I do not believe that most of us qualify as human.

Not truly.

The darkest test of apotheosis has been a war against hatred. Hatred of humanity. Hatred of culture. Hatred of norms and ethics and faith. Hatred of consciousness itself.

With each rung I have trod up the ladder of existence, I find myself ashamed to have ever been mortal. Ashamed to have ever wanted for anything, or felt reflexive emotion, or deluded myself from the ugliness of a truth.

As a girl, these failings are self-contained. As a Godclad, reality itself will pay for my hubris.

All of life is a war. War between your base impulses and higher decisions. War between the body and the mind. War between the self and the community. War between personal agency and environmental reality. Most do not see it–cannot see as well as I do.

The Paths are more than truth. They are the convergence of all truths. They are the closest embodiment to totality without losing one’s anchoring to the material.

And both must be maintained.

Chains from chains as my father said. But I fear he didn’t see why the chains were there in the first place. Perhaps the foulness made him flinch. But I cannot blame him, for I have shown him the totality, and he will rise in us from the fires of victory.

I tell all this to you now for you believe the end approaches. It does not. It is the beginning of the greatest work to ever be conducted: the eternal fortification of our reality rebuilt.

Look beyond the terror of your chains, my kindred. Look beyond that which binds you, and move still. Transcend the illusion of power and know that there is only choice in the end.

A choice of who we are. A choice of what existence will be.

-High Seraph Veylis Avandaer’s address to Highflame via the Voice of the Choir

18-1

Moving Pieces

Branches of light sprouted across Veng’s Stand, their brambles sinking through buildings and biting deep into supple flesh. From collapsing structures, swollen bodies were plucked, their shapes lined with sores and oozing with the pulp of unformed placenta. Bathed beneath Layer Two’s holographic light, they looked as if malformed cheers in the brightness; strange fruits changed from the forms of men.

Avo caught flashes of the broadcast Tavers was watching as he crawled through the gutters using his Zephyr. Estimates were still climbing through the Nether. Eighty-three thousand dead so far, but the counting was far from done. The devastation seemed dreamlike with all the rubble and settling dust. Most of the shanties were toppled or buried and light shone from the exit wounds dotting the district’s three megablocks.

A single unanticipated encounter between Godclads and so many dead. More than a few passed within the blanket of Avo’s Sanguinity. More than a few now found themselves burning for a different cause. All because of a fight no one saw coming.

THAUMIC OUTPUT - 6,769 THAUM/c

Nonetheless, this engagement was an educational one. His templates were already brainstorming improvements and preventative measures they could take next time. Things he should have done. Things beyond his control. His Heavens were in dire need of additional improvements, but what he needed more was strategic control and tactical awareness.

The threat possessed by an enemy Incog left its mark on him today. As did the weight of the Parallelist.

His Woundshaper could be cultured to greater potency and harm–an ontologic that would better serve him with both scale and scope enhanced and its fabricative capabilities elevated to new heights. The Zephyr, contrarily, was entirely suppressed by the danger his adversary presented. Adjustments were needed, and he wondered if it would be better to detach the Domain of Space from his Datacaster in trade for something else instead.

With Domain symmetry between him and his foes came opportunities and vulnerabilities twofold. What would protect him more was the esoteric. Detailed adjustments made by his Meta-Fac toward protection and paradox-prevention. These new canons were immense boons to his capabilities, but he needed to consider the eventual designs of his Heaven.

Or perhaps a broader mix of builds between tower and sea variants. All it took for him to alter his limitations was a brief death.

This called for a consultation with the Agnos. An item to raise after regrouping with his cadre at the marker Draus dropped.

+You know something that bothers me about you?+  Tavers said, breaking the silence between them. She orbited his wind-knotted form at the heart of the Zephyr, spinning through the air without a single hint of worry. +The fire climbing from your Meta. I can see flashes of people in the flickers. They’re staring at me. Think I might even know a few of them. Shit’s giving me the creeps.+

Her admission of horror was spoken with the cadence that someone else might use to order a drink.

