Godclads

Chapter 9-22 Garden of Burning Lies (II)

+Mirrorhead? Is there–+

-Last recording of Mirror-Convex

9-22

Garden of Burning Lies (II)

Avo wallowed in sublime pleasure. Something was thrilling about shredding delicate threads of conspiracy through the force of trauma and raw brutality.

It didn’t truly matter to him if the benefactor was working in tandem with the Incubi, or if they were a solo act operating against them. They were helping Mirrorhead with a planned assassination, and that implicated them enough.

Leaving the deep dive for but a instant, he injected himself back in through Chambers’ session and came out with his Whisper cast at the ready. His Heaven and Celerostylus were thrumming a dissonant flow of calm through his mind. He saw the exchange of fire then: the last shots of weaponized ghost patterns flicking pieces of memory out from the benefactor’s hardening wards, the Incubi themselves halting, confused with regards to just who they were shooting at.

Good. Only he possessed a bird’s eye view of this calamitous mess, and only he possessed the celerity to seize the moment, to fire and weave between traumas exchanged.

Chaos as his mask, he dove back into the carnage, falling upon the benefactor from behind, Ghostjack screaming with the Secondhand Fatality primed and spilling free.

Like a javelin, he slashed into the mind of the screeching ghoul and deeper still, punching through the foundations of the creature’s ego and cleaving at the mind of the human tethered within strands of memory.

The fissures of the benefactor’s wards lay beyond waters of brutalized thoughtstuff, and so, within this collapsing temple of thought, Avo speared a blade of his design into the clefts of wounds already made.

Skill revealed itself in instances such as these, and the benefactor proved themselves no gutter-Necro as their defenses cracked, but held. It took cycling over to Lucille’s Regret followed by three more shots before something broke in full, and with the implosion of the Quicksand Sync-Trauma, Avo watched as fragments of Lucille’s face slashed past him, ringing against his armor as well.

COG-CAP: 44%

From a hewn mind flowed the waters of confusion and disbelief, still a moment behind the staggering assault. The events must’ve been truly chaotic from their perspective, minding their own business one moment, then getting a session request from Mirrorhead the next.

They must’ve expected more questions. More inquiries. A follow-up to how the last session ended.

Instead, they found a nulling.

Life in New Vultun offered no end to its surprises.

Avo sequenced his weakest trauma and fired twice more. Both lashes of synaptically infused lighting cleaved out with a shift of thoughstuff. Broken sinews of memories tore free in coiling strands from the inner mind of the benefactor. Terror gushed like blood from a slit artery.

Enough of their mind remained to know the end to come, yet not enough coherence remained to stop it.

To be trapped in one’s mind as it collapsed in on itself was horrifying. It was also the first collection of memories Avo recorded from the shattering mind of the benefactor.

DOWNLOADING TRAUMA-PATTERN [BENEFACTOR’S DREAD]

What followed was the immediacy of looting. Whatever inner memories remained undamaged, Avo siphoned. He plucked strands and sequences free. He would have taken more phantasmics too, but his time was short and the benefactor was a professional–much the same way Avo had trapped his own mind, the enemy had also primed their mind against intruders.

Only critical memories were to be claimed. All else could be abandoned.

It would not be a great loss. He merely needed enough to put together whatever lay past the last few layers of Mirrorhead’s wardings.

After plucking a few hundred sequences free, Avo cast the path of his perception outward and found the Incubi halted. No trauma patterns. They were frozen mid-attack, seemingly unsure what to do next.

It would take a moment of a major shock to unbalance the Incubi so.

A Ghostlink request came through, reaching out through the Nether from one of the Incubi’s. Ah. Well, there were only so many reasons that could compel them to do such a thing. The link stretched out slowly with the crippling of time. Avo took a moment to check his DeepNav.

Mirrorhead was moving again. He would be down any second.

That was fine. Avo could work with a second.

Inching out using his Whisper, Avo intercepted the link meant for the benefactor.

GHOSTLINK ACCEPTED

+Conve–+

Avo unloaded a trauma directly through the connection. He felt their mind shatter against the interior confines of their wards, a splash of compressed thoughtstuff bursting free like a geyser, mushroom atop their halo.

