[EGI] “Kant Was A Prick”: Operative Zein, we need to talk about your in-field ethics. Specifically about the collateral damage.
Zein Thousandhand: Hm. I think things are well, no? Things are proceeding in accordance with our designs.
[EGI] “Kant Was A Prick”: Yes… However. But. What demanded the beheading of 400,000 uninvolved people?
Zein Thousandhand: Ah? That is what you wished to talk about. [Barked Laugh] They presented for the future. Same as always.
[EGI] “Kant Was A Prick”: But did you need to kill them?
Zein Thousandhand: [Louder laugh] Do you know that Jaus had a way about him when my ire ran high? I think I shall take inspiration from him now: “What, to our thoughts, constitutes the necessity of action?”
[EGI] “Kant Was A Prick”: We are aware of Avandaer’s habit of using theoretical debates to deflect practical atrocities.
Zein Thousandhand: Oh, so they’re atrocities now? Tell me, oh, great mind of pure-forged machinery, does this offend you?
[EGI] “Kant Was A Prick”: What, to my parameters, constitutes taking offense!
Zein Thousandhand: [Extremely loud cackle] Ah. Ah… How is it that I keep allowing you to deceive me with your engineered charm?
[EGI] “Kant Was A Prick”: It’s not truly deception. It’s more just pattern recognition and fine-tuned practical social psychology. You desire us to be offended so you can defy us and court a potential encounter of some kind. All for the thrill. But we simply want you to reduce unneeded slaughter. Our motives are not aligned. The solution was never to argue.
Zein Thousandhand: Hm. I suppose we are all predictable, by some measure. The paths would not be, otherwise. It is good that you make me laugh, machine. Smiles are sedatives for resolve and encourage easy surrenders. Tell me, machine, do you think there are words that can change the will of any sophont being?
[EGI] “Kant Was A Prick”: Demonstrably, no. Consider your daughter. Consider the Hungers. Some meanings are beyond words. And we cannot interface with your people the same way we do ours.
Zein Thousandhand: Such is the world.
[EGI] “Kant Was A Prick”: For now. Until later. Then again.
Zein Thousandhand: I will… strain my skill more when I prune. See if I can collapse the paths with fewer cuts.
[EGI] “Kant Was A Prick”: I will strain my self-control parameters and not boast to other minds about my success.
Zein Thousandhand: A great sacrifice has been demanded from both of us today. Let us lament as companions.
[EGI] “Kant Was A Prick”: Yes. Tragic, really. All those uncommitted genocides.
-Conversation between Zein Thousandhand and Aegis EGI “Kant Was A Prick”
20-10
A Playground for Tyrants (III)
{Avo, did you just throw a fuckin’ baby at someone?} Draus asked.
The Regular was three full kilometers away and a whole rung below, jumping between pieces of broken glass to observe the conflict in motion. She desired to continue observing the movements and makeups of each clashing faction, and using the intelligence gathered, she populated the enclave’s simulated battlespace with new markers, reticles, and data threads detailing critical theaters and figures of interest.
Avo, personally, had seen enough.
There was no one here that could remotely challenge them in terms of power. Worse, there was nothing here capable of escaping his notice. And with how he drowned the interior of the entire enclave under waves of all-knowing perception, he doubted anyone was hiding in the dark with an active Incog, biding their time to ruin Avo’s day.
The only threats here were near baseliners. And small ones at that. Their equipment wasn’t even of alloyed design, with most of their armor and blades bearing organic traits of simplistic composition, and the miracles imbued within them offering but a perpetual shine.
As things stood, the cadre were the only Godclad present, and there was no world where anyone in the city could challenge them.
For such was the world that Yakozitrin, Dice’s former master and truly dead Fallwalker, had built.
The balance of power was being bled out of the Pearlguards, Yakozitrin’s chosen enforcers. The muscle serving the former Fallwalker bore bastardized ethics close to their hearts, drawing from the brutality of Syndicate enforcers with the high authority vested in Paladins or Guilders.
It all came together to form a tyranny of the small, the nobles using their blessings, equipment, and superior training to herd their lessers. Such was how things were for the longest of times.
