Aegis,
The situation has changed.
Asset Stillborn has changed.
As of present, he is… in the wind, but I expect his return in the near future. I have reason to believe that he has somehow integrated the Eaters into his cognition and altered his metaphysical structure on a level previously unanticipated–even by Thousandhand.
Despite the escalation of threat he poses to the polities we serve, I strongly advise against any option under the branches of liquidation or containment. Pragmatically, the success of such operations cannot be ensured with the drastic expansion of his new capabilities; effectively, he remains our best tool for ending the Guild Crisis; personally, I find myself inclined to trust him.
If you review the psychological profile generated based on his responses and choice vectors, you will see high levels of anti-communal-social behavior in terms of sadism and indifference to suffering. However, despite his predilections, he has also demonstrated a clear and logical strand of ethical behavior that can be observed and appealed to, i.e. his reluctance to assimilate us into his gestalt despite having the ability and likely desire to do so.
With his malleable neurology, perhaps further growth into morality or justice can be engendered within him via the proper influence.
Both Sunrise and I would like to stay in the field as members of his cohort and would like to request a formal meeting between the bearer of the Stillborn and the gathered Speakers for better mutual understanding.
Additionally, I would like to appeal for access to “category-zero utensils” to enhance the cell's performance in zero thaum environments.
I have a feeling we’re going to need more built-in redundancies in the near future.
-Denton-12
14-1
Dichotomy
When Abrel’s Strider answered Avo’s call, it arrived like wind whistling free through a keyhole.
Her Frame brushed against his as both were triggered upon the manifestation of his will, and he discovered that he hadn’t so much consumed her Soul as his ego now served as a mixed analogy between a bridge and a skeleton key.
After he shifted the structure of his mind in accordance with Abrel’s design, something metaphysical clicked as the interplay between a lockpick and a door.
If a Frame was an implant specifically burned to fit the mold of a sophont’s nous, then perhaps one’s will–or Essence–stood as the unshaped ingot from which the ego derived its substance, and from their union became the alloy of a complete being.
To understand things more practically, her Frame wasn’t inside him but rather slotted upon him via the nous he partially hijacked.
From within the subrealities simulated by her Soul, he could sense the absence of awareness emanating from the epicenter of eldritch fire he was now connected to.
[Strider looks intact. Falcons shifted where the Heaven is black. Blades of radiance forming wings. Ontologic worth 881 deaths per cycle. Different from our Frame though. Still. Solid. Just like Kae described. Can’t tell if the Frame’s infected with our Imitators.]
Unnerved by the quiet, he had one of his subminds simulate Abrel’s personality and converse with him to lessen the weirdness of the experience.
[Psh, is there anywhere this rotlick can’t go?] Submind-Abrel asked.
Her bitter thoughts emanated without a hint of venom or rancor, so he assumed that the alterations he made to her mind persisted. No reason why it shouldn’t have. His changes to her were fundamental; the revisions were deemed consensual post-hoc by her mind, and so he didn’t envision there to be anything for her Frame to regard as traumatic or reversion-worthy.
In fact, he regarded the changes he inflicted upon her as far more ideal than the tormented creature she was prior.
[Yeah, yeah, pat yourself on the ass for removing all the misery that you caused.] The way her Soul seemed closer to a smooth orb filled with murky steam contrasted the nexus of rippling fire within him. What’s more, unlike the sphere which the Stillborn encapsulated, her Frame stretched upward more akin to a cone, allowing for plenty of vertical development, but not that much horizontal. [Wow. Rub it in more, why don’t you. First, you kill a bunch of people I love, then you infect me with servitude–]
“Compliance,” Avo interrupted.
[--the fuck’s the difference, ghoul?]
[There is no difference,] another sub-mind said as the simulation froze.
[The base mind wants to put layering between his actions and beliefs.]
[Functionally stripped some choices from her.]
[She’s an enemy. Tried to kill us.]
[Still. Feels…]
Bad. It made him feel bad.
Avo decided that he didn’t like the sensation of guilt and promptly reduced the intensity of that particular emotion as he reknit sequences within Abrel’s template.
