" the other student asked. It extended a mechanical hand, and its sleek, three-digited hand whirred as it gestured for the ogre to hand over its completed chopped pieces. A cleanly shorn mess of onion bits was promptly offered over, and Shiv's guts nearly tangled in outrage. That was some of the worst cutting he'd ever seen. The Deathless did everything he could to not let this moment color his opinion about all ogres in the future. He failed.
At least I know they have a kitchen now, he thought to himself. He retreated from the scene quietly and, after a minute more of searching, found his door. As he came before it, he saw that it was made out of some kind of maple, perhaps. It was a soft and brown wood. There were some mithril supports lining its interior. He could feel that with his Biomancy. They were like rods riven through a body, things he couldn't feel but sensed by absence alone. Beneath the doorknob, there was also a slight glimmer of violet mana.
Shiv stared at the door, wondering how he was supposed to open it, and on instinct, he reached out. As soon as he did, his pin flickered twice upon his lapel, and the door clicked open, the lock disengaging. As he stepped into his room, Shiv felt the faintest of pressures wash over him. He guessed the lock also constituted several very basic wards, and with how much mithril was running through the Capitol's buildings and even within its academy, he had little doubt that there was probably an integrated alarm system active.
More importantly, if it could detect his mana signature, or at least his Perfect Semblance's mana signature, then it probably could do the same to other students as well. That likely helped with petty crimes such as burglary or instances of someone sneaking in to copy homework, if that stuff was actually what a cheating student did.
As Shiv squeezed down the narrow hall leading into his room, he shut the door behind him, and only when it clicked did he feel a sense of triumph.
He had escaped. He had survived. Another day of madness, and to think this began with him still in a prison. Telling the System to eat his shit one more time, Shiv surveyed his on-campus living arrangements and immediately found himself missing Weave once more.
To his left was a bathroom. It wasn't shared, but it was small, barely large enough to fit Shiv. The sink and the toilet were a little too close together, and the shower came with a small bathtub. It wasn't long enough for Shiv to lie down in, but he could definitely squat inside it. This made him wonder what kind of living arrangements the ogre student had, if they needed to apply for special housing or something.
"Well, it's better than my shithole apartment back on Blackedge," Shiv muttered to himself. "The only water I could get there was harvested from other places."
He left the bathroom door open because he was going to head in after a while. Marcus Unblood's robes needed cleaning, and so did Shiv himself. He'd been in active combat for so long that blood, dried blood, giblets of flesh, and leftover grime were beginning to cling to him like crusting mud.
Briefly, he regarded the rest of the room proper. There was a small chair placed in front of a wooden table. Shiv wondered if that seat could take his weight. That worry in consideration extended to the bed. It was made of wood too, with white linen sheets and plump brown pillows. But it was definitely smaller and a lot less durable than the first bed he got at Weave.
And I destroyed that thing, Shiv thought to himself. Well, Uva and I did. That was awesome… Godsdammit, I hope she's okay… They'd badly deformed her bed, made from reinforced metal as well. Good thing I don't need to sleep that much anymore, as a Legend.
Frankly, it didn't feel like he needed to sleep at all for physical recovery. Mentally, however, he was somewhat past exhausted and a kilometer beyond frustrated. Maybe a half-hour nap would do him some good.