Chapter 14-9 Drawbacks

Chapter 14-9 Drawbacks

Let me tell you a story about my favorite gun.

Spoiler: Its a piece of shit. Situationally.

Now, you might be wondering, Tavers, you old sow, why is your favorite gun a piece of shit? Did you survive all those years in the Warrens off raw luck alone?

The answer is yes, by the way. You have to be lucky to make it out down here. Any squire that says otherwise is bullshitting you.

Anyway, favorite gun. Omnitech piece they called the Transgressor Supremeyeah, yeah, fuck off. I know the names real rust, but I was eighteen and it was the finest godsdamned piece I could get my hands on.

Id like to start by mentioning the Transgressors problems. Its large. Eighty pounds of alloy and complex machinery. Its complex. Takes a bit of technical know-how to even aim the damn thing. It sucks power like a growing Scaarthian does a teat, and more than once I found myself gunning the trigger only to see my beam materialize and fizzle in the same instant.

Let me tell you, theres no cold dread like the dread you feel when your gear fails you in the field.

To top this shame-cake off, the damn thing explodes if you overclock it.

Im not even talking about the cute might splatter a flat or two pops. This shit goes off like a goddamn mini-nuke because its literally running an unstable microfusion battery.

Remember when I said Omnitech made it? Yeah, it shows.

Everything Voidwatch considers a science is more an art to the glitchers.

Anyway, by this point you might be wondering why Im even using this thing. After all, it sounds like an unwieldy death trap thats more liable to get me killed than keep me alive in a firefight.

Well, consang, let me get to the situational part.

You see, the Transgressor is a nightmare to use, but a dream to assemble. Whatever thaumic fuckery the Red did to make it come together, it works like a dream. The entire things also spinal-mounted and thought-fired, so your hands are free to do other things, like gouge someones eye out or hold your guts in.

The power system might be a sow and a half, but its flexible, and so is its recharge. You can feed it sunlight, electricity, coal, heat, synaptic tissue hells, if theres one thing the Transgressor does right, its combat longevity. All this comes to a beautiful crescendo when you're burning holes through unarmored skulls for a single percent of your charge in one instant, and then when a fucking golem blasts down the wall next to you and you feel your wards start to give, you flick that shit up to ninety and let the world around you boil.

Crank too hard, and the Transgressor might explode. Thats true.



But you handle things right, and this thing will core a Sangeist from 10 miles away, and let me say that there isnt a more satisfying feeling than dropping something god-touched with just your gun, your grit, and a little bit of luck to serve as the grease.

Anyway, the point is that you gotta know your tools. Know what its built for. I knew some smart godsdamned squires that got snuffed because they didnt have what the run demanded.

A nova Necrojack isnt going to be much use to you if theyre trapped in a firefight right next to you, and a snuffers just waiting to get their strings cut if theyre wandering around with no N-Sec.

Figure your shit out. Figure out your kit. Keep your preferences secondary.

-Quail Tavers

14-9

Drawbacks

Perhaps some countermeasures are in order? Some kind of support structure to prevent your sudden demise? I understand that the patterns of vivianite can serve as a conductor to your ghosts and thoughts. Mayhaps that might be a solution.

Avo was far ahead of his Woundshaper when it came to resolving his new vulnerability, but an outright solution remained annoying far.

The problem lay in the nature of the Nether and the reactions within Necrotheurgy as a whole. A Thoughtwave Disruption was less akin to a bomb and more a chaotic vortex collapsing consciousness beyond their housing in the material.

For most, that usually meant losing track of what they were thinking or needing to reset their Metas. For Avoas a thoughtform unchained from the anchor of a bodythis resulted in his swift and unceremonious death.

There was something about how phantasmics and ghosts could stay rooted to a body so long as it was bound to the material even as the Nether came crashing down around them.

Avo understood himself to be the inverse. The fullness of his self had been drawn over into the Nether by the merging of his Conflagration and the war mind, and now bodies were less anchors to him and more articles of clothing.

Sheathes, in a word.

RESURRECTION - 88%

His current empowerment in the realm of cognition had also left him with severe drawbacks. Presently, even simple Thoughtwave Disruptions were a matter of concern. What would happen when a Thoughtwave Detonation destabilized an entire section of the real like in Yuulden-Yang? Would he even be capable of resurrecting in such an environment?

Was his consciousness just going to cling to the vivianite formed by his blood somehow?

More pressingly, how was he going to remove himself from his current situation once he returned, and they simply decided to hit him with another disruption?

Presently, one plan was to grow Auto-Seances within shards of blood-wrought loci before casting them into the dark and pushing them down the hall. This way, he could shift out of his body if he suspected an attack was coming. Again, he found his mind drifting back to Kae and her exocortex. Considering the war mind festering within his being, he wasnt entirely certain a machine intellect would prove to be the insulation he needed, but he would never learn without experimentation.

Perhaps the next update to one of his canons could be something of a closed planar pathway? A Domain of Space that interfaced only with him and not the world somehow? Such an improvement would prove most useful when paired with the unfettered nature of his consciousness. He also wondered if integrating more external Conflagration aspects would broaden his cognition any further.

With every growth, a new vulnerability. But with every growth came new paths to ascension.

His untethered thoughtform made him vulnerable to Nether-destabilization, but it also made him an apex predator in the Dreaming Unsea.

