Path of the Deathless-258 (I) Extraction [V]

Path of the Deathless-258 (I) Extraction [V]

Initially, I thought the sheets of my bed were white when I entered my room. It was only after I rolled over in the middle of the night, and a good portion of the substance crusted over on the fabric broke off and scattered across my bare torso, that I realized the truth. The sheet was not white; it was once green. It only became white after being stained by innumerable substances over many, many years.
When I confronted Reception about this, they simply told me they didn't have strong enough chemicals to douse bodily emissions left over by Heroic-Tier physiology. They also said that I need to go see my local Biomancer, as I'm currently at risk for a new autoimmune disease due to my encounter with said crusted sheets.
Now, after hearing all this, you must be expecting a terrible review. Well, it's going to be a 4 out of 5. Crusted sheets aside, the Lusty Eunuch is known to be a rough and ragged establishment. You don't come to the Lusty Eunuch for silk sheets and comfortable service. You come to the Lusty Eunuch for the unique vibe, for the atmosphere, for the fact that the walls are made from adamantium and further reinforced with so many wards that a Master-Tier Pathbearer can't burst their way through or eavesdrop on you.
You come here because the bar downstairs has drinks that can melt through steel beams. You come here for the music that would liquefy a Pathless. You come here because here you will find some of the hardest, most capable company in all the Republic. Pathbearers, battle-tested and hardened through crucibles of war and struggle. The System's finest children.
More importantly, the Lusty Eunuch has history. Established long before the Yellowstone Republic ever even came into existence, the Lusty Eunuch was once an oubliette created by the Dust King himself. Here, he tortured rival Pathbearers and needed a dungeon capable of keeping the strongest but potentially useful adversaries contained. Now, the dungeons have been repurposed into rooms, residences equally capable of housing all but the strongest Pathbearers, regardless of their exertions or strenuous activities.
But not just anyone can enter the Lusty Eunuch. You must be Master-Tier in at least four different skills before you can step in, with one of them being Toughness. If you lack the necessary Toughness, then the Lusty Eunuch will be barred to you for your own safety.
And trust me, this is not a promotional ploy. This is genuine danger. I was not exaggerating about the volume of the music. Their in-house band blasts melodies at decibels that make the earth tremble. Small earthquakes are often felt kilometers away as well.
But if you do have these skills, and you are of Master-Tier, I recommend that you come by the Lusty Eunuch and have a gander for yourself. It's not everyone's taste, but you should know what kind of taste it is. After all, we all get this one life to live, and we should live it down to the bloody bone.
-Review of the Lusty Eunuch Inn
258 (I)
Extraction [V]
Shiv felt the tremors from a full kilometer away. At first, he thought it was a small earthquake or an entire legion of the Prismatic Guard stampeding down the avenue. But when Adam complained about the deafening cacophony, Shiv realized it was music—music being played underground. Drums being struck so hard that the very soil shifted and shuddered. Strings strummed at such volume that the glass of every window nearby gave off a constant squeal as it shook within its frame.
The Deathless departed the Dragon's Biscuit and made his way across the city in a hurried rush. After stepping out from another jump tower, he found himself walking along one of the industrial districts in the southeast of the capital in the dead of night. The conditions here were not nearly as rough as where Monster Mystery Meat used to be located. However, there were over a dozen minor gates here, with people filtering in to and fro. Most of the workers present were automata, and they sported drills in place of arms while their optics glowed with scything beams of light, allowing them to prospect and scan various ores or geological substances.
The air stank of sulfur and smoke. There was no need for Harlock's darkness here, not with all the smog being pumped up into the sky. Enormous refineries were built near the gates. They resembled clockwork cathedrals, the gears inside them churning, the heat billowing out from their glowing interior. Automata filtered in, carrying massive transports filled with gleaming ores.
Shiv saw crystal and glitter, the texture of focus crystals, the gleam of mithril. But most common of all was that dense, thick gloss of raw, unrefined adamantine.
And it was because of adamantine that this entire district could still stay standing. Without it, the constant shaking of the ground would have sent buildings toppling, would have reduced everything here to rubble.
The closer he got to the Lusty Eunuch, the sparser the surrounding architecture became. There were only a few flats nearby, flats that had reinforced walls crawling with spells that further deflected sound. Shiv could see rippling waves curving around the dome-shaped buildings, and even then, their insides were sparse. Some appeared outright abandoned, and a few had signposts outside indicating that they were for sale for absurdly low prices. Shiv didn't know how much a normal house went for inside the capital. But if he had to bet, the real estate value here was cheap—very cheap.
"It feels like my head is going to explode,"
Adam snarled.
"Don't know, doesn't seem that bad for me,"
Shiv said, offering his friend a mocking shrug.
"That's because you don't have a proper Awareness skill."
"Got no idea what you're talking about. My skill is plenty decent."
Shiv looked at his own hand, and it came alight, casting a mana simulation. The surrounding automata remained dim, but several hundred resonating mana signatures flickered into existence, and Shiv found himself staring down. 500 meters below ground level was a gathering of hundreds of Pathbearers, with more arriving every passing moment.
