Godclads

Chapter 8-18 The Second Cycle (I)

The subject's entire concept of self has been… split. In two.

No. They aren't dead, I think death might be preferable at this point though. We can still hear him screaming. His mind's in two places, but it's not an even split.

Alright. Yeah. We'll shut it down. We'll have the next subject usurp them when he settles down. It didn't have any Ontologics attached so… yes. Yes, I know.

The Agnosi were right. We can't use it to create an omnipresent ego.

-Highflame Research Cell, Project Dichotomy

8-18

The Second Cycle (I)​

Avo’s new Soul was a cripple.

Not in the sense of being inherently broken, but from a comparative lack. Without a Meta-Fac, a self-managing system or seemingly any of the smart-admin functions running within his Stillborn Frame’s root, the Soul that once fueled the Fallen Heaven of Burner’s Way was a rather lacking construct in every regard.

Unwilling to commit to any transfer of consciousness or even risk such an outcome, Avo ejected the second Soul outside his current Frame’s liminal subreality before infusing it with a single thaum.

He wasn’t sure how that would look back in the garden, if a spark of eldritch fire would spill out from his corpse or whatnot, but as of the present, it merely seemed like a minor gulf of nothingness parted him from interlinking with the other Heaven.

THAUMIC OUTPUT - 970 THAUM/c

Ghosts: [412]

Almost immediately, a second presence pulsed into being just beyond the veil of his control. Curiously, Avo reached over to interface with the other Heaven.

It flashed and a new subreality came online.

LIMINAL FRAME DETECTED: “STORMTREE” SPIRE PATTERN

THAMIC LIMIT: SPHERE III

CURRENT THAUMIC CLASS: SPHERE I

The Soul Frame's mem-data listed it as a Sphere Three thaumic construct bearing the designation of “Stormtree Spire Pattern.”

As Avo focused on its root, a bridge of light interfaced between Frames. He filtered through various root-function diagnostics to find that this new Soul was only rated for a single Heaven and Hell.

Apparently, judging from the way it only projected a flume of eldritch fire outward from the top and the bottom, the structure of the Frame was externally vectored and incapable of storing of other Heavens.

Slots for two ontologics at the most.

More than just being fixed, however, there was a deadness to it, with the flames being opaque compared to the rippling currents cast out by Avo’s Soul. It was as Kae stated: His Soul was special. The Spire pattern felt like a raw hunk of chrome–it had fixed functions, but it could not shift and adapt like nanosuites or smart-fog could; like Avo’s Stillborn Frame could.

“Ah, there’s the lightbulb,” Zein said, “I’m still curious to see if it would have seen this plane ruptured if you opened it up as a subreality in a subreality. Would it just seem similar to another pocket in space expanding in this space. When you've been around as long as I have, seeing something new… Perhaps it might rupture your Frame and kill you, but it’s just so tempting.”

The fluxing flares of Avo’s spectral fires twisted toward Zein, like phosphorus bleeding from the Galeslither he was currently grafted to. It was the the best approximation his Soul could muster in place of an actual glare. “Might’ve killed you too.”

Zein gave a blase shrug. “Wouldn’t that be a novel experience for the both of us? Truth be told, pitiable as these gods are, I expect nothing from them. They could not best me at the height of their might, they will not impress me now.”

Tides of rage shifted in lapping tendrils along the shell of the Woundshaper. “You are a wretched, deceitful…”

Thousandhand turned her attention from the reborn Soul to the diminished blood god. Woundshaper clutched tighter to the Galeslither.

“Look away from me partling! Your gaze is debasing.”

“I gaze,” Zein said, “on a god I remember most fondly. When I said really was a sign of respect.” She sighed. “Truthfully, out of all the gods I’ve shattered, I always found you to be… quite human.

Spikes erupted from the back of the Woundshaper as the Heaven snarled. The act reminded Avo of the arched back of a hissing nu-cat. “Pester me no more. Prod no longer at my wounds. Leave me to my shame in silence.” For the first time, Avo felt a sense of sullenness from his god, a genuine sadness at being broken by a mortal.

Even one such as Zein.

The other Godclad’s consciousness rang, preparing to speak once more, but Avo interrupted her. “Zein. Enough. You have recommendations for this Heaven? The build?”

The words he offered were bait. Distractions so she wouldn’t agitate his Heaven further. He needed her talking still–to say he trusted her was an outright lie, but she seemed… willing to help, if in a twisted sense.

The memories of the un-futures were still ringing in his mind, resounding like a collage of moments, each feeling like they happened concurrently mere moments ago.

“You are on approach to gaining the ontological mass to be regarded as Fourth Sphere,” Zein said. “Commendable, considering the short time you had your Frame, but insufficient for the tasks we face, little dagger.”