If he wanted to escape, the clearer path was through. Through the locus of the Wight. Throughout the session, it was running into the Necro on the other side.

That way, he could escape into a new body and also comprehend all that was transpiring in the same instant.

Drawback. Benefit.

Vulnerability. Advantage.

I approve of your thoughts for once. the Galeslither said. Shadows flicked up like dust devils from the skin of the tempest-molded steed. Six storm-cracked eyes stared at him from three heads, and he sensed a faint note of excitement in the Heaven. Your sense of direction is good. I believe escapingand devouring the mind of the unknownis a viable passage to freedom. Would you accept some criticism, God in my stead?

The Woundshaper existed on creating and killing, fitting considering its lore as a Blood God of creation and sacrifice. The Galeslither, contrarily, was delighted to flee, delighted to seek the horizon in any situation. Such want was not born of cowardice, but worship. To seek the curve and place trouble behind was a victory all its own, and for those to offer themselves to the skies in exchange for faster wind were martyrs not unlike the huntresses the Woundshaper so loved.

Over the Woundshapers scoff, Avo allowed the Heaven of Air to speak.

And before the transformation of his consciousness, an outright impossibility.

Forming a thin framework of himself from his haemokinesis, he watched as a latticework replica of himself took shape. Dipping his cognition inside it, the arterial circuitry of his crude simulacrum came alight. It took mere seconds for him to grow the needed Auto-Seance within its structure, and he left the bare minimum requirement of ghosts to maintain its functionality.

Finally, when he was done with the false self he was crafting, he opened a pocket in his Sanguinitys broadcast around the simulacrum and braced himself for disappointment as it sagged.

But even severed from the physical touch of his Heaven, his consciousness still remained within the structure, and to his delight, the blood within it flowed to his whims after a heartbeat of hesitation.

[Well, would you look at that,] Abrel cooed. [New Ensouleds grow up so fast. Are you feelin that? Thats what it means to be a Clad. The impossible can go fuck itself.]

Strangely, he found himself happy to have earned Abrels approval. This was an advancement even without the need for thaums. He had been treating his Woundshaper wrong this entire time.

It wasnt just a creator and a killer, but an assimilator. Like him. It traveled through matter like an infection, and now through its power, he could spread his very being through structures and up edifices with barely anyone noticing.

Like a plague running beneath the skin of this city.

A cackle of pure joy echoed from within his Frame, and he felt his triumph become paired with his Woundshaper. Glorious. Glorious!

With a thought, he shifted the blood within the puppet and it stagged forward. It still moved a bit awkwardly considering he was more piloting than wearing it, but such things could be improved.

As he compelled it to walk over the darkness before the door, he drew upon the powers of his Galeslither and felt it sink down. Darkness spread around him, but the Specters the simulacrum had in place of eyes lit the way ahead all the same.

As he coated his mind in the analogy of the Incog, however, his vision vanished, though his control over his new puppet remained.

New options. Drawbacks.

More kinks to fix.

He reached out using his Sanguinity and disassembled his new toy. No need to expose his newest ace to the blocks security since he couldnt hide the brightness of his mind.

He would approach the meeting point manually, but depart immediately thereafter.

In his stead, he would leave but an offering of blood in his place.

***

+Raldi, Im telling you this for the hundredth time: theres no way I would go meet someone after I got snuffed. Its just too embarrassing.+

+Maybe theyre not like you, Reva? Maybe this ones curious about its memories.+

+How curious could they be considering they just got snuffed by us? And you seriously think the thoughtwave disruption did them in?+

Across the session White-Rab sighed. +Its my best guess. Maybe they were piloting a drone or something.+



+Dont explain the anchor they left behind,+ Reva replied.

The Necro didnt know what to say about that.

Presently, he had a dozen phantasmics running surveillance for him outside the aero and was tuned into the blocks systems so he would know just when their guest left to room.

Through the Nether though, he caught a glimpse of some peculiar mem-data. Whatever the loci glimpsed when the Godclad resurrected didnt look like your usual Meta. It looked like it was burning.

Almost like a Conflagration.

But it couldnt be that. That destroyed minds.

A few seconds later, something stranger happened. A second, smaller mind sparked across from the larger one, moved around a bit, and then subsequently winked out. The big one followed as well.

Concerning.

He cast the details over to Reva and she groaned. +Great,+ she said. +Half-strand probably has a spatial Heaven of some kind and just pulled in some help. Thats it. Were done here. Dinner better be ready by the time I get back, you hear. This has been probably one of the messiest operations



And then, in a flash, just beyond their aero, something rose out from the darkness cast by one of the four clamps securing Revas Harshlander M-II.

Both of their minds snapped to attention, but instead of that creature, he found himself greeted by a wiry figure that seemed to be made from

+Is that blood?+ Reva asked.

+Yeah+ Raldi replied, feeling a bit weirded out himself. +Thats blood.+

A growing note of tension rose within the Bloodthane.

+Hey, Raldi.+



+Yeah?+ He answered, focus fixated on the crimson construct that began to stumble its way toward their vehicle.

+Remember when I told you I got nulled earlier?+

+Uh-huh.+



+Well the Clad that did it had a Heaven of Blood too.+

Suddenly, White-Rab didnt feel so good about this little meeting anymore.