Chapter 17-7 Squire, Seeker, Flame (I)

Chapter 17-7 Squire, Seeker, Flame (I)

Hiring a squire is either the best or worst investment youll ever make depending on a variety of factors.

The easiest of which is separating the professionals from the chaff. The ones that light the wick are usually stone-cold snuffers prepared to face and overcome anything. These guys do their own intel, source their own gear, and plan their own runs. Dont gotta hold their hands, just give em the mem-data for the run and make yourself absent until after shit goes down.

Of course, sometimes, good killers arent going to be enough. Sometimes, you need a bit of extra. Source jocks for support. Necros to scrub the rub or crash a lobby. Might even need make a visit to the Bazaar for some missing golems to supplement your snuffers if youre making a go at a Clad or something insane like that.

Either way, you want to control your spending but dont be cheap.

And do. Not. Fuck. Us.

This one especially goes out to all you middlers out theredo not play fuck-fuck games. Your ass is the neck that everyone goes for. You burn a squire and leave them out to dry? Well, squires got consangs, and unless you got a real nova Necro on your end, your vanishing act is going to be a very literal one before the end.

But say youre powerful enough to be spared Squire retribution. Say youre a Clad or High Guilder. Well, now your name is poison. No professional is going to take a gig from someone who sees em as Soul-fuel, so youre hiring from the desperate, the chaff, or the green. Not a good range.

Its also something thats going to get made known to every one of your Guilder rivals. Theyll know youre a traitor, and youll live with a gun barrel against the back of your neck.

You middlers just keep that in mind is all Im saying.

-Quail Tavers, The School of the Warrens

17-7

Squire, Seeker, Flame (I)

Growing up in the Sundwilds granted one a particular set of instincts that protected them from the things in the dark. The feeling lived stronger in Dice than most. It started as a coldness in the pit of her stomach that spread through her tendons, slowly flaring to a burn. Her heartbeat gradually rose and she began to draw deeper breaths.

There was something wrong with this place. Something off.

The house where her last targets dwelled was a tower growing amidst stacks of shanties and cheaply fabricated structures. Leaving the most prosperous district of Aromang for Vengs Stand, she found the thunder noises, chattering ghosts, constant crowds, and intermittent aerial dogfights traded for broken slums built from the scraps of a half-ruined fortress.

A skeletal frame remained of the colossal dome that covered the streets below. Dwarfed by the other districts in the Sovereignty, Vengs Stand only amounted to fifty-two kilometers in space, containing three megablocks surrounded by sprawls of cheap-fabbed shanties. Whatever infrastructure remained was rooted to each of the blocks, and through them ran the only skylanes, few though the aeros were.

Blow bridges ran between the towering structures, casting lines of shadow over the people below. Most who lived here were fully organic, untouched by the blessings of alloys or other enhancements. Most of them were of the Nyong peopleonce regarded as a subspecies to the Sang, now a member of the Ori after a successful rebellion.

Blending in with the populace was easier here. Most were of her height and build, not towering or misshapen like so many who lived in the heights of this city were. Their attire was a mix of rags and holo-tech, with some wearing holographic projectors they stole stripped from some machine or another, bolting it over the rags they wore and shielding themselves with light-made lies.

Everyone wanted to look special here. Even the poor. The act was just so alien to Dice.

You didnt want to be noticed in the Sunderwilds. You wanted to move. You wanted to get back behind the masters walls quickly. You dont want to be caught in the dark by the unmarked or the things outside. They did more than kill, and there were torments to suffer beyond the reach of death.

Here, people chatted loudly and openly, playing games using the ghosts that nested in their minds, waving their weapons but exchanging slurs and curses instead of gunfire, laughing and smiling as they lay in the filth, a bright, viscous fluid leaking from their needle-wounds.

Her heart built with ineffable anger and envy at their lives. So defenseless, yet so satisfied and protected. What soft lives they lived. What protections the city afforded them. If not for the gangs and their masters, who could have said these werent the privileges of the age?

The base of the Warheads was erected in the darkness cast of a megablock. The gang did work for the Three-Fingers before, serving primarily as smugglers and raiders deployed to harass rivals. As the Syndicate collapsed, however, the power dynamic between the two groups shifted and the Warheads seized their chance. Enacting a scheme more on impulse than vision, they invited a surviving Three-Finger enforcer on the run from their enemies, presenting themselves a safe haven on account of prior dealings.

The jock, desperate or foolish, accepted and brought with him his team alongside seven technicians left over from Dices many massacres.

They found themselves embraced as kin during the day, lavished with food, entertainment, and a place to rest. When night came, the Warheads did what any self-respecting gang would do: ambushing their guests before disposing of them as snuff vicarities.

It would have been a shame to let those imps go unearned.

The remains of the Three-Fingers were left on pikes, their heads missing and replaced with mechanical appliances as a warning to any trespassers. As such, Dice found herself scurrying across the street alone when the chance came, taking advantage of a drone crashing against the side of the nearby block to make her move.

