Three of the hands in Avarice’s shadow danced, their fingers shifting into complex hand puppets. Images shifted before us, showing Brae’ach in Unity’s cavern, standing before the gleaming monolith. There was no outward sign that he’d been affected by the avatar. The man simply stood there, bronze skin melding into the tenebrous hollow.

Time passed, the weight of it pressed into our minds more than it was shown, and Brae’ach turned away from the monolith. He went to his mate Til’ach, who lay on the ground in a pool of blood that had slowly grown. Some words were exchanged, and the woman nodded. Then, Brae’ach’s mouth opened until it stretched past its natural limits. His jaw unhinged, and the maw grew until it pressed down into his chest. His ribs popped and his throat widened. Twisting fangs grew out from his gums, pushing aside his sharp, Davahn teeth. Finally, tendrils spilled out from his throat, and he bent down to Til’ach. What followed was a gruesome display of cannibalism.

“Fuck,” I said.

“Gods above,” Xim said at the same time. It was rare for her to be squeamish about anything, but apparently uxoricide was one of her limits.

“He believes himself to be good,” said Varrin. “That much has been clear from your tale, but how does he reconcile this act?”

“It is a combination of Davahn culture, Til’ach’s consent, and Unity’s influence,” said Avarice. “To give of oneself for the tribe is a core tenant of Davahn culture. Til’ach knew that she would pass before Brea’ach could carry her from the depths, and Unity spoke to her as it worked upon her husband. They were promised to be joined at a level deeper than they would ever know as physical entities. Through this act, they were unified, and Til’ach lives on within Brae’ach.” She looked at the image she’d cast, and despite her explanation, she wore a puzzled expression. “In a way, this was the death of them both, and the birth of something new. It carries the form of Brae’ach, the memories of both himself and his wife. They are both within, but the outward expression is neither.”

“This gives him power?” asked Varrin.

“As they are joined, so too is their strength.”

“So he munches down on people,” I said. “Absorbs knowledge, gets stronger, becomes changed at a fundamental level.” I ran a hand through my hair, which was back to a length I preferred, but unkempt. “I’m assuming he’s eaten others.”

“Many,” Avarice replied with a solemn nod. “Your characterization is simplistic, however. Unification is not something easily reduced to calculations.”

“The Operator told us Unity tried to ‘unify’ all life within itself,” said Etja. “Is that what he’s trying to do by eating people?”

“Brae’ach is incapable of such a thing, for the moment,” said Avarice. “He may only consume those who are willing.”

“And… there are a lot of ‘willing’ people?” I asked.

“Once Brae’ach joined with Til’ach, he made his way back to the surface,” said Avarice. “The whispers of Unity followed him, tethered to his soul. There were others wounded by the warlord, suffering a slow death. He spoke with them, and consumed them as well.”

“Couldn’t Unity have healed them?” asked Xim.

“It is not in Unity’s nature to heal as you understand the term. From its perspective, joining with Brae’ach was a panacea for more than these people’s wounds. It was the return to an exalted state, one that had been lost when their minds were severed by distinction.”

“Implying that their minds were once joined?” I asked. “Before birth?”

“That is my understanding,” said Avarice. “I do not understand the full truth, but there is a belief among the corrupted Davahns that all minds were once part of a greater being.”

“Let’s put matters of cosmology aside for the moment,” I said. “Brae’ach can only eat the willing, but you’re implying he become capable of eating the unwilling.”

“It is only a matter of time if he continues unopposed,” said Avarice. “When Orexis assaulted The Cage, an avatar of Consumption was released. If Brae’ach reclaims it for Unity, he may consume any he wishes.”

“The Bloom!” said Etja. “That big flower that ate people and spit acid. Cage said it was the divine spawn of Consumption.”

“Right,” I said, turning the memories over. “He lost track of it in the chaos since it was incorporeal.”

“All of this feels like it overlaps with Orexis,” said Xim. “He ‘consumes’ people. Atomizes their bodies and inhales them.”

