Chương 76: 24 Cognicity

My step wavered. Only a few points on the soles of my boots pressed into the ground at any given time.

"Fascinating," Nasir said, dropping into a squat.

"By embedding your soles with cold iron, you've effectively created a barrier of resistance." He glanced up.

"Brilliant. Very clever indeed." Behind me, Naomi's foot ventured from the boat, finding purchase on ghostly soil. She let out a chuckle and brought her other foot out.

"Best not to lose your balance," Nasir warned.

"One misplaced step and getting you back upright could become a challenge indeed." A spirit pushed past me—a human teen, soaking wet and shivering. His shoe landed on top of mine. His weight locked my foot in place. Something hissed, and he yelped, leaping away. Steam curled from his foot where he'd stepped on the cold iron tabs at the bottom of my Ghost Walkers.

"Ah," Nasir noted.

"This could be problematic. I imagine you'll accidentally kick people if you don't avoid them." Khory shifted back as a sickly elderly woman pushed past. Corin grimaced.

"Why are they—""We call them drifters, or Non-Cogs," Nasir explained.

"You know them as Shades. Unfortunately, such is the fate of the majority who pass on."

"Why?" I asked, stepping away from an ambling trio.

"Alas, that's the great mystery of Ghost Rock. I can say those linked to Ourabora or with high psionic or arcane ability have a higher chance of maintaining a semblance of self." A man stumbled past, missing his hand at his forearm. Two arrows jutted from his back.

"So macabre," Naomi remarked.

"Yes," Nasir nodded.

"You maintain the form you bore at the moment of passing. Makes drowning in the bath more than a little embarrassing if you catch my meaning."

"And this city," I said.

"I assume it's a collection of cognitive spirits?"

"Cognicity, yes." Nasir adjusted his spectacles, eyes twinkling.

"A bit of wordplay, you see."

"Clever," Naomi said.

"Which way?"

"We need to cross the stream," Khory piped from behind her mentor.

"There's a bridge nearby." I frowned, glancing down at the water. Our boat bobbed freely in the physical ocean, but spectral river rocks cut the vessel in half about a foot over the real water.

"It's like six inches deep," I pointed out.

"We can't cross running water," Nasir said.

"It'll disperse us." My brow rose, unfamiliar with the word in this context.

"Disperse—scatter our form. It's a temporary but painful ailment. Best to take the bridge."

"Lead the way, Professor," Corin said. Nasir started ahead of us, and I fell into step behind them. Less than ten steps in, I'd accidentally kicked two spirits that wandered through me. Each impact jarred my foot, nearly sending me pitching through the nonexistent ground. My jaw tensed as I wove around Non-Cog Shades.

"So, Professor," Naomi said.

"How long have the breaches been devouring spirits?"

"From the moment they opened, Naomi. That would have been, what? A month ago?"

"Where do they go?" Corin asked.

"We have no idea. There's no feasible way to get up there. We've got a few ambitious tinkerers who seem to think they can make a catapult high enough to send someone up there, but that's whimsical fancy." He glanced over his shoulder.

"Besides, who wants to get any closer to the hole that's consuming spirits?" My attention shifted to three hazy blurs flying up towards the sky, like vapors caught in a strong wind.

"Why so few?" Naomi asked.

"Why doesn't it pull you all up there at once?"

"That, I do have data on," Nasir said, producing a notebook and thumbing it open as he walked.

"There are exactly twelve souls being consumed at any given time. The entire flight takes exactly twenty-three minutes and twelve seconds."

"Twelve in less than thirty minutes," I whispered from behind.

"At least that'll help with your population problem," Serevian mumbled. Nasir's step faltered.

"Master Feykin, I don't find that funny at all."

"I mean, surely you get over twelve newcomers faster than you lose them. I'm sure that helps the odds of not getting snatched." Nasir sniffed loudly.

"We Cogs live in fear. What are the chances I'm next, and what lies beyond the holes? You Breathers focus so much on survival. You fear death, knowing all the while you will join us here when you die. What happens to us when the sky devours us? There's no knowing." He glanced back at us again.

"We have much more at stake."

"Has it taken any Cognitives yet?" Naomi asked.

"Or has it all been Non-Cogs?"

"It takes Cognitives as well," Nasir said.

"Though, interestingly enough, there has been a pattern." A cold iron coin affixed to the bottom of my boot skipped off a rock, and I stumbled forward. Corin caught me, stopping me from plummeting face-first through the earth. I shot him an appreciative nod.

