+There’s something inside Shard-1’s mind. It’s… a memory fragment, I think. Looks pretty frayed. She might’ve broken it off from the half-strand that nulled her. Scrying now–agh fuck… Talon-1, I got a glimpse of what happened to Strike Cell Mongoose. They’re all nulled too.
We’re gonna need more Incubi.+
-Talon-6, Strike Cell “Flameater”
13-14
Denial
+The Helix,+ Avo said. +Why does it matter? Went from trying to null me last time to giving me a throne.+ He scanned the mem-data radiating from Emotion’s sequences, grasping out with ghosts to see if he could glean any subtextual details from the priest.
Nothing. The Famine of Emotion lived up to his title, and while his two counterparts were beings of baser makes bound to narrow fields of reaction, he, much like Walton, was untethered.
Yet, where Walton, once called Defiance, occupied the ideals of radical acceptance, Emotion was the embodiment of apathy, directed solely to serve the Hungers. Following such symbology, Peace was to be an instrument of war, and Joy, a shield composed from the fabric of sorrow.
Avo prodded, +And can you even make this deal? Don’t you need to call your owners? Ask them how they feel about this? Want to make sure everyone’s on the same page.+ Keeping his mind clean of contempt took a bit of focus, but Avo managed. Though Emotion abided by silence, Avo angled to get at the Hungers again.
So many minds circling within a dragon; fair kindling for a phantasmal inferno. The torment of burning in cycles unceasingly across time was a delight to imagine, and it served as a fitting fate for the Hungers–to reap hell unending for all the atrocities they engineered.
Including the very ghouls that served them.
When Emotion spoke again, the words came calm and direct. +You mock us. But you do not know the situation. You haven’t seen the true face of the war–+
+You lost your history to the other Guilds. Your Ark. Your chance at altering the history of existence to suit your “canon” of events. Am I right?+
Emotion lapsed back into consideration. +Yes. This is true.+
+Emotion,+ Peace snarled, glaring at his fellow priest, +Don’t tell this fuck shit! You heard him: the corpse-fucker won’t give us what’s ours. It’s time for this pretense–+
His voice crackled and died. Down through the blended material of the dais, ghosts from Emotion burrowed into the memory and severed speech privileges from his ego-alternate. The neutering was complete and uncontested. Watching Peace hurling insults and clenching his bloodied fists at Avo, Joy sighed through his tears.
+It is hard for us to admit. Hard for us all.+ The weeping Low Master shook his head as he looked upon Avo. +We’re sorry. We failed you. We failed our dream. We, last and only of the priesthood, were forsworn in defending the chosen against the outsiders and the pestilence of the divine. But we failed. We failed. We failed…+
He settled back into the embrace of despair thereafter, leaving Emotion as the only other speaker once more. +We understand your confusion now. When last we spoke, we assumed you Defiance, though maimed in memory. Ignorance is an easier affliction to alleviate. You have no comprehension of the world that was, and you have exceeded the parameters of your own design–+
Avo broke the flow of the priest’s works with a hissing laugh. +Wrong. Doing exactly what I was made for. Living. Learning. Seeing colors. Making new choices. You are… chained. You still think I’m just another of your ghouls. Another slave. Might be because you’re just a slave too. Might be because of the flesh I’m made from. But Walton created me for freedom. To make my own choices. And now you tell me that all I want is wrong. That I should follow you.+
He rose from his throne, and Joy and Peace mirrored him, the former reaching out for the latter to sit back down, Peace baring his rotted teeth in a baleful grimace as the thread-thin ghosts around him coiled their sequences around each other and wove manifestations of building trauma.
+Talk then,+ Avo said, walking toward the center of the dais that held the thrones. He reached out with a phantasmal Echohead and brushed one of the swinging bone tassels hanging from the ceiling. The artifact was perfectly made. But also immutable.
He didn’t have enough access to its data to alter its design unless he nulled or cast himself deeper into its structure.
Another portent of the Low Masters’ habits. Control. Always control.
