Chapter 16-15 The Body-Garden (IV)

Chapter 16-15 The Body-Garden (IV)

The art of weaving flesh and blood and bone is like crafting a storyeven if the architecture is nothing but a lie, birthed from your own artistry and creation, there must be a narrative behind it. Even with the aid of Heaven, miracles are nothing but structures of poignancy and meaning, and such things have to make sense.

The pattern must flow.

Here. Let me show you.

Do you see these? Veins. Blood courses through them, carrying the fuel of our vitality across our organs. But with a subtle adjustmentyou see? I have joined them to the bones. Made two into one. Now both can serve a similar function. Or both can both and neither at the same time.

Watch. See. Beauty.

The veins are now layered in bone. Ossified. And blood can now be poured and hardened into bone. But whats this? Bones now have veins of their owna circulatory system within another system, with all the traits lifted from one to another. Or watch as bone is delivered across the blood. Flow. Gathering. Rebuilding. Watch as I change the shape of this eunuchshhh, dear, shhh, you will be beautiful soon.

Watch.

Yes. From his back. Wings. Lovely, lovely wings.

And do you see? The structure is bone, but the lattices are blood. But that isnt enough to fly. No. We need a new tale to fuel this story.

Ah. Look what I have.

A wasp.The original appearance of this chapter can be found at Ñøv€lß1n.

Listen to it buzz. Hear the ferocity as it tries to fly.

Yes. That will go nicely. We will fuse its capability to our changeling now. Here. You do it. Join your art to me. Let us see the shape your artistry takes.

Show me perfection, Vator. Perfection and nothing less. Expression and nothing but.

Creation, after all, is the truest thing a god can do.

-Old Auntie Gui (No-Dragon Godclad and Biomancer) to her disciple, Vator Greatling

16-15

The Body-Garden (IV)

+This is your fault, you stupid fucker,+ Peace hissed, glaring at his brother Famine from within the vicarity. +Look at them. Look at what the Strayers bastards done. Hes trying to choke us. Choke the Unbirthed Divine. The fucking cunt is going for the guttershes trying to snatch our property off the top of our headsours! We need to find him! We need to cull him before he+

+Calm yourself, Peace,+ Emotion said, shaping himself the ghosts. +Such a thing is to be expected. He lashes at us. He strikes at our base. Ineffectually. We will isolate him.+

The mindscape around them splashed as memories clashed and shapes formed and broke. Sequenced from minds on the precipice of insanity and joined using a collection of loci hidden across the citys narrowest confines, the lobby was a sea in tumult, capable of dashing any intruder against jutting rocks of trauma should they prove foolish enough to attempt an ingress.

The barricades of the exterior were beyond the means of skill to traverse. With dedicated nodes permanently attached to its defense, the chaos that served as the lobbys shield was a crushing symphony guided by a thousand master conductors. And even should its structures be shattered by an overwhelming assault, there were more of its like across the stretch of New Vultun, and beyond.

Behind these phantasmal walls, the priesthood of the Hungers was supposed to be unassailable. Within, however, anxiety filled the air with a lingering stink as the nodes communed, swallowed by worry and indecision at recent developments.

At the heart of the sanctum, a scene repeated itself, the memory sewn into shape by writhing phantoms, resurrecting moments from past long distant and forgotten.

An amber sky smiled down at the visage of a young man taking in the horizon from the edge of a cliff. The massive war dog he rode on chuffed at a passing insect, pawing at the sides of its round and well-muscled head to get at an itch. But just a few steps away, two specters were part of the memory, watching the ancient scene, voyeurs peering at Wahakten's most intimate recollections.

One was the Famine of Emotion: a priest gouged of his heart, regarding the moments of his past with a blank-faced repose.The other was a beast turned flame, the prodigal son of the one that strayed from their order, the current holder of the Helix and all its privileges, and the instrument of this citys ruin.

Avo, Defiance had named the ghoul.

Avo, after their fallen son, the son they killed.

Avo, as a poetic insult to himself and his master, instilling his creation with the breath of rebellion from the very start.

Avohakten earned his head for betraying the city eternal, for turning from utopia.

The Burning Dreamer, Waltons weapon of defiance, however, was capable of far worse.

