Chapter 35: The Balloon Golem

  I was in the middle of designing a complex pulley system involving the Servo-Motor, the Abyssal Weaver’s Cord, and a lot of desperate hope, when the water in the breach began to bubble.

  It was the violent churning of a monster surfacing. It was a steady, effervescent frothing, like a giant alka-seltzer tablet dissolving in the deep.

  I stepped back from the edge, gripping the Void-Knife. "If that's a shark," I muttered, "it's really carbonated."

  A shape rose from the gloom. It wasn't a tentacle. It wasn't a fin.

  It was a smooth, grey dome.

  Vrex popped out of the water.

  He didn't climb out. He didn't haul himself up. He bobbed. The two-ton gargoyle, the entity who had just lectured me about sinking like a stone, was floating on the surface like a piece of driftwood.

  He drifted to the edge of the jagged metal floor, grabbed the lip, and hauled himself up. As soon as his feet touched the dry metal, he exhaled—a sound like a steam valve opening—and the blue aura of his Mana-Lung flared bright, then dimmed instantly.

  THOOM.

  Weight returned. The floor plates groaned as his mass slammed back into existence. He fell to his hands and knees, gasping, looking greyer and dustier than I’d ever seen him.

  I stood there, the winch rope dangling uselessly from my hand.

  "You," I said, pointing a shaking finger at him. "You bobbed."

  Vrex coughed up a liter of seawater. He looked up at me, his golden eyes dim. "I possess... a racial trait. [Pumice Form]. It aerates my internal structure. Increases buoyancy."

  "You turned yourself into a sponge?"

  "It reduces my Density," Vrex wheezed, struggling to stand. "It consumes Lumen at a catastrophic rate. And it makes me... soft. If a fish had bitten me, I would have crumbled." He glared at me. "We never speak of this. I am the Unshakeable Earth. I am not... a bath toy."

  "Your secret is safe with me, Ducky," I said, the relief hitting me so hard I almost fell over. "I was about to try fishing for you with a magnet."

  Vrex straightened up, dusting off his knees. "I told you. I walk the—"

  He stopped.

  He was looking past me. He was looking at the service tunnel.

  He saw the Hull-Breaker, slumped against the wall in a pool of oil and blood, his neck seal ruinated.

  He saw the Tide-Binder, floating face down in the flooded section of the tunnel, a necrotic shadow-burn on his shoulder.

  He saw the Watcher—the Rank 2 Manifest Wayfarer—dead on the grate, his mask shattered, his eyes staring blindly at the ceiling.

  Vrex slowly turned his massive head to look at me. Then back at the bodies. Then back at me.

  "Kaelen," he rumbled, his voice lacking its usual grinding confidence. "Where is the strike team?"

  "That's them," I said, my voice sounding thin and reedy in the damp air.

  "You... the three of them?" Vrex walked over to the Hull-Breaker. He touched the savage, precise wound in the neck. "This is [Tyrant] work. Brutal."

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  He walked to the Watcher. He saw the shattered mask. He saw the lack of magical residue. "Kinetic force? You headbutted a mage?"

  "He was close," I mumbled, looking at my boots. "I panicked."

  "You panicked," Vrex repeated. "And in your panic, you dismantled a specialized extraction squad led by a Peer of my own Rank."

  He stood up, looming over me. The blue light of his collar cast long shadows. "I left you alone for three minutes."

  "It was a long three minutes," I snapped, the defensiveness flaring up to cover the shaking. "They wanted the loot. They wanted the Locus. I did the math. Threat minus Life equals Safety. I solved for X."

  I tried to cross my arms and look cool, look like the Ascendant Heretic I was trying to become, but my hands were trembling so bad I had to tuck them into my armpits.

  Vrex didn't congratulate me. He didn't high-five me.

  He took a heavy step forward and placed a hand on my shoulder. It was heavy, cold, and solid. It felt like the only real thing in the world.

  "Breathe, glitch," he said softly.

  "I'm fine," I lied. "I'm stable. I have a notification that says so."