They offered him a seat but still spat wasted words at him. He was being treated like an expendable ghoul no longer, but now he seemed little more than an idiot child in desperate need of an education.
+Would you like to hear about who we were?+ Emotion asked, sounding genuinely curious. +Before our defeat? Before our transgressions.+
Now, this was interesting. +Trangression,+ Avo said. +Didn’t think you thought yourselves wrong.+
+Some acts are beyond denial,+ Emotion replied simply. +The creation of your… lessers, for instance. They were merely meant to be receptacles to house the weight of the chosen peoples’ traumas. To bear the weight of their pain. Such a thing cost us more virtue than we can ever restore.+
+You’re talking about the girl,+ The words left Avo. It was a guess, but he felt it valid enough to pursue. +The voider girl you murdered. Before you were separated into the Famines. All the others you entombed. Was that part of the cost?+
To his surprise, Emotion offered a slow and clear nod. +Yes. That, and countless other misdeeds. So many underserved sacrifices… And if there is to be any justice in the end, we will be punished for it. But to ensure the triumph of virtue, we must win.+
The Low Masters were becoming increasingly parallel with Elder D’Rongo in their thinking. This shouldn’t have been a surprise. All those that once held an Ark amounted to something akin to a Guild, and all those who thought themselves great powers were of a joined desire.
More wasn’t enough. They wanted everything. All. Absolute.
Just like the gods.
Avo empathized.
“Press them, master,” the Woundshaper whispered. Breaking from its constant haranguing of the Galeslither, it had taken an interest in the Nether-based dialogue, judging each of the Low Masters with half-interest. “You hold the foundation of all they want, and they seek to build their structures on your soil–to hold you down with their binding weight. Let this be their folly. Let them hand you the materials of their knowledge, and be done with this.”Fascinatingly, the Heaven of Blood regarded Peace, more than the other two, with open disgust. “What poorly fashioned constructs. What broken, narrow tools.”
The voice of his other Heaven followed the first. “It fills me with sickness to be in agreement with her, but the path of this conversation is clear to me. Capitulate, flee, or battle. I advise you leave. You risk too much lingering here, staying in place. This is their house–their rules cage this… microcosm around you.”
“Ah, the coward speaks its due,” the Woundshaper purred. “Wishing to deprive our master of his entertainment? If his plan succeeds, the cognitive substance of these Low Masters will serve as fine bricks within the master’s mind.”
The Heaven of Air huffed, “Blind want has led too many to break themselves upon the ground. Be aware, and never choose submission in place of freedom. No matter what is offered. Flesh, mind, or air, ideas can be enslaved all the same. Do not betray yourself.”
+Would you like the see the time before time? Remember the glory of lost Noloth, the oasis of man beyond the gods?+ The question Emotion offered was meant to lead into a performance. Across his cog-feed, the first variables within the mem-data were being primed for alteration. Like dominos, the change would sweep through the sequences comprising this mindscape, the ghosts simulating its progression shifted to a new design.
Preparedness hardened inside Avo. He entered the Low Masters’ den anticipating battle. If such were to be the outcome, he would not be unbalanced.
Perhaps they would null him. Perhaps they would even shame him through their mastery of the art. But they would not unravel his mind, and inflict upon him what he did to Abrel and so many others.
Not when he had a dozen Conflagrations primed and ready to burn within his loci.
He would render his ego unto ash before allowing the Low Masters to reach past his wards.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
+Tell me,+ Avo said, cycling Secondhand Fatality into his Ghostjack.
+We cannot,+ Emotion said. +For it no longer exists. An ascension twisted into a sacrifice at the hands of Jaus Avandaer.+
Around them, the phantasmal fabric of the environment came undone, the nexus of the George Washington peeling away. Concurrently, Avo’s cog-feed updated him that another accretion was active within Shard-1’s mind.
Good. It took the Incubi long enough.
This conversation now had another deadline to it, and he was the only one prepared for its end.
For now, he had things to learn, and enemies to understand.