"What's the pattern?" Naomi asked.

"Specters," Nasir said.

"Specters?" Serevian echoed.

"Yes, Specters—violent, disgruntled spirits. Banshees as well—spirits twisted by darkness. The breaches seem to prefer them."

"Well, there you go!" Serevian exclaimed.

"It's solving your problems. The breaches are cleaning up the garbage for you. If there were a pit in Fel Rock that consumed ghouls, I wouldn't be complaining about it."

"One soul every two minutes," Nasir emphasized.

"Every two minutes without rest. At first, it was the murderers and the abusers. We're running out of those. Now it's moving on to the desperate and the lost." Serevian wasn't accounting for something.

"No births," I murmured. Nasir's gaze snapped to me.

"You know about that?" I nodded.

"It doesn't matter if the breaches prefer these malevolent ghosts. They'll only act as a temporary buffer, not a shield. With no more young, they will run out, then Ghost Rock will drain." The only sound for a long moment was the click of Ghost Walkers on dirt.

"Yes," Nasir said.

"You understand our predicament."

"Where are the young?" Naomi asked.

"Why are no new people being born?" The dead scholar let out a long sigh.

"What's the difference between a Ghost and a Spirit?"

"I wasn't aware there was a difference," I said.

"It's a temporal difference, not a physical one," Nasir explained.

"A spirit is an intelligent consciousness before physical birth. Once they experience mortality, they die and become a Ghost."

"Spirits are premortal; ghosts are postmortal," I said.

"Yes," he whispered.

"Only the entire system is broken."

"Broken how?" Corin asked. Nasir waved a hand.

"Look around. You think this is what the after is supposed to look like? All the dead crammed into a limited space? You think this is an afterlife? No, it's limbo. Standing water. A clogged pipe."

"Because of the crack in the sky," I said.

"What? No, this predates memory itself. According to my math, based on the current population of Ghost Rock, a proper afterlife pipeline stopped flowing around two hundred years ago—" A sad smile flickered across his lips.

"Or the world is only two hundred years old." Corin chuckled.

"I find that unlikely."

"Do you?" Nasir snapped, a sudden heat fusing with desperation in his words.

"Where are the ghosts that are thousands of years old? Why does memory stop?" He glanced up at the sky.

"We're halted, locked in place, and there's something actively pressing against our minds, compelling us to look the other way." His pace faltered for a moment as he watched a Non-Cog.

"In death, it works on most of us." My hair stood on end. I couldn't have told you why. We walked in silence for a full minute. A pair of Non-Cogs drifted past, eyes glazed and completely oblivious to our presence.

"So," I said.

"Where are the spirits?" This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"Isn't it obvious? Used up. Every one of them. The well is dry."

"Animals," Naomi said.

"People have stopped reproducing, but there would be a famine if that were true of livestock."

"Lower intelligences have a different existence cycle than we do," Nasir said.

"They're much more cyclical. They reincarnate. Spirit, life, ghost, then back to spirit again. We're not so lucky. We get stuck here." His gaze drifted upward.

"And await oblivion."

"I'm very sorry," Naomi said.

"We're going to find a solution." He inhaled, coming back to himself.

"And you think it may be in the Undertide's wreckage? Why?" My breathing tightened. From here on, we were striding on deception.

"It's an anchor," Naomi said, "to the ghost ship. We think it acts like a tether. We want to recreate that for each of you. If we could but keep you grounded, in theory, the pull should have no effect on you." I blinked at her, impressed with her ability to generate complete lore and theory for a lie. Nasir stroked his beard.

"Hmm, yes, interesting. I hadn't considered that." I glanced back up at the breach, my own questions forming.

"Professor," I said.

"Does each breach consume twelve every half hour, or is it just one?"

"Just the closer one," he said.

"Though they overlap slightly, so it's technically one breach."

"A vortex," I said, attention shifting upward briefly. I nearly kicked another Non-Cog, so I forced my gaze back to my feet.

"What's that, Master Antonio?" Nasir asked.

"Oh," I stammered.

"It's just that if there's a current, those breaches look a lot more like whirlpools. If that's the case, whatever is caught in the drift will get pulled to the nearest vacuum."

"An excellent analogy. Would that you lot had arrived sooner; I'm certain that together we can concoct a solution to this awful curse." My throat worked soundlessly. So sincere, and here we were on our way to destroy his guardian's ship.

"Nasir," I said.

"Who exactly is Captain Vale to you? You called him the Guardian of Ghost Rock."

