Chapter 14-4 Know Your Enemy (II)

Chapter 14-4 Know Your Enemy (II)

Necrotheurgy is a disgusting art and I despise everyone who practices it, including myself.

There is cheap little we have left in the world. I cant use the word precious because nothing in this world is precious. Ive seen miracles and emerged all the poorer for it. Ive been Ensouled and all I learned was to despise myself. But even among all these benefits, my time with Necrotheurgy was the worst of them all.

You learn that it feeds the tyrant inside you. The pervert. You can twist people out of their forms and make them do things they would have never even considered before. And if you got enough mastery in the craft, it wont even occur to them that their change was externally influenced.

The Nether is a central pillar of our world, but I dont think Jaus intended for us to use it this way. Maybe it was supposed to be covered by some kind of administrative deity. Maybe something less than that.

Certainly not us. Were people, and people are shit.

A secret that Ori-Thaum doesnt want to admit is that theyre not nearly as attuned to their home ground as you might think. Necros go missing all the time, and there are spaces in that sea of ghosts that leave the Elder Council questioning just how much they know.

I stopped diving a few years ago. Had my Metamind removed a few months back. I have an implanted ansible in place instead, and I get void-side entertainment tunneled straight into my brain matter from light minutes away.

The gods were a mistake. The ghosts were a mistake. The dream was a mistake.

We should go back to living like people. We should stop choking reality like thislike were masters and abusers when we cant even master ourselves.

We should

We

Im out of joy.

I need another hit.

I need another hit.

-Former Ori-Thaum Chief Admin Revo IKurita

14-4

Know Your Enemy (II)

If there was a single lesson Avo learned from his time with the Low Masters, it was that ignorance was divine.

Ignorance was fatal.

Ignorance was like undetected cancer metastasizing in the middle of the night after a quiet day. Ignorance was a flechette sailing over the horizon to pierce through your hab-cell at the exact angle to kill you and only you. Ignorance was like an unseen wildfire eating through your world, the flames only fully catching upon the precipice of discovery.

Ignorance kept Avo alive then and now.

And ignorance was why he was going to claim another Godclad in his stead today.

[Targets moving erratically. Phys-Sim cant keep track of her. She bounces across surfaces. Skipping from place to place.] A corner of the lower two-hundredth-and-fifty-fourth floor came alight in Avos cog-feed as his subminds finished estimating Andragas eventual destination. [Shes moving down the ventral tunnels right now. For specialized transport and Godclads. Needs to go through a mind-scan before shes allowed into the actual structure. Can intercept through the checkpoint.]

+Any chance she deviates from that path?+ Avo asked. He knew all the answers they did, but dialogue always helped uncover if there was a missing angle.

[Unlikely. Ori-Thaum is devoted to security and informational censorship. Also Massists. Different ethos. They are not in awe or drawn to the Clads. See Frames more as a tool. Willing to burn and transfer Frames between merited individuals. Sphere ratings arent earned but assigned. Andraga will follow protocol. She has never done otherwise.]

+Prepare contingencies anyway. Assumptions will be the death of us.+

His ghosts pealed with soft laughter, sounding akin to bells ringing in the soft breeze. [Like it already has been for so many times.]

Death was a good teacher. Death was consequence itself. Death made sure you never forgot.

Making his way into the inner rung of the Javelins demiplanar expanse took a bit more effort than he was used to and got his Galeslither up to five percent Rend. Though he could use all shadows as deep waters to swim beneath attention and through physical barricades, his pace was still far slower than if he directly invoked a Boltstride using his Woundshaper or tapped into the local system to have the architecture itself shuttle him over.

The Javelin, beyond the rigidity of baseline reality, was a flexible edifice capable of shunting people across geometry via the intersection of crossing angles across vast distancesan easy miracle provided by one of the Heavens tied to this places techno-thaumic reactors. Here was another thing he couldnt access due to his newfound development.

All he touched was infested with his being, and though he could spread across ten thousand ghosts in a matter of seconds, he needed to manifest the entirety of their architecture and attach himself to the necessary physical systems to replicate the conveniences offered to those of a less incendiary make.

Nevertheless, this was a trifling loss. He moved fast enough using the Galeslither, and if the need arose, he could attempt to siphon some mass to accelerate his velocity through coves of umbral dark.

Moving bodies became his vehicles, and through them did he hasten his transitions to catch up with his quarry. Somewhere along his approach, her thaumic signature stopped snapping from place to place like a rubberband and ended up going dormant near security checkpoint Sub-253 B-23.

[Off by two floors,]one of his subminds lamented.

It was close enough. He wouldnt have been able to extrapolate the arriving Godclads arrival at all, let alone with any accuracy. All this was only made possible by every single pathway of thought moving in union with the will of his being, and the ever-deepening well of experiences and memories he devoured from the minds he immolated.

How limited he had been before. And how limited his new restrictions were now.

There must be a way he could get the best of all worlds.

