Godclads

Chapter 10-1 Within the Glass

Sangeists x8 - 340,000,000 imps

Shadowcrawlers x8: 400,000,000 imps

Fulgerhunds x8: 300,000,000 imps

Micronuclear Warhead x8: 8,000,000

-Purchases Made by Jhred Greatling’s Proxy Identities

10-1

Within the Glass

+How long,+ Mirrorhead said, Even through the Nether, Avo could feel the hot breath of unsated rage. The anger coming from the Greatling clung, its bitterness clammy and sick. Losing control had brought a feverish quality to the man’s thoughts.

How pitiful. Jhred Greatling’s Frame was wasted on him.

Holding merely ten tons of blood in his sway, Avo considered the Syndicate boss’ question. At this pace, the conversation still ran fast enough to follow, but slow enough for thought as well.

Avo didn’t even need to sift through Mirrorhead’s mind to know what he needed to say.

+How long have you been in the ghoul?+

+How long have you owned that batch of ghouls?+ Avo asked, using a question to quell a question.

+You had no right–+

+Right?+ Avo asked, adding a mocking cadence to his tone. He modified his voice in the same fashion the benefactor had, but even more so, he had a backdoor into Mirrorhead’s mind. The mem-data betrayed Jhred before his thoughts could even pour over. +No. It’s not about right. It’s about keeping my investment secure. You know this Greatling.+

Combining that with the fact that Avo could accelerate and decelerate his reactions via how much blood was under his sway, and the conversation was clay to be molded.

In the back of his mind, broken chains of Mirror-Convex's memory flashed and fused into place, his Metamind filtering and adjusting for each word spoken playing the part of the benefactor. Of that which was nulled and unknown to him, Avo still possessed other options.

The worst case would be to lose the identity and worsen Mirrorhead’s paranoia. It would make the task of manipulating him harder, but Avo had enough assets close to the source.

The frustration within the Guilder swelled. Good. Anger made Mirrorhead sloppy, cut his focus out at the knees.

+I… said I would handle it myself.+ Mirrorhead spat. +That I didn’t need you and your… Stormtree allies assisting me.+

Ah. There was something the nulling had taken away. Mirrorhead thought the benefactor was associated with Stormtree. Made sense considering where they arranged the meeting, but there were blindspots in why the benefactor was ostensibly helping someone from Highflame. And how. Relations between the two Guilds couldn’t even be described as being poor. Not even in the vicinity.

A shame Avo had to play the part of the confidant. It would have been so delicious to shatter his prey’s ego right then and there. +Mirrorhead… If I didn’t handle your situation, how did you think this would resolve?+

A petulant snarl slipped free from the other man. The mask of control was slipping, and beneath it was the face of a hurt child raging at the world. A child incapable of ever avenging his mother. +I said I would have handled it!+

+And you could have,+ Avo replied, trying to instill as much humanity into his voice as possible. A shame the Binarist was infested with mem-cons. Without a phantasmic simulating and predicting the specific emotions he was supposed to be feeling at that moment, Avo grasped blindly. +But this isn’t about what we can do now. This is about what needs to happen. You’re out of time. Your sister is clearly–+

+I told you not to mention her!+ Avo paused, watching Mirrorhead’s anger spike to new heights. The shout came carried by ghosts swelling hot with steam and fury. Press more and he risked the Guilder losing control completely–possibly even ending the conversation. +You didn’t offer me proof last time. I will hear no more about her. No more.+

But Jhred Greatling had already revealed his wound. To react like a stung animal when the topic of his sister was broached presented numerous avenues paths of conversation for Avo to herd him.

Best to keep things simple. Uncomplicated.

+Fine. I trust that you know her best,+ Avo said. +However, there is the issue with the signing of the treaty–+

+The treaty…+ Mirrorhead said. Avo could feel the Guilder choking on a breath. As a ghoul and a Necrojack, human emotions were more understood than shared, but the sheer loathing Mirrorhead possessed toward his lack of control over his own life was an item of strange symmetry. +We’re not done talking about you breaking into my house!+

How stubborn. Avo sighed, imitating the low exhale resonating from the benefactor’s memories. +Ori-Thaum broke into your house. I cleaned them out for you, and in that, you have my apology. But we cannot wait; you must understand this. The matter I am helping you with–the matter that we both must see done cannot linger on any other. Ambassador Valhu Kitzuhada must die.+

When you mastered the nature of someone’s hate, it was easy to direct them away to new points of emotional tension. There were only two rules to talking with Mirrorhead: Jhred Greatling was never at fault; Ori-Thaum needed to pay.

With that primed, everything slid back into place.

