Chapter 14-7 Home (I)

Chapter 14-7 Home (I)

Home is a fickle thing, Avo. You should know that.

Just because you spend imps to place things that belong to you inside doesnt make it permanent. I know you already understand because uh the war, but I still need you to do something for me.

That sense of security when youre inside these walls?

Do your best to stop feeling it.

Thats the thing that gets homes burned down and destroyed. Its like a kind of false mythology, something you treat as true but isnt. Theres nothing stopping the Guilds from incinerating us from their heights with a thought if they knew what we were doing right under their noses.

Someone might tell you home is the people you love are, or a place where you feel safe.

Im not. I care about you too much.

Truth is: home is a lie. We live on a lie. Step back a hundred years and you wouldnt be in New Vultun. You wouldnt be living on these lofty heights beside the Arks and all these miracles.

Instead, you would be a part of the deep city of Noloth.

Things change fast.

-Walton to Avo

14-7

Home (I)

The Tiers were beyond the expressions of words and paintings alike. When a place was woven between the material and the conceptual, what followed was mood and moment intertwined, with miracles made mundane by commonplace portrayals upon this pedestal pressed against the lips of the skies.

Simply put, ones perception of the Tiers was tied to their FATE Skein. Even from afar, he could see the phantasmal strings running from mind to mind, from lines between blocks and people and vehicles more.

He alone drifted unseen through a world of strings, studying the glory of the risen world from the black.

Zein had placed him in the Undercroft. Here, most thought this Tier to be the first step on the path to true paradise, but Avo had always thought of it as cartilage. Cartilage isolating those merely FATED from fully committed Guilders, and the FATED themselves from corpses-to-be that fed the fatal engines of the city.

Memories from one of his templates rose from the deepest fathoms of the burning ocean he called a consciousness. He remembered reading a voider booka physical bookdecrying the nature of capital, of how a middle-caste was to serve as a pillar to blunt the conflict between the highest elites and lowest dredges.

The Undercroft, much like the Tiers themselves, offered a facsimile of hope. A path upward into glory. To even reach here was to make it in New Vultun. You were finally a full person. You were finally protected by a Great Guild. Rights and legalities became a thing.

But there was still higher to go. Still more apex to rise.

The neon-tinted edge that most gazed from the Warrens was but the first step of normalcies egress. Despite the density of infrastructure and the sheer weight of mem-data congesting every inch of his cog-feed, things were yet comprehensible to the human mind, albeit slightly different.

Hypertubes spread out like arteries throughout the various districts, but the air remained sparse of aerovecs. Ergonomic was the aesthetic here, with ghost-directed lanes sending clouds of delivery drones across the cities while signals and signs indicated the shifting of traffic lights along with accessible movement vectors.

He caught sight of a drone moving forward when it wasnt meant to.

It snapped back where it started, its geometric reality working akin to a rubberband.

As he walked down the streets of Pendross Ravine, his Frame shuddered constantly, the passing weight of countless Heavens pulling at him. Beneath his feet likewise burned a network of Souls connected to every major block, with certain lesser miracles available on demand to the public.

All that you need to do was think.

He studied his supposed home as an invader would, using darkness to mask his encroach while sweeping his eyes over all the sights like a tourist.

Striations ruled here. Between every structure, every shape, every silhouette was something different, and the masses moved beneath the vivacity of skull-thumping advertisements, their bodies painted in segregation of color that indicated their loyalties to one another.

A good percentage of people guarded their identities via holo-coats, masking themselves in a static sheen or used some kind of virtual proxy aesthetic. Emergency responses were nigh instant here, so clashes were rare. Rare didnt mean bloodshed didnt arise nor that the Undercroft was clean of crime.

Things were merely neater here. The filth clung under the skin.

He moved in the darkness, catching only brief glimpses of the city. After Zein set him loose, he found the open air inaccessible from the sheer amount of attention saturating its expanse, while the sheer variety of Heavens at play made him move with greater caution.

His Incog remained active, but without needing to face the mind-flaying pulses of perception radiated by skimmers, he moved with relative ease, though still wary of his path ahead.