“Little dagger?”

“A saying,” Zein explained. “A term of endearment for a discipline of the ugly art.”

Must be an old Ori thing. “Do I need to call you something? Old-sword? Long-spear? The pointed one.”

“Refer to me however you wish. The purpose of our companionship is for me to see you become the wonderful slaughterhouse you have the potential to be. It is the skill, the power to overcome another that gives these titles weight, no?”

He considered her words. “What if the power goes unrecognized? What if your foe chooses to deny you?”

“Deny what?” Zein Thousandhand said. “Pleasure? Ego-food? Respect?” She threw her head back and laughed. “If such a thing is what you yearn from, then may I suggest a joy habit? No amount of practice or prowess will compare to such a high.”

“Telling me to seek self-satisfaction instead?”

“I am telling you that mastery is meaning in of itself,” Zein said. “But I don’t need to tell you this. Look at what you were able to do with Necrotheurgy. It began as an attempt to impress your father or to have a deeper means of control, perhaps, but with repetition, you are bound to its pattern, your nature intertwined to your ability. Now, if I severed all your capabilities for such a skill, would you be lame? I would have castrated you. It would be a wound. Because more than pleasure, more than satisfaction, it is a part of you. Ontology, in a word.”

The fullness of her philosophy eluded him, but he felt pulled by the wake it left regardless. There was a magnetism to her enthusiasm; she loved all that she did, and the time seemed to have siphoned more bitterness from her than it left.

Frankly, it was hard to tell if she was mad or wise.

“We should focus on remolding you into the shape of the Godclad you yearn to be. A true apex predator. Yes. It fits. I like it; it will be amusing seeing you eat the others.” She chuckled imagining his cannibalism. “You must view the Heavens to the same extent you view your phantasmics–your Metamind. It is a part of you. Things you can attach and remove, perhaps, but it is a part of you. Why, I wept for hours upon grafting a new Heaven in place of one old–the experience so traumatic for me that I didn’t feel good until I managed to end a million lives in a day with the one I replaced it with.”

“Do you see!” The Woundshaper hissed. “Do you see! The ephemerals accuse us of gluttony, but what can be more savage than this? A million! Think of all the miracles we would be capable if we could kill–” It paused. “Master, ask her how she managed to kill a million people. We need this dark knowledge.”

Ignoring the capriciousness of his Heaven, Avo found his attention drawn to Zein looking back over the Soul. “Siphon the thaum out for now. Turn the Soul off and take it back inside you.” Her attention twisted over to the new Heaven orbiting him, its form still shrouded in the dark. “Its cycler will come more useful attached to your current Frame than being stuck within a fire you currently aren’t mantling.”

Heeding her advice, Avo withdrew his thaum and the Soul flickered as the subreality collapsed. Reaching out with his light and hooking it with his oscillating flares, he pulled it back within his borders and issued commands to see it dismantled.

The Spire-pattern submitted to his pull without a struggle, its coming faster and more fluid than most Heavens. Probably an issue resulting from its comparative lack of mass.

Pulling it back into his infrastructure, its component pieces greeted him as his Soul roared. His radiant ripples twisted fluid limbs, prying the pieces free with relative ease. Thauma-haptic sensation of cupping the component parts of another Frame was uncanny–something he guessed typically took countless lives and entire teams of Agnosi.

DECONSTRUCTION COMPLETE

THAUMIC CYCLER: [1]

BOUNDARY ROOT-CONFIGURATION TEMPLATE DOWNLOADED

SOUL: [1]

THAUMIC OUTPUT - 971 THAUM/c

A few other strings of mem-data played through his mind, but he understood little of what they entailed, the information too thickly embedded with thaumaturgic jargon and equations he couldn’t read. “Zein you know how to read… thaumic?”

She nodded. “No. Not at all. It’s very boring.”

He now desperately wanted a set of eyes so he could better glare at her.

“Enough tarrying,” Zein said. “You can poke at the rest later. Right now, you need to get that cycler grafted. A second chance to evade true death via Rend. Very important if you want to face a true Godclad.”

“How many do you have,” Avo asked, probing casually.

Zein’s eyes turned to crescents. “That depends: Would you like to hear my believable lie? Or my exaggerated lie?”

Avo grunted. “Exaggerated.”

“Three hundred.”

“Why not three million.”

“Because dragons are very expensive, little dagger, and the No-Dragons remain bitter sows to this day about the little matter of all their menfolk being dead. Now, graft! Graft! I tire of looking upon your single cycler. It’s making me mad. Furious even.”