"Captain Vale is a hero, beloved by the people. We don't have a structured government in Cognicity. We leave politics to the living. He, however, organized the watch."

"I assume some martial organization to fend off malevolent spirits?"

"Precisely."

"Sounds like the breaches are going to put the watch out of a job," Serevian murmured under his breath. Naomi punched his shoulder. I grappled with an idea.

"What kind of man is he?" Nasir hesitated, as if confused by the questions. I clarified.

"You need to understand, to us, he's less of a person and more of a force of nature. He has indiscriminately sunk any ship that approaches Ghost Rock for over a century now."

"I assure you, you have nothing to fear. Captain Vale is a just and fair man." Serevian snorted. Naomi glared at him. We crossed over a spectral bridge, the metal under my boots clicking against colorless, faded limestone.

"Ah," Nasir said as he stepped to the other side.

"There it is—Cognicity."

"No trouble. No politics," Khory huffed.

"Those are the rules." I splayed open hands.

"Nothing to worry about here. We just want to talk and find solutions." The words stung my tongue.

"So," Naomi said, "the ship is in the city?" The scholar smirked.

"There are many who say that the ship is the city."

"I'm not sure I follow," she said.

"When Captain Vale saved us from Morthrex the Glutton, the others flocked to him for protection. We built the city around the ship. The Undertide is Cognicity's nucleus." The city grew rapidly before us. We elected to move around one particularly large drove of Non-Cogs to avoid physics complications. Captain Vale should have named Cognicity Cognitown. A few towers peeked over palisades, and single-story roofs poked over the wall. It barely would have qualified as a settlement by Paradise standards.

"It's not much, but it is something," Nasir said, lips twitching up in pride.

"Building structures here is very difficult. Natural resources don't always respond the way they should."

"It's lovely," Naomi said.

"Sure beats Raftown," I said.

"I take it there won't be anything to eat over there?" Nasir's laugh rang out, loud and genuine.

"Boy, I haven't thought of food in many decades. I hope you brought field rations." I smirked.

"I'll be fine." We marched down an undeveloped dirt path that led to the gate.

"Are they—okay?" Naomi asked, inching past a Non-Cog who turned to her with unfocused eyes.

"Some of the more sentimental Cognitives make it their purpose to tend to their Non-Cog loved ones," Nasir said.

"But they really don't need tending." Figures at the gate shifted towards us. I clocked at least one weapon on each of them.

"The only policy we have is to minimize abuse," Nasir said.

"Sometimes Specters and Banshees make sport of tormenting the nonthinking. The watch hunts such spirits down and disperses them." Serevian halted beside a shuffling Dwarf spirit. Dirt smeared the miner's face and clothes, and both arms bent the wrong way.

"If this waits for me on the other side, never let me die."

"Start practicing magic and training your mind," Nasir advised.

"That's the best thing you can do to preserve sentience." A guard called out, and men rushed forward, drawing weapons. Uniforms from different societies were mixed with weapons from different ages without reason. A drifter lowered a harpoon, whole body bound in tight wrappings. Two Paradise Marines wore dented breastplates and lowered battered halberds. A Drake-kin Dread Knight and an Aqua-Primord lifted crossbows. An Orc with a single arm stomped forward, his remaining arm wrapped in a translucent spiked chain.

"Halt!" the Orc barked, stomping forward. His attention fell on each of us in turn.

"Breathers? How can this be?" His words came out slurred by tusks and his considerable under-bite. Nasir stepped forward.

"Come now, Pavel. You know Captain Vale left on a quest. Our guests simply sailed in." The Orc's chest rose and fell like a blacksmith's bellows. The two with crossbows were just a little too twitchy for comfort.

"Get Hon," Pavel said.

"Be quick about it!" The Paradisian marines sprinted away.

"And you!" He held up his single arm, his stump still bleeding.

"Just—Stay there! Don't move!"

"Pavel, I've spent considerable time with our guests. You're being rude!"

"Outsiders!" Pavel said.

"Could be Pirates."

"You're a pirate," Nasir said, exasperated.

"Was," the Orc said.

"Now I'm Watch. And I'm not letting those anywhere near my city." A new figure marched from the gate with the marines, tail swishing. A fresh, glistening burn marred the left half of his face. The Rat-kin's hand came to rest on his saber.

"What's this? Breathers? What are you doing here? How are you even walking?" He glared at me.

"We're Cousins from Paradise," Naomi started.

"Paradise?" Hon cut in.

