Chapter 2-13 The Monster and the Ghoul

Chapter 2-13 The Monster and the Ghoul

In simplicity, thaums can be considered ontological massthe metaphysical space or capacity a Soul can hold in existence. Indeed, it is the Soul that is the foundation on which our society rests today; the plucked hearts of our former gods powering their corpses which we wield and pilot.

Through its structure, Heavens and Hells can be made manifest, expressing their miracles and twisting the fabric of reality revisions, be it only evanescent.

It is with that in mind that all must beware of facing ontological inertia. For the expenditure of miracles is not eternal, and the weight of reality will revert even the greatest Soul fueling the most efficient of Heavens should there not be enough thaums.

So, keep an eye on how much youre burning. Wont do you much good if your golem suddenly goes empty halfway through a fight.

-Golems: Gods Upon the Machine, Chapter 4

2-13

The Monster and the Ghoul

Avo toppled left. The ground spiraled and spun. His steps were chasing the floor as it snaked away from him, moving to evade his touch. His skull met the side of a container in a ringing impact barely felt, for right then, the confines of his skull were already subsumed beneath a raging storm of clustering headaches that pried at his loose thoughts. Lumps of misshapen thoughtstuff bubbled out from his cracked Metamind.Ñøv€lRapture marked the initial hosting of this chapter on Ñôv€lß¡n.

A pillar of crimson punched deep into the ground next. Shards of plascrete splashed up, breaking against the roughness of his skin. Above, an enormous crimson mass loomed, its uneven shadow spilling over him as they both shook and fumbled between two ever-narrowing rows of intersecting stacks.

On instinct, Avo flopped his gun behind him and jerked its trigger, expecting to feel the kick of recoil. Nothing. He twitched his finger across the trigger twice again and gave up. He hadnt reloaded. And now, he couldnt even remember where the ammo was.

A dozen wire-thin threads of blood whipped through the air. Containers and storage units came slumped apart, unzipped by the sheer undiminishing sharpness of the haemokinetic constructs. Little Vicious giggled madly, the insanity of her voice diminishing by the second as her Metamind mended her broken mind as well, ejecting damaged memories like unspooling strands while replacing them with simulated mimicries.

A net lashed out at Avo. Too far overhead. An overturned cargo loader came apart in three separate pieces, spewing hydro-coolant.

+Almost got you, ghoulie!+ she cackled, her golem bumbling into a stack and knocking it over. It was as if she was drunk, but he was no better.

Ahead, Avo saw the crane swaying in the wind, its contours a vague blur to his nearsighted eyes. He couldnt see Draus, but with his cog-feed broken, he couldnt see much of anything at all past fifty feet. Everything was a blur, and his drilling migraines made it worse. Maybe she already left. Ran off to help the father and son after using him as bait.

That would be cruel. But it made sense. She was used to killing things like him. They were the ones she promised to protect.

A lurching groan came from the toppled stacks as the golem pushed off it, leaping. Its form ground momentarily against the ceiling; pipes speared down like javelin-like rains while flakes of paint served as snow. The golem struck the ground next to him in a deafening impact, carrying him off his feet, and throwing him into the air as force carried him with the rock and debris.

A rusted hinge bounced off Avos shoulder. The decomposed body of a Wight splattered against him. He struck a nearby column with a sudden lurch, his ribplates expanding like spiderwebs before the impact. Avo slumped down, wheezing, clutching his stomach. Every breath he took felt like he was forcing his insides through a grater.

As he lay there, desperately trying to remember which muscle groups to coordinate so he could stand, the golem staggered toward him, its tower-like body melting, drip by drip. Gazing upon its presence with his bare mind drew a tortured noise out of his chest. He choked. He hissed. Eyes rolling back, he shrank into himself, like a child before a descending belt.

Too small. How could something like him face that which feasted upon the flesh of reality?

Inside the golem, he saw the drifting cracks of a ripple slowly slide back together around an ovaline command module, a bobbing organ amidst crimson translucence. Shaking limbs inched out from its body, long and sharp. They were metal but shaped in extending branches by incremental spurts of blood.

A nest of thorns was being grown out from the golems very chest.

A crack shuddered through Avos mind. Consciousness surged back through him. Pain took a more comprehensible shape as the world stopped trying to dodge him. His cog-feed sputtered back into his awareness as he groaned, only noticing just now that he had been drooling like a dull animal.

As the golems existence planted its withing kiss upon his mind again, he felt its touch through the tattered fortifications of his Metamind. This time, the madness came with a degree of separation. His outer accretion of ghosts howled in despair as they diverted to take the brunt of the harm. It was like he was hiding in a basement born of his own psychological architecture as horror hammered his outer walls like artillery.

The golem was shrinking. That wasnt a misjudgment earlier, even if it had diverted some mass to flank him. Still, to go from eighty feet to a mere seventy or so lent him no advantage, and what it did to defile the natural laws governing blood and matter tortured his perception, the sight of its being a fraying thing, something that all mortal minds on a cellular level knew to be unnatural.

Eldritch.

With a grunted shout, Avo pushed from the ground and made to run again. He needed to break the line of sight. Lose it before getting to the crane

A harpoon of glistening red whipped out through his shoulder. A choked rasp squeezed free from Avos throat. Thrust out by the extending limb, Avo felt the back of his head crack against the cold, cracked face of the column. He fought it. Clawing and biting into the lash.

Little Vicious mind bled perverse joy as he saw her accretion take shape as well, the damage to her slowly coming undone. Her growing branches and briars spilled down the lash, snaking themselves through the clefts of Avos wounds.