The emotions within Mirrorhead spiked and then went flat. +Indeed. I do know. So. Next steps then.+ The quivering integers in the mem-data told Avo that the other Godclad was using ghosts to suppress his emotions. Likely something akin to a Morality Injector. +Do you have the ambassador’s location?+

That didn’t matter. Avo was never going to give Mirrorhead any actual memories connected to the ambassador. Zein and half the Guilds might have an elaborate show planned for this treaty, but Avo cared little for it. He just wanted to eat Jhred Greatling, and such a murder was best left in the dark, where he could take his time carving a vicarity out of his enemy, with the participants being he, Draus, and if possible, Essus.

Avo had promised the father a proper kill, after all.

+I’ll leave you the sequences in the locus. Two hours,+ Avo said. +However, there are additional details we must consider–+

Mirrorhead’s interruption came with raw impatience. +I’m still going to insert the same way. Are your Scalper assets ready? You said they were prepared to deal with Ripperjack.+

Such a statement didn’t surprise Avo, but it did slow his mind to consider the implications. From what he knew, the Scalpers were an obvious Stormtree-funded Syndicate. For the Incubi to outright decapitate its leadership would be like burning the property of an esteemed ally.

It occurred to him that he could use this. Leak it to someone in Stormtree and watch the tensions rise. The disruption to equilibrium would displease Zein, but again, her interests were not his. He needed to keep his mind open to creating new possibilities.

+Yes,+ Avo lied. +I’ll see to it that everything is put into motion–+

+Have them do it tonight,+ Mirrorhead said. There was a weight pressing down on the link, a pressure pushing down from Mirrorhead’s end like a mountain crumbling into the ocean. Tides of stress cast up waves of thoughtstuff. +The act… I will do it tomorrow.+

Avo couldn’t help but grin. The fool was practically marching himself into a fire made specifically for him. Still, the memories of the benefactor told Avo the dead spy was of the cautious sort even in character. He offered token resistance. +Are you sure? At the pace we are moving, it would be safer too…+

He trailed off deliberately, anticipating another interruption.

None came for two entire heartbeats.

+I need alternative ways to access The Fire’s Height if possible. I know the Layers themselves are too well watched, but provide me with… blindspots to the Exorcists’ Specters. Such paths will serve me sufficiently. And though haste is upon us, get one more of each golem pattern from the inquest I sent you, on short notice the force they would bring would go far.+

No "please"s, "thank you"s, or "if could you do it"s. Just orders.

It would be a pleasure to make a quivering ruin of the Guilder.

+Of course,+ Avo said, holding no intention of actually doing any of those things, +I will see to it that you get all you need to accomplish what we set out to do.+

Mirrorhead chuckled, the taste of his thoughts bitter. +You know, when you first came to me, I thought you were just another gutter-jack looking for a handout.+ An awkwardness entered Mirrorhead’s voice as he cleared his thoughts. +I… You’ve been helpful. Despite how you’ve… offended me. You’ve been helpful. More than anyone else.+

A show of sentimentality from a brutal tyrant. Avo felt like he just won the award for best slave. It made him want to take a bath in napalm.

+Our interests aligned,+ Avo said, soldiering on. +But the sentiment is shared.+ He winced. That sounded too much like something he would say. But gods was it annoying having to add so many pointless words in a sentence. +Return in three hours. I will have what you need by then.+

+Good,+ Mirrorhead said. He exhaled, and instead of calming, his thoughtstuff boiled more. Stress radiated from him like steam. +Good. I’m… going to see this done. I will return. I must prepare.+

And with that, the session went silent.

But the impromptu dive did not end.

Amping the tonnage of blood he controlled to the max, Avo activated his hidden session and leaped into Mirrorhead’s mind. Immediately, the weight of the Godclad’s woes hit him, the environment of the infiltrated Metamind a hail of falling hammers.

From their recent conversation, Avo could see the simulated tower of the Auto-Seance woven by a whirlwind of ghosts stretching over his smoking wards of the sixteenth and seventeenth layers. Sequences flashing with memories pulsed in the raw-red firmament, the false sky bleached crimson with unexpressed anguish.

Around him, ghosts and thoughts flowed at a languorous pace, and tapping into Mirrorhead’s perception, Avo peeked at where the Syndicate boss was going. He was stalking towards another reflection–one that he had made via a canon–carving glass into existence upon walls of former wood using distortions in the light.

There was another secret Avo had delayed too long to discover: The makeup of Mirrorhead’s Frame and Ontologics.

Traveling under the cover of internalized hatred and tumult made it easier for Avo to jump from one sequence to another. Checking Mirrorhead’s estimated awareness in the visual display, the Guilder was distracted more by the task at hand, of the decision to accelerate his long-planned revenge.

Regardless of what anyone wanted, Avo had no desire to see this ended at The Flame’s Height. With all the Guilders in attendance, it would be wandering into a nest of violent Godclads.