+Doing more than watching you,+  Avo said. +Talking about you too. They know you.+

The squire scoffed. +Yeah, everyone thinks they know me. Everyone. If you end up living long enough in this line of work, you’ll end up coming across anyone that’s worth half a damn.+  

With her features masked behind her armor, he found himself agitated by how little she revealed. Her mind was a calm river that betrayed almost nothing, but she wasn’t above playing mind games of her own, playing the news live via her phantoms–probably trying to provoke a reaction from him.

+White-Rab,+  Avo said. +How is he?+

+I got his session,+  she said. +You wanna talk to him?+

+Later. Want to talk to you. Understand you. Judge where you fit.+

She laughed. +You sound like my first wife. Or third husband. Or was Hedridge my fourth? Fuck, I can’t remember if I killed or divorced him. Ah. Well, I’m not that complicated, ghoul. Just a simple old lady with people to kill and someone to save.+

+Someone? The one you need a Soul for?+  Avo asked.

+Yeah, something like that.+  Tavers sniffled. +You though… what’s your game? What turns a cult-grown monster into a godsdamned charity?+

+Choice,+  Avo replied. +I want to give more people the ability to choose. Who they are. What they want to be. Who they want to become. Want to break the Guilds. End the stagnation. Burn away the cancer they made of this world.+

+And then what? Does everyone worship you? You become ghoul-Avandaer?+

+Don’t care about being worshipped.+  Avo paused. +Don’t… like it.+

“Master?”  the Woundshaper said, sounding genuinely appalled.

+Faith is like a chain,+  Avo said. +Devotion is just the same. My father. He was a monster. Selfish. Selfless. Depends on who you ask. But gave everything so I would be unchained. Wanted me to taste the flavors of life. Doing the opposite feels like… defeat.+

[But lighting someone’s mind up sure is a victory, huh, you people-eating bastard.]  Kassamon remained bitter about his subsumption. More than once he reached for his Heaven, struggled to influence Avo’s mind with his own. Never was he successful. For all he thought of himself as a singular entity, he was nothing but an extension of Avo now. A simulation grown from another’s consciousness, feeding into their ego, their actions.

Hollowed of will and agency, the templates were as if perfectly stored patterns dancing in the theatre of his mind.

ATTENTION: APPROACHING DESTINATION - [413 METERS]

The distance between him and his cadre closed as he found himself gliding through a valley of rust and decay. Tarps flattered from the sides of the structures flanking him, the only real hint of his approach. The people who dwelled here didn’t live in conventional blocks, however. Judging from the faded streaks of white paint lining the ground below, this place used to be a public vehicle depot.

Crude walls crowned by automated turrets formed the enclave’s perimeter, while trailers, repurposed aeros, broken golems, cargo containers, and voidship modules created two uneven blocks that ran twenty stories high. Draps and welded metal offered what privacy they could afford, while cheap drones patrolled overhead. Harvested spotlights and holoprojectors left the area soaked in neon, and ads for long defunct Guild-supported organizations played on, products placements becoming little more than night lamps for the needy against the darkness gnawing at their doorstep.

Now, with countless habitation aeros stacked, lined, attached, welded, and built over each other, what he beheld was an active super-slum assembled by the FATELESS from scavenged parts. Bridges ran from each height, making it easier to run across the space from the highest point instead of the bottom. Guards wearing repurposed exo-rigs stood watch at every chokepoint. The “streets” between each makeshift house were more like narrow corridors and uneven alleys.

Still, children of all ages sprinted through the canals laughing, much to the chagrin of their elders.

This place was life blossoming between the cracks of plascrete, twelve thousand or so accretions quivering before his gaze.

How beneath notice they were. How alone. Snuffing them out and seizing their thaums was less than a trifle. They had no means of protection from him and what care did the powers of the city for such a small pocket of life. But still, there was something in the way they lived–how they pursued trade and community still in the bleakness of the gutters.

Building his power would have been so easy. But letting them live was divine.

Thankfully, there were other options beyond them. Other creatures  that thrived in these depths. Atop the palm of his Sanguinity, Avo could feel five hundred or so of his brothers lurking in the darkness surrounding this communal oasis. He could feel their blood coursing, claws scraping along the walls as they nipped at the empty air, hungering for tender flesh.