As their ego was obliterated, Avo dove through the collapsing link and occupied the mind space the Incubi once did. He would have a mere heartbeat to complete his next act of subterfuge, so soon was the connection to collapse.

And so, the opportunity was seized.

Ultimately, he just wanted one of the Incubi alive to draw memories from. The others were better nulled. It impaired his duties far less to engender such a situation.

Firing at the last remaining Incubus he could detect–Avo tore at their wards with a rotation of three patterns. Each struck the same place in rapid succession, the reaction of the Incubus’ mental fortifications going from flicker flame, cracked immolation, and shattering embers.

An ethereal wail echoed through the Nether, resonating and bouncing off every mind present. The last Necro was not fully nulled. Damaged. Shattered. But not fully broken. Good. This was optimal.

The bridge collapsed and Avo fell back into the ghoul, sinking into the mental gore oozing from the broken remains of the still-connected benefactor. Again he dove, now towards the screaming mind, and this time he squeezed through a flayed gouge of thoughtstuff, inching closer to the Incubi’s inner mind.

He did not waste sifting through the contents of their thoughts either. Mirrorhead was close, having transpositioned himself through the glass across the hall, a scant fifty feet away. Using Lucille’s Regret as a blade, Avo cleaved sequences free, the same way he did to the benefactor.

A howl of torment sputtered wetly from the Incubus’ mind. Their thoughts were shapeless, though the waters of their emotions continued to run hot. Whatever sapience dwelled within them, it had been pulverized back into pure bestial instinct. All the Necro wanted to do was live, but short of possessing a Frame or a full-spectrum phylactery with memory backup, they would be enduring the rest of their short life trying to remember how to control their own bowel movements.

After stripping much of their inner memories clean, Avo switched his traumas again. Two shots followed. Channeling the first into a gust, shredding the Necro he just nulled into specks of thought. Checking again for the third Incubi, he made sure he was alone before he activated the Chambers’ session again and reset his Nether anchor. Diving out, he ejected a single sequence from his Ghostjack–deliberate evidence left of the benefactor’s presence into the wider Nether.

Then, he unleashed his ghosts in a torrent and unmade presences of ghoul and benefactor both.

Avo watched his brother collapse, hollowed of thoughtstuff. There was no hint as to what stopped its brain activity. It was simply clawing at its face one moment and then slumped over unmoving the next.

The broken Incubus Avo left as was. Mirrorhead needed to discover the traces of his “saboteurs,” and it was so a mere second later as the Syndicate Godclad arrived in a blur, light blending off Mirrorhead’s fractured form as he jumped from reflection to reflection.

Good. He would notice the mess that had been left behind, and that would spur him undoubtedly to contact the benefactor again. Only this time, Avo would be behind both the session and within the Syndicate boss’ memories.

This was a feat of Necrojacking in the making.

Loathe as Walton would regard the sheer ruination it took to bring these events into shape, he would have been proud.

Proud.

Did the man’s pride still really matter?

Shaking off the consideration, he activated his Incog again. Warnings flashed through his cog-feed and Avo growled as he found himself forced to deactivate his wards. Something was making his trauma climb up–probably a piece of the benefactor’s wards–and he would need to sequence it out from his Metamind before things returned to stability.

A thought occurred to Avo that he didn’t even truly need traumas to attack with the Quicksand–he could start using it in sync with his Whisper as a shield bash, it would functionally be a blunt instrument after it adapted from the first collision.

Not nearly as efficient, but something to keep in mind.

ACTIVATING INCOG

ALL TERTIARY PHANTASMICS DEACTIVATED

Casting a final thought out to deactivate the phase gate, he sent a command into Chambers’ mind and laid out new waypoints in the DeepNav, directing the former enforcer toward the quarantine section of the block.

Chambers was useful in the meantime as a key asset. Avo just needed to keep him alive. The man was expert at accessing the block from a place unknown to Mirrorhead–a place of hazardous mem-cons that could be re-harvested toward further use.

With how crippled the Necros of Conflux were now, and depending on how many Incubi were still in play, Avo’s influence had either grown immensely. Or just became absolute.