+Jaus,+ Avo said. +You said he betrayed you.+
+It is a thing of perspective, we must admit,+ Emotion said. +When he installed the Guilds in place of the great faiths that ruled this world and gathered the husks of fallen divinity, he gathered the first of his conclave, and we found ourselves among his inner circle.+
Avo grunted. +Left out how friendly you were last time.+
The priest could but nod. +His charm and affability could not be denied. Nor his skills in diplomacy. For a time, it seemed he was capable of achieving the impossible–seeing everyone’s desires met and ending eon-old conflicts.+
A new scene loaded around them, the weight of the sensory data splashing against Avo as he rejected the mindscapes ghosts from interacting with his Metamind. Just because he couldn’t detect any subterfuge didn’t mean there wasn’t any.
A shadow lengthened over him, and even with his back turned to it, he could feel its ponderous presence pressing down upon his being. The effects were spillovers from the currently active ghosts, and as he turned to face that which oppressed him, he found himself faced with a tower.
A tower sculpted from uncountable naked bodies, each prostrating upon another, knees fused to shoulders as they knelt with their heads bowed, facing the interior of the tower. Such was the least of the anomalies.
When Walton showed him the Flayed Ladder in the Deep Bazaar, the experience had proven to be cognitively damaged. Now, he faced its concept with mild discomfort, noting the impossible layering at the edges of its geometry, and the way it seemed to bleed over into the clouds and sky and existence itself.
The more he looked upon it, the more the Ladder struck him as a needle pressed under the skin of reality, primed to give an injection.
At his feet, the ground was featureless and pale while a wrongness permeated the air. It was like the tower bleached all flavor from the concepts in its vicinity, grinding reality down to its fundamental facets.
+You said we lost our Ark. This is only a partial truth.+ Emotion stood next to him upon dappled patches of white. +It wasn’t just taken from us, but also sacrificed. Used to give the Ladder more… groundedness. Stability.+ He paused. +And entrap the Hungers above existence to facilitate the creation of the Nether.+
Emotion turned to face him, the coins swaying from dark sockets and missing eyes feeling like a personal insult to Avo. The ghoul didn’t know if they were deliberately depriving him of desired favor, but it was mockery nonetheless.
+Why?+ Avo said. +Why did Jaus “betray” you?+
+Control. As with all tyrants.+
+And you as well?+ Avo asked as a jibe.
+And us as well.+
Avo heard his cog-feed ping a soft alert. Someone just took Shard-1 into their mind. They were pulling her out of Abrel’s Meta. Good. It would make triggering the trap he planted inside her to disable the Incubi that much easier. Or, better yet, their infrastructure.
For now, he continued with the conversation, watching as the indicator fed him details regarding the progress his new “consangs” were making before they reached the Auto-Seance.
This conversation's deadline ticked on, and Avo was the only one aware of it.
+We were the first to attempt the alteration,+ Emotion said. +The Hungers–chosen of the city unending–had long prepared to make the necessary adjustments to our past. With the Ladder’s approaching completion, I was given a new task–+
A chuff of disbelief came from Avo. +Of course. Hungers told you to twist everything? Put in your own history?+
+The return of our son was assured.+ A beat passed and Emotion considered whether he wanted to keep speaking. +Along with the adjustments to his rebellion. It would have been a better life.+
+And this is what you’re still fighting for?+ Avo asked. +To clean your shame?+
+To ensure there never was any shame, and that he would be here, not I.+
The chuff rose into an outraged hiss. For all the moments before, Avo regarded the Low Masters with wary regard and tempered curiosity, but for the first time, he felt his hate for them deepen.
He knew nothing of the man he inherited his namesake from, but knowing they died defying Walton and the Hungers, the act of twisting his chronology into being a loyal son was beyond violation.
It was a desecration. Of ego. Of personhood. Of choice itself.
Whatever the case might be, Avohaketen died fighting against his father. To render that as invalid…
+Denial,+ Avo breathed. +That would have been a better name for you. Better name for all of you. All this just to coddle yourself. Protect your feelings. Yours and the Hungers. Can’t live with your failures. Can’t learn. Going to destroy the world and defile existence because you weren’t happy with your decisions.+
An intrusive thought told Avo that Zein would have mocked them more for their failure to achieve this want than the act itself.
