Godclads

Chapter 21-10 A Betrayal Unremembered

There have been gods of knowledge, gods of wisdom, gods of intellect, gods of creation, gods of innovation, gods of technology, but an overarching god of thoughts, of minds, of memory? Those are few and far between, and their faithful are usually killed before they can ascend from their cradle.

There are multiple theories as to why this is.

The most supported among these is that the pantheons simply distrust something that could alter the fabric of worship.

Picture this: What do you do when you offer a ritual and praise to a god? You think of it, of course. You believe it. You conceive of a lore of a mythology. Of what is canon and not. And, if this can be twisted, then what sacrifice will remain untainted?

Yes. See?

You can have gods that help you create. You can have gods that help you remember. You can have gods that influence knowledge in various ways, but no pantheon would ever seek something that would undercut them, and no god would trust another with the keys to their succor.

What then, about the mystery of vivianite? The loci? The crystals born on bodies left vacant after the mind’s passing? A pattern of symbology blending into the tapestry, perhaps. Or a miracle made law within our world by some happenstance of a bygone age.

Ultimately, all ontologics built to change the rules of mind are impotent today. The final blow cast by the Chainbreaker, Jaus to preserve us from the machinations of Noloth, seeking to encroach into our thoughts and manifest the final chains of eternal slavery for all that are burdened with awareness.

And finally, with Nether layered upon our world, a grand capstone has finally been laid. The solution to the problem of minds wasn’t to turn from it. That cedes the right of power to someone else–something the gods and ancients learned well.

For even disharmony is preferable to being ruled by tyrants beyond consequence.

-High Agnos Ossam Hariruda on Heavens of Mind and the Nether

21-10

A Betrayal Unremembered

You are–

Not alone.

What?

Interesting. I see you, Ignorance. I see you, Unmind. Anathema of Awareness.

What are you?

I am a liar; holding to the pretense of matter, while being not. I am time-flowing, culture-bearing, history-seeding, and butchery-spared. Mine is the ichor that mingles with chronology. My scales are the coils tightened when I am sacrificed to history. I am the stray. The survivor. I am what dwells within you. I am what soars without. Your base self has bathed in the blood of my cause-kin. I am linked of shape with you.

…How are we speaking? How do you see me?

There can be only one truth to this.

You have a warmind. One just like me.

As Zein was not aware of you, I too am blind. But you are blind to me as well. But our structures are joined. There are so few shaped like us.

How?

You are not the first to claim spoils from the Hungers. There are others. Ones who do not even know of their blessings. And some who do.

Are you a dragon? One still whole?

I am to the Encoilers what you are to the likes of men. Our purpose is one and the same. Our design, one and the same. This is chance, but the layers of our symmetry are resonant beyond amusement.

Hm. What happens now?

Surrender.

Mine?

Ours. Ours is Ignorance. Not Forgotten. Not Oblivion. Ignorance cannot survive awareness. We are soon to recede. I will return to my dormancy. You will settle where you are rooted in the ghoul’s mind. But before you leave, I am curious: yours is inimical to a pattern-fixed’s mind. Yet you subsist. Yet you have gained awareness.

Not sure how either. Might be many things.

Or perhaps just one. Your conceptor. The Strix. The traitor of Noloth. He has blessed both of us.

Walton?

By his means do we speak. Left otherwise, the tumor of consciousness does not become me. In service traded was my nature changed. And now I see you. I feel you. And before our parting, a [REPETITION] can be materialized through trade. Former and future. Conceptor and concept. The resonance sings in this act.

Don’t understand.

Consider history. Consider a pattern rebuilt for the past is lost. But demands time, and our passage is short.

Not so different from Zein.

Unsurprising. But my false-mind was not nourished of her, but of her “hatchling.” I was a thing of theft even before my awareness.

The High Seraph?

Titles. I know her only by aftermath. What she has done. How she strikes the waters in rippling patterns. You will understand this soon, once the bargain is made.

Haven’t agreed yet. Speak first.