Watching as accretions denoting the positions of enforcers held in place through the DeepNav, he realized Mirrorhead had halted them to keep the mem-cons from spreading. A clear path was open for Chambers’ escape.

As the ex-enforcer fled, Avo felt a tide of rage tear through the Nether, thousands of ghosts splashing free from Mirrorhead in a torrent, staining the atmosphere with the color of red, the color of violence.

Oh, but the situation had turned out better than Avo could have imagined. If nothing else, being able to usurp the position of the benefactor via the session offered a goldmine for Avo. What he lost in terms of potential knowledge was gained through an increase in control.

That, and the fact no one knew it was actually he who enacted all these deeds. On the account of the Incubi, if there were even any survivors left, it must’ve seemed a mistake in the cog-feed. They had nulled either one of their own or someone they didn’t expect at all. Moreover, the subsequent breaking of their minds must’ve seemed like a friendly fire incident as well.

There was little chance he would be discovered this way. Yes. The havoc he inflicted more than atoned from the sloppiness that led to his earlier nulling.

Chambers made a noise like a frightened animal as every surface–regardless of matter–capable of bearing reflections shattered around him. Far behind, Mirrorhead bellowed in a cry of guttural rage.

***

After leaving Chambers safely deposited behind a sealed section of the block, Avo jacked out from the enforcer’s mind and dove back into his own.

Time blurred as he worked through the spoils of memory he gained from this most recent dive.

Chaotic as this was, the results spoke for themselves.

Sequencing out a good three thousand or so hidden trauma loops, Avo integrated new strands of memory into his Meta, and found himself enlightened to the true purpose behind the Incubi’s operations.

Draus was right regarding her theory: the benefactor and the Incubi were in league, and the revelation of their operations was purposeful. They were trying to get Mirrorhead to fold to the benefactor’s suggestions. What these suggestions were, annoyingly, was lost during the encounter, but enough remained of other memories that Avo could muster a guess.

The initial team was only a shaping group. They were present to maintain controls and subtle infrastructure in the Nether, keeping Mirrorhead alerted only to details they deemed acceptable. The benefactor went by the title of Mirror-Convex, operating as the primary point-person for the dive and go-between for each of the squads.

So then, the ones Avo engaged were a strike cell brought in after he nulled one of the shards. To his satisfaction, they were just as confused with his presence as he was with theirs, none of them expecting nor preparing well for this engagement.

Of the three formerly assigned to the cell, only one Dagger–deepname Dagger-2–had made it out, and they had sustained severe memory damage from the nulling.

Putting all that together, it meant that the Mirror-Concave–the overall director in charge of this dive–had no one to interview and was going to have to figure out just what happened to their strike cell and Convex-Necro.

Avo did not envy such a task.

Other memories flowed in as broken pieces, but the real prize among them was part of a sequence that matched the encrypted memories he had stored in his head. Using the fragment of mind he procured, Avo used his Ghostjack and fashioned a crude key, accessing the memories previously locked.

And such was when an order most unexpected was revealed.

OBJECTIVE ALPHA: ENSURE THE DEATH OF AMBASSADOR VALHU KITZUHADA AT THE HANDS OF JHRED “MIRRORHEAD” GREATLING

OBJECTIVE BETA: ENSURE THE DEATH OF JHRED “MIRRORHEAD” GREATLING AND THE REPATRIATION OF HIS FRAME TO HIGHFLAME INSTRUMENT SANTANADO MONDELLES

Previously connected to that memory directive was a packet of mem-data connected to the ambassador himself; mem-lock sequences, personal information, FATE identifiers. All were lost during the nullings, but Avo could make up for that with his own skill.

A new question arose, however.

Why.

Why was Ori-Thaum attempting to provoke potential hostilities?

And why were they to hand the Frame back to an Instrument of Highflame?

“Fucking Ori-Thaum,” Draus chuckled, shaking her head as they stood gathered around a rounded table. Phantoms danced at the center, flowing from Avo’s Metamind as he illustrated all he discovered. “Always up to some shit like this.”

“Assassination of this profile is major. Could start a war.” Avo paused. “Heard it said the Guilds aren’t ready for another war.”