Thunderclaps sounded overhead as flight-capable Pathbearers of just about every race slammed down on a landing zone a few hundred meters away. They cast dust and debris high up in the air, which was immediately displaced as pulsing waves of pressure revealed the arrival of a few Jump Magi. And then there were the Shadows who seemingly emerged from thin air, striding out of darkness and twisting dust as if they had always been there.
Shiv counted over a dozen new Pathbearers arriving on the scene every minute. The entrance to the Lusty Eunuch was located at the center of a storage lot. Massive containers, dense and thick, were placed in a maze-like layout around a large trapdoor leading down into the former oubliette.
Lacking an obvious building above ground, the Lusty Eunuch made its location known via a beam of flame it projected high up into the sky. A beam that split the smoke-stained clouds above like a scythe and painted an advertisement for all to see.
A colossal figure animated from flame sneered at everyone below with a one-fingered gesture on each hand. Said figure was missing most of their teeth, lacked part of their ear, and had what looked like his castrated member hanging around their neck, sculpted from fire in vivid detail. Beneath the castrated eunuch was a line of text:
THE LUSTY EUNUCH WELCOMES YOU
And a subtext:
IF YOU'RE NOT A WORTHLESS FUCKING PUSSY. NO HAPPY HOUR. BRING MITHRIL. PAY UP OR GET THROWN THE FUCK OUT. EAT SHIT. COME IF YOU WANT, STAY OUT IF YOU DON'T.
Shiv came to a stop and whistled.
"Some pretty aggressive marketing."
If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. it.
"I can practically taste the grime and foul swill they sell there already,"
Adam complained.
"And all the Pathbearers are going in armed to the teeth. This feels like a place where people die on the regular."
"Hey Adam, you gonna be doing this the entire night?"
Shiv asked.
"Doing what?"
"Complaining. About everything. You didn't need to come here, you know? You could have stayed at the Dragon's Biscuit and kept talking to the Brokers."
"And left you to face Hawgrave alone? I think not."
Shiv frowned.
"I mean, I brought Kura, Candles, Gone, Tulveg, and all the orcs with me. Hells, the only one we're missing is the Educator. That's plenty of goddamn muscle for one Legend if everything goes to shit."
"And it still doesn't feel like nearly enough,"
Adam replied.
"This is her territory. If she's here, I'm almost certain that she'll have help in the area. Otherwise, the entire inn might be her help. I count at least 358 Pathbearers down there. 300 of them are probably True Masters; the rest are a mix of Low and True Hero. And that's just the people in the bar and hallways. The hotel rooms are warded, so I have no idea where Hawgrave is hiding, how many residents are currently in-house, or what their Tiers are."
Shiv turned a corner and slipped under the shadow of a nearby building. He pulled out his Last Morsel and prepared to take a piece from the darkness.
"That's alright, we'll figure that out once we get in. As you said, this is her house. And since she's one of the few Legends there, she's probably got some special privileges. Maybe a grand suite all to herself. Failing that, we can take a peek into the inn ledger, see if we can trace her through room service. But I got a feeling that the Giantsbane is a bar counter kind of lady."
***
Shiv hadn't had an idea how right he was.
He slipped into the Lusty Eunuch, hiding in the shadow of a particularly battle-scarred and already drunk elf. Electrified stalagmites jutted free from the elven Pathbearer's skin, and he seemed to be part crystal and part flesh. As his biology lit up on the inside from Shiv's Atlas, his organs were revealed to be mostly normal, but there was a layering to them, something that amplified his mana and made him extra brittle, but also particularly sharp along the edges.
As he staggered down the steep steps leading down to the Lusty Eunuch in a spiral pattern, the music got louder. The concussive force cast by the drums became deafening, strong enough to inflict physical harm on anyone beneath Master-Tier.
For an Adept, being here would be crippling. For a Pathless or an Initiate, it would be instantaneously fatal.
"You weren't lying,"
Shiv said to Adam telepathically.
"Godsdamn, is it getting loud."
"And if you're saying that, imagine how I feel,"
Adam grumbled.
"Looks like neither of you read the sign,"
Mortar chimed in mockingly.
"It says no pussies. If you don't like the music, maybe stay out."
"It sickens me to agree with the Archer, but I must concur,"
Helix scoffed.
"This place remains a torture dungeon. And the things these Pathbearers are doing to their bodies are despicable."
After reaching the bottom of the steps about thirty meters underground, the elven Pathbearer burped as he came to a stop before a large pit. Torches burned on the walls, casting dancing shadows in the room. There was no platform, no easy way down. If one wanted to descend into the Lusty Eunuch, they needed to jump. And jump the arriving customers did, many of them not even hesitating. They shuffled past the elf and plunged down into the darkness, and after a moment of fighting his own indigestion, the elf stopped himself from vomiting prematurely and stepped over the edge with practiced ease.