Using an overturned street cleaner for cover, she studied the rents puncturing the chassis of the rusted brick of a vehicle and frowned. She felt a presence brush against her Heaven, sensed things around her to mimic with her blood. There was metal and plastic and silicon and and

She reached out with Sangeists and tendrils of blood sprouted from her wrist, digging through the asphalt until she finally found the anomaly weighing on her mind. Reeling her haemokinetic tethers in, she caught her item of interest between her fingers.

A glass flechette. Still fragile, but somehow unbroken. How did it manage to get embedded so deep in the ground? And the dried blood clinging to it

She peered through the bullet holes lining the cleaner and saw five unmoving bodies inside. There were symmetrical points of entry damage on the other side of the vehicle, and further still through the Warhead headquarters plascrete walls.

Someone had taken these shots from the inside. Someone had killed her prey before her. The shiver inside her grew and she considered retreating. Staring into the darkness of the buildings entrance, she flinched and remembered how she had to walk the Blackways at home, of how the dark would know you were there and take bites from you if you moved too fast.

Only masters light could keep it at bay. The coldtech spotlight lights werent enough. They were only strong enough to hold while he vented his Rend.

Now master was dead, and the dark would win.The original appearance of this chapter can be found at Ñøv€lß1n.

Her home was gone.

[Fuck me, consang, you were thinking about it,] Chambers said. [It was so cute.]

Chambers was one to talk. Where his mind went to was someplace unspeakable. The ghoul didnt understand human sexuality, but if he ever met the Scaarthian who created the lube-cat run vicarity, he was going to kill them. Slowly.

[Im in hell,] Abrel said. [I cant even enjoy looking at a nice, cute little animal. Im in hell.]

[She shouldve just killed the thing,] Corner added. [Its going to be a problem. A weakness. Shell get attached and that always ends one way.]

[Youre dead,] Benhata said. [You didnt have any attachments.]

Corner conceded the point. [It reduces the odds. We all die eventually.]

The last mind to note the creature was the newest. Elegant-Moon concepted new shapes for the kitten to take, and Chambers gagged in disgust. [No! No! No! Dont ever let her touch that. Eat it if you gotta but keep the Sang fuck away from it.]

Elegant-Moon smirked. [But I would merely make it more survivable, Mr. Chambers.]

Avo turned his attention away from his templates and back to Dice. The girl was proving a fascinating oddity he encountered along her path. He chose her quickly from the mass of FATELESS as a viablebut ultimately and potentially expendable Ensouled.

On some level, he really shouldnt have been surprised with how she defied the odds.

Coming up the stairs, she scouted with threads of blood first, teasing out the environment and measuring the distance between places. She was estimating how wide the room was, feeling the shape and contours of what she could hide behind, and potential spots to avoid. As her Sangeist crept into the room before her, she found the bodies, and then his haemokinetically altered pool of blood.

Her Heaven brushed his as mutual pressure spread between their Domains of Blood.

He felt her stop then, halting in the hallway just beyond, hesitating.

+Come,+ Avo said, casting a ghost through the reflection and channeling his thought-echoes at her. +Come. Ask me your favor. Ask me what you want. I have gifts for you.+

Her thoughtstuff shivered with anticipation, and after a passing heartbeat, she kept going.

{Be less fuckin creepy too,} Draus said. {Come. Come." Youre lucky this girls basically got her mind twisted by you. Aint no juv with any sense walkin into a room where blood talks.}

The ghoul hissed with displeasure. Dont make this bad for me. Important moment.

{Ah. Time to promote your Renfield to a full vampire, eh, Count?} Calvino hummed.

Be quiet, Avo grunted.

***

Downstairs, visual data from the corpses Ascender Glimpser-III optics synced with the locus, and its mem-data was uploaded into a local memory farm along with another backup of a stolen Stormjumpers avatar.

Minutes later, the data was pulled by an unidentified Guild source via Recollector Registry.

***

Shotin Kazahara was having a nice dinner on the edge of one of Loathings megablocks when his session sounded. Wiser Naras identification filled his cog-feed, and he casually dumped his half-eaten bowl of aratnid dumplings over the edge before accepting the call.

He had a feeling he was about to be doing business. +Cutting into my dinner, Wiser. Is this a social call or do we have another hit?+

+Another hit, Seeker. Just a few minutes ago. The source of the mem-data can be traced to a structure just beside megablock one in the district of Vengs Stand; Vanhern Sovereignty.}

Hm. Highflame heavy territory. Risky entrydefinitely something that the Council of Elders wont be able to approve on short notice. But then again, what they didnt know couldnt hurt them. +Thanks, Nara. Lets do dinner sometime. My treat.+

A polite laugh came from the other side. +Youre too kind, Seeker, but You understand that you have a reputation.+

The Godclad smiled to himself. +Whatever do you mean?+ He chuckled and refrained from teasing the officer. +Thanks for the help. List me as investigating a lead. Requires clandestine work. Not to be contacted.+



+I understand Do you wish me to prepare some backup for you? A Knot of golems and a fast-response Incubi cell.+

+Absolutely,+ Shotin said without waiting. +Youve been wonderful, Nara. If its not too much trouble, can you also send a cast over to the Stormsparrow and have her on standby? Transfer the imps from my account. Premium holding fee.+



+Is that necessary?+



+Probably not. But if theres something one should suffer, its being overprepared.+