Ghouls dont scream so much as they screech. Something about their vocal cords and pitch. When the tendrils sank into him, they began to alchemize his blood, Little Vicious flaying touch spreading out even from within. In seconds, he felt his flesh turn from being merely broken to an altar of pain.

To lay agony upon agony, Little Vicious slammed him head-first against a nearby container; one already torn in the middle with frayed flaps of teeth-like metal awaiting him. Avo recognized it from the stacks she knocked over earlier. Desperately, he struggled, but she grasped him within, her haemokinetic blood clutching his skin like a glove.

+Call out to your friend, ghoulie? Call out to the Reg.+

Avo looked toward the crane and saw no sign of Draus. She was gone. Probably left him.

For the first time, he was glad about it.

Could that have been the crane?

Avo wondered if it was his mind going for a moment, but decided it didnt matter. Even if he was deluding himself, it was nicer to delude himself into thinking Draus was trying to help him. He deserved that at the least. He wanted to go with the thought that at least someone would remember him as more than just a slavering monster when he went.

Even if he could come back again.

Nuh-no, Avo said, swallowing sour spit and bile. D-dontcare aboutthat.

Little Vicious cocked her head. Oh. You dont? Well, then. While were here, Ill listen: tell me what you do care about?

Avo wanted to mock her. But frankly, pretending the torture wasnt getting to him was bad enough. So, he gave it words and cast his hate right back at her.

You, Avo said.

Little Vicious threw her head back and laughed. You care about me?

Want to knowwhyyoure pathetic.

Her laugh ended as abruptly as it started again. What? Her voice cracked, croaking in disbelief.

But gods was she so easy to rile

Avo continued. You. Pathetic. Nice clothes. Nice life. Even genes are bought. But still here. Down in the gutter. Killing those who cant choose. He swallowed back a mouthful of blood. You. People like you. Like litter. Everywhere. Staining the city. Not unique. Not special. Nothing new. Seen you before. Seen you in the face of my brothers. Too stupid to live. Too hungry to just die. Seen you in the face of every joy-fiend. The dose. Never high enough. Seen you in the face of every Mid-Guilder. Just another cog. More lubricant than person. All impulse. No control. No choice. Avo grinned at her. Sub. Human. Like me. I greet you, sister.

Fury exploded from her mind, the intensity too much for her ghosts to bear as they quailed. Her expression mustve twisted into something of pure hate, pure rage. YouYou dont fucking know anything!

Familys made up of guilders. You have money. But always, you felt less. Less than your peers. Avo was just guessing now, blood loss taking him on a final, feverish rant. Lacked something they had. They fit. They enjoyed life. Seemed able to. You couldnt. Family grew you. Grew you in the vat to be perfect. But still, here you are. With me.

Overhead, he heard a hum growing closer. Little Vicious mustve been too focused on him to notice. Avo was glad that his face had practically no skin left on it. Otherwise, she mightve seen him smile.

The blood controlled by the golem was practically boiling. She puppeted him, pulling him closer using her blade-like grasp, actions made sloppy by her feelings. Tears spilled out from her eyes. He could smell the salt. Hear her choked sobs. Her hands were shaking. Faintly, he heard the rasp of a monoblade. Ah. She was pulling a knife, planning to end this personally for that slight.

Avo chuckled. How accurate he had been. And how predictable she had been. Pathetic, he muttered.

He heard her cry out with a snarl. A spark of surging electricity cracked above him, a sudden static spilling over his skin. Without warning, he was torn upward, the golem and Little Vicious soaring up with him. The branches inside him dissolved as Little Vicious screamed, losing the focus to maintain her construct. He heard her knife sail past him as her cockpit snapped shut.

Metal screamed and bolts broke. Little Vicious was roaring curses, trying to wrestle her golem back under control. Inadvertently, she cast him loose, releasing him into the air. Then, suddenly, there was nothing holding him anymore. Cut free from his torturous cage, Avo flopped and tumbled across the ground as above, golem greeted crane in a snapping clash.

Faintly, he could hear Little Vicious howling. For a moment that stretched on forever, he chuckled, content to lay on the cool ground as his mind began to unravel from hunger and pain. A rising percussion of footsteps approached.

Someone was standing over him. He could hear their heartbeat. Their blood smelled tasteless. Pure.

Jaus, he heard them whisper. Or did they? Was anyone there? Draus? Draus. Avo? Oh, deep hells, what the fuck did she do to you.

He tried to say something. All that came was a cough.

Alright. She picked him up as if he weighed nothing. Considering how much of himself he burned trying to stay alive, that mightve been the case. Above, Little Vicious continued to struggle. It sounded as if it were cutting against the crane now. Come on. Lets get, consang.

Avo grunted. It was getting hard to think. Draus

Yeah?

I was worth coming back for? Consangs?"

Draus laughed. She increased her pace. "Crane's fuel cell was fried. Had to rig a replacement from an aerovec I found in one of the units. Kept it in stasis. Real lucky.

Now it was his turn to laugh. Lucky

As he bounced to the rhythm of Draus' footsteps, he felt a flash of light spear back into his right eye. He blinked. His sight returned to him. Faster than it normally grew back. Of course, the first thing that greeted him was the golem sinking the jaws on its crown into the walls, taking a bite out of the plascrete. Suddenly, its flowing rivulets flashed red. No longer did the blood gleam metallic. Now, the flows grew thicker, mottled.

Like plascrete.

The golem descended from the crane then, unaffected by magnetism. Like an anvil, it struck hard, cracking and mending blood and plascrete both.

Avo sighed. Draus. Run. Run faste