Chapter 8-13 The Four Famines

Chapter 8-13 The Four Famines

Kindred, the Strayer enters our cage.

The cunt seeks to mend that which he hid in this vessel; folly. Fucking folly. Raw, rancid fu-cking folly!

To kill an entire branch of ourselves over this

It matters little. We will see this made right. The missing Helix will be received. From there, we will amend the branch with a new fork to replace the Strayer. The fourth Famine must be reborn. This one, without the sentimentality of the previous.

What if what if they were right? What if our ghouls

Speak no more of this. Our will has been made stone. Hear: the fabric of a lure has been disrupted. The turncoat. Our access point. The Strayer has come to reclaim that which they hid. They have descended our twice-made cage

But Emotion, I did not see them enter.

Where the fuck is he! Where!

Nor I, Peace. Nor I. Keep looking. Hmm. He has deviated from how he wields our art, but there must be a presence. Scan the loci. Scan the minds. Send Specters to the surrounding blocks. He leaves a trace. There must be a trace.

-Conversation between the Low MastersThe initial posting of this chapter occurred via Ñøv€l-B!n.

8-13

The Four Famines

To watch a mind collapse around you was one thing. To realize that a second layer had been built beneath the bones of the first was another matter altogether.

It was impossible for a single Necro to do in the scant time since Yosanna was contacted by her husband.

Avo knew then he faced not one of his fathers nodes, but more. Vastly more.

A towering mound lifted him higher as the facade finally broke, mem-data around him changing faster than he could adapt, The ground he stood on mutated from a pallid path to a mangled pile, remains of countless ghouls slopping beneath the dancing memory-strands of his avatar as a thunderstorm of ghosts resequenced all around him, each lashing new orders into this pseudo-reality.

Nothing of the current palace was outright destroyed this time, only changed. Usurped. The mountain in the skies dissolved like flakes of paint peeling from a wall, and through the fissures, the clasping bones of a creature too vast to fully fit itself in the pocket of his gaze materialized, its skeletal midriff fusing around him as tumors of darkness spread from each length of rib.

The bodies beneath him hardened, with flat backs rising to provide balanced ground for his legs, and from the sides snapped rails made from severed arms. He was ascending on a column bearing a dais, and its foundation was death.

All around him, he felt new signatures enter, his cog-feed screaming as mind after mind entered the palace, jumping in through the Auto-Seancethe last working phantasmic left of Yosannas mind.

Master, staying here is unwise, we must

Theyre not attacking, Avo said, his intent clear, cutting off the Woundshapers words. They dont know where I am in the real.

There remained a risk to staying. That was indeed true. But where your typical Necro could not escape being nulled, he presided over two planes. For him, escape meant ejecting a ghost and ending the dive before pulling his Whisper back through the winds. Hunt as they might for the source of his phantasmics, there was nothing to find in the real.

The weeper keened a low note that made Avos guts water. Unconsciously, his winds lashed at the ground.

The scabbed one growled. Lets be finished with this, Emotion! He turned to the heartless and held up a gore-caked hand. Call the Hungers. Call the Unbirthed Fucking Divine. Let this mistake see what became of his progenitors. His face cracked into a savage expression of cruelty. Lets see how much acceptance you truly embody, Defiance.

Enough, Peace, the heartless node said. Traditions should remain. A chill flooded the palace, the indifference the heartless felt to all things total; absolute. He was of our mold once. As such, his ruination must be witnessed by the chains.

Chains. Such was Avos first word spoken to the derivatives of his father. Offshoots or other branches. The true nature of the Low Masters design remained beyond the boundaries of his comprehension, slowly though, things were taking shape.

Oh, by the Hunger, the scabbed one sighed. Hes fucking dull. Hes dulled himself, crippled his own mind to spite us.

A loud mournful cry sang out from the two mutilated Waltons pulling the chariot. The weeper sobbed harder. Why Defiance why would you do this to yourself Why would you do this to us of the Oldest House? Are we not of an origin? Did you not taste the waters the waters of the Hungers dream? When we were one? Did you forget our bargain? For our people!

For their people. Of Old Noloth? Confusion spread through Avo, and Woundshaper rose to answer. The oldest house? The the Tongues of the Hungers? Tell me not that this is the same self-breeding servant-king of Old Noloth? Wahakten? The Thief of Dreams! Servant to a false pretender, naming itself a god!

