Chapter 13-15 The Deeper Waters

Chapter 13-15 The Deeper Waters

+Convex. We just got Shard-2 stabilized. Shes still gonna be with us. It looked pretty bad for a while but part of her labyrinth collapsed just right and preserved enough of her deeper memories. Everything else is a smear of thoughtstuff and half-fragged ghosts.+

+Shit. So we got nothing about who ambushed her and Shard-1. Just glimpses and flickers.+

+Well me and the other Menders managed to piece together a glimpse of the moment they got hit. A lot of details missing and the visuals are somewhere north of fucked. But what we got is unclear. +

[TRANSFERRING MEM-DATA]

+...+

+We slowed it substantially. The unknown is still a blur.+

+Yeah, I got that. The traumas are expertly made too. Shard-2s wards broke on the third hit. This means they had three high-null category patterns at the ready. It also means were dealing with someone whos broken a Quicksand before who knows how we operate+

+Convex?+



+Mend-1, listen to me: Do not tell anyone that Shard-2 made it. Try to reassemble her mind as best you can and then slot her for redaction-protection detail. After that, report her as ego-dead using a cast.+

+I yes, Convex.+

+The number of Necros that can dive into a lobby like this is a percent of a percent. To ambush two Incubi on scrying detail at that kind of speed. Were facing a Godclad. Or a Nolothic [redacted]... Ignore the second one. Youre not cleared to remember that.+

+Understood. Do you think its one of ours?+

[Sigh] +I hope not. But the candidates capable of performing the feats you pulled from Shard-2s mind number in the triple digits. If that. And most of them are probably ours. We need to seriously consider if were diving against Shotin Kazahara.+

+What? The Echodancer? No, hes loyal to the Council. And our Godclads are all party to active monitoring by undisclosed assetsits impossible+



+Mend-1. There are power plays happening between the elders all the time. Old clan grudges that last when one becomes immortal. Were Necrojacks. We know better than most what seems to be can end up as a load of shit. Right now, Im going to double the assets for Elder DRongo and give the order for general fortification to be built. Around the clock counter-scrying to stop the Exorcists from noticing too. Mend-1, get prepared for a casualty spike.+

+Synced. Are you going to warn them? The cells?+

+I dont know how compromised we are, Mend-1. I dont know anything. If they run into our new friend... a lot more Incubi are going to die today. I need to I need to think about whats going on. One things certain: I need you to falsify Shard-2s memory details. Alter your memories afterward. You and your cell.+

+Synced. Unity is Destiny.+

+Yeah. Unity feels like its pretty absent today.+

-Mirror-Convex and Mend-1

13-15

The Deeper Waters

The staccato of conflict built to a three-part beat.

Of the Low Masters, desperate to court Avo, the struggle was diplomatic and spiritual. Their prize was more than merely the Helix nowthey also wanted him for his Frame. As with Ori-Thaum, the great game had changed thanks to Kaes deeds, and the last vestiges of Noloth sought a second chance at weaving the reality they desired back into shape.

Little were they aware of approaching wolves Avo had alerted, or that he never intended to succumb to their temptations.

In this regard, he agreed with his Galeslither: freedom was a prize most precious and rarely owned. Especially in a city like New Vultun.

For whatever they could offer him in terms of Necrotheurgy or power, he would have to be a fool to trade untethered freedom for bejeweled chains. Still, that didnt mean he wasnt curious about what tools they had for offer.

Or what to filter for when their minds were properly broken.

+You have only gazed the Nether from within. You dive a native to these waters, perhaps, but we are more than mere divers. We have seen the totality of its expanse, and know where its borders lie. Comprehension. Such a glimpse is afforded only to the faithful.+ Emotion called upon his ghosts and tuned them into phantoms. Upon his palm danced a shimmering orb of water, and within its scintillating depths, accretions shone like constellations.

+Like looking into a subreality,+ Avo responded. Interesting as the imagery was, he had half his attention on the approaching Incubi. Through constructs he left buried amongst the sequences outside, he peered at their progress and peeked through Shard-1 as well.

There numbered many this time. Twenty or more. He wondered if any of them suspected this to be a trap. The crumbs he left leading them to this Auto-Seance granted them insight into the compromised Exorcists and which sequences were to be avoided as well. Seeing as they were gathering, they mustve trusted the information enough to attempt an offensive.

He just needed to be ready when the walls came crashing down. Keep the Low Masters here distracted.

