With a jerking, twisting, shuddering wrench, the Ancient memory ejected me, and I was left in the endless void once more.

~~~

Glare, Light of Remembrance

Attunement: Photo Emission Freedom061(Mi) 16. This Shard allows the Host to store, shape, and manifest light. Stored light may be emitted at the Host’s discretion in any manner, dependent only upon Host shaping proficiency. External light sources may be directly harvested and stored, or gathered Entropy may be converted into light.

Light is yours to command.

Grain: Spectrum Sight -> Pneumatic Perception. The Host’s eyes and mind are granted photonic perception, allowing for sight even in complete darkness as well as the observation of an expanded visible spectrum. The Host’s light, augmented by Shardsong, is able to pierce through pneuma, and perceive that which lies beneath.

The Light reveals.

Marble: Hard Light Armor. The Host may expend a portion of their reserves to clad themselves in a photo-matter exoskeleton tougher than steel and many times more shock-absorbent. This armor may be arranged at the Host’s discretion, and regenerated at the cost of stored light.

The Light protects.

Core: Stellar Heart. Once every twenty-four hours, the Host may enter a particular rejuvenating state. The state, itself, engulfs the Host in a living star, where they may remain indefinitely. The state’s duration is not affected by or dependent upon their own Entropy reserves, and may only be collapsed willingly by the Host or upon receiving sufficient damage.

As well as fully restoring Entropy reserves, this state is capable of curing any manner of non-memetic injuries, including mortal wounds, and many memetic ones, besides. Upon taking mortal damage, except in the case of instantaneous Core destruction, the Host will automatically be placed within this state.

The Light restores.

~~~

The Blessing’s expanded entry in Caleb’s Grimoire, which I could now read both freely and easily, brought me neither answers, nor satiation.

It was, except in name and duplicitous nature, no different than any other Minor Shard I’d thus far encountered, and its duplicity was, furthermore, of the all-too-obvious sort. Unlike Alyss’s necromantic church, nowhere within Photo Emission’s opaque depths did I detect a hint of foul play.

And sure enough, there at very bottom, writ small and bleeding jarringly from one page into the next, was that message from Akashic.

But it was just the same, too.

It revealed nothing new.

Our twin songs’ ethereal joining had apparently resulted in the unintentional upgrade of Caleb’s first Gift, which was interesting. Presumably it had become more powerful, though what precisely it meant by ‘pierce through pneuma’ remained quite unclear.

Nevertheless, ostensibly, both my objectives had been completed. I’d shared my Grimoire’s upgrades with my ally. I’d expanded our knowledge of Akashic; even the same message displayed twice was still valuable information. The unexpected upgrade of Caleb’s Gift made this spiritual expedition, altogether, into a resounding success.

Yet all that filled me presently was concern.

//What…what was that?// I radiated outwards, beaming my confused, disoriented emotions directly to the Shard before me, hoping there might be something, anything else it could offer me in reply.

It flailed wildly, blinking in that now-familiarly disconcerting, discordant pattern.

//I don’t understand//, I pushed further, harder, empathically. Pressuring it for answers.

//I need to know more//, I explained. //Who was that woman? When did this happen? What is your Host meant to do?//

But my pleas met only with an empty, automated response.

//ERROR.REPORT

ERROR.REPORT

QUERY NOT ACCEPTED

SYS.OUT.PRINT {

Remember,

You must remember,

You must remember who you are

}

FOR FULL STAT.REP QUERY: STATUS

WELCOME ADMINISTRATOR//

Worthless.

“What point is there in being Administrator,” I growled, rhetorically, “if you won’t fucking talk to me?!”

Unfortunately, it wasn’t hiding anything, this time.

There was still frustration in its message, true, but directed at me, now. Not Caleb. Not any longer. It wasn’t fighting against itself, not at all. Neither outer machinery nor underlying Shard had understanding of my query, or apparent knowledge of the memory’s actual contents, save for the fact that it had to be delivered.

Now that it had, the Shard was growing annoyed with me.