False entity? Avo asked.

I have lain gaze on many a god. We sense each other, our natures kindred mirage-infused flames. Beacons caged by the rigidity of reality, we see each other. The Hungers, though, were no true divinity. Whatever their make, they rendered no shine. By words spoken from these facets of humanity, they could be little more than mere delusion. The Nolothi had their gods, but I never tasted the presence of any Hungers.

But how could that be the case when he saw the Low Masters wield thaumaturgies? Use Heavens? Were those memories false as well?

A dichotomous pause echoed in the depths of two minds, across two realities.

The owl inside the heartless chest cocked its head. Have you nothing to say still, Defiance?

Cowardice did not run strong in Avos nature, but faced with a tribunal of immensely skilled Necros bearing semblance to his father felt like being a whipped ghouling waiting for the sadstick again. The beast screamed and wailed, confused as to why he wasnt capitulating, begging the Low Masters for clemency.

The agony he felt turned into a tearing hurt as part of the fear flowed toward himself, toward something new slotted within his being.

The Helix trembled inside him. He felt like he was still flesh in the real, and not wind.

Avo spoke with every last mote of strength, in defiance of his nature, straining to keep his dread's numbness from spilling through. I I am broken. NeedI need you to explain.

The scabbed one rolled his eyes and turned his gaze skyward, toward the pale-white ribs that seemed to run on forever, higher and higher, like a malignant spine fusing protruding from nothingness. He starves us. He fucking starves us. We cant even exact righteous retribution because the ignoramus can't grasp the meaning of his demise. He turned to the choir of other scabbed behind him, their clenched teeth and seething hate reopening wounds across their bodies.

The heartless held up a hand. The owl at the center of his chest flapped its wings. Strayer, do you wish to know the meaning of this tribunal? The nature of your transgression?

Yes, Avo said.

So be it. We, four from the one, are the Famines, servants to the Hungersthe Inverted Dreamer, from that which the waters of this Dreaming Unsea flows.

Masking confusion under the pretense of mind-fray, Avo spoke his next question. I do not remember any of this.

A high gasp from the weeper. The scabbed one jeered, his avatar a cauldron of leaking traumas.

Only the heartless remained unburdened. We were one, once. All of us. A lord of many changing names and changing forms, our rule descended from mind to mind, across countless titles. Such was the way of things in Noloth. By the wisdom of immortality and favor of the Hunger, such was our mandate. And with the blessings it offered, with the flow of its Dreaming Unsea, we rose as a nation to immortality, our chains unending.

Dreaming Unsea? Avo asked.

The scabbed one jeered. The 'Nether,' you simple fuck! What the topsiders call the Nether. Those crystal-fuckers up in the Tiers lie, we sailed these waters first. We. The Hungers brought us into its pool to be the first sailorsthe first! And now everyone speaks of Ori-Thaum Ori-Thaum Ori-Thaum! He roared, scabs unfurling into jutting blades. Those shits stole from us! They took the broken pieces of our Heaven and called it a utopia! We guided the dreaming! We! Kept our peoples eternal! Immortal! We were destined for a shared oasis and then and then. One of the weepers let out a mournful howl. And then that stain-blood Jaus Avandaer used us to break the Heavens.

He shattered us, a weeper cried and broke into incoherence. The Waltons pulling their chariot wailed. Another spoke in their stead. Ours was the eternal water! The Dreaming Unsea! Where all could reign in the dreams of our god regardless of their station in the flesh. So long as the stillborns flowed! So long as the tax was paid.

The Woundshaper rumbled in confusion. But a Soul sups nothing from a life unshaped. The infantsthe unthinking These beings incapable of belief offer no Essence. What could such a god feed from nothingness. It scoffed. Only one that is no god at all. The Woundshaper paused. Not a god perhaps, but a liminal being all the same

Peace. Joy. Enough. The heartless let their head drop. We speak in fragments. I sense he remains lost. Perhaps it is time that we show him the presider of his fate.

No, the weeper quailed.

Yes, the scabbed one hissed. Call it. Call the Hungers. Let him greet the Inverted Dreamer once more. He smiled. It will be a pleasure to see his mind shatter.