At her urging, Avo sent the command and the waves of his Soul washed inward like an astral tide collapsing upon the shores of a star. The cycler, then, served as a ringworld to this metaphor, this dragon black and bare of Essence within its scales, but resembling his presently active one in every way.

Angling away from the other cycler, it attached to him without issue as an integration sequenced booted in his mind. He kept check of his resurrection in the meantime, the progress operating at minimum spin.

RESURRECTION - 31%

The new cycler latched with an echoing shudder. His Soul flickered as the thaums found a new channel to integrate with.

NEW CYCLER DETECTED

ACTIVE ONTOLOGIC SLOTS: 2/4

Before he could spend any time examining his root data, Zein darted through his mind, her path leaving a cleaved line oozing sparkles within his liminality. “Now, let’s see what we can make with that new Heaven of yours.”

She spoke of the four Domain Heaven he claimed from Burner’s Way. It took was repaired after he managed to subsume the Soul it was bound to and stabilize the rupture. Once fallen, now this construct greeted him as a varnished thing, blackened and unclear as if it wasn’t manifesting right.

All he could get from it was a vagueness; it offered him the generalities of its contours but nothing else.

“Why is it dark?” Zein asked.

Avo let the silence speak for his ignorance.

“Give me one second,” Zein said. With a sweeping slash, she left his Soul momentarily. And immediately came back. “Have it deconstructed by your light. However it works. The Domains are all that matters.”

“Did you leave to look into the future?” Avo asked.

Zein smirked. “Did I? Let an old woman have a few tricks. Wouldn’t want you eating me prematurely.”

“Had to try.”

“And I commend the effort. Burn its Domain of Space and Matter after you fuse it with your Heaven of Blood. And only after you fuse it.” Zein emphasized those words. “They won’t be joined properly otherwise. I’ve seen it happen before. Very ugly. Constant paradox. Missing Domain-crossover causes paradox. A forcible fuse usually results in instant thaumic backlash. Taking out the Domains afterward–should be possible; perhaps; maybe; I don’t know; let’s see–should probably not cause you to collapse your Heaven and die.”

“Should probably not?”

“You emerged fine in some timelines.” Zein grinned.

“How many.”

“Three.”

“How many am I dead in?”

She held her head back and looked toward a missing sky. “Negativity is not a thing that should concern the likes of us.”

Avo frowned at the darkness. “And how do you know all this.”

“A few hundred guesses.”

So. He died in a lot of futures even as a Godclad. Good to know.

“Anyway, jam this Fallen Heaven together with your Woundshaper first. Do it. It will be worth it.”

The Woundshaper quavered. “No, master! Do not listen to her. At least wait for the Oracle to return! The little one with the glass eye. She is kind and gentle.” A tendril of blood jutted rudely at Zein, who merely folded her arms and grinned. “This one is mad and decrepit.”

Avo hesitated.

“Come now, little dagger,” Zein said. “If I meant you ill, I could see you dead–does my mercy not speak for itself? And besides, your Frame would look so poorly on me. It's just too… hungry. I think it suits you.”

“What’s wrong with matter and space?” Avo asked.

“Well,” Zein said, “the canon of the second is conflicting with a hubris from the first, I think. You tend to expand volumetrically when you get pulled apart geometrically.” A strangely pleased look spilled across her face. “I also die in one of those futures. Real death. It ends up collapsing my garden and causing a limited spatial collapse. It keeps growing and kills ninety percent of this district before the Sovereignty finally notices and soaks the Rend.”

He wasn’t sure what to say to that.

“Sathwu,” Zein said, her voice sweet, “you asked how I killed a million people, yes?”

The Heaven of Blood suddenly peeked out, all acrimony was forgotten “Yes?”

“Would you like to kill a million people? Feast on a million echoes of humanity and belief?”

“Yes!”

The uneven nature of the god never ceased to astound Avo.

Zein seemed to understand his sentiments. “Ah. Don’t blame them. They are beings formed by a gestalt. They cannot decide how they are shaped, how they act. For all their power and influence over reality, they do not possess the fuel that needs to see these miracles made manifest.”

“Essence,” Avo said.

“The choice to believe,” Zein added. “Some called it free will. Others think of it as determination unto itself. Conceptual propulsion.”

Avo considered his Heaven again. “The fusion. It won’t break my ontology?”

“Not unless you graft it onto your Soul and start feeding it thaums,” Zein said. “You should be able to undo whatever it is you did thanks to your Frame’s self-administering nature. Oh, and I just want you to know that I am immensely jealous of that function most of all. Thousands need to die when I want to change a canon. It’s very inconvenient.”

Nested with the Galeslither, the steed neighed a trinary chorus of thunder as acknowledgment. “Woundshaper. Won’t break you. You accept these changes?”