More than rejection, he symbolized destruction and consumption both. The Nether was kindling for his fire, and if left unchecked, there would be no place for any to flee, no place for the Hungers to roost.

And should his flames touch the city itself

Should the Dreaming Divine be set ablaze

+Enough.+ The word emanated from all the nodes of Emotion at once, synchronized in thought without even being connected to one another. +Call the city. We commune. We speak.+

Peace recoiled. +Call the Hungers? Did you lose your senses? Did the Burning Dreamer boil your mind? Does it fill you with some kind of thrill to parade your personal fuck-up?+

REND CAPACITY [GALESLITHER]: 11%

Struggling with each bust of motion, his Galeslither was a steed caught in a storm despite being a tempest itself. Strained by such opposition, he wondered what manner of Heaven he was facing in these depths, and how he could claim it for his own.

The place is primordial. Primal. The Galeslither neighed, its unease drifting over into Avo. We are an insect swimming through a bloodstream. The darkness sleeps. We must not be here if it ever awakens.

Heeding the words, Avo swam on, the Galeslither now manifested around him while his Crown continued to flicker, protecting him still. No data lined this place of shadows, however. Whatever the make of this plane, his Heaven of Signals found no purchase on its skin.

In the distance, a small doorway of shining light appeared. The entrance to the command nexus drew close.

Then, he felt a ripple rush over him.

The waves around him lurched and spun, and he found himself battling to stay steady. An immense massits presence so ponderous he could feel everything around him displaced by its very movementswas somewhere far beyond the point of his perception. Fighting the currents, the Galeslither screamed as its ontology flared with soulfire.

The metaphor of his metaphysical existence turned into wind and shadow both as the waves parted around it. As roaring gusts erupted from the shape of his Galeslither, his Rend spiked alongside his speed as another cresting wave whipped at his being.

REND CAPACITY [GALESLITHER]: 77%

The light of the entrance drew close, but so too did he feel something dart through the opacity behind him. He didnt linger. He didnt think. With a final gust launching him free from the black, he felt unseen fingers slice through the manes of his Galeslither as his Hell flooded with Rend and a line of searing pain opened along his neck.

REND CAPACITY [GALESLITHER]: 98%

Shooting past the threshold into the confines of the voidship itself, the Galeslither collapsed back inside his Frame as Avo tumbled across the floor, his Meldskin hardening to protect him from harmeven expanding its shape a second before he struck the edge of a throne.

Blunt force was parried from his body via the flowing waves of his smart-armor. A deafening crash rang through the empty chamber, but Avo was spared any damage to his hearing as the Meldskin tuned the noise away.

{You know you could have split the throne apart with your new canon, right? You really didnt have to barrel right into that chair.}

Growling slightly at the EGIs jabs, Avo shook his head. Didnt expect to be coming in that fast.

Armor Integrity: 12%

{Well, that was dangerous,} Calvino said, sounding more thrilled than fearful. {I suppose this is what it feels like to ride a roller coaster.}

Avo turned on his back as the cracked pieces of his Meldskin began flowing back together. A what?

Armor Integrity: 15%

{A roller coaster,} it said, forwarding images of some kind of miniature open-top train that zoomed along looping rails. The people trapped in its primitive gimbals screamed.

Avo frowned as he struggled to understand the purpose of such a mechanism. For torture?

{No. Fun. Thrills.}

He grunted. People would get their stimulation from somewhere, he supposed.

Pushing himself off the floor, he looked around the nexus and found it mostly unchanged. No one else had been here since they left after the thoughtwave detonation. Not that he expected anyone to, but paranoia was a virtue in the life that he led.

{Connect me to the ships systems. I want to see just what condition this ship is in and find out whats wrong with its mind.}

Casting his ghosts out with the protection of his Crown of Virtuality, he connected his mind to the ships locus and allowed Calvino to cross over.

SCS George Washington, Sol Central ARKSHIP

CONNECTING TO THE SHEPHERD

Recovering ship-log

->Accessing Grey-Box

Warning: Corrupted Data Detected

Warning: Corrupted Data Detected

Warning: Corrupted Data Detected

There are 1,444,124,551,888,569,763,921 instances of corrupted data [92%]

ATTENTION: External EGI detectedBeginning integration

Initializing data recovery and repai