I’d overstayed my welcome. I already had everything I needed to know. Its task was done. Finished. Delivered. Administrator I might be, but I was still an interloper, and it wanted me gone.

I could have fought it, I supposed. Could’ve tried to wrench the answers from it forcibly, if even they existed. But it was risky, too risky. I was still a novice at this, and Photo Emission was clearly heavily modified. I liked my chances against it in combat, but unpacking its inner mechanisms without causing damage?

That, I could hardly guarantee.

I cursed once more, never mind the fact the damned thing couldn’t understand me, and turned to leave.

But just before I left, an…idea occurred to me.

This Blessing didn’t know about the memory, fine. But…what about its own creator? What about the one who’d modified it, in the first place?

It was the only other thing that I could think of. The only other possible lead. I furrowed my brow and licked my lips cautiously, preparing for a hasty retreat, should my message be met with rage.

//Query// I directed, slowly, watching the Shard’s insides like a hawk. //FREEDOM-061//

The Shard pulsed once.

But…only once.

Almost like it was surprised.

It went still, then, save for a strange, sluggish silver churning in its center, that very same place from which the memory had once emerged. Its silence was near-total, giving me no impression at all of its emotions in the song.

The Shard’s muteness hung in the airless vacuum, so long it began to make me nervous.

Finally, it jittered, squeaked, shuddered, and with what I could only interpret as the metaphysical comparative of a shrug, reluctantly spat out some sort of silver blob from that churning center.

//UNIT DESIGNATION: PHOTO_EMISSION_FREEDOM061

QUERY: .UNIT_DESIGNATOR?

QUERY: .ADMIN_PRIV? TRUE

ACCESS GRANTED

SYS.OUT.PRINT{

Fauna Evaluation Engine

Subunit 9

Designation: Freedom.

}

WELCOME ADMINISTRATOR//

Right.

More nonsense.

Wonderful.

“Wonderful,” I commented, aloud this time, letting out a short and exasperated bark of laughter as I did so. “Well, it’s been a pleasure working with you, bastard.”

The Shard, of course, being just a Shard, was incapable of collating my mundane words, and so simply maintained its prior feeling that I should really be on my way, by now, thank you.

I sighed, took one last look at the breathtaking, frustrating, secret-keeping star and departed the foreign soul.