Avo freed them from their addictions with a thought and carried on.

THAUMIC OUTPUT - 7,388 THAUM/c

Ghosts: [65,714]

Draus’ marker pointed to a partially collapsed bar on the lower left side of the slums. A cluster of containers surrounded the place and half the wedge-shaped building had fallen in on itself. Considering he couldn’t sense them physically or mentally, he guessed they had their Incogs active. That, and the Manta hovering overhead along with the nu-kitten sleeping atop a bifurcated bar counter erased any lingering doubts.

Resurfacing back in real space, Avo dropped himself and Tavers beside the shattered remains of a bar counter. The tiny, orange nu-cat stretched and pawed its own face before fixing Avo with a lazy eye. It thrilled softly and continued to lay there, entirely unimpressed with the only ghoul Godclad in existence and the folk legend of a squire beside him.

“Cats,” Tavers said, almost purring herself. “Fucking love those furry little shits. Don’t take shit from anyone, and don’t give a shit about anyone. They’re the realest squires in this city.”

Sweeping through the space with his Sanguinity again, Avo noted that only the bones of the alehouse remained, with all wood and valuable metals stripped. Rusted plasteel supports remained–an undertaking beyond the locals’ willingness to dissect.

For a second, they were alone, with only the sounds of the slum hinting at any life nearby. With a thousand kilometers between him and Veng’s Stand, they were effectively in the wind. Still, he prepared his Skimmer and waited for his cadre’s emergence so he could cast it out.

No sense in holding back on the paranoia. From now on, his doctrine would include a practice of omniscience: if he couldn’t be aware of absolutely everything at his desired destination, he wasn’t going.

Punctuating his decision, Draus, Kae, Chambers, and Dice appeared in a shocking instant. Tavers caught herself before she drew on the newcomers, and let out an annoyed sigh. “Incog. Love it. Hate it.”

“Yeah,” Avo agreed.

Studying his group, he noticed that Chambers’ nose was broken and his eyes were downcast. Almost like he had been crying. Shame and frustration radiated from his mind, and his posture was abnormally closed off. Contrarily, Kae’s mind was a sea amidst a storm, with each falling wave bearing a faint echo of the rage that thundered inside her.

Neither half-strand nor Agnos would look at each other, while Draus held herself as she always did: ready, professional, like a spring about to uncoil.

“No tail?” Draus asked.

Avo cast his Skimmer high and drowned the slum with his perception. He gave his phantasmic a few heartbeats to work before he replied. “No tail.”

The Regular exhaled. “Well. That was a clusterfuck and a half.” She shot a quick look at Dice who had been on the other side of the counter the entire time, slowly stroking her cat. The waif was staring at Avo, eyes locked to his burning Meta as if she was mesmerized.

“What… are you?” she whispered, not even truly speaking to him.

And there was another thing to consider. What were they going to do with this girl?

“Well, well, well. Quail Tavers.” Draus cocked her head and regarded the squire standing across from her. With the Meldskin conferring no height or bulk to her person, the Regular stood dwarfed by her counterpart, but uncowed. Likewise, the squire opened and closed her left hand as she studied her combat skin’s digit articulations. “Glad to finally meet you up close. ”

“Up close?” Tavers said, sensing something. “Suppose one of us took a shot at the other in the past.”

“You supposed right. Sixteen years ago. Extraction op. Kethstregar.”

Tavers nodded. “You’re gonna have to be more specific than that.”

“Happened during the midnight rains. We shot that transport out of the sky and killed the Glaives. But you and yours went for the package first instead. We cut your consang down that day. Then you started shooting us.”

“You’re gonna have to be more specific than that.”

Draus paused. “You fired a nuke at us to cover your escape?”

“You’re gonna have to be more specific than that.”

The Regular sighed. “You shot me in the face. Blew most of my jaw clean off.”

“Oh, you’re that one. Yeah. You’re the one that just wouldn’t die. Hell, you even started shooting back. Ah. Sorry, but last time we saw each other, most of your face was dangling from your right cheek.”