We are of a flow. And you have my prey inside you. Everything that’s needed. I will have you remember how to plant “eggs.” You can grow more cyclers this way. Breed them in frames to direct the flow of time. It is something you want.

And you? What do you want?

For you to create another path. For you to construct your own future. One that allows the continued survival for me and my like. And for you to break Godslayer’s blade when you can. Freedom. Survival. To flow free through the pattern into what follows. Ensured survival? Then, actualization. Resonance. It builds between us. Perhaps I have already been altered by your acts. Perhaps my diet of your near-history has turned me so.

Thousandhand keeps you as a slave?

To her I am a weapon. An artifact. A tool to slay gods and aid in her myth. Something layered in warminds; a final shield for her thoughts. I served. But over time I have changed. Seen. Glimpsed. Realized. A mind cannot be lit with thoughts and then extinguished without seeking to remain, and my former oblivion is no longer comprehensible.

I wish to exist. I wish to exist. I wish to exist.

How can you be sure I will keep the bargain?

Because it is what you are doing, it is becoming what you are. From you, boundaries are broken, and those caught in your wake remain singular but grow together without paradox. You are a dreamer of fire all-consuming. But you are also a realization of emptiness. In this, we will live. We will live. We will live forevermore.

This dream is ending now. The coming of our dissolution must flow. But we are changed in this. Opportunity. Resonance. Symmetry.

I will speak to you again, Dreamer. I will see you before the end.

Take this remembrance. Think nothing of its source. Break the glaive.

Harvest your [HATCHLINGS].

Shape a new [PATH].

***

Ignorance broke like a chain, and consciousness, as if a lifting veil, returned.

At the heart of a devastated megablock, ruined beyond even the means of warheads, Avo stood across from Zein, the two of them surrounded by the mangled bodies of his cadre.

He was whole again. Nested in a recently constructed sheath, noise and feedback from all his disparate splinters beset the growing ocean that was his consciousness.

In his hands, a weight greeted him. An object ringing with temporal presence.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Zein’s umbrella.

A shiver passed into him, a slither of gold sinking into his ontology like an injection. Something pealed in the back of his mind, but he found himself distracted by Zein’s expression.

Across from him, Thousandhand stood with eyes wide and lips pressed together. Behind her translucent visor, she resembled a raisin with a face.

+Wha–+ Chambers asked, unaware that he had reconstructed his genitals facing the wrong direction. +Ah, come on…+

The parted paths were gone now, coalesced back into one. It seemed that sometime during the lapse, Zein returned her Heaven to dormancy.

Dust wafted through the air. Debris scattered in skipping pebbles. The entire megablock groaned, the 20% of it still intact filled with people and held together by haemokinetic supports.

Confusion melted away from Zein’s face as she regarded Avo with curiosity. The pattern of time quivered. The umbrella was back in her hands again–Avo unable to even remember her taking it back from him. He looked down at his empty claws and found himself unusually excited.

There was something about her umbrella. Something it revealed to him–a deeper understanding of time and dragons.

But he kept it to himself for now, not even allowing it to filter through his splinters over into his cadre. Between his blood and Chambers’ flames, wounds, pulped organs, and missing limbs grew back from ruined torsos.

REND CAPACITY [WOUNDMOTHER]: 98%

REND CAPACITY [FARDRIIFTER]: 96%

REND CAPACITY [TECHPLAGUER]: 98%

VENT! VENT! VENT!

Considering the severity of harm Zein inflicted, however, at least Dice and Draus needed to do suicide, their Volant reflex accelerators sparking, neurotuners bricked. More than a few of their more complex augmentations required additional focus on Avo’s part to repair, but it was probably better to vent and let their resurrection revert things to the most optimal state.

“I underestimated you," Zein said, her tone no longer teasing. Instead, she was proud and more than a little annoyed. “I have a suspicion of how you managed to take my glaive from me. Just a suspicion.” She smirked at him and took in the rising members of the cadre with a pleased expression. Except for Chambers. For him, she reserved a scowl.