Loci infested the buildings and streets, and Guilder Necros patrolled their beats with greater vigor and professionalism than most from the gutters could muster. He needed to remain a ghost. He needed to stay unseen.

Just because he wasnt directly under the blade anymore didnt mean it was far from falling. And here, he wouldnt have the good fortune to just face a cadre of Godclads or two. He literally couldnt cross the street when the light was red here, and as his subminds reviewed his engagement with Thousandhand, he considered the folly of his impulses.

He had changed. He had grown greater and stranger than before, but his need to consume still controlled his actions like an impulse.

It didnt even seem wrong or foolish at the time. He was just compelled.

Compelled. And he thought he could feel strange movements shifting about within his mind.

Hm. So, this Necroclad

Please dont call him that

Not a lot of overlap between our lines of work, dont you think? Im thinking either Ori-Thaum or No-Dragons. Ashthrone might have someone like that, but honestly, theyre on the way out. Theyll be lucky if they have enough Souls to be a functional participant in the last war after what Omnitech did to them.

She didnt seem convinced, and as she opened her mouth to speak, as a session activated in her Metamind, a set of memories in her Auto-Seance repeating. She rolled her eyes and rejected the link. Fuckers.

Whose that?

Longeyes?

Whoa. Arent they the big-uns for you guys?

Something like that. They can go fuck themselves for tonight. Im tired. I got my ass kicked. I watched my childhood home get smashed by a cadre Highflamersled by Abrel Greatling if thats a surprise to youand now theres a quiet war brewing, my half-strand uncle is missing, and I need to attend some bullshit political thing because the Articles. For some future-seeing, all-knowing matriarchs they sure let me get fucked to death this time.

Couldve been out of left field for them too, Raldi replied. Ill try to find your uncle. Vincintine, was it?

Dont bother. If hes dead, hes dead. Might be an improvement on our family.

He clicked his tongue and shook his head. You see, this why you shouldve chosen to be an orphan. None of this baggage stuff.

Despite his low effort at humor, she still snorted a laugh.

He liked how she let the wrinkles around her eyes crease and didnt smoothe her skin. He liked how pointed her chin was, and the slight scar running diagonally across her lip. He liked how she kept her ocular implants subtle to retain that natural hazel hue.

He liked

WARNING: SPECTER THRESHOLD-1 HAS BEEN TRIGGERED

WARNING: SPECTER THRESHOLD-2 HAS BEEN TRIGGERED

WARNING: SPECTER THRESHOLD-3

WARNING

A dozen more warnings flashed behind his minds eye. The bemusement vanished from Revas face as her expression turned iron-hard. What? Whats wrong.

Could be nothing. Could be some aratnids triggering my proximity detectors or if someones using an Incog but

But theres a chance someones trying to get in?

Not here. The old place I had. You remember what told you about the Strix. My old mentor?

Reva took a second to think. Yeah. You gave some of your memories to him, right?

Raldi winced. Dont remind me. Anyway, he said that someday, someone might show up looking for me there thinking its their place.

And then what? What else did he say?

Nothing. The half-strand got himself killed doing something really stupid. But I did end up getting something from him. I wasnt supposed to access it until the guest arrived.

Her battle-readiness faded, and she brushed a thumb along his cheek. He shivered and his Metamind screamed. Uh, Reva

Her eyes widened slightly and she caught herself. Sorry. That was reckless.

Godsdamned rash.

Its fine. Im protected. Anyway, you know how I am with directions What Im trying to say is that I immediately tried to open the mem-packet.

And?

Couldnt. Strix had to show me up even after he died. And now, if were not just looking at a bunch of rats crossing into my own room, our mystery guest might finally be at my doorstep.

She shrugged the sheets off and propped herself against the headrest. So. You want do this the usual way?

What? I hide in your mind, and you make the house-call?

Yeah, she said. I could use the excuse to clear my head, and make up for not letting you hide inside my mind for Nu-Scarrowbur.

Wow, Reva Javvers learning from her mistakes. Nu-Scarrowbur was that bad, huh?

She jabbed him lightly. Pain exploded across his arm. He was going to need to pour some rainwater over it later.