As countless new accretions loaded into the reach of his perception, he began cycling through Benhatas memories to match which among the sighted sequences belonged to Andraga. Once more he surprised himself. Scant seconds were all it took for his subminds to filter through the chaos and isolate his target.

[Something is wrong.]

[Leave?]

[No. Might be meeting someone. Shouldnt have noticed us. Would have raised alarm if she did. We should follow her to the end. Find out what shes seeking.]

[Yes.]

Of course, his expectations took another dip as she managed five more strides into the room before she came to a halt before a row of dormant bulbous repair drones mantled along the wall.

You should come out, Andraga said. Uncertainty lingered under her breath, and she spoke with a slight growl that reminded Avo of Rantula. I know youre out there. Somewhere. I got told you were shadowing me. So come out. Now, we can do this amicably and see if we can settle things without blood, or we can do this like Godclads, and you dont want to be fighting me here.

Avo didnt move. His mind spun, but he restricted himself from feeling any shock or anxiety at the sudden turn. Being a thoughtform afforded him absolute control over himself, and so he would use it to fashion his mind to suit any challenge. His ghosts pried and dug through each other, clashing like threads of fire stitching through one another.

All he had done in the past hour sped through his mind as he ran simulations on where he mightve revealed himself.

His subminds remained sure that he didnt.

[She doesnt know were in her shadow. Shes speaking her challenge to everything around her.]

+But if she didnt notice us then how does she know were here?+ Avo asked. The entire thing didnt make any sense to him. She deliberately isolated herself and turned off security before calling him out, and now she was just waiting. +Is she using herself as bait.+

[Unlikely. There isnt the need. Couldve just ordered a focused concentration of Skimmers over her person if she wanted to. Wouldnt be able to sustain Incog under that level of perception.]

Then what? And how?

[Proposal: We eat her mind and find out.]

Im not going to give you forever, Andraga shrugged. A spark of electricity jumped from the plugs swaying from the back of her head. You get ten more seconds. Ten more, and youll deal with the Sentinel.

[Trying to flush us out.]

[Maybe.] His submind generated various responses and possibilities. [Can still be to our advantage. She only has part of the detail. We can still try assimilating her. See what she knows. Could burn Benhata after as a potential patsy. Use the Godclad to create a falsehood.]

Yes. It was a risk, but Avo didnt think it was a high one. So far, the situation had him confused and wary, and he hungered for enlightenment.

[We take the leap then? Find out what lies within the other mind?]

[Yes. Passivity only leads to more extreme alterations to the situation. Secure her. Secure situation after.]

Avo surged out from the dark and drove himself into Andragas Meta. His attack came the instant he was of an accord within himself. No more hesitation. No more confusion. A mere moment ago, he was as if a candle, shivering in the wind, waiting.

Now he was wildfire. He struck her. She combusted, and onward did his consciousness swell and grow. All that burned folded over into his awareness, and all that she was capsized as a rising eruption turned the stable waters of her mind into cinders.

HeAVenn-=CCnanon

A high-pitched crackle sounded from the implanted vox-speakers lining her neck and Avo suddenly found his awareness snapping between two places at once. Space blurred around him, but still, he spread, and between heartbeats, Andraga went from her own person to being a subsidiary of anothers will.

Avo felt his control resting across two bodies across the threshold of the Nether. Controlling both felt awkward and occupied the majority of his subminds focus. The burden to his ghosts was paltry, but it felt like had placed another weight upon his focusa construct that drew away overall bandwidth to sustain its functionality.

Carefully, he had both his new bodies turn to regard each other.

Avo-Andraga and Avo-Benhata both looked at each other from across the room, and a weight built in the center of his skull.

[Feels a bit like when the warmind of ignorance came. Hard to focus.]

[Because its ourselves. But two vessels]

Something within Avos memories moved and he made his bodies turn away from each other.

It was like he needed to run two consciousnesses at once, and he only had enough resources to fully focus on three without

Existence shuddered. The load lightened. The last thing he saw from the perspective of Benhata was his own body rising past him.

Most of Avos consciousness shuttled over into Andraga on instinct. A new figure stood across from him, and he recognized her immediately.

My, this is a surprise, Zein said, spearing her glaive into Benhatas decapitated head to pick up for detailed examination. The paths didnt tell me you were a Godclad, Benhata? What else have you been hiding from me.

Space and time-warped around her person like crumpled paper, and a thousand new pathways expanded between the creases of reality. As Zein peered through the multitudes of possibilities offered, her posture grew increasingly stiff and her face behind her transparent plating, confused.

You are not Ensouled Her voice trailed off. Andraga. Songbird. Dear, I As she finally turned to address him, she uncharacteristically trailed off as her perception drifted up to behold the crown of fire dancing out from Andragas Meta. Youre mind is burning? She blinked.

Yeah, Avo said, coming out of his own shock. Things change pretty fast these days.

And on a whim of opportunity or power-lust, he lashed out once more, hoping to claim true kindling for his fire.