He fell. The sound of hammering drums and vibrating strings grew to be nigh constant. There were no torches lighting the way down, but at the bottom was light, light cast by raging bonfires built at the center of metallic tables. There was also a molten river of lava running down the middle of the grand chamber, a molten river that the elven Pathbearer was falling toward. Shiv immediately realized it was meant to be evocative of dropping into one of the System's hell dimensions, and he had to admit that, paired with the deafening noise, it was pretty effective.
The elf finally splashed down, casting sprays of hyper-heated sludge all around him.
A lean human man wearing little more than a gem-crusted loincloth caught some of the splash, but didn't react at all. A patch of his skin reddened and then healed immediately thereafter. The aforementioned human man was also carrying a large tray that dwarfed him several times over on his back. Upon said tray were over fifty dishes, and he strode toward hollering customers, who shouted jeering insults and slurred words of encouragement in equal measure.
As the elf shuffled free from the molten river, Shiv broke away from him, sliding underneath tables and melding into the black ambiance of the Lusty Eunuch.
A flash of lightning illuminated the room, revealing the bar area to be over two hundred meters in diameter. The sound of a skull being split down the middle broke through the music with a sickening crack a few tables over. A human woman shrieked, clutching her nose and tumbling head over ass over and over again in midair. She crashed down on a table, sending foodstuff splattering, and rather than ducking out of the way, the people who ate there simply laughed and shoved her into the massive fire at the center of their table, which she barely seemed to notice. A moment later, an automaton landed upon her, delivering blow after blow. Jutting pylons along its body flared as electricity whipped out, stabbing at nearby Pathbearers.
Most of them barely flinched. The woman that the automaton was beating on groaned and had her head whipped from side to side, but sustained no serious wounds. In fact, she seemed to be growing larger, gaining power from the kinetic harm inflicted upon her. With a sudden kick, she sent the automaton tumbling back out of the flames, its feet spraying sparks along the metal and stone as it skidded to a halt at the edge of the table.
The woman's face was a mask of pouring blood, but rather than trying to flee or calling for help, she laughed, and she flung herself at her assailant while still on fire. She slammed down upon the automaton, and a shockwave exploded from her, followed by a blur of twisting motion. The woman dragged the bot along the ground before they slammed into the far wall. Another blast filled the room, a blast that shook the very building to its foundations—a blast that Shiv recognized to be caused by a discharge of the Momentum Core skill.
Voices hollered and whooped as bets were placed between the two contenders.
Shiv tore his sight away from the chaotic brawl and looked upward. Suspended from the ceiling thirty meters above was a wide platform upon which a band played. Most of them were humanoid automata covered in spikes and with instruments directly connected to their limbs; however, the lead singer was a goblin woman dressed in strips of leather that barely counted as clothing, and she had long, whipping tendrils of gleaming metal implanted in her skull. The spikes at their ends were speared through the platform, and she rocked from side to side, rattling herself violently. In her hand was some kind of mana device that amplified her voice, and she screamed incomprehensible lyrics with little coherence and no hint of tune whatsoever into it. But her voice was so primal, so infused with fury, that she found a strange kind of melody regardless.
"It's like we've fallen into a den of wild animals!"
Adam shouted over the music and the goblin’s screams, so loud they made even communication over thought difficult.
"They're even less house-trained than you, Shiv."
"Oh, come on, what's wrong with a bunch of people living in the moment and having a bit of fun?"
"Aside from the headache I'm getting? And the fact that I can't focus my Awareness at all down here means that I won't be able to find Hawgrave if she was—Oh, never mind. I just saw her."
Shiv whipped his gaze around.
"What? Where?"
"To your right, in the narrow tunnels meant for goblins.”
And true to the Gate Lord's words, the Legend herself, Jessica Hawgrave, was currently squeezing her way out from a narrow entrance clearly too small for even her, strutting into the Lusty Eunuch's bar just a dozen meters next to the surface entrance.
Her nose was healed, and her Inertium armor was missing. Instead, she was dressed in a spike-studded leather vest that left her toned arms bare, leather hotpants, ripped slacks, and ragged, steel-toed boots with more spikes on them. Under the short vest was a white crop top with artwork of an icecube being split in half by a sword. Rusty was also nowhere to be seen, but Shiv knew the sword was somewhere nearby. That, or Jessica could summon it to her hand in an instant if she had to.
"Alright, losers," Jessica said, running a hand through her very short, blonde hair. "Who's gonna buy the Giantsbane a motherfucking drink?" She seemed to have cut it recently—for what reason, Shiv wasn't sure—and she had a dark look in her eye, sizing up all the people in her vicinity. She looked like a she-wolf stalking for some prey. Some Pathbearers reciprocated that hungry gleam in her eyes, but for most, their friends tugged at them, whispering things to them aggressively. The hungry gleam faded in the crowd, and a cold look of apprehension and, in a few cases, outright terror settled on their faces.
"Nobody?" Jessica said aloud. It was a testament to her voice that she could be heard above the music. "Shit, the clientele gets softer and softer every single year."

258 (I) Extraction [V]