Time to share the news with my companions.

~~~

Caleb, Alyss, and I sat hunched over, grouped together, in the Inquisitor’s cramped, humble, steadily-rocking lodgings. The recently-upbeat sorceress, despite her novel patience, did little to raise the considerably black humor permeating this place.

Unsurprisingly, she’d no further answers than we did.

Her arrival had at least been helpful in the sense that it allowed us unexpected insight into Caleb’s newly-granted Gift. Apparently, Pneumatic Perception served as a suitable alternative to my own advanced observation. Aside from names and titles, and quite unlike Alyss, the Immolator could now observe the Shards and Gifts of those he directed his gaze towards.

Of course, I’d no idea at all why he, in particular, would receive such an ability. Alyss certainly didn’t, and I was fairly certain I hadn’t done anything particularly different this time. We didn’t find out until she arrived because, needless to say, this ability of his didn’t seem to work at all on me.

“Nothing jumps out at you?” I asked, for perhaps the tenth time that evening, knowing full well that my inquisition would result in no more than it ever had. “Nothing at all?”

Frowning deeply, just as he had been for the past half-hour, my blond companion once more shook his head.

The man and woman from the memory, at least as I’d described them, brought about zero recognition in my comrades. Caleb had no true recollection of parents or siblings, and my words, unfortunately, had failed to ring any sort of remnant bell.

He didn’t recognize the people, he didn’t recognize the powers, and he didn’t recognize the scenery.

The rest of the message proved even more incomprehensible.

He’d absolutely no idea why, or even how, someone or something might have been able to manipulate his Blessing, especially from so far in the past, and he was equally dumbfounded as to who might have done so.

“I just don’t understand,” Alyss muttered, appropriately. To her credit, though, she seemed to be stomaching all this quite well, of late. Getting used to it, in a way. More so than Caleb, certainly. Even more so than me.

Perhaps it was her upbringing. Her fears had always been quite immediate, quite present, from what I understood. These ancient intrigues, by comparison, likely failed to rouse the same degree of fright.

“How could anyone send a message through time like that?” She wondered.

“A precognitive,” Caleb muttered back, massaging his head, still scowling from the migraine the whole endeavor had left behind in him. Apparently, my touch wasn’t quite so lithe or dextrous as I’d imagined.

“One possessed of…,” he let out a tremulous breath, “considerable power. There’s no other way.”

“Considerable power,” Alyss chuckled, almost snorting. “I’ll say. These are Ancients we’re talking about, Inquisitor. Gods, I mean…seven hundred years? Who the Hell has that kind of vision?”

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“The Priest, himself,” I suggested, off-handedly.

Alyss directed an unconvinced eyebrow my way.

“Right, the Priest, himself,” she replied, meaningfully. “That lady didn’t exactly sound like a him, the way you described her. Or…green. Or, floating.”

“Well, perhaps the Priest can take many forms,” I countered, lamely. “Inquisitor?”

“He is generally described as green and floating,” Caleb stated matter-of-factly, with a wry quirk of his lips that seemed, rather than truly humorous, merely too weary for further gloom.

“I mean, even if it was, Taiven,” Alyss pressed me, “it still doesn’t make sense–why would Eidolon care about Caleb?”

She glanced at him, pausing.

“I mean–no offense,” she added, swiftly. “It just seems unlikely, is all.”

Caleb shrugged, shook his head, slapped his cheeks, and collapsed flat upon the lumpy bed with a prodigious wheeze.

“Perhaps the Gods simply hate me,” he declared.

“I don’t understand what she meant by it, either,” Alyss went on, chewing her bottom lip, paying our companion little heed. She spoke quickly, thinking aloud. “Her message makes no sense. How could Metatron have slain your father? The Pope’s old, but not that old. No one’s that old.”

“Maybe she didn’t mean Caleb’s literal father,” I suggested, errantly, raising an upturned palm. “You know? Maybe she meant it colloquially. A father figure. Like, Father Ian?” I asked, directing a quizzical gaze at the splayed-flat son in question.

The prostrate Immolator, his arm draped miserably across his chiseled cheekbones, simply shook his head again.

“Father Ian’s not dead,” he murmured from beneath the appendage. “And Lord Metatron has no reason to seek him harm.”

He then rose suddenly, his brow devolving into a great canyon of intense crinkles, his eyes roving ephemerally about the room.

“Even if he had,” the Inquisitor went on, muttering to himself, “this does not explain her phrasing.” He tsked, sucking air inwards across his gritted teeth.

“By your account,” he said, gesturing my way. “This woman with the hat. This Fortuna. She says, ‘the one.’ She says, ‘the one.’ The one who killed my father. As if…”

He grimaced, pressing twin palms yet more forcibly against his poor, abused temples.

“As if, I should already know that someone killed my father. As if, I should already know who my father is.”

“But you don’t,” I checked, just to make sure.

“But I don’t,” Caleb confirmed, scowling at the floor.

“So she’s wrong,” Alyss hummed, contemplatively. “I mean, obviously she’s wrong. But she’s wrong about that, too…”

She stopped, and raised both eyebrows.

“I mean, what if it’s just…all wrong?” She asked.

Caleb and I stared at her, blankly.

