Chapter 9-22 Garden of Burning Lies (II)

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 didnt 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 benefactors hardening wards, the Incubi themselves halting, confused with regards to just who they were shooting at.

Good. Only he possessed a birds 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 creatures ego and cleaving at the mind of the human tethered within strands of memory.

The fissures of the benefactors 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 Lucilles 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 Lucilles 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 mustve been truly chaotic from their perspective, minding their own business one moment, then getting a session request from Mirrorhead the next.

They mustve 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 ones 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 [BENEFACTORS 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 professionalmuch 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 Mirrorheads 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 Incubis. 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.

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 Daggerdeepname Dagger-2had made it out, and they had sustained severe memory damage from the nulling.

Putting all that together, it meant that the Mirror-Concavethe overall director in charge of this divehad 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 Avos 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 arent ready for another war.

Draus scoffed. Half-strands arent ready for a lot of shit. Aint gonna stop them from makin a run at it.

Seated at the end of the table Kae frowned. II 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 uhhelped him adjust his Frame before. Sphere Sphere Five, if I can hard to remember.

Its alright, Kae, Draus said. She let out a breath. Yeah. Santanado. Theres an out-and-open Meritocrat if there ever was one. Tell you this much: I aint never seen anyone hate the Chivalrics quite as much as he does.

Think hes 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 theyre just doin it to incriminate him so they can get a godsdamned civil war started inside Highflame.

Things are that bad at HighHighflame? Kae asked.

Well. By the time I left a couple o Clads from both sides were found overloaded in some pretty suspect cases. Therell be no outright war so long as the High Seraph herselfs around but lets 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 Fires 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.

Its 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 Lights End. The reason why Mirrorhead and Conflux got friction with the Scalpers. They was always planning to make a run on the district. Hes plannin to hit them through the old portal. A pause broke her speech as a look of concentration came over. It cant just be Conflux. Hes gotta have more than what hes got theyll 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 Avos vision as the session address manifested.

The session was connected to Kaswargs Grovethrough 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.