Chapter 17-4 Extraction

Chapter 17-4 Extraction

The Highflame Path-Hydra is a Second Sphere Heaven usually attached to a golem. With its extremely low thaumic cost and simple canon, its uses in combat are few but focused.

It will be deployed to disrupted demiplanes or spatial anomalies via paradox.

It will be deployed to shuttle objects and personnel from one of its heads to another.

With the specificity installed in its canons, this Heaven has also proven to be highly difficult to detect when not in full manifestation. With nine heads forming a junction of interconnected pathways, entities trapped within the Path-Hydra can only escape from the confines one of a few ways.

The first and simplest method is to simply trigger multiple Hells and outlast its Rendsinks. This is a risky option as the Path-Hydra comes with twenty-seven CC-II variant Rendsinks that are easy to eject and replace.

The more technical option is to influence the movements of the hydras. Should one head overlap with another, the Path-Hydras ontology will usually collapse alongside the golems systems. Doing so is easier said than done, and either requires supreme anticipation or something akin to directional vector manipulation.

The last and most complex operation is to somehow outmaneuver the ever-shifting interior of the hydra and find the machine or metaphysical core of the entire structure. If something of matter is thrown into its changing structure, the backlash will be extreme and likely collapse the entire Heaven.

If you find yourself trapped within a Path-Hydra, it is best for you to vent whatever spatial Rend you have inside immediately, while constantly moving to keep the Heaven active and stress its Rendsinks. Additionally, your Metaminds will function without issue, so if you locate the operational nexuses, nulling the controlling element is a good option as well.

-Ori-Thaum Primer on Highflame Golems and Auxiliary Units

17-4

Extraction

A beat passed as Avo and Elegant-Moon just stared at the place where the Manta used to be. A sparking cable swayedpart of it also snipped clean through by the passing Path-Hydra.

[Shit, the ship?] Corner cursed.

[Shit, the ship?] Chambers sputtered. [Shit, actual-me! Did I just watch myself get snuffed?]

+Youre fine, Chambers,+ Avo replied, still sensing the half-strand across their session. The coldtech connection to his cadre was choked with interference though. The micro-singularity generated by his ansible quivered and struggled to stay open. The violations against spatial laws caused it to collapse and reform between the seconds.

{The nature of the plane likely doenst support the possibility of the Schwarzschild radius,} Calvino said. {Do you see now why we are so adamantly against basing a society on chaotic and ill-thought out vibes and rituals.}

+Nice when theyre our vibes and rituals,+ Avo replied.

Abrels memories fed him critical information about the Path-Hydra. He really wanted to avoid this. There were good odds that his team had just been tossed over into a Highflame kill box or containment plane somewhere. Being gone and away was the best way to handle an annoyance like the Path-Hydra, but considering present circumstances

Yeah. His Galeslither could do with the upgrade and he couldnt risk anyone learning about him through his cadre.

That, and letting them die would bother him.

[Oh, shit,] Chambers breathed. [Its happening! He cares! He fucking cares!] Avo burned away the sentimentality and focused on the practical aspects. [...You corpse-licking half-strand.]

+Come on,+ Avo said, speaking to Elegant-Moon. +Lets go get eaten.+

The Sang turned to him and shook her head. [Id call you absolutely mad, but I fear our unfortunate friend is unaware of their coming fate.] A wince ran through her. [Another mind fed to your flames.]

+Wont be the last. Time till resurrection for your cadre?+

[One-hundred and eight-second standard for most of us. Starsinger has a Myrmidon-Pattern, so another thirty seconds for him at max resurrection. Not all of us are fortunate enough to be blessed with a self-tuning Liminal Frame that can return you within thirty seconds.]

He checked his Metamind and found himself reassured. He still had almost a minute before the other Godclads revived. Best he make this quick. Boltstride through the interior of the Path-Hydra and locate both the Manta and the golem or Godclad at the heart of things.

Existence shuddered as he felt a sudden weight slam against his Galeslither and Datacaster. Again, a head of the hydra made its attack. Its coming was so metaphysically subtle and sudden that actively avoiding it would have required his full attention.