“Like, completely?” She explained. “About everything? She was wrong about the Maw. We don’t know who she is, at all. Why should we take her words as gospel? We’ve no reason to. Should w–”

“She knew enough,” I argued back, cutting her off. “Too much. Too much to be a coincidence. Caleb said it, already–there’s something rotten in the faith.” I spread my arms wide. “Well, what could be more rotten than the Pope, himself?”

“It’s too vague to act on, though,” Alyss maintained, shaking her head definitively. “We don’t know enough. She says ‘you know what you have to do.’ But, we don’t. What if his father was evil, and the Pope was right to kill him? We don’t even know if she’s talking about the same Metatron, we–”

“Two Metatrons?” I interrupted, sarcastically. “Come on, what are the odds of that?”

Alyss snapped her mouth shut, as did I, but neither of us because we’d convinced the other. No. The truth was, we just didn’t know. For all my sarcasm, maybe there really were two Metatrons.

“You know, maybe you’re right,” Alyss admitted, shrugging. “About her being the Priest, I mean.”

I frowned.

“How so?” I asked.

“The Priest can manipulate Blessings,” she pointed out, at Caleb. “And that Blessing was absolutely manipulated.”

“That’s true,” I confirmed, nodding.

Caleb laughed, all of a sudden, emerging from silence to startle the both of us. But his mirth, though not quite so despairing as what I’d witnessed in the Maw, still danced darkly behind glowing, white-gold irises.

“The Priest can manipulate Blessings, aye,” he drawled. “And once, that was all.”

“But now, so can you,” he accused, directing an incriminating digit my way, glittering eyes dancing towards me. “So can Akashic. And who-whomever they worked with. This company of theirs, was surely staffed by more than just one Blessed, no? Did they survive? Do they walk among us? We know not. It seems,”

He chuckled, lowly, in that pained manner.

“It seems with each day that passes us by,” he muttered, sourly, “more emerge from the shadows, who may do what I was once told to be only divine.”

His eyes narrowed.

“There is something that concerns me more, however,” he added, glancing my way. “You claim this memory to be of my childhood, do you not?”

I nodded, slowly.

“And, though I cannot name it myself, I am inclined to believe you,” he went on, “yet, this begs a certain…question.”

Caleb’s palms curled in on themselves.

“I did not trigger until my time at… at St. Edward’s…”

He paused, and there was an uncomfortable stillness in the air, but it lasted only a moment.

“This memory you describe,” he explained, “by all conceivable logic, my Blessing should not have even existed, back then. How could anyone have possibly manipulated it?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted, honestly. It was a good question.

“And yet, Lord Hero,” Caleb went on, a touch more nervously now, “when it comes to Blessings, you are much the expert. Thus, I would know. Just how worried do I need to be?”

I blinked at him.

“What, about your Blessing?” I asked.

He nodded, seriously. Mere months ago, he’d never have sought out such counsel from me. Mere months ago, he’d scarcely believed my claims, at all. But there was no room for doubt, not anymore. Now that his Grimoire confirmed, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the validity of my words, the seasoned soldier had adapted.

“Hmm,” I hummed, tapping at my chin. “I mean, the issues are mostly cosmetic, I guess. Clearly, practically it still works fine. Integrity, Entropic draw, internal structure–aside from the whole extra part stapled on top–all seem normal, for a Minor Shard…”

I paused, then glanced at him.

“Keep in mind, my sample size is about twelve.”

He nodded, again.

“I don’t think there’s anything to worry about,” I said, frankly. “You’ve been using it for years. Over a decade. If there was anything critically wrong, I can’t imagine you wouldn't have noticed it by now.”

Caleb allowed the lids to close over his anxious, roving eyes, a measure of tension in his drawn-up back releasing.

“Then I thank the Priest for small mercies,” he muttered.

“I mean, if you’re really worried about it,” I considered, “I could always go back in…you know, take a closer look. Not sure how much I’ll be able to mess with it, though. I’m still a novice at this, and there’s a real possibility I might break things, addit–”

“NO!” Caleb yelped quickly, making Alyss and I jump.

“No, sorry, er–but no,” the Inquisitor winced. “That…that won’t be necessary.”

He hesitated, then, compressing his lips into a fine, thin line that twisted anxiously about. That twinkling, twirling, sardonic blackness I’d seen before reflected in his eyes, tasted on whispers of his firmly-collared song returned as the Immolator struggled with himself before finally deciding upon something I knew not.

He shut his eyes tight again, though in a manner not at all relaxed, this time, wound his twin palms together in his lap, and swallowed.

And when he spoke, this time, he did it slowly. Precisely.

“What truly worries me,” Caleb said, “are her closing words.”

His eyes flickered back open, flitting between the two of us, dancing darkly.

They looked haunted.

“No sacrifice too great,” he intoned.

There was pause, and Caleb drew himself up high, regarding us with a concerning, fatalistic distance.

“What do the both of you know of the Inquisition?” He asked. “Of…our work?”

Alyss and I shared a nervous, errant look.

“Uh, not much,” I declared, truthfully. “No more than you’ve told us.”

