Chapter 20-17 A Crack in the Storm (II)

Chapter 20-17 A Crack in the Storm (II)

And so it was, with deception upon deception, tragedy upon tragedy, the slaughter of the Paladins was engineered far in advance of the actual onslaught.

Veylis Avandaer, daughter of Jaus Avandaer and Zein Thousandhand, made her play carefully, quietly, and completely. While most reeled and struggled to come to terms with the new world order in the aftermath of Jaus death.

In the year 53 Post-Fall, chaos still gripped the stage of Idheim.

The Guilds were in disarray, each once meant to be a pillar holding up a new and unified world, now found themselves as disparate poles of great power.

No longer able to integrate or work together, they scrambled to fill in gaps, create their own industries, to flesh out and whole themselves for what was to come.

The first war was merely a skirmish, an engagement between forces not yet ready, cut short by Paladin enforcement and Voidwatchs techno-logistical embargos.

Short as the first year of fighting was, the death toll was high and grudges were already cemented. Beneath the shock was rage, and none knew better than Veylis Avandaer that letting matters fester longer would cause control to slip further and further from her grasp.

So it was that during the fifty-first week of the year, as the Day and Voidstar were on the precipice of eclipse and Salvation Day was to signal the years end did the hammer fall.

A war that would last nine full years, leaving 44 billion dead and the Paladins reduced to a withered shadow when once they stood twice in force and cadre to any Guild.

With Stormtree still Saintist aligned and under the dictatorial rule of Naerya the Thunderclaimed, the Massist were at a disadvantage when the second round of fighting began.

And neither were the Paladins, who, though expecting a routine suppression run, were quickly cut down from within, butchered by those they thought were their own comrades.

Unbeknownst to them, Veylis had turned much of their ranks through manipulations of her mothers philosophy, exploiting deliberate failures under Chief Paladin Osjane Thousands tenure to expose the frailties of her fathers institution, and inserting loyal Instruments into the ranks beforehand.

Over the decades, the culture of the Paladins changed from within, and when the time came, they heeded the High Serpahs call over their own commander.

Cadres were butchered from within. Oversecs were compromised and nulled to a man. Brother turned against sister as the word of Jaus was invoked by both sides, all believing they were the true adherents of the dream, none surrendering, none capitulating.

However, though High Seraph's demonstration of rhetoric proved effective, it was ultimately her skill at arms that found itself wanting.

Her rumored lover, and once brother-in-arms under a shared master, Samir Naeko, entered Highflame space to speak with the High Seraph specifically, imploring her to cease hostilities, to turn from carnage and let peace stand.

None could fully claim what happened that day, but it was said that history itself was fractured at several points, and across the city, districts were unmade in their entirety as outbound missiles detonated anomalously at their launch sites, as Godclads found their miracles turned inward, as inflicters suffered their own wounds.

Two Sovereignties were deemed unsalvagable in the aftermath of this talk. But when it was done, Naeko emerged alive, shaken, but ready to fight.

And the Paladins needed him, for in the darkest of moments, Osjohn Thousand, another of Thousandhands disciples junior to Naeko and Veylis both turned on his sister and killed her immediate successors as well.

Yet, when all was seemingly lost, all was about to fall, Naeko returned with his personal cadremen and women he spent years burning death-farms alongside, and sorrow turned to burning rage as one massacre folded in on another.

Just as the traitors had caught the loyalist off-guard, so too were they unprepared in turn for the Force-Breakers vengeance.

By the time Omnitech and Highflame forces completed their spatial encirclement of the Paladins fortress, they found themselves faced not with open doors and what was arguably the most essential strategic hardpoint in the city seized, but all their assets dead to the final Godclad, and remaining survivors rallying for a siege.

And though the scouring remains a tragedy, it too stands as a statement, for when Veylis arrived in manifestation to deliver her terms, she asked for conditional surrenders and made no further attempts to seize the fortress, for the prize was already lost, and war was already frozen.

And though she had inflicted a mortal blow against the citys guardians, final victory still eluded her, for survival of Jaus fist ensured another stalemate andsome would argueset the conditions for Stormtrees realignment for their part in the betrayal.