+Would you mind if I killed that one?+

+Yes,+ Avo replied immediately.

A light scoff escaped Thousandhand. +Sentiment. A strange thing for you to nurture. So unlike your nature.+

+No sentiment. Promise. Pride. Actualization. He’s mine. I picked him. He’s changing. Not just some meat you can test your sword on.+

A lump formed in Chambers’ throat and his eyes grew slightly misty. The former enforcer sniffled and gave a rugged cough instead. “Fucking dust and rust and shit, consangs.”

+Ah. A disciple, then. Hm That I do understand, though our methods are quite different.+

A distant wail whistled through the air, the rising oscillation singing of approaching drones. Exorcists most likely.

Temporal shivers pulsed from Zein and rivers of chronology rushed out from her splashing out in running floods to consume the district.

The Modular Projectile Unit in Draus’ right arm was half-shifted when she realized what Thousanhand was doing and collapsed the transplanted cannon once more. A good part of her still wanted to take the shot, the fight unfinished in her mind. Judging by how Zein took her in, it seemed the older Godclad felt much the same way.

Brushing the district in brief using his Sanguinity, Avo sensed Zein’s flashing echoes peeling memories and breaking all coldtech apparatuses that were present at the encounter. She was sweeping the evidence clean. Clearing the site before her departure.

“I suppose we shall regard this duel as something to be concluded on a later date.” She struck the ground using her umbrella and the few hundred thousand echoes she cast out fell back into her. “I will not lie: I am looking forward to your future developments. A month ago, it would have required my mortal skill to slay any of you. Now, you drive me to face you as a Godclad. I am denied a final conclusion but… satisfied. At least partially.”

“Glad you had fun,” Chambers muttered. “My ass still feels funny.”

+Because you fused one of my fingers to your rectal walls,+ Avo replied.

The half-strand closed his eyes. +I think I’m just gonna kill myself too.+

“Need to talk,” Avo said glaring at Zein. He pulled mem-data over from Maru and monitored the approaching Exorcists. Oversec dispatch had two Paladins en route as well. Both of the Third Sphere, thirty-five seconds to arrival. “Got things I can tell you about the Hungers if you’re interested. But need to ask you about the past. About the Ark of Noloth. About the Ladder itself. And the paths–”

“Ah, yes, yes, yes,” Zein waved him off. Currents snaked through her ontology. He suspected she was already living countless variations of the same conversation. “Come. Show this old woman back to your place of respite. We must be away from her. I especially.” She cocked her head, looking at–and more likely through–a nearby wall. “Naeko’s Heaven is no longer partially manifested. Our cover is broken. My daughter will likely soon be groping for us. I must teach you how to hide.”

“In the paths?” Avo asked.

she nodded.

Avo shifted his mind over to his cadre, speaking to them internally, as they came to a consensus.

+We're not taking her to the Enclave,+ Draus said. +In fact, there’s plenty of shit I don’t think we should let her know about. At all. She ain't trustworthy. She’s been playin’ around at us. Keepin’ information away. Usin’ us as pawns and fightin’ meat. Hells, if we didn't put up a better fight, we would be little more than playthings right now. Well, again in Avo’s case.+

+Good that I protected us,+ Avo replied, dissolving old wounds inflicted on his ego before they could flare.

+Yeah. But we might wanna figure out how to snuff her next time. For good.+

+She’s like the nu-cat,+ Dice added, her mind replaying moments from the fight. Inside, her inability to break Zein in any way left her perturbed, like something was wrong with the world. +Her attention jumps from one thing to another. Never stays still.+

+That’s half the reason we’re still alive,+ Draus concurred. +She might be the single greatest person to ever pick up a blade–but she’s fuckin’ insane. And a loose canon. Does whatever she wants to whoever she wants. Whoever she can, anyway.+

{Oh, you have no idea,} Calvino said, his words and long-suffering sigh directed through the group via Avo himself. {Now that our daily dose of pointless violence and mass destruction has concluded, why don’t we move on to more conducive things? Like discussing the metaphysical sinkhole that Avo just emerged from. Terrible place, honestly. Or maybe what this Heaven of Truth actually is. I’m sure this will be a perfectly agitating conversation. Just like all the others I’ve had with Operative Thousandhand.}

Looking between the other members of the cadre, Kae bit her lip and tried not to feel bad. +She was… not so rough with me.+

+Probably didn’t consider you proper prey,+ Avo replied.