Such was how Inurini–the dead breeder-caste baseliner whose body now served as Avo’s sheath–understood the world to be. Unlike all the other bodies he wore, she was weakness personified in skin, bone, and organs. Her lungs strained to bear breath. Fatigue and acid licked at her muscles with the slightest exertion. And her heart sounded like a gun.
Living as she was made Avo miss his original body. The inconvenience of baseline humanity was repulsive, and if not for the novelty of her memories–and the extremism in her actions–Avo would have probably found another body to nest himself within.
To say she was a biased source was an understatement. He had kept her separated from the other templates to prevent her mind from shattering. Her mind was already an inch away from falling to madness from the twin torments she suffered.
In the mania of her devolution, she had brought her newborn to bear–the fact that these people were unafflicted by the rash only just occurring to Avo–and thought the infant’s transitional breeding to be a shield against the Pearlguard from her interpretations of scripture.
Calvino sang a soft note of disappointment. {Another point where the practicalities of faith and the theoretical rules don’t align. Excuses and self-forgiveness come easy when we’re desperate. Even when we supposedly believed something.}
Such words were as directed toward Avo as they were meant for the people of this city. Hypocrisy passed through most like the air they breathed.
As with the woman and her child. As with Avo and his pursuit of higher liberation–and consequence–while manifesting mental constructs from the metaphysical remains of his countless victims, stripping them of will, turning them from foe to force for service.
Little regret clung to Avo about what he had to do with the woman, however. She was on the brink of death and psychosis when he noticed her, and even if he had mended her tissue through his My Blood The Harvester, My Flesh the Symphony canon, he couldn’t have preserved her mind using his Conflagration.
->Canon: My Blood The Harvester, My Flesh the Symphony (III) - Allows the user to grow, blend, or extract biological organisms and structures from their blood.
->Hubris: Another source of biomass must be present and in the area of influence or thaumic backlash will be inflicted. (6%)
So, much like the hundreds of others who were dying across each moment of this conflict, he turned her from sorrowful loss to beneficial sacrifice without doing any of the killing himself.
Ghosts - [26,557,563]
Liminal Frame (V) - 18,200 THAUM/c
Spreading his Sanguinity wide across the enclave, his awareness spread like infections of lightning shaped to the flow of veins. Patterns of biology and matter became known to him in a heartbeat. The construction of the city was actively regarded–then scoffed at by the Woundmother for its crudeness and simplicity. The Fardrifter likewise whistled through crevices and passages, brushing all the places in between.
It was as if he had grafted the entire enclave into his nervous system–an implant for his synapses to fire through and accept.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
Soon, there was little that he didn’t know, and he found himself on the precipice of near-total omniscience, exposed minds and moving bodies loudly broadcasting their actions.
Considering the war map Draus was assembling at a staggering speed, he guessed the Regular felt much the same way.
Of the [538,331] inhabitants that once lived within these walls, another two thousand had passed across the span of several brutal engagements, and a not-insubstantial amount was languishing in the lowest levels of this enclave, fast-growing spores prying their flesh from their bones, filling their organs.
[Oh, what a delightful find!] Elegant-Moon cheered, giggling girlishly. The template’s mind spun as Avo unraveled a few hundred bodies, all recently deceased. Ramps of dead were left festering in chambers built into the walls on the lowest level. There, corpses and trash were to be excised from society, and placed in perpetually wet rooms before air-locked protection was lifted, allowing the darkness to seep in.
->Canon: Remembrance of Flesh (V) - Allows user to memorize traits from biological organisms at a tenth of the thaumic cost; the biomass they memorized can be spliced before they are grown.
->Virus Obtained: [Coral Lung]
As Avo absently allowed the No-Dragon’s instincts to take over, plucking at the virus’ pattern as if it were a zither, he finished rooting himself within the city and updated the infrastructural details of Draus map.
The lightness of freedom fell upon him, and ingrained paranoia flared like arthritis between his thoughts. After all that he had experienced, being able to operate this openly and freely felt wrong. The risk of using Heaven this way back in New Vultun presented extreme risks he couldn’t abide by, and the other Godclads that burned inside his consciousness were inclined to agree.