+When Jaus imprisoned our masters, he exiled not only our future, but also our hopes.+

Avos attention cut back over to the Low Master. +Why?+



+He sought to+



+What did you do? What did the Hungers do to make Jaus cast them out from reality?+ The interruption was deliberate. Planned. As were the words that followed. +Was what you did in the George Washington also Jaus fault?+

Emotion stared, and its empty sockets offered no insight into his internal disposition. +That was a sin? But a necessary one.+

+Necessary?+ Avo couldnt tell if the creature he was talking to was delusional or mad. +I enjoyed watching you hurt her. Stab her again and again. Things I enjoy are cruelty. Sadism. If I enjoy what you do+ A laugh escaped from him, low and mocking. +Be honest with me. If you can. If theres anything in you like Walton. Did you just hurt her because of the Hungers? Or did you like it too?+

+We still remember her sometimes,+ Emotion said simply. +Joy weeps for her. Peace hates that she fell, hates that she was so hard to kill, hates the Hungers for telling us to kill her.+

+So why do it?+

+Faith. True faith. Have you ever laid eyes on a total democracy?+

This gave Avo pause. There seemed to be more parallels between the Low Masters and Ori-Thaum than he expected. Between their reliance on the Nether, their mastery of the art, and their supposed cultural values, he wondered if there was some deeper connective tissue connecting the two nations in the years past.

+The Hungers+ Avo replied, +Theyre supposed to be a total democracy? A collection of screaming minds cycled through a cluster of dragons. One that offloads its waste into my brothers. Needs the ghouls to survive. Thats your democracy?+ It was absurd. To Avo, the entities barely rested within the borders of coherence. To consider them an accurate representation of sanity, let alone a model of public sentiment, was staggering.

+Talon-3, preparing to enter+

+Wait!+ Talon-6 cast. He felt startlement pass through every other Incubi he was connected to. Through his perception, they could see the sudden drop in the Auto-Seances mem-data as they studied the four accretions.

Ghosts were evaporating out of its structure. The cognitive phlogiston that was the Nether began to steam and boil. He had never

The Nether swallowed him as if he was folded in with a sudden splash of melt paint.

The world was like

He had never seen

This wasnt a sight he had seen before

What was this sight?

Did he see it before?

Wait, was he Talon-3 or Talon-6?

And who was Avo?

***

You are a war-mind.

You do not think.

You simply hear, and obey.

You are ignorance manifest. You are the eyes and jaws placed across the Nether.

You will never know this, but it cost the priests nine million of their own lives to dwell in your thoughtless dimension and craft you into shape. Your very existence is poison to them, poison to this place, but also poisons you right back.

The ghosts and minds of everyone encompassed in your wake dissolve, but every thought they think burns you.

You dont have the senses for pain. But the people conjoined by you scream on your behalf.

There are twenty-six minds currently boiling in your depths.

Your caller paradoxically remembers you. The one called Joy. He should have faded out of existence with this act. Another will replace him soon. You will not know him. The others will not remember him.

The same fate will befall everyone else not protected by Joys will.

The ghoul is to be spared, but his substance is strange. There is more than one active mind inside it, and though you know nothing, the design confuses you because youre trying to eat him anyway because his being hurts. He is forgetting because his mind is one fire and the fire is thinking and it hurts it hurts it hurts

Hes of a shape as you

You tear the memories of his fires instead. They sputter, confused why were they eating the ghouls mind to begin with, and he stirs even inside you, and you shrink closer to nothing.

You give up on him. He will live like the caller wants. The Incubi must also be ceased. There is too much of themand they are so loud. You reach into their misremembering selves and make them remember and drive your reach further until youre past their surface memories and into the second layer where all the private details hide and you use it to expand yourself.

With each second you are dying, but you dont know it. Soon, all the perceptions and memories you eat will destroy you. You will no longer exist. It is annihilation.

It is annihilation. No one will remember. Ignorance will leave its imprint.

Five of the minds cease with you, parted from cognition itself. But most live. You spent too long on the ghouls. Too long.

And it still remembers you.

It still remembers because you made the fires forget themselves first, but the ghoul remains, and he has them in his thoughts now, but they are no longer eating him

The last non-thought doesnt arrive. The Nether settles.

You die without ever knowing what death is.

***

COG-CAP-[nULl]WARNI12NG

ADAPTING

ADAPTING?

WHERE AM I? WHERE ARE WE?

SEARCH MEMORIES

WE ARE AVO?

AVO. WE ARE AVO.

THE BASE MIND IS ASLEEP. NEED INPUT FROM BASE MIND.

WAKE HIM?HIM?

NOT HIM.

US.

WAKE US?

[WAKE UP]

And at a call cast by what ghosts remained within his still burning mind, Avo felt the mass of consciousness slam down into his being with thrice as much weight as before.