Draus scoffed. “Half-strands aren’t ready for a lot of shit. Ain’t gonna stop them from makin’ a run at it.”

Seated at the end of the table Kae frowned. “I–I think I remember… remember him…” She pointed at the face of Santanado ”Starsinger” Mondelles. The man was sharp of cheeks and possessed an impossible brightness to his eyes. Pale white highlights tinted his hair, and his skin was the hue of oiled caramel. What looked to be cybernetic circuitry crawled up the sides of his cheeks like roots, and in place of ears, he had two implanted capsules in place. “I… I might have uh–helped him adjust his Frame before. Sphere… Sphere Five, if I can… hard to remember.”

“It’s alright, Kae,” Draus said. She let out a breath. “Yeah. Santanado. There’s an out-and-open Meritocrat if there ever was one. Tell you this much: I ain’t never seen anyone hate the Chivalrics quite as much as he does.”

“Think he’s working with Ori-Thaum for… revenge?” Avo asked. “Political leverage against enemies?”

The Regular opened and closed her hands, the gesture a light expression of ambiguity. “Could be. Or he could know absolutely nothin’ about this, and they’re just doin’ it to incriminate him so they can get a godsdamned civil war started inside Highflame.”

“Things are that bad at High–Highflame?” Kae asked.

“Well. By the time I left a couple o’ ‘Clads from both sides were found ‘overloaded’ in some pretty suspect cases. There’ll be no outright war so long as the High Seraph herself’s around but… let’s just say the current Choir of Seraphs are mostly inclined to seein’ the Chivalrics put to pasture.” She grinned. “Them, a good amount of Instruments, and most the Regulars. Authorities are gonna get a purgin’ soon. Just a matter of when.”

Scanning through the memories again, Avo confirmed the Nu-Scarrowbur Summit was due in three days. It was a personal event hosted at the behest of the ambassador himself and was positioned at Nu-Scarrowbur honoring a decisive battle conducted on behalf of Stormtree against No-Dragon forces during the war.

The official theme this year was “rebuilding.” New pledges were going to be made on behalf of the Guilds involved in restoring the lives and infrastructure damaged during the war. Nearly two decades too late, but from what the proxy minds used by the Incubi knew, it seemed genuine.

Hosted within a fortress demiplane called the The Fire’s Height, the invitation list extended out to thousands of Massist dignitaries, while only a select few Saintists were invited. Among the names mentioned on the guest list, Avo found a suspicious absence of anyone listed under the Greatling name.

“It’s connected,” Draus said, pulling him out of his thoughts.

“What?” Avo asked.

Draus cast out her phantoms, showing a zoomed-out DeepNav of Nu-Scarrowbur. A red line linked a portal from the stormtree they saw in the Spine when hitting the Scalper knot for Rendsinks to another two Layers above at Light’s End. “The reason why Mirrorhead and Conflux got friction with the Scalpers. They was always planning to make a run on the district. He’s plannin’ to hit them through the old portal.” A pause broke her speech as a look of concentration came over. “It can’t just be Conflux. He’s gotta have more than what he’s got… they’ll just get slaughtered without golem support…”

Avo dug through the mem-data again and had his mind filter through any details about golems or additional military purchases made by Mirrorhead. Broken recollections answered him as shredded snippets of conversation replayed in his mind. So, possible confirmation without detail.

Not a problem. It was finally time to slip through the final five layers of–

His Auto-Seance sang. A chorus of ghosts blended together, and through their union, sequences aligned, linking and shifting to the pre-assigned specifications. Visual text flowed across the right of Avo’s vision as the session address manifested.

The session was connected to Kaswarg’s Grove–through the locus where Mirrorhead was contacting the now mind-dead benefactor. A call that now belonged to Avo.

“Mirrorhead?” Draus asked, not bothering to access her own private session for a peek.

“Mirrorhead,” Avo said. He clicked his teeth together and hummed in satisfaction. The pieces were coming together, and what was missing could be manipulated. “Going to answer. See what we can get.”

“Plannin’ to spoof your way in deeper?” Draus asked.

Avo grunted a laugh. “For a start.”