[Glass jaw,] Abrel taunted. [So. You crawled into my body, attached yourself to my flesh, and didn’t expect to activate my Frame too, huh? How’d you imagine that would go?]
“Don’t know,” he admitted. “No one has ever done this before. Tried looking through your memories in the academy to get better grasp on any potential theories. Couldn’t. Apparently, someone downloaded terrible romance vicarities in place of Theoretical Thaumaturgical Applications.”
Abrel huffed and her Soul sparked. [Those classes were useless and I stand by my actions.]
[Frame analysis complete. Frame stable. Three Hells are at an average of 65% Rend. Last one for Reserve-Heaven Unit-3 is clean. Only has one cycler cleared for resurrection. Were very close to killing her before.]
[Should have listened to Draus if we wanted her dead.]
Avo had to be honest, having his subminds study and feed him details about external ontologics on the fly was far more efficient than digging through the Frame’s root-data manually.
Abrel interrupted the brief lull that settled upon their conversation. [Hey, you know how the Agnosi got those False-Hevs in their eyes, right? Do you think this is how they technically work? Like a counterfeit ego-key of some kind?]
She could have stopped talking the moment she mentioned the word “Agnosi” and he would have come to the same conclusion, but it was an interesting thought. It would be interesting to pair his practical experience with Kae’s theory of knowledge.
Or maybe he could just assimilate the mind of an Agnosi at some point.
[Good idea.]
[Better choice.]
[Stimulating Kae’s response: “What? No–absolutely not! What–you–]
Avo forced his subminds to cease with a mental command before the guilt-bombing of his ego could intensify. Diverting his attention to more useful matters, he began examining Abrel’s Frame in detail, with the majority of his focus directed toward her Heavens.
The three Heavens she had classified as [RES-RESERVE UNITS] were modifications derived from small, almost entirely unknown gods hidden behind restricted memories. Unit-1 was supposed to be from a god of campfires, Unit-2, the spirit of a particularly deep ditch–apparently people in the past would worship anything if it seemed unusual enough–while Unit-3 was a mythical flower that provided minerals for a small community before they were all massacred by rampaging Scaarthians who were, amusingly, fighting in service of the Blood Goddess Sathwu.
“Ah, but I do love my huntresses,” the Woundshaper purred. “They have hewn many a rival before their height could rise to challenge my own. What joy, what joy!”
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The Galeslither for its part regarded the other Heavens glumly, hopelessly yearning it could be as dormant as they. “What fortunate corpses. They seem so quiet. Free from this… noise.”
“Then why do you add to it, mule? Why must you whimper and neigh when you yearn for this… quiet,” the Woundshaper mocked.
[Wow,] Abrel snorted. [No wonder you like using that one so much–she’s even more of a half-strand than you are.]
A glare was a hard thing to pull off when one was a disembodied shapeless mass of burning thoughts and the target was a featureless core of eldritch fire fused within the corpse of an unmoving god.
The greatest of which his subminds just finished analyzing.
Strider Upon the Highest
Heaven of Light (Domains of Light, Darkness, War, and Falcons)(Light)
Canon of Shinesmith (II)–Can create force-expressing constructs from all light within the range of the user’s awareness ://: Hubris–Cannot be light that is expressed without an opposing shadow
Canon of Waveshrouded–Can seal parts of being behind wavelengths of the light spectrum. Probably what she used to prevent us jacking her in Mirrorhead’s mind. Won’t help anymore now ://: Hubris–The user being frozen will trigger backlash and cause the process to fail.
(Darkness)
Nightwalk–Lets user emerge from any shadow cast made or touched by light emitted from their being. ://: Hubris–Triggers backlash if there isn’t enough contrasting light to feed the transition
Smokeshape–Lets user turn into flowing darkness and travel using a silhouette of the Strider. Same hubris as the last one.
(Falcon)
Courier of Thy Flesh–Create animated falcons capable of mending damage in matter from darkness. ://: Hubris–Only ten tons of falcons maybe be created at once.
(War)
Blade of the Highest Hewing (III)--Grants user absolute control over any edged object they hold, allowing them to wield it with maximal efficiency, keep it from ever dulling, and splitting through any and all matter-based substances with it. ://: Hubris–High backlash will occur if one of the user’s blades strikes another.