Seeing how he wanted to take a trip down the belly of the whale, however

Ribbed walls lined with mucus-coated alloy and metallically sculpted replicas of what he assumed the insides of a leviathans throat looked like filled his cog-feed. The environment of the Layer vanished around him immediately, and the ambient temperature plummeted below ten degrees Celsius. The path ahead continued to accelerate past him, the folds of the hydras inside blurring together. It was like he was on a train but it was the station that was speeding past him instead.

Lightning became him. He leaped, and took the Sang with him, jumping the full twenty-four kilometers he was capable at baseline mass each time as his Rend grew. Unleashing a breath of matter-withering entropy into the structures around him, his gale rushed through but unmade nothing. Not that he was surprised.

His Sanguinity tasted no patterns present anyway. Attempting to punch through these walls would just see him invert back through the same path he came. This wasnt something he broke down physically. The Galeslither, however, remained an appealing option.

The Sang did as he said. The body came apart in an instant. In depths of his mind, the newcomer began to sob as Corner scoffed. {Chin up, wuss. Take it like Vultunite.}

She didnt respond. She was inconsolable.

With mechanics of his ansible stabilized, he cast a message over to Draus as he re-linked with the members of his cadre. {Dealt with the golem. Ate the pilot. Understand the situation now.} He checked the Mantas position and frowned. Eighty three kilometers away. Looks the Path-Hydras collapse displaced them as well.

{Nice work,} Draus said. {Summbitch didnt play right with my Heaven. Think it was meant to counter it. Path-Hydra, looked like.}

{Yes. Probably spotted your accretion or felt the Manta move through space. Was providing overwatch for Mondelles. Someone he trusted with his life.}

{Mondelles? Starsinger Mondelles?}

{Does everyone know this guy?}

{I think I met him once too,} Kae added. {One of my mentors was commissioned to upgrade one of his canons.}

{I mightve seen porn-fakes of him,} Chambers said, not wanting to be left out.

Elegant-Moon grinned at Chambers and spoke from within Avo. [Oh, hes going to hate this one. Never let Mondelles meet him. Death and bloodshed are certain to follow.]

+Not going to be meeting anyone,+ Avo replied. This run was finished. Trying to engage sevenor moreenemy Godclads with four of them still operating as total unknowns and Mondelles possessing a Sphere Five Frame without the element of surprise was a fools plan.

He doubted would surprise them again as he did when he broke out from the Starsingers cage.

Despite this, however, he considered the run a rousing success. The setback of his death and coming upon a meeting between elements of Highflame and Ori-Thaum aside, he had a new asset to examine.

And a new way to interface with both Guilds.

{Were done for today,} Avo sent. {Made a new consang. Bringing her back with me. Going to make new introductions for us. Be redeployed as an asset.}

Through it all, Elegant-Moon just smiled genially at him.

+What?+

She shrugged her shoulders. [There is no me, anymore. There is only you, and what you keep of me. I stopped be real the moment your flames torched my mind.]

Her words left him struck with silence as Draus spoke across the line. {...And I still didnt get to shoot nobody in the end.}

{Take a detour through Syndicate territory,} Avo said, absentmindedly. {Going to need to give Dice a gift anyway.} He regarded the Sang again, and she rewrote her flesh to resemble his, bones elongating, skin paling, sceleras turning black with curved, white irises. Then, with a snap, she turned back to looking like herself again.

This gave him options. Many options. He was going to have to convene with Ruveca, Jack, and Jane again.

{Need me to leave you a passage?} Draus asked.

{No. Ill catch up with you using new Heaven. Going to test it. Avoid notice. Kae. Going to like to see this one.}

The Agnos chirped with interest as a response.

[Shall we leave now, myself,] Elegan-Moon asked. [Or do you wish to wander the confines of this lovely part of our city some more?]

He dove deeper into her consciousness, wrapping his mind in the quintessence of her and recoiled. There was something wrong with her. Something broken. Something missing. The memory of her affliction returned in the form of a deathsomething that occurred with each of her Heavens at over fifty Rend.

Her nous went through ego-searing entropy both ways that day. What came back was missing fundamental facets of herself. Joy. Kindness. Humanity. All gone.

The Agnosi and her sisters called her continued functionality a miracle, but she knew. And now, so did it.

[It was perfect damage,] she whispered. [Broke me perfectly so I only have the one joy left]

Pulling back from her ego, he released a breath. +Come. Were leaving.+

[And you will grant me my final end afterward?]

+Well see.+