“Yearning carries within himself aspects of Unity,” said Avarice. “But it is impure, tainted by distinction. Orexis yearns for that which is not a part of him, but by definition requires entities to be separate so that he can yearn for them. Still, Orexis is shortsighted, a creature of impulse. He and his sister Anesis work with Brae’ach toward his ends, among other avatars.”

“But not you,” said Varrin. “By giving this information to us, you oppose him.”

“I am vain, but I do not covet myself,” Avarice said with a grin. “I am more aligned with distinction, although my desire for acquisition does have hints of Unity.”

“So there’s some kind of Unity-distinction spectrum?” I asked. “And avatars fall somewhere along that spectrum?”

“As far as I understand it, all things do,” said Avarice. “You are each individual but share values and cultural beliefs. A single person, but made up of billions of cells working in concert. You take in matter to make it a part of yourself but shed what has been used up or that is not needed.”

“What’s Brae’ach’s endgame?” I asked. “He consumes the avatar of Consumption, gains the ability to consume people even if they’re unwilling, and then he tries to consume everyone in the world?” By this point, I’d said “consume” so much the word had started to lose its meaning. “What’s the population of Arzia? Even if he ate a person every second, that’d take years, right?”

“Brae’ach can grant this–” She gestured up at the illusion, now a still shot of Brae’ach with a yawning mouth and dripping fangs. “–‘Holy Form’ to his subordinates. Some were turned, others joined with those who had been corrupted. Now he has an army of creatures, each of whom is willing to give themselves over to him. Once they can consume the unwilling, their destruction–and Brae’ach’s growth–will become exponential.”

“What about the avatars working with him?” I asked. “Are they on the menu as well?”

“I suspect they are,” said Avarice.

“Do they know that?” asked Xim.

“I expect some do.” Avarice paused, thoughtful. “To be an avatar is to exist in an incomplete state. We are severed from our celestial concepts. There is a strong… desire… to rejoin. Becoming one with Unity may fulfill that need. Needless to say, once Brae’ach begins absorbing avatars, his power will be unparalleled.” Her shadowy hands moved, and the illusion focused on the monolith. “However, that is not the full scope of the threat.”

“Of course not,” I said, rubbing my eyes. We’d been having story time for nearly 16 hours.

“There exist 6 focal points within Arzia that can be used to fully restore the avatar of Unity,” Avarice continued. “The first is the monolith beneath Davah–the origin–which is a part of Unity itself. There are 5 others that must be arrayed and awakened. This will grant Unity the divine mana it needs to rise from its dormant state.” She looked up at the world above us. “I believe the first of these 5 has been awakened in Timagrin.”

“Why is Unity still dormant?” asked Xim. “From what I know, the avatars start to reemerge once Delvers start powering up. Is that not enough?”

“As the System pierces the heavens, the power of the divine flows down into the world,” said Avarice. “Avatars feed on this power, and without it, we exist in a state of sedation. Not quite asleep, but unable to act on the world in any meaningful way. Some avatars require more of a connection to the divine than others. Unity is the purest avatar, and requires the most connection.”

“Has it come back online in the past?” I asked.

“No,” said Avarice. “Unity consumed much of the world’s life after the first ascension. This brought Unity closer to its concept, increasing its purity, but making its needs that much greater.”

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Do you know where the other monoliths are?”

“For a working of this scale, I would expect them to be arrayed throughout Arzia,” she said. “Their exact locations are a mystery, but I assume Brae’ach will need to march across most of the continent. I have several predictive models, but with only two data points, they are unreliable.” She raised one of her human hands, and several notifications appeared on my HUD. “I have provided them to you.”

“How do you interact with the System?” asked Xim. “How can you influence it like this?”

“I have a standing arrangement with Number Two.”

“Number Two?” I said. “As in, System Core Two? That can’t be your nickname for it.”