The priest studied him for a moment, taking a step back. +You are offended by this?+ Emotion let out a breath. +Truly, he did see you as his son. You are so very like him but stained with savagery.+
+And you have his face but everything else hollow,+ Avo replied. +None of you are even intact enough to be parodies of him. He was the only one of you that was real. Whole instead of narrow. You give me power for the Helix because you need the George Washington. But you don’t learn the technology. You don’t learn anything.+
+That is not our duty?+ Emotion said. +The sanctuary offers us–+
+Means to continue your hopeless war. Yes.+ Avo turned away from him. Clashing notices populated his cog-feed, the Incubi getting closer. +Curious. What’s your plan? Claim the Ark of another Guild? Change its history somehow? Kill enough ghouls and twist their minds to contaminate the consensus on what happened.+
+Once perhaps, but these assumptions are superfluous now.+ Emotion leaned in close. +Especially with what Defiance has bestowed upon you.+
And once again, a hidden power sought the fruits of Project Godshaper.
Kae should be ever so pleased with her accomplishments, but he doubted she would enjoy compliments from half-strands like the Low Masters.
+With your Frame, we can change everything. We can grant Noloth its second glory and return our masters from their exile. Such a thing would cost you nothing. And you will be granted influence over the art itself when the canons are changed.+
The answer, now, and almost always, was no, but entertaining this line of question, he could still uncover a few things they spoke of.
That, and keep this group’s attention on him as the approaching Incubi dove in, their approach estimated at three real-time minutes and counting.
+Perhaps…+ Avo said, speaking as if he was truly uncertain. +Will I get a “war-mind”? Tell me about privileges. And what remains of the art for me to master?+
And as Emotion began to speak, Avo cycled Secondhand Fatality at the forefront of a shuffling cycle of patterns in anticipation of what was to come.
The truth was having the Low Masters just give him something didn’t appeal at all, for why should he be beholden to accepting gifts when he could just create the circumstances to take them from his foes?
***
Something about Shard-1’s nulling lingered in Talon-3’s mind. It might be the absolute calmness oozing out from the near-waters of her thoughtstuff, or the non-native fragments they recovered from within her inner mind. Either way, there was big game in these waters, and it appeared to have a taste for Incubi.
Such behavior had to be discouraged.
They approached the hidden Auto-Seance, slipping through the traps and peering eyes numbering sixteen Necros.
Sixteen of the most decorated Incubi that could be scrambled and deployed on short notice. Sixteen merged from four cells into a circle.
His mind pulsed as Talon-1’s Meta-identifier came alight in his cog-feed. +Talon-3, Talon-6, you two are point-jackers. Ingress. Ladder formation. Clear these sequences and keep it quiet. Talon-7, you’re in charge of perimeter detail. Keep those glassers blind and redirect sequences if you spot a Pali. The rest you get your traumas cycled. You are cleared for ego-death. Collateral damage is allowed. Let’s scalp this motherfucker.+
Twenty minds chimed muttered affirmations. Talon-3 found his voice among theirs. +Synced,+
Through his Seance, he heard Talon-6 say the same thing and approach the cluster.
A muted sense of disquiet filled Talon-3 but he let it pass through him. It wasn’t the first time he saw the Nether painted with the unspooling memories of his own. It wouldn’t be the last either.
+Shard-1 must’ve gotten the half-strand pretty good,+ Talon-6 said.
Talon-3 hummed in response.
+You don’t think so?+ Talon-6 asked.
+I think she went down fighting,+ Talon-3 said. +But seein’ as Convex already reported Shard-2 mind dead… I don’t know. The Exorcists are compromised. Mongoose is all dead over there. And we just so happen to have partially fragged breadcrumbs that form a full picture with our foes all buzzed out and unprepared.+
+So… what, it’s a trap?+
Talon-3 sighed. +I don’t know. I don’t think so but… I just can’t shake the feeling that we’re being used.+