Chapter 13-13 The Silent War (II)

Chapter 13-13 The Silent War (II)

The guy who pulled my ass out from that Incubi grease fire showed up yesterday. Just popped into the back of my head and said hi.

Fuck me, but thats humiliating. And here I was thinking I was some kinda nova-hot Necro. Always fish dwelling deeper in the waters, I guess.

First thing he started talking about was my wards. Apparently, my modified Ashthrone Shedskin was leaving a bit more of my emotional resonance behind than I expected. Wouldve been nice to know before I did all those dives, but hey, eventually you learn or you die.

So yeah: Weirdest way I got a mentor so far. Guy seems nice. Too godsdamn nice to be from the Warrens. Strikes me as some kinda Guilder, maybebut a working one. Maybe someone from Ori-Thaum has their eyes on me.

Jaus, thatll be somethingyou rust up their dive and now they want to hire you.

Weirdest thing about it all is the smell. The guy reeks of citrus. The taste leaks through the mem-data, and it stings. I dont think even the actual fruits taste that fresh.

Well. He left me some vicarities to review. Stuff he got from other Necros on a dive. Ugly ends for all of them. I still cant tell if hes trying to scare the piss out of me or get me to learn.

Either way, I gotta see if I can get something on him. Figure out who he is.

Ignorance is fatal in this line of work, and right now, this guys got his gun pressed against my temple, but hes more interested in making me a better shot.

Never a dull day in New Vultun.

-Mem-log of White Rab

13-13

The Silent War (II)

The rule among Necros was that if you encountered a sequence or phantasmic you couldnt understand, it was probably going to end with you nulled.

With how long it was taking Avo to figure out the Low Masters trap, his growing apprehension told him that the direct approach here was likely unwise.

The broken minds of the Incubi were on display neatly, with their shells enchained along strings of flowing thought and fastened by a delicate few ghostly wisps. There was a special kind of callousness leaving the nulled mounted as such. It seemed his fathers alternates didnt care if they caught the attention of a passing Exorcist, that the ego-deaths exposed like a set of trophies, offering the statement that the last Priests of Noloth were on safari, and they had a lust for big game.

Using his Whisper to secure the vicinity, Avo ground at the whetstone of time as he made his way closer to the cluster. Flashes of his encounter with the Low Masters trespassed into his mind, reminding him of their abilities. They had crippled the entirety of Ox-Three without strain and conjoined the minds to expand their capacity. The time that such an undertaking demanded should have stretched the length of entire weeks, but they achieved a perfect deception with far less.

And they didnt even need a canon to help them.

Once again, the atmosphere shifted as the weight of uncertainty began to gnaw. Avo had taken to thinking himself a predator of these depths, a beast that preys upon the others. But there were fathoms beneath fathoms, monsters that preyed upon monsters.

His anxiety only grew as he found recollective fragments of Incubi sheared-free, buried within the sequences he crept through. Now, unending screams layered the ambiance of simulated memories, broken phantasmics sailing through simulated scenes of placidity.

The Exorcists were certain to find thiscertain to learn the presence of Ori-Thaum within their system.

Did the Low Masters no longer care for secrecy? Or were they trying to provoke a response? Trigger a war between the two forces?

How would that serve their desire to reclaim the Helix from him and retake the George Washington?

More cognitive debris littered his path, and a new suspicion occupied Avos mind as the broken artifacts grew more orderly, almost like cobblestones made from nulled minds.

Or an invitational pathway.

He found his paranoia rewarded when he found himself five sequences across from the cluster. As he spoofed his way across a parallel branch, his cog-feed warned him of a dozen passing Exorcist accretions. The sheer amount of devastation present should have made the infiltration obvious. Yet, the patrol just kept going, even circling away from the compromised sequences deliberately.

Like someone was urging them to ignore, to not see the obvious damage.

A cold pang spread through Avo. The worry should have occurred to him before; if he could compromise so many Exorcists, why couldnt the Low Masters?

The chill in him only grew as his Whisper cast its perception on a familiar Auto-Seance. One created from the mind of Yosanna Kivranpuvakthe turncoat Guilder he dove into at Ox-Three.

It was in her mind that Walton ebbed the Helix, and it was from her that Avo procured the key of his inheritance. Though Auto-Seance was cycling a sequence of memories through structure, Avo could still recall the neuter-mask covered faces of her twin boys in the elevator.

The phantasmic was loud and active. Its opening connected to the dull thoughtstuff flowing from the nulled Incubi, the dichotomy something like an intravenous needle feeding paltry drips of life into a still cavern.

Mem-data loaded from the other side unguarded by any encryptions. There were three minds that lurched across the veil. Three minds settled in a simulated environment molded from the phantasmal matter of fifty ghosts.

Avo urged his Whisper on to peek while his instincts screamed with contradictory responses. He should jack out; he should pour his Secondhand Fatality and nullify the phantasmic itself; he should try and free the Exorcists so they noticed the tumor that was growing under their eyes.

Or he could just go in and speak with them.

The last thought was illogical, and a conflicted desire unto itself.