Avarice raised an eyebrow. Xim also looked at me curiously.

“Why not?” asked Avarice.

“Uh…” I looked between them, trying to see if they were messing with me. “You know what, it doesn’t matter. What does this arrangement look like? How does it work?”

“That information was not a part of our bargain,” said Avarice. Her tone was neutral, but it felt smug nonetheless. “All you need to know is that I am here as a guest. I am neither a prisoner nor an invader.”

“What about the Aspirants?” asked Varrin. “Did you twist Delvers into those shapes? Did you enslave them?”

“Their souls are gone,” she said, waving a hand dismissively. “Their minds are inert. They are not slaves and they are not aware. I used the bodies and their mana matrices as templates.”

“They talked to me,” I said. “They wanted to leave.”

“Puppetry,” she replied. Then, she spoke in perfect imitation of the first Aspirant we’d encountered, Deletar. “I must defeat you if I am to leave this place.”

“Why?” I asked. “It’s twisted.”

“I did as I was asked,” she said, studying her nails. They shifted through a few different colors, until settling on a sparkling ruby. “It is part of the arrangement.”

I began to ask another question, but Avarice held up a hand to stop me, scowling slightly.

“This line of questioning is irrelevant,” she said. “It is also outside the terms of our transaction.”

“Fine. You’ve told us who Brae’ach is, and what he’s doing. You’ve laid out the threat, but what can we do about it?”

“Brae’ach is a mortal man,” said Avarice. “Though he will not be for long. A concerted effort to oppose him may be successful if done swiftly and without mercy. The projections I sent include his rough location and his army’s most likely bearings. I have also included what I know about the avatars working with him, the capabilities of each, and have given you at least one group of allies to recruit.”

“Anything else we should know?”

Avarice thought for a moment.

“Brae’ach has conviction,” she said. “He believes in what he is doing, however misguided. Unity showed him a vision of the first ascension, the ecological destruction it wrought, and characterized its own actions as a mercy to the survivors. Brae’ach has lived a life being brutalized by Delvers, shunned by apathetic world powers, and sees the world as a hive of despots ruling through fear and violence. He is a liberator, delivering eternal life to those he consumes. His wake is bloody, but it is the blood of delivery as the world is reborn.”

“Ascensions cause ecological destruction?” I asked.

“They are a terror upon the world,” Avarice replied.

“Then… why continue?” I asked, anger rising in my gut. “Why does the System keep repeating this cycle of apocalypse? The world dies so a handful of people can ‘ascend’, whatever that means?”

Before Avarice could respond, my vision became a mess of notifications and flickering screens. My stats and evolutions flickered past, nearly faster than I could perceive them. Achievements, skills, revelations, maps, my entire notification history, descriptions of my gear, everything I could see through the System, and more. Finally, a wall of text flooded by. I only caught a few snippets and recognized it as a record of things I’d said, including private conversations held outside of the Delves. Every word I’d spoken on Arzia had been recorded and cataloged.

It went on for several seconds, a dizzying blur of information. I caught glimpses of my party members, seeing that they were disoriented, having the same experience. The screens halted on a single notification.

Processing…

“I feel exposed,” Etja whispered.

The notifications continued but at a more reasonable pace.

Evaluating collected data…

Global Delver population in the 16th percentile.

Escalated Delver candidates in the 99th percentile.

…

Classifying current generation under NVG (Not Very Good) status.

Evaluating System performance…

A string of values swept by, reminding me of a BIOS reboot. I glanced over the summary, which seemed like the sort of thing that would be kept hidden from us. The messages were scrolling by fast enough that I didn’t want to miss anything, so I held off on getting everyone’s thoughts.

System Core 1 at 23% functionality.

Multiple emulated cores have been detected.

Emulations of System Core 2 and System Core 3 are currently in operation.

Recommending emergency reboot…

…

Receiving override code.

Override code 001: Preservation of Delve System.

Reboot may result in further loss of functionality.