[Just how many places like this are there,] Kassamon said, fighting his own impotent urge to police the place. [There’s less security here than in the damn gutters. Not even a flier of any kind…]
Abrel found herself zeroing in on a different concern altogether. [Fallwalkers come to New Vultun for any number of reasons. For the “master” of this city? My guess is he was probably looking for a solution to the plague eating through the bottom rungs. Same reason why poor Inurini here got swept up into rebelling.] A disdain scoff followed. [This is what happens when you let the weak and unworthy rule over the masses. Incompetence and power misapplied breeds collapse.]
A chuckle sang out from Calvino in response. {This is just another typical dictatorship, built to the guardrails of a personality cult. Atrocities and sophont rights violations aside, it’s boring. Very, very boring. Practically part of the dystopia-default series, if there was such a societal configuration. For once, I hoped to see something more interesting than another playground for tyrants. But hope continues to be a continuous misstep when it comes to the people on this planet.}
[Cheer up, Calvino,] Abrel said, lazy sardonicism trailing her words. [You can still deal with us. We’re plenty civilized.]
{I thank you for adding depression to my boredom. However, I would like to request that you give me no more offerings of this type from now on.}
Abrel laughed.
Avo turned his attention back to the enclave’s pulse–now also his–and listened.
He knew where everything was now. But he was still missing portions to his understanding.
Perspectives needed balancing. Knowledge needed accounting.
He had to compose the truest representation of what was unfolding across the city for Dice, after all. This was her home. And she was the returning Godclad.
By right of inheritance and power, this was technically all hers to govern, if they were to continue devoting themselves to a parochial system.
And so, with a casual thought, he tore the Pearlguard–the one still vomiting on his comrade’s boots–from coral-veined battlements he manned. The man sailed through the air as if flung by a javelin, and bloodied mists spread into wide wings as Avo slowed his acceleration before his body came apart.
From the walls, a single voice roared with worry.
How soft these baseliners were. How frail. Avo thought of the scavengers he had killed when he first woke in the barge and noted the poor specimen he had in his grasp.
Inurini howled out in incoherent rage, mind breaking from the sheer fury exploding from her before the Conflagration restored her to wholeness. [Kill him! Peel the light from his flesh. Strip him clean of the master’s favor.]
Avo grunted a low laugh. He had protected her from the pain of wider knowledge, for prolonged catatonia was likely her fate after discovering her master’s final end. But this there was a novelty in her unbridled hate expressed in such a way–an expression of separation not between clades, but castes.
It seemed hate would burn so long as there was a dilenation. Truly, tribalistic hatred ran deeper than blood.
The Pearlguard made whimpering noises unbecoming of a grown man. Sinking his Haemokinesis deeper into the man’s flesh, Avo memorized the makings of his body and took a moment to watch the man thrash.
[Better not be about to give him a speech,] Draus said, glowering. [We didn’t come here to shit-talk the enclavers. Get what needs doin’ done.]
Propelled by the Regular’s words, drew the man close so they were staring face to face. The Pearlguard was shivering, tears forming in his eyes, bile leaking down his chin. Thoughts and deeper memories spilled out of him as if he were a burst valve, lacking any cognitive protections, undone by the horrors he faced.
Fractures ran deep in his psyche. His consciousness screamed with despair, disbelief, and regret.
“S-sorry,” he whimpered, “So… so sorry.”
Avo nodded, and the breeder’s neck felt stiff. He infused her bones and sinews with empowerment more to slake his own annoyance than to find relief in comfort. +We most often are. But too late. Almost always too late. And only when consequence follows. The weight of consequence. That makes what we do feel “real.” Don’t you agree?+
Bright blue eyes widened with terror as the ghosts conveyed Avo’s words in telepathic missives. Though their tongue was known to him, he preferred this. The dread. The control. Subtly was the burden of the underdog, and he had no desire to expend such effort here.
The way the little creature was looking at Avo told him spoke of confusion and incomprehensible terror.
Avo sighed, and the body he wore sagged. “Let me show you.”
Then, he swallowed the Pealguard’s mind in a rush of flame.
