Chapter 9-19 Embodiment

Chapter 9-19 Embodiment

Dagger-3: Holy shit! We got them! I think we nulled them! I felt that half-strand burst apart. Pieces broke apart everywhere! Fuck were they fast What was that shit? I never seen anyone sequence so fucking fast before

Dagger-1: Dagger-2: Status.

Dagger-2: Wha-? WhereIs itare they

Dagger-1: Dagger-2, you are relieved. Rotate out.

Dagger-2: I canI can

Dagger-1: Dagger-2, rotate out. Ive already informed Convex. You did good. You did enough.

Dagger-3: Yeah, consang. Didnt get nulled on your first real dive. Guess that makes you a real Necro now, huh? [recording marked for deletion]

Dagger-1: Dagger-3, return to the playground. Keep your eyes on the Nether. There might be more than one.Ñ00v€l--ß1n hosted the premiere release of this chapter.

Dagger-3: Jaus, I sure as fuck hope not. Hey, what about that Chambers half-strand. We know hes the attack vector. Can I null him now?

Dagger-1: Negative. He stays alive. We need to see what mem-data we can pull from his mind. The memories might tell us something.

Dagger-3: Great. Guess Im on rash duty now.

[UNIDENTIFIED] MIND DETECTED

-Incubi Strike Cell Swordfisher

9-19

Embodiment

Getting nulled stung worse when you were a Necro. The cut that shame inflicted was not deep, but it gnawed, a mark that you were less than what you assumed you were.

Or that you were a fool, drunk on the nectar of your own power, seeking to replicate the thrill of the hunt against gloried adversaries.

In retrospect, the trap was obvious. No Necro flees by reeling back to their sessionthey just jack out.

Avo had imagined himself the apex predator of the Nether then, jaws unhinging to swallow big game. True enough to the metaphor, being a predator did not make one a hunter, and like a warg charging after a nu-dog, he found himself led toward a pit pre-dug to suit his demise.

In the depths of his Soul, he sulked, contemplating his mistake. How ghoul-like of him. How base. Such a display shamed all his mastery shamed all that Walton had taught him.

Or given him.

The nature of his origins taunted him. No longer did the affirmation that he claimed his own skill remain. If he were to be honest, it would not be improper to see himself as more construct than person, patchwork traits woven by a pseudo-immortal unmade by the regret of eons.

What then remained that was truly his merit? Was there any touch of the original to himany touch of his individuality?

Did it matter?

At such thoughts the Woundshaper roused. Fused around his Soul, he watched it construct a dozen limbs from a fluid sprawl of arteries, flooding into shape at the end to spread open palms in supplication to the Frames fathomless expanse stretching around them. Atop the spire, where the gleaming touch of luminance reigned, light sprinkled down, enshrining the Heaven in a portrayal most divine.

All are imitations. The Woundshaper closed its palms and made fists that stretched forward to become blades then hammers. From the totality of the tapestry, everything is derived. One can only claim to be an orphan of mixed birth. A synthesis of previously unspliced sequences and nothing more.

Saying Im just derivative? Avo asked. The Heaven didnt harbor any urge toward comforting him, nor did he want to be assuaged. Neither of them were creatures so human, but in him, the former bloodmother seemed to sense a concept it wished to illuminate.

Perhaps, though chained to his will, it still sought to exert a measure of the divine influence it once held. As he could command it to reshape the world, so too could it whittle away stray studs in his minds construct using the whetstone of concept and thought.

In the end, were they not all sculptures of self-perception?

Look beyond your apprehension of what you were, and behold all that you could be. As much as we desire to shape ourselves, the truth is the tapestry has long usurped our will; we come pre-shaped to task and tribulation.

Youre saying everything is fated?

And now the blade of comparison cleaved back. Avo glowered at Draus, now suddenly sporting a considerate grin. I dove into his mind. Incubi do that?

Maybe they didnt wanna, Draus said. Hells. Maybe they couldnt, but as the score goes, you're one-one for nulls, and we just lost most our Nether control with them holding most the loci.

And the enforcers, Avo said. Each one is likely rigged now. Minds are traps. Theyll blow them if they suspect a dive.

Thats how they got you, aint it?