Heaven Review: Only 100 deaths were devoted to Domain of Darkness. Heavier emphasis on light and war at 632 thaums. Remainder are split between Falcons, which also serves as her Hell’s primary Domain.
Hell
(Falcon)
Wings of Embrittling (IV)–Embrittles, degenerates, distorts, dispels, and decays all physical matter, sounds, energy, and heat from the local area. Nothing is fully unmade, but everything is enfeebled from what it was before. ://: If any of the structures being embrittled by the user is destroyed utterly, a Daemon will form.
Reserve-Heavens Unit-1; Unit-2; Unit-3 not worth going into detail. First is little more than a fusion burner and eats away friction with its connected Hell. Second is open fissure that causes rocks to vibrate. Drains away vibrations to balance. Third is a flower that can create diamonds and minerals. Liquefies all bones and enamel in three kilometers.]
Avo was confused about the last Hell.
[Think it’s because the ancients considered enamel and diamonds of the same substance. Something like that.]
Inside the expanse of Abrel’s Soul, the Heaven continued to linger without word nor hint of sapience.
If Kae thought his Frame was infectious, it might need more time to take effect.
Channeling Abrel’s experience to circumvent his unfamiliarity of her abilities, he reached out to seize and control all sources of brightness emitted from various sources within the holding cell and, after a moment’s lag, he found himself enraptured to behold the Strider compelled to action as the eldritch flames enveloped a small percentage of its entire structure, allowing it to trespass into the real.
All of a sudden, an additional sense fused into his mind and he found himself dragging motes of light out of place from holographic emitters and fashioning darts from them.
[Strider Rend at 88%]
[Partial expression of power. Mostly subtle.]
[Why Godclads can’t sense each other without full manifestation of Heavens. Fascinating.]
Indeed. Even with his own Frame connected to his being, his Soul remained blissfully unaware of its counterpart despite the closeness of their physical proximities. Again, memories from Abrel fed his ignorance.
Thaumaturgic constructs rarely touched upon physical space unless they had to do with the metaphysics of space or geometry itself. As far as his Heaven of Blood and Abrel’s Heaven of Light was concerned, they weren’t even operating on the same plane of reality.
The only indication he felt toward the other Heaven was the simple tug that brushed upon his Domain of Luminosity, but that required his subminds replaying his memories and magnifying his focus to detect.
Not even when he used a dagger crafted from brightness to split part of a haemokinetic construct he was growing out Abrel’s finger did either Heaven seem to notice each other.
“Our intersections are too few, master,” the Woundshaper said. “Perhaps if my rule over light was truer and stronger. Alas, the concepts behind my luminosity are far less defined than the strength imbued in the Strider’s light.” Upon regarding the rival Heaven did the awakened goddess hum. “Strange is its structure. I do not recall ever beholding a god such as this. I must say, however, that seems to me a thing of bastard make. The wings and armor are all very Kosgan. This is well and true, but the falcons bare a uniquely Sang aesthetic. It appears that we are not the only ones who have been remodeled, mule.”
The Galeslither chuffed its displeasure. “It is unnatural. No direct worship could form something so… inhuman. It seems optimized solely for direct war-making.”
And preventing hidden Necrojacks from spoofing into the Ensouled.
Yeah, whatever Agnos built Abrel’s Heaven had some very specific counter-Ori parameters in mind.
[Should I continue simulating dialogue?]
“No,” Avo replied. This was good. This was enlightening. He had a feeling he just achieved a breakthrough–if a minor one–in the field of thaumaturgy. It also opened deeper implications towards his capabilities.
Presently, he had his own Frame that was connected to his nous, but if he could access Abrel’s Frame as well…
The question that follows is how far did his influence stretch, and whether there were any issues with using the Nether to serve as a junction for one vessel to channel miracles from multiple Frames. And could he still draw upon Abrel’s powers if he was shifted into her mental template but was still piloting his own body? If he and Abrel both died while he was rooted entirely within her vessel, would he descend into her Frame, his own, or both?