“Left,” Draus said. “Spatio-kinetic round skipped across my helmet and peeled me somethin’ bad.”

“Well,” Tavers said, tapping the side of her gun, “sometimes we get lucky.”

“Sometimes.”

An uncomfortable silence followed. The cat yawned.

“So,” Avo said. “Things we need to discuss. Starting with you.” He glanced at Tavers. “Helped us. Hired by White-Rab–”

“White-Rab?” Draus said. “The Necrojack?”

“Yeah,” Avo said. “Also my cognitive progenitor.Partially anyway. Walton used aspects of his mind to make me.”

Kae blew a ragged breath. “Of course. Because who else. ”

Avo noted the Agnos’ bitterness and continued. “After my consciousness… changed, I burned Abrel’s mind. Subsumed the Incubi trying to subvert her. Then accessed a Glaive through one of their sessions and possessed his body. Took a walk in the Trident. Stole some mem-data. Ran into Zein again–”

“What?” Tavers said, sounding alarmed for the first time. “Zein who? Zein Thousandhand ? She’s alive?”

“Godsdammit, Avo,” Draus said. “Left out a lot of shit about your last little walk.”

“She’s not coming back, is she,” Chambers said, a croak of fear in his voice. “‘Cause, we’re doing fine without her. Right, consangs.”

Kae slowly turned to face Chambers. “Do not talk. No works. I-if I hear you talk again, I’m going t-to. I’m to beat you to death! Again! And this time I won’t need Draus to hold you down for me!”

Oh. That explained the awkwardness. Good for the Agnos. Exercising her violence was a form of catharsis she could use, and something to help her acclimate to the conditions of the Warrens faster.

[No! Not good for her! Bad for me!]  template-Chambers groaned. [Why am I always getting the fuck beat out of me? Why?]

Abrel smirked. [Donno, dipshit. Maybe you can settle the score when the Agnos ends up cumming aratanids into the face of one of her enemies as a first resort.]

Avo continued. “Regardless. Tried to burn her. She killed me a few times.”

[A lot,]  Benhata corrected.

“More than a few times, I’m wagerin’,” Draus said.

“Doesn’t matter how many,” Avo growled. “Main point is I went home. And met my progenitor.” He paused. “And one of the Bloodthane’s from Nu-Scarrowbur. The Shatterborn. Reva Javvers.”

“Javvers?” Tavers said, sounding surprised for a second time. “Vincintine’s niece?”

“Vincintine?” Draus said. “You knew Ripperjack?”

Knew ‘em? Practically kept that little shit alive for half his life… Did you guys, uh–”

“Zein happened to him,” Draus explained. “And by that, I mean I have no idea where the fuck he went. She appeared. He disappeared. And then she died.”

“Died,” Tavers said.

“Yeah,” Draus replied. “Died. But not it sounds like she’s back again. Right, Avo?”

He considered how to answer the question. “Might be a different Zein. Don’t know. Can’t tell with her. Don’t understand how her Heaven works. Doesn’t matter right now. Ended up Ensouling White-Rab by the end. Wanted to have… my own insurance. Personal cell that the Columners didn’t know.”

“Yeah, well, it looks like they ended up being so sneaky you didn’t know much about them either,” Draus said.

“Didn’t know he was going to hire Quail Tavers to track me,” Avo said, unsure how to interpret White-Rab’s actions.

“I suppose it’s his way of showing he cares.” Tavers paused. “And that he, like almost anyone in this city, would be suspicious as fuck about a magic ghoul handing out free Souls. So. It sounds like you consangs are up to some mighty weird shit. Looking at your skins… wager a guess Voidwatch’s special intelligence division is active here too? Or is it Omnitech-made?”

Draus fixed Avo with a look and shrugged. “Well. The armor’s ain’t eaten any of us yet.”

“Oh. Aegis, then. Would’ve loved to do another run for them. This’ll be fun. So… what’s up with her?” Tavers pointed at Dice. “She part of your Fallwalker charity operation too?”

Facing the waif, Avo contemplated his answer. “No. Empowered her as a distraction for Paladins and Exorcists. Became… became something much more.”