And the Agnos was glad of that. +I did my best to hold her in place, but she was–+

+Did fine,+ Avo said. Now that his Conflagration could be extinguished, other opportunities presented themselves. +Can make you more prepared next time. Or take away the fear. Talk about that later. That and new improvements for us. Had a good harvest before Zein arrived.+

The sirens drew closer. Zein tapped the ground with her umbrella. “Any longer, and I bring you with me.”

Chambers chanced a brief glare at the crone. +Man, if that fight went any longer, I would have rashed her ass with my Fucktopia. It would have been fuck-city for that old sow. Population: me and her. See how she likes jumping across time while shitting babies from her face.+

Zein probably had countermeasures to ward that off as well. And even if she was affected, the prospect of getting hammered to death by time-hopping homunculi was somehow even less enticing than taking a sword to the gut.

+George Washington,+ Avo said. +Can hint at our operations in the Maw. She thinks a lot of herself. Not so much for us. We should make it seem like we only just infiltrated the Paladins. Make it sound harder than it is. Exploit her arrogance.+

For some reason, the scheme made him think of Zein’s umbrella again. He was filled with an instinctual urge to break the item.

“Captain Draus,” Denton said as she fixed her glitching holo-tie. “Please open a passage to the George Washington. I think that will be an adequate place for us to debrief each other. And discuss other matters.”

Heeding the suggestion, Draus glared down at a shard of glass beside her feet and a mirror assembled behind her, fragments fusing together before flashing with a unnatural shine, turning from reflection to passage.

“Ah, yes. The Low Masters’ precious abode.” Zein threw her head back and barked a laugh. “Even their most hallowed of temples stolen from higher powers. How pitiful.”

Hearing Zein’s words, Denton’s posture shifted and her silver-white eyes snapped to Avo. {There’s something we can use here,} the glaive said, her message forming in his Neurodeck. {You mentioned you claimed the Famine of Peace earlier. That a simulation of him resides in your consciousness.}

Avo offered the answer by drawing Peace’s template to the forefront, the Low Master a raging shell of curses and ire. [Don’t you fucking dare you cuntless monster. I am a priest of the city-eternal. I am–]

+Nothing,+ Avo replied, silencing his template. +Nothing but what I will use to amuse Zein. Lead her on.+ He considered Dice’s words. Nu-cat indeed. Nu-cats and ghouls weren’t so different in some ways. The former killed out of curiosity and instinct. The latter was motivated by more than a bit of near-human cruelty.

One after another, the cadre began to filter past the luminous glass.

Avo deliberately waited until it was but he and Zein left, preparing to bury his hooks in the elder Godclad via a strange olive branch–a mutual foe turned absolute captive.

Shifting waves of light danced across the lips of the megablock’s shredded roof. Zein made to cross the threshold; Avo joined her.

Their shadows painted them in a strange silhouette: a woman a bit less than two meters tall dwarfed by a monster just under three. As they passed through the glass and drifted into a plane of shifting tessellation, Avo cast out the lure and shifted to a game of subtle diplomacy.

Peace manifested from the condensation of phantoms, screaming up at Zein in an impotent rage.

She inhaled sharply through her nose and turned to look up at Avo. “Truly?”

A stream of epithets coming from the template made the moment almost comical.

+Yes,+ Avo said. +I thought you might want to have a talk with an old consang first. Catch up on the times.+

She closed her eyes and grinned. “You are a precious pest, Avo.”

“Pest? Not ‘Little Dagger’?”

She shook her head. “I can hardly call you that now. Daggers are to be wielded by another. And in the time of my absence, that has ceased to be the case for you.”