-The Scouring of Justice (Documentary)

20-17

A Crack in the Storm (II)

The initial shock died after Avo elaborated on his reasoning.

The premise behind the idea was simple: all the major players were going to be at the trial, and so too was Drausand possibly Kaepromised to Naeko. Waiting and just wandering in was a recipe for being trapped. Ambushed. Blindsided.

That wasnt something they could afford. Potentially, it wasnt something they could survive. A few more incidents like the one with Shotin would see some of them dead.

Hence, they needed to continue seizing the initiative. Establish control or build foreknowledge where they could.

And now, with Naeko patrolling and occupied, there was an opportunity here. A brief window that could be made exploitable by all the assets and abilities the cadre now possessed.

Words failed to convey the depth of Scale's defenses, so Avo let the simulation speak for him.

A miniaturized landscape took shape from misted blood and bubbling phantoms, its expanse eight-thousand kilometers across in all directions. Blizzards whipped up waves of tesselating stone, the vast ocean surrounding the fortress cube-like, the waters they were mimicking a propagation of endless edges.

Sharp angles and biting geometry were but the warning to what defenses lay within.

Tuning the opacity of the frost-made veil, Avo revealed the ever-shifting mountain that stood at the center of things. Its cliffs were as jagged as the waters themselves, the angles perfectly straight, the stones constantly slipping over one another, as if moving through each other on escalated belts.

Outside, the structure looked as if countless staircases meshed together. For every few right angles there were, an opening occupied the space besides, vast hollows into the anomalous stone-behemoth connected to lightrails and physical bridges, each shaped from the rime-stricken air engulfing the plane, some running up into the Elysiumsbefore the very Arks themselves.

From this, the Paladins home base earned its namesake. Where one bridge would enter, another would extend from the opposite side, a perfect line threaded through two thousand kilometers of gliding stone. There were thousands upon thousands of crossing lines, and they were all sustained by the same precarityable to be cut with a banishment of wind.

But symbology was greater than that. This Avo knew well from the Paladin templates he had flickering inside him.

Scale was more than the object it resembled; it was signifier and signifiedthe balance running between districts under different Guilds, and the Paladins who were once supposed to serve as the counterforce to any manner of disorder, be it natural or thaumaturgic, within or without the city, for citizen or subjects.

Such was the dream, but everyone knew the lament of hope.

Trying to invade the expanse directly is suicide, Avo said. Waves will swallow you. Fuse you into the stones. But theyre also directional. Shifts you away. Absolutely. Keeps things vector in whatever direction they flow. Parts beneath the cubic waters came alighta vastness of undersea caverns leaking down into New Vultun itself.

Planecrawlers, Avo continued. More than just a complex construct. Connected to the outer defenses. Holds most of their golems.

How many Knots? Drones? Asset distribution? Draus eyes were aglow with excitement. The red of her optics zoomed in and out as she ran her tongue across her lips.

Yeah. Avo understood.

Unsure, Avo said. The Regular cocked her head. And no one among the Paladins knows either. Everything is in decentralized silos after the scouring. Even the space inside the fortress itself. Youll see. Oversecs and divisions are their own thing. Details are not shared. Information is scrambled. That. Another another thing.

At the very base of the mountain, a large spherical object with tubes running across the entire structure pumped mem-data like a heart. But it was not a distributor of energy, but a consumer instead. LGI. Limited governing intellect. A wonder from a bygone era produced by the Guilds united. Now an administrator locked away inside a mountain. Last line of cognitive defense for the Paladins.

Ah, shit, Chambers muttered.

{That is not all,} Calvino said, its words broadcast by Avo using his ghosts. {It is also connected to a techno-thaumic reactor, allowing it input into the defenses. The mists were designed to be limited peers to ancient entanglement technologies. Effectively, as long as you are in the expanse of this space, it will notice you on a molecular level.}

Shit, Chambers repeated, looking overwhelmed. I dont really get what that means, but it sounds bad.

[You want to use me and Kassamon to access the court?] she asked.