“Bits and pieces,” Alyss yielded, more slowly than I. Hesitantly. Very hesitantly. The gaze she directed at our ally was cautious. Guarded. Calculating.

“You assist our forces on the Frontlines,” she stated, evenly. “Kill the Spawn. Heal the sick. Raise morale. An elite combat unit, a gesture of goodwill from over the seas.”

With that her voice faded away, into nothingness, yet the Inquisitor still treated her with that grim, intense stare. Unblinking. Unspeaking.

I glanced between the two of them, growing increasingly uncomfortable.

“I’ve also heard…rumors…” Alyss, very slowly, admitted, eyeing the Immolator up and down.

His eyes narrowed, but his song remained just as placid as ever.

“Share them,” he directed.

“…” Alyss paused, grimacing, still eyeing him with trepidation.

“Are you…sure?” She asked.

“I am,” he responded.

“Share them, Lady Nycta,” he entreated, again.

His eyes narrowed further.

“Mince nothing.”

Alyss’s grimace soured further on her lips, and her gaze ever-so-briefly flickered my way, but then she relented.

“Alright,” she began, warily. “You fight the Spawn. You work on the Frontlines. Sometimes, you help man them. Sometimes, you forge past them.” She bit her tongue.

“But…that’s not all.”

Caleb’s visage might as well have been made of iron. It hadn’t shifted, hadn’t squirmed, hadn’t budged a muscle for minutes, now. It was uncanny.

“That’s not all,” Alyss repeated, slowly. “Sometimes, Spawn get past the lines.”

His disposition was that of a doomed soul, bound for the gallows.

“Sometimes, Spawn get past the lines,” Alyss whispered. Her voice, for all its recent progress, had begun to quiver now, a hint of her prior disposition seeping through. “Sometimes, they wander into the surrounding villages. And…and then, when, when…the Inquisition, it’s…it’s their job to…to…”

Alyss snapped her jaw shut tight, biting down hard on her bottom lip, unwilling or perhaps unable to complete her phrase.

I’d leaned forwards without noticing it, my own jaw dropped open slightly, my attention well and truly rapt.

For a moment, there was silence.

“We called them Breeders.”

Caleb’s deadened voice broke it.

“There are many different phyla of Spawn,” he dictated, his eyes flickering dispassionately as he spoke. “And every year that passes brings more to bear. Sothoth’s progeny are multitude. Ever-evolving. Infinite…

“There are Runners. Spitters. Swarmers. Warpers. Flayers. Shredders. Thunderers. Alphas…”

Caleb’s tone was lecturing. Academic. Like Alyss had been, he was teaching us. I got the distinct feeling this was not the first time he’d given this speech.

“And,” he finished, “there are Breeders.”

In the space between seconds the veil was broken, and I watched my friend’s kind, considerate face contort into a ruthless, bestial rage.

“There are no good Spawn. No such thing exists. But even for Spawn, Breeders are worst,” he snarled, his eyes leaking an awful, scourging, barely-constrained light. “Awful, pestilent, filth-ridden things, they–”

Caleb stopped his venomous rant, clenching his palms so tight together that I heard the knuckles snap, and crack, and pop, and exerted a tremendous effort to rein himself in.

“Breeders are designated a class-1 pandemic biohazard,” he ground out through squeaking teeth. “Physically, they’re not a threat. Even a Grain stage Blessed could overpower them. But death…death is precisely when Breeders are the most deadly.

“Within their flesh, the very tissue that composes them, are embedded countless microscopic viral organisms. When Breeders are killed, they explode, and when they explode, these hundreds of millions of microorganisms are aerosolized.”

A glimmer of terrible, horrible pain flickered across the Inquisitor’s face.

“And when Breeders enter a village, they self-detonate.”

I felt a chill run down my spine.

My eyes flickered towards Alyss for a moment, and from across the cramped, claustrophobic chambers I saw her own her were wide and white.

“Their viruses are persistent,” Caleb went on, with a ruthless apathy. “If even one of their number happens upon exposed skin, it will infect. And any infected below the Core stage, Blessed or mundies, will succumb to the pathogenic process. There is no cure. The infected will mutate into another Breeder.”

He paused, and locked dark and deadened eyes with us.

“Unless, of course, you kill them first. Before the virus has time to proliferate.”

His voice was very soft, now.

“Of course, you can’t know who’s infected. Not for sure. The progression is nonuniform. The virus doesn’t always present with symptoms, and can persist at undetectable levels before becoming active. Might be an hour, might be a day, might be a month. Might be a year. Who knows? Wait to find out, and the infection spreads. No matter what you do, the infection spreads.”

One of his clenched, whitened hands spasmed errantly. The edge of his tight-compressed lips twitched.

“So we kill the whole village, just to be sure.”

Caleb spoke as if reciting a mantra.

“Kill them in their homes, kill them in their beds. Kill them in their streets, until none of them are left. Kill the old, kill the adolescent, kill the…”

His voice wavered, for a moment.

“Kill the…the young. No matter…no matter how young.”

His eyes were no longer locked upon our own. He was staring at the floor.

“Any risk is too much risk. Every infected slain…is countless more saved. So kill them all. Leave no trace. There is no sacrifice too great to prevent the spread of Spawn.”

He glanced up at us, then, only for a fraction of a second, but I saw reflected in his eyes such agony of sort I’d never known, a type I’d not yet experienced, a manner of pain…

A whole new manner of pain.