Something in him still just wanted to look upon Waltons face again. To feel reassured. But such was the siren song of nostalgia, a brittleness cultivated by yonder memories. That Avo had been killed several times over, and resurrected in a form he recognized as himself didn't negate what he learned of his nature. His sense of self might never have been true to begin with.This chapter was first shared on the Ñøv€lß1n platform.

Ultimately, he was more creation than adoption at the hands of Walton, and so he must shed himself of the dying embers of ideation.

+Peace. Do not talk with him,+ Emotion said.

+What? I+

+Depending on the situation that follows, you may break him, but you may not speak to him. We share a root of thoughts, and yours offer little more than invectives and spite. It is inefficient.+

Peace glared at the noblest of their priesthood and directed his perception at Joy. +What about him? Is he going to get the privilege to speak, oh, mighty Emotion?+

+There is no need to restrict him,+ Emotion said. +He will collapse into inconsolable tears when the smell grows stronger.+

Ghosts planted fat tears to join those running down Joys cheek. +Its true.+ The figure on Defiances throne grew evermore solid, his size immense and with snake-like appendages lashing out from his back like a cluster of transplanted hydrapedes.

+Oh,+ Joy moaned as he felt his breakdown begin, +and mocks us more by twisting his divine form. Why+

***

Part of Avo expected to get nulled approaching the Auto-Seance. The fact that he didnt leave him more worried than ever.

Temporarily releasing his Haemokinesis, he was once again projecting his phantoms back into the dormitory for all the others to witness. The exchange would give his companions a better understanding of their enemy if nothing else.

The first solid matter he felt was resting beneath his arms and grinding against the Echoheads on his back. It was hard to be seated with his additional limbs, but he made due by modifying the dimensions of his simulation as the mindscape around him loaded.

A domed chamber comprised of tessellating materials yawned wide around him, and he noticed the tassels of bone-carved scripture sway from the ceiling in the fashion of nooses calling for necks. It took little time for him to realize he was seated upon one of the four thrones back in the George Washington, and that this was how the Low Masters remembered their sanctuary looking.

With how stiff their seating felt, he wasnt surprised why Walton decided to leave this little fan club.

Across from him, the weeper, the heartless, and the one that used fuck as a noun had him intersected between crossing lanes of perception. And though he hated to admit it, their sequencing was the best he had ever seen. No glitches. Nothing is out of place. Even the mem-data was a work of art, each variable and artifact listed linked to all the others in the chain of dominos.

He wondered if he could spoof his way into the scenery somehow by accelerating his reflexes again. The urge was tempting.

But violence was the main course, scheduled to arrive shortly.

For now, curiosity would serve as an appetizer.

Beats of silence passed to the accompaniment of the weepers choking sobs.

+Its almost perfect,+ he said, shaking as he held himself. +Oh, Avohakten. If you could see the mon-mon-monster he gave your name to.+

Ah, yes. The long-dead son his father was haunted by. Or the man he used to be before he decided to split himself into four ego-lines was haunted.

Avo sighed.

Family: it was a mess. He looked forward to killing and eating them.

+So,+ Avo said, breaking his end of the silence as he stared, +heard you lost your Ark from some meat I was torturing. How did you all let that happen?+

Peace shot out from his seat, his always-bloody hands whipping red droplets everywhere. +You cunt-fuck! You corpse-licking fuck-shit! You+

+Peace,+ the one with the dead owl lodged in place of an actual heart said.

The Famine of Peace twitched, and it took a masterful exertion of will for him to wrestle himself down. Some of his rage spilled over and Avo tasted the emotion. Disquiet followed. He empathized with the node, with Peaces struggle against anger. So similar to how Avo had to struggle with the beast at times that he thought

Well. Him having pieces from all of them wasnt much of a surprise, now was it?

+We want the Helix back,+ Emotion said, without preamble. He cocked his head at Avo as if he was examining a piece of meat. A rope of threaded coins dangled from his cavernous eyes, jingling with each movement of his head. +We are willing to strike a bargain to see it done.+

The directness of his words was unexpected for Avo, grating for Peace, and soul-crushing for Joy.

+Bargain?+ Avo asked, voice trailing off with a chuffing laugh. +Second time someone wanted to make a deal with me.+ He leaned in closer. +Have questions. But make your offer first.+ It took an effort of will on his part to continue facing Emotion. To see Waltons face so mutilated felt wrong.

Perhaps such was the way the last of the faithful felt during the Godsfall as they watched the Guilds rise and fashion grafts from the corpses of the gods they worshipped.

Emotion continued. +Inheritance. We offer you the title and throne of Defiance, along with all his memories, war-minds, and privileges.+

Out of all that was just said, Avo found himself most drawn to Waltons old memories and what a war-mind was. But he would brook no betrayal of his own desires before he grasp the cost of capitulation.

+And what do you want?+

+You. To be joined with us. To serve the Hungers as your predecessor once did. You will granted the deeper arts and learn the true lore behind the Dreaming Unsea. You will return us the Helix, and access to the sanctuary. And you will create for us a new caste of sacrifice. Inspired by your own image.+