It was with such a realization that Avo understood Abrel–Mirrorhead’s taller wiser sister–was right. This was a suicide run. Even if by some miracle he suceeded, to face what was likely millions upon millions of Guild-level forces using a moment of surprise, Syndicate fodder, and whatever else was still in reserve, wasn’t something to walk away from.

The deepers Avo sank, working with care to twin the memories necessary for the spoofing, the more he soaked in the sobering malaise bleeding from Jhred Greatling’s mind.

Mirrorhead wasn’t planning on coming back. This was solely about avenging his mother. About hurting Ori-Thaum and spiting Highflame–especially his father.

In a twisted way, the Guilder had been looking forward to his finale for a long, long time.

Sneaking through the sixteenth and seventeenth layers required a mix of timing and speed. Again, much of this was made possible by Avo’s newly imbued speed. The more he used his Heaven, the more he felt unable to return to the old ways, that sequencing at baseline seemed crippled. Broken.

But that was the mutilation that came with going from obsolete to apotheosis. For a Guilder that had only known promise and power, such was to be expected, but to give the blind sight and make them consider losing it again…

Mirrorhead did not know what he would be surrendering should he greet true death.

Suddenly, the Nether-lag spiked. Ghosts quivered and twisted around Avo, straining to keep him connected.

HOST AWARENESS: 3%

They were shifting across a twist in spatial reality. After a moment of evasion, Avo sank a ghost into the waters of Mirrorhead’s perception, accessing the world outside through the perspective of the other Godclad.

Around him, all was an expanse of twisting fractals refracting treads of curving light. Intriguingly, Avo found himself able to see through each brightened shard of glass, his perception jumping from conduit to conduit, like light striking a point of symmetry expanding his network of awareness.

Avo was unsure what domain was in effect for the canon on display, but if he had to guess, it appeared that luminosity or light of some form was allowing for these effects. He took special care to keep a special sequence of this memory. Kae would need it later when examining the Twice-Walker’s capabilities further.

Ahead, an archway formed, with broken sheets of glass intersecting and melding into a reflective surface. From the wings of the Twice-Walker shone forth a coruscating radiance that painted brushstrokes of color and shapes into another place.

Features to a new location flashed into shape. Narrowing from the eldritch leviathan, a dollop shot free from the titanic form as Mirrorhead collapsed the mass of the Heaven back within his Frame.

The entire process felt disquieting, as if reality was being stretched no longer. Something occurred to Avo then: It had been some time since his wards groaned before the gaze of another Heaven–against the naked form of a god.

Was he somehow acclimating? Or was it just an attunement, his own increasingly eldritch nature parting him from the trauma of beholding another of its kind?

Such questions slipped from his mind as surprise widened a leak within his thoughts.

Riding as an unknown passenger behind Mirrorhead’s eyes, Avo found himself in a shadowy domed structure. No doors or portals of any kind greeted this place beyond, only curved ceilings and flat walls made of glass.

Three hundred loci signatures populated his visual feed, drones flying to and fro, all connected to a central memory matrix. Ghosts flooded the darkness here, a near twenty-thousand in number by the estimates of Avo’s Metamind. Through them, neon phantoms danced and simulated a miniaturized version of the Sovereignty itself, with a spectral line connecting the Conflux megablock from Mazzo’s Junction in the Spine to Nu-Scarrow at Light’s End.

Additional glowing waypoints lined the stormtree rooted at the heart of the Scalpers’ district, and the passages through Layer Two and Layer One.

With a wave of his hand, Mirrorhead’s Metamind rippled. Commands spilled free, washing over all the ghosts from the final and innermost layer. Phantasmal mass built within the Syndicate boss as countless ghosts took root within him.

There was a strangeness to the moment. It was as if Mirrorhead’s body was a trunk now reknitting with the rest of the tree, branching off elsewhere.

And suddenly, as a flash of light ignited within Mirrorhead, the space around them changed again, like a facade collapsing. The glass around them shattered.

And then, there was light. The sunshine of a holographic sun.

Avo found himself frozen by sheer aesthetic whiplash. Banished from a sterile chamber encased in glass, phantasmal neon, and darkness, this place was its antithesis.

Beyond the expanse of a smooth reflective pier, a small wooden bridge extended out in front of him to a tropical island that crowned the dancing tides. Foaming waves lapped over golden beaches. An impossible collection of trees, nu-birds, and drones formed a perimeter as if awaiting Mirrorhead’s approach.

And there, bobbing atop the softly swirling waves on magnetized platforms, were thirty-two signatures. Thirty-two signatures from thirty-two loci chambered within thirty-two different combat platforms

It took him finally noticing one of said platforms was a Sangeist to realize the rest were golems as well.