~~~

Pain 1->3

~~~

It was a Pain that afflicted the soul, but not the same as mine. It was guilt. And helplessness. And regret. And sacrifice.

But it was not an ounce, not an iota of justification.

“I was exceptionally well-suited to these purges,” he stated, closing his eyes, and emitting a great sigh, as if some weight upon shoulders, though far from gone, had…lessened. Somewhat. His voice became more mild, less tortured.

“Though devilishly effective at worming their way through flesh, and fabric, and armor, the viruses are not particularly resistant to heat,” Caleb muttered. “They vaporized against my skin.

“And so I was called upon again. And again.”

The final remnants of anguish drifted away, and something that almost seemed peaceful graced the poor Immolator’s visage. My friend turned his head to the portside window, watching the crashing midnight waves.

“This was my work,” he said. “By overwhelming majority. Yet, you will never hear songs of it. Not ever. It is unfit for revelry. Only for sleepless nights. Perhaps…perhaps it is good, then, that I no longer require slumber.”

He nodded once to himself, and said no more, and though Alyss and I shared a brief, muted glance, neither of us said a word. We could have consoled him, I supposed. Comforted him. We’d done so before.

But, it didn’t really feel like Caleb wanted that, this time. Not really. It felt like he just wanted someone to listen.

So we listened.

With him, we gazed through the little port. We watched the twinkling, moonlit waves. They were getting smaller, now. Barely visible, in the night. We’d soon make land.

“No sacrifice too great,” Caleb muttered.

His words sat heavy in the dark, rocked by the muted oscillations of the grand galleon which surrounded us on all sides.

“The worst days of my life are marked by these words,” he commented, with a unnerving calm. “Why did this Ancient woman choose them, I wonder?” He asked.

“What will I be forced to sacrifice this time?”