Part of him was curious about the answer. The other part wondered if he might just real-death himself by accident.
Something about the ambiguity of such a death made him wary of risky experimentation. Though he was pure self-moving thoughtform now, he didn’t want to discover the limitations of his newfound cognitive elasticity by bifurcating himself permanently after resurrecting as two separate entities. Or not resurrected at all.
He needed to consider a means to test his newfound limits. Perhaps he created an offshoot of himself somehow. Maybe a Thoughtwave Disrupt could sever the right parts inside him.
[Unlikely.]
[Subminds still require executive resources from base.]
[Need to split sense of self as well.]
[Currently unipolar gestalt. Assume the need for multipolar perception for such capabilities.]
Right. He would need another aspect of will, or be able to split what he had in half. Such was the reason why all the minds he dissolved earlier were straight nullings, while Abrel was insured only by the fact of her resurrection.
Some metaphysical laws superseded others.
That didn’t mean he was out of ideas on how to circumvent these limitations, however. Sunrise would be a valuable resource to consult regarding potential enhancements to his mental layout. He might not need an additional component of will if he could direct his subminds like drones.
[Base mind grows increasingly tyrannical.]
[Wants more of us already.]
[Greedy.]
His own minds were mocking him using the voices of those he killed now. Avo didn’t really know how to feel about that.
[Could tear out from capsule. Manifest Heaven. Wear Abrel’s body and Frame and use them to kill as many people as possible before death. No risk to you. Good practice too.]
[No. Don’t waste her. Don’t betray advantage and position so soon. Have a heavy advantage over the Low Masters now. Ori-Thaum too. But more encounters give them chances to learn. Adapt. Need to be wise. Strategic.]
The first appealed, and from in the undercurrent of his crackling ghosts, he could remember the beast’s unslaked hunger as it provoked him to seek pleasure.
The latter guaranteed him a new method to study and strike at the Guilds.
But in the hungry depths of his being, he still wanted to kill Abrel and drink the divinity out from her hollowed husk. It took a remodeling of his mindscape to counterbalance the vulgarity of his innate monstrosity.
“We’re leaving her body as is,” Avo said. “Going to find another mind to jump to. Study her after resurrection. See if the effects take. Then use her as our plant within Highflame and the Great Guilds afterward.”
Both his subminds accepted without any protest, but an uncanny sensation still lurked between the folds of his flames.
It was like something within himself was hiding from him, expressing itself only in bouts of dissatisfaction.
Avo shifted out of and back into Abrel’s mental template just to be sure nothing was amiss.
The feeling went away thereafter.
A loud pulsing note rang from the speakers within the cell, prying him free from his reverie. Crackled sputters of static audio greeted him, but they were being filtered in by no ghosts. Stretching his perception beyond Abrel’s physical sheathe, he cast his Whispers out through the metallic coffin that held him and gazed into the void itself.
Amidst the vastness of the great and unending dark, the vantablack Voidwatch rescue ship would have escaped his notice if not for the expansive cloud of static thoughtstuff it expelled into the real.
He needed to leave. If the voiders discovered Abrel dead or with her mind spewing fire, some unwanted questions might follow. Ones that would put her under greater suspicion post-resurrection.
Fortunately, just as Avo was considering if he wanted to jump back into Chambers, he felt an intrusive force plucking at a disconnected series of memories within Abrel, activating specific sequences and artifacts they left hidden within the phlogiston that was his ego.
Right. The Incubi were inside her as well. He should have expected them to leave more backdoors in Abrel while she was mind-dead, but this worked much to his benefit as well.
It meant that he would soon embark on a more active phase of self-discovery and that he would have something to amuse himself before reviewing the state of Abrel’s mind after her resurrection.
And so Avo shifted the layout of his mind again, keeping only Abrel’s compromised sequences in place for the Incubi to trigger their Auto-Seance.
They were seeking to secure what gains they could out of this travesty. Unbeknownst to them, he still had a marker on Shard-1 and a session within D’Rongo, and when the intruders came in to cement their theft of Abrel’s mind, he would get a chance to learning just how an Incubi cell operated in real by taking a walk in their skin.