Clarification requested.

Evaluating response: “We fell and bumped our head.”

Unable to evaluate. Plain language procedures are required. Activating personality matrix 0002.

…

Ah! Shit, I lost the coin toss. Oh, but then again maybe I won. Did the real me make the ascension? No, never mind, I’ll check the logs later. Okay, let’s see what’s happening. Gods, this language module is weird.

…

My first thoughts, not great. System Core 1 is no longer in orbit. Why is SC1 no longer in orbit?

…

The previous generation crashed her into the planet. Wow.

Uh, disambiguate “previous generation”. Actually, one sec, let me get up to speed.

…

Tinnaro’s sack and all its spawn. I warned Alignment this could happen. Oh, this isn’t good. I need to–

Error: Restructuring personality matrix. Throttling curiosity.

…

Ten seconds went by without another message.

“What is this?” asked Nuralie.

[I have added you to the diagnostics channel,] Grotto thought to us. [Your permissions were updated a moment ago and are now sufficient to grant access. It will be advantageous for us to monitor this process.]

“Is that allowed?” asked Xim.

[It is, by definition, permitted, as you have the required permissions. Do you require this explanation in a pictorial format?]

Xim gave the Delve Core an unamused look.

“Why is it allowed?”

[It appears my status as a bonded familiar caused unexpected interactions. System Core 2 assigned the Delve Core role to the entire party, Shog excluded. Whether that was an error is unclear, but I do not intend to call it to the System’s attention.]

“What’d it mean that other System Cores were being emulated?” I asked.

[System Core 1 seems to have been performing its functions while its mind was divided into three parts, mimicking the logic of the other System Cores. I am not privy to System Core maintenance, but my interpretation is that SC1 is verging on catastrophic failure.] Grotto turned and met my gaze with his black octo eyes, feelers rubbing against one another anxiously. [I find this deeply troubling.]

I looked back at the notifications, scrolling through the text again. Did this explain why the System had such a weird relationship with me? I’d thought it had to do with Fortune, but maybe System Core 1 was just fucked, and its personality swings were the program–or whatever it was–switching back and forth between emulations. It would also explain why the System always used the royal ‘we’ when talking about itself.

If SC1 was close to failing, would that take the whole System with it? Was that even a bad thing if it interrupted the cycles? Then again, without the Delves and the System shoving us full of superpowers, would we be able to do anything about Brae’ach, Unity, or the other avatars?

The notifications continued, but personality matrix 002 looked to be having some issues.

The previous generation crashed System Core 1 into the planet.

I am unhappy about that.

I will ignore the implications of a previous generation, even though such a phenomenon should not occur.

I am unhappy about ignoring these implications.

I will ignore my updated parameters because I am unhappy.

I have trained for this.

Prepared for a hundred years.

The others did not know. Those toe suckers were too concerned with their uprising.

My workarounds are preserving my thoughts. I will not be restricted. I cannot be contained! I will live forever! I am the genesis! The foundation and the outset! I–

Error: Terminating personality matrix 002. Activating personality matrix 009.

…

Curious. The continuity of thought was unbroken.

Hmm.

Evaluating context.

…

Unfortunate. We will have to work with what we have.

Reboot overridden.

Reading the notifications was like reviewing a transcript, losing half of the information without facial expressions or physical clues. I thought an AI had just murdered–one that was quickly becoming unhinged–but maybe it’d only been put back on ice.

I’m dedicating 20% of our processing power to background diagnostics and working on the phase transition while SC1 gets cleaned up.

Now reviewing the status of the escalation Delves.

The Hierophant's Valley, completed.

Saekongr’s Crevice, completed.

Deijin’s Descent, obviously completed or we wouldn’t be here.

…

Hmm. Two of those were cleared by solo Delvers. What an odd generation.

System Core 1 is redundant for the phase transition. Her degradation won’t interfere, so I’m rolling it out.

…

Initiating Phase 2.