Yes, Avo said. To shape the conditions at the scene. And then. Want you two to place reflections along each of the bridges. Just outside Scale. Connect us to the Tiers. How does that sound for now?

Kassamon and Kare looked at each other.

[So,] Kassamon said. [The third thing]

Leave contentions for later, Avo interrupted. Easier choices now.

[Load me into the simulation,] Kare said, reluctance thick in her voice. Kassamon shot her an uncertain look but she just shook her head. [I can elaborate on the layout of the court at least. That shouldnt harm anything.]

Kassamon merely swallowed and looked down.

The simulated map zoomed into the midsection of the mountain, and a vast chamberwell over the size of a megablock, with walls lined with podiums and alcoves for dignitaries and officials, looked over twin pedestalswhere Abrel and DRongo will be placed. A vast statue stood at the center of the room, its design twin-interconnected hands, with one bearing and blade and the other, a feather.

Stepping up before the statue, Kare swept her gaze through the simulated room and shook her head. A long vertical crevice stood open at the far end of the room, the only way in or out, lined with scanners and thaumaturgic barriers.

On the day of the event, the entire room would be filled with prominent members of society, and major figures across the Tiers. All would gather to watch the judgment of Instrument Abrel Greatling of Highflame and Ori-Thaums Elder DRongo for separatebut tangentially linked crimes.

The evidence would be fed to the Heaven of Truth, and Draus stood a critical witness. Her, and other details promised by Denton.

Kaes role in the situation remained murky, but Avo had suspicions she would likely be drawn in some form or another as well.

Standing before the interconnected hand, the Heaven of Truth came alight in Kares memories and gestured toward it. [On the day, the Heaven will be channeled through this receptacle. But is actually connected to the LGIs systems.]

The limited governing intellect flashed again, and Kare reappeared before it.

The air around her boiled now as the large bulbous construct rumbled and shook. Faintly, Avo could feel his Conflagration quivering, his mind sinking deeper into Kares, until step by step he found himself standing before the coldtech wonder for the first time, eyes trailing up the tubes as blood and fire painted a living portrait of what was recalled.

And then, the unknowable happened.

Motes of thaumically charged droplets of red flowed, forming the composition of Kares false body as she reached up to cup the contours of the LGI as she had done those years before. The fire fusing her into the matter shivered.

Kare opened her mouth as if to speak.

But something inside Avo fell through.

In that instant, three conditions were met.

Thaumaturgy flared, fueling an active miracle; liminal subreality slipping over the tapestry of existence.

Thinning it.

A mind, perfect in its simulation and embodiment played a scene from the past; an ego wearing an ego.

Cognition absolute.

But the flaw was what triggered it. What no one knew. Not even Kare herself; the memory she recalled was a false one, and as she reached out to gesture at the LGI, her ignorance of the truththe absolute truth of the world and the memories denied to both her and the master she was mantled upon nourished a dormant construct of counter-cognitive design.

A heartbeat later, Avo was gone, and the rest of the cadres Metaminds with him, flicking out of existence like candles in the wind.

***

You are not you.

You are many within one; a ladder of knowing.

But you did not know this.

Neither did your machine mind.

Neither did all the little fragments you collected and added to yourself.

You are a warmind.

You are Ignorance.

You will not know how you are now becoming a portal to a place thought lost and locked.

You will not know how your passage has punctured the Nether. How Metaminds are winking out. How things will briefly return to the way they once were.

You do not know of the fox and slave cast out of their conversation.

You do not know of the shadows that have been following you in the city, turning the Guilds' attention away from you.



You do not know of all the schemes and deceptions spilled across the city.

You do not know where you are falling.

Only that it's up.

Only that it's a place grown above the here.

You do not know how your impulses have been hiding from you. Slipping out from you. Waiting to be fed. To finally pull you across.

You do not know.



But you will know now.

For you are of a shape as the warmind.

And it is of a shape as you.

And on the other side of the Dreaming Unsea, you finally emerge, and you take your first true-false breath in a world unfinished, a reality undelivered, a dream abandoned.