He growled. Draus needed to be more focused. She spent too much time fixated on trivialities. Need to consider approach. Currently only have Mirrorhead. Chambers is compromised. Essus is likely mined. Conflux Necros tagged with mem-cons but

But you wont be able to use them? Draus asked.

No," Avo said. Mem-cons designed to corrupt. Null if needed. Lacks guiding will. Needs direction to know what to build. What sequences to use and hide in.

Then, maybe we might wanna consider a more direct approach to our subversion. He knew what Draus suggestion entailed: The vulnerabilities revealed by Chambers weeks ago. The Blockcrawler. The areas quarantined off by leftover mem-cons from the war. Say we hit em. The hells with what Zein wants. The hells with whatever game is bein played over our heads. Say we go in hard and fast, and we set ourselves on snuffing ever last fuckin half-strand in the block. You think on that.

He could not deny the allure of her words. More than merely playing to the arousal of the creature that he was, it would be a succulent transcendent experience. The massacre played out in his mind, scenes of reverie. Outliving most his brethren yet the promised feast remained beyond his grasp since the day of the Uprising, the time a blur in his infancy.

Now, with means and will, a new dish awaited his sampling.

No need to fret over the Guilds and their games. No need to consider the wants of another like Zeinan act he felt she might encourage by philosophy, even at odds with her desires. To slaughter thousands upon thousands at his own hand, peeling from them their flesh, ghosts, Essence and all would be bloodshed supreme.

And to end all that on the dessert of breaking Mirrorhead? Of stripping his Frame and Soul both?

A low hiss snaked free from Avo. Yes. This was pleasure absolute. He could not deny. Turning, he looked upon the thrones of the Low Masters, and he considered what his father wanted for him.

To taste the colors of life. To be what he wanted to be.

But want was not to be fulfilled so simply. Much still stood in the way of such an action. Zein claimed she would devise a means of stealing the Paladins attention, but reliance on her word alone struck Avo as unwise. More than the Paladins, however, was the matter of Ori-Thaum. It would not do to reveal his presence to them, to betray his presence to an entire Guild. An entire Guild that built the pillars of their power on mastering the Nether.

A thought needled Avo, and he recoiled internally.

He had a solution for the Incubi. He was simply avoiding it.

Ever since his experience in Deep Bazaar, he had avoided diving into himself. Modifying his Metamind further.

Excuses rose. He stripped himself of them before they could settle. It was dread. Dread halting him from delving into his own mind. Dread at beholding the missing block at the center of his person. Dread reminding himself how he had been so forcibly bent by another.

Ghouls were not humans. Not fully. But Avo could yearn. He could hope and fear. And more than anything, he feared degeneration. He feared the scaffolding of his sophancy collapsing, sending him toppling into the subhumanity exhibited by his brothers.

He feared that when the fullness of what his father did to him was revealed, the last structures holding his self-perception would be snuffed, like a wind blowing out the candle of his awareness, leaving only embers to remember what once was.

The nulling changed that. The fact he returned to existence after the breaking of his mind, the fact that his thoughts remained, continued, changed, evolved. All these were signs of continual personhood. And personhood could be changed. Bent.

Augmented.

Even if something in him broke, he had the cure within himself, and its name was death.

I have a solution, Avo said, finally breaking the silence between them. To deal with the Incubi. Im going back in. No half measures. No surprises. This ends with death. No survivors. No intact minds. No Ori-Thaum. Not Conflux. Not anyone involved.

Gonna do it through Chambers again? Draus asked.

No, Avo grinned. Mirrorhead could use some help cleaning his home. Going to give him something to chase. Enforcers corrupted. Home compromised. Benefactor planted a seed. Time to make it grow.

The thrill offered by his words was contagious, glinting fire kindling in her eyes as well. Youre gonna use him to draw their fire, arent you? Send him out and at em from another angle.

Yes, Avo said. No more confusion. No more deception. Wont stay nulled. Theyre not prepared. Run them down. Take the Nether. My ocean. My domain. Not theirs. But first

Draus looked at him, anticipating his next words.

Draus. If I null myself. Kill me.

At that, she gave him a light shrug. Thats been my job these days. Whatre you plannin?

He steeled himself for the next dive. Some improvements.