"No, we don't do politics on Ghost Rock. There is no Paradise. No Bloodwake. No Ash Lords. No Ophidian Empire. If you've brought politics, you can march yourselves right back the way you came."

"We're here to deal with that!" I pointed upward without looking.

"I hear you have a problem." The Rat-kin's head tilted up.

"Captain Vale is dealing with the problem." Naomi cut back in.

"Captain Vale doesn't know it yet, but he might already have the answer."

"Then your journey has been a waste. Captain Vale is gone," Hon said, gaze darting from Serevian to Corin. Calculations and assessments ran behind his single eye.

"Well," Naomi said." He doesn't hold the answer. The Undertide does. The physical Undertide."

"Great, you can wait out here until he returns." Naomi's lips pressed into a tight line, but my head bobbed in approval. Keeping unvettable strangers from sensitive artifacts was precisely his duty.

"Hon," Nasir tried.

"I believe they're genuine."

"Yeah? And how long have you known them? An hour? Two?"

"We'll wait," Corin said casually.

"Don't trust us, that's fair. When Captain Vale gets back, then we'll talk." Naomi threw up a mind link.

"We can't wait. Captain Vale will have us torn to pieces the moment he sees us." Serevian's eyes tightened, his nose wrinkling. Hon picked up on it instantly.

"You got a problem waiting, Shad?" Serevian took a long breath through his nose.

"No problem, sir."

"Sorry for connecting you without warning, Serevian. This is a mind link. You need to press thoughts out that you want us to hear."

"Okay," he sent.

"What if Vale doesn't tear us to pieces?" I thought-projected.

"What do you mean?" Naomi asked psychically.

"We're on his turf. With a show of good faith, he might converse."

"Can we take that risk?"

"Absolutely not," Serevian sent.

"I say we blast our way through the town. We're armed with enough salt and cold iron to do it. He ruined my city. Let's crush his."

"Easy," I sent, rubbing the back of my knuckles.

"There might be a diplomatic solution here." The four of us exchanged a glance. I took a breath.

"I say we talk. I can't help but feel we need words here. Not iron." Corin's voice pushed into my mind.

"As ideal as that sounds, I'd like to remind you we're fighting multiple clocks here."

"He's right," Naomi said.

"What are you doing?" Hon demanded.

"Huh?" I said.

"You're staring at each other really hard. It's weird."

"Hey, you're the one who told us to wait," I said.

"Well, go do it away from the gate."

"Need to push for access," Naomi decided.

"Two minutes," she said out loud.

"What?"

"Every two minutes we wait out here, you lose another ghost. Now that doesn't affect me, but how many Ghosts can you tolerate losing? Ten? A hundred? Thousands?" She shrugged.

"Vale could be gone for weeks. We just need to take a look." I sighed.

"Look, we're here to help. And it is time sensitive. Want to take my swords?" My hands came to rest on the hilts of my saber and cutlass.

"Tex, you can stand behind me with your weapon drawn. We're here to study, not fight."

"Heavily armed for a research quest," Hon said. I shrugged.

"The World Archipelago is dangerous these days." His eyes narrowed for a long moment, then he turned.

"Professor?"

"I say we do it, Hon," Nasir said.

"If there's even a chance they can help, I think we have to take it." The patch of scorched tissue on the Rat-kin's face glistened as his jaw worked soundlessly.

"Poltergeists!" he called. Nasir sighed with exasperation.

"Is that really necessary?" More spectral figures came drifting from the gates.

"Yes, it's necessary," Hon growled.

"I'm not bringing them into my city without precautions."

"I'm sorry, what are we doing?" I asked. The newcomers surrounded me, and the muscles in my legs tightened. Hon nodded.

"Do it." A woman in an apron tapped my shoulder. <<Condition: Body Lock>> My body seized, and the ground rushed up at me. I lurched to a stop before I could drop through.

"Guys!"

"I can't move!" Serevian sent back. I lifted into the air towards the woman who held out her hand.

"They're heavy," she grunted.

"Iron in their shoes."

"Interesting," Naomi sent.

"Poltergeistry mimics psionics, but it's like it's on a different cognitive frequency." I spun in the air to glimpse my companions, also paralyzed and suspended.

"Is now the time to be impressed?" I grunted, which was all I could manage with my body still paralyzed. Corin's voice pressed into my mind.

"Did they just take us prisoner?" We started drifting toward the gate. <<Time to Seal Collapse: 02: 00: 03: 11: 06: 25>>