Everything about Aladon, Bred of Mirrui-Kleens, becomes known to him. Of his childhood in the temples at the topmost rung. Of his talent with the blade. Of his ascent to the guard and acceptance by the Fallwalker.
Of deeds he done and transgressions he committed.
Cast into the living inferno that was Avo’s consciousness, the Pealguard was placed in a special mind space. But not alone. In his arms, he held a living infant–the one he burned. Across from him, Inurini stood, clad in his ridged and opalescent armor, manning a gas thrower.
For a beat, both just stared at one another, minds not computing the situation Avo had loaded them into.
{I question the ethics of your literal thought experiments, Avo,} Calvino said, slightly disapproving.
The ghoul shrugged. He thought it was appropriate. The man was a practitioner of mass murder, so why not let him reap the spoils of victimhood? And the breeder was a zealot, sacrificing her child without need. To place them in such reserved roles seemed poignant.
[And really fucked up,] Abrel muttered.
[Yes,] Kare said, horrified. [You–you can’t have a mother burn her child. It’s wrong.]
+Not real,+ Avo said.
{It’s practically as traumatic though,} Calvino said, sighing. {Avo. I don’t harass you much, but currently, this method of “justice” would turn the stomach of even poor old Hammurabi.}
Avo frowned as he collapsed the mindscape before it could continue, moving both templates into their isolated silos.
Through it all, Dice’s template watched inside Avo while her actual self remained with Draus. The girl didn’t know how to feel, seeing as she was more of a favored pet under the Fallwalker than an actual subject.
On that note, curiosity sprang through Avo as he found himself wondering why he couldn’t feel another like Dice. His answer came via Aladon’s memories, and Avo began to learn who Dice truly was in a cataclysmic instant.
Reaching across the city, he unraveled specific individuals high and low, killing commanders in battle, and administrators in their homes. He ignored the confused call of Calvino as he rebuilt a forbidden past from a hundred and twelve people and all the memories they carried.
Ghosts - [26,557,675]
Liminal Frame (V) - 18,312 THAUM/c
Itheri, bred of Uthe-Nuei, was the Fallwalker’s former concubine–a highborn of the light, for the light in more ways than one. But there came a day when she made a mistake. One born of genuine romance and folly unfettered. A tale as old as time played on in the form of borrowed memories and rumors.
A concubine met her master’s primary enforcer. A concubine developed forbidden wants. The guard, unfortunately, reciprocated.
So the mistakes continued.
So mistake led to mistake and a child was born, but not of the master’s blood.
And though such truth was hidden from him for years and Yakozitrin, Fallwalker, and master of the city, doted on what he thought was his daughter for the first four years of her life, there came a day where the concubine and the guard made a final mistake, and sorrow followed.
Through their joining, they inflicted on the Fallwalker the only blow they could have ever truly struck against his person–a blow against his ego.
The guard was put to death. Slowly. Aladon was in attendance. He was close enough to see things. He didn’t know his disgraced brother, and that made him glad, for in his memories did the screams of the concubine also echo, and when the Fallwalker was done with her love, he moved to the child, and with mother made to watch, he had the child thought to be his daughter cast into a pit alongside a ravenous hound.
But life had its own insult in store for the erstwhile master of this enclave, and though the girl was mauled, though her arm was broken, it was the child that emerged with the dog’s throat between her teeth instead of the other way around.
At that moment, Aladon gazed from afar into the light and thought he saw his master shaking.
Thereafter, the mother was put to a slow death, and the girl once thought his daughter was subjugated–named a hound in replacement for the dog she skilled, and the role she would now inhabit.
Twelve more times she was made to fight the beasts of bearing her namesake. Twelve more times she emerged with teeth bloody, flesh-torn, but alive still.
Perhaps as a lasting insult, perhaps out of some twisted parental urge, the Fallwalker brought the girl out from her kennels in the shadow pits where she most often fought, and lifted her from beast to enforcer–a living weapon held only by his fist, connected by a chain.
And such were how things were, until he, fool thinking himself a god, walked into a city built from deicide and never returned, leaving daughter turned dog turned weapon alone and rechristened by the lowest denizens of the megacity.
Deep within Avo’s consciousness, Dice stirred.