  "The Astrolabe measures your body," Vrex said, squeezing gently. "It does not measure the cost of the first kill. Or the third."

  He looked me in the eye. "You did what was necessary. The Multiverse is a garden, but it is also a slaughterhouse. To survive the latter so you can see the former... that is not a sin. It is the price of the ticket."

  I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. The tension in my chest, the "gravel" feeling of my broken ribs, seemed to ease just a fraction under his grip.

  "I didn't like it," I whispered. "It felt... too easy. Like deleting a file."

  "That is why you are still human," Vrex rumbled. "If you enjoyed it, I would have left you here."

  He patted my shoulder—a pat that nearly dislocated my collarbone—and stepped back.

  "Now," he said, his tone shifting back to business. "We must move. The sharks—real ones, not the metaphorical ones—will smell this blood."

  "Right," I said, clearing my throat. "Move. Survive. Profit."

  I pulled up my Schema. The notifications were still glowing.

  "Hey, Vrex," I asked, trying to sound casual. "Speaking of profit. I got something weird. A gold star."

  Vrex paused. "A Starlight Point?"

  "No. Different. It unlocked something called an Edict. [The Constant]."

  Vrex froze. He spun around so fast the wind of his movement hit me.

  "You manifested an Edict?"

  "Is that bad?"

  "It is... impossible," Vrex said, his eyes wide. "You are Rank 1. You have no Paradigm. No Class. Edicts are the Laws of Self. They are the fruits of the Third Threshold. You typically need to embody a concept like 'Warrior' or 'Mage' before you can speak a Law."

  "Well," I said, shrugging. "I didn't speak it. I just refused to be crushed by the ocean. The system gave me a participation trophy that makes me immune to pressure."

  Vrex stared at me, a mixture of horror and awe on his rocky face. "You brute-forced a Universal Truth through trauma," he murmured. "Of course you did. You are a Nova Spark."

  He shook his head. "Listen to me. A Wayfarer without a Paradigm can hold up to six Edicts. They are precious. They are passive rules that simply are. Most spend lifetimes trying to earn one. You stumbled into one because you are too stubborn to die."

  "Paradigms," I said, latching onto the word. "The Astrolabe mentioned those. Spiral arms. Classes. How do I get one? If I can get Edicts without one, imagine what I could do with—"

  "No," Vrex cut me off, his voice sharp. "Do not ask about Paradigms. Not yet."

  "Why? Gatekeeping much?"

  "Because," Vrex stepped closer, his voice low. "A Paradigm rewrites your soul. It locks you into a shape. You are raw potential, Kaelen. You are fluid. If you pour yourself into a mold too early, you will be strong, yes. But you will be small. You need to expand your Horizon before you define your shape."

  He looked at the dead Watcher.

  "Besides," Vrex added, gesturing to the corpse. "You gained how many Starlight Points from this?"

  "Five."

  Vrex nodded grimly. "Five points for three lives. A massive haul."

  "Why?" I asked. "The Architect—a literal god-machine—only gave me four. Why is killing a guy in a scuba suit worth more?"

  "Because monsters are part of the scenery," Vrex explained. "But a Wayfarer? We are fellow narrators. We are authors of our own reality. When two Wayfarers clash, it is not just a fight; it is a debate between two opposing truths. When you killed him, you didn't just stop his heart; you overwrote his story with yours."

  He looked at the swirling water below.

  "The Astrolabe feeds on novelty," Vrex said. "And there is nothing more novel, nothing more potent, than asserting your existence over someone who is trying to do the same to you. That is why they hunt us. That is why the Stream is dangerous."

  He turned to the ladder leading up to the next level of the spire.

  "Come. We have money. We have fuel. We have a very ugly boat waiting for us. Let us leave this place before you accidentally rewrite gravity by tripping over your own feet."

  "Hey," I protested, following him. "I have Egress 12. I don't trip."

  "You bob," Vrex muttered. "I bob. We are a very buoyant team."

  "I'm never letting you live that down," I grinned, the darkness of the tunnel feeling a little less heavy.

  "And I," Vrex rumbled, "will ensure you live long enough to try."