Chapter 25-6 Return Fire (I)

Chapter 25-6 Return Fire (I)

[REDACTED]: There is another... there is another... there is another...

Chief Paladin Naeko: What’s it talking about?

High Agnos Jakuta Ajayi: Chief Paladin. I believe I asked for no one to disturb me or my Agnosi while we—

Chief Paladin Naeko: Save that for someone who cares, Jakuta. I asked a question that concerned the safety of the city. I want to know what it’s talking about if I need to announce to the city that the Nether’s going to be down for a few days until we finish shoving Noloth back in its cage.

High Agnos Jakuta Ajayi: ...No. It should not be the Hungers. They are sealed. The [REDACTED] remains in their path.

Chief Paladin Naeko: So why’s it screaming then? What else could it be?

High Agnos Jakuta Ajayi: I do not know. It spoke of a breach earlier, but its mem-data and patterns are stable. There’s been no spike in its outputted Rend either. Whatever is happening does not seem to directly affect the [REDACTED]. But it has sensed something. That, I am absolutely sure of.

Chief Paladin Naeko: More cryptic problems. Just what I want after an entire afternoon of being yelled at by some Longeye. When you figure—

Paladin Kaeders: +Chief. We have a problem—lots of problems. Someone just launched attack on—o-over two-thousand districts. Highflame’s been hit. So has Ori-Thaum. Omnitech... Multiple lobby breaches. Military installations—golem depots are getting hit—gods another hundred districts are flashing red. Calls are coming in from Sanctus and Ashthrone too. No-Dragons as well. It’s happening everywhere.+

Chief Paladin Naeko: -[Sigh of abject suffering] +Synced on that. Get the Exorcists on it but disconnect us from the Oversec. We’re probably compromised too. Contact Voidwatch for emergency logistical support.+ Jakuta. I’m gonna kill myself for a few moments of peace and quiet. Keep your tears out of my body.

High Agnos Jakuta Ajayi: Chief Paladin, wait—

[Sound of flesh splattering]

Agnos Anamen: Oh, Jaus. [Retching]

Paladin Maru Sandrupal: Naeko? Naeko? Shit’s getting fucked, we need to—[Sound of Maru slipping on viscera] FUCK! [Wet splash; body hitting the ground] Godsfuckingdammitfuck—Oh. He killed himself again. Lazy shit.

High Agnos Jakuta Ajayi: He requested a few moments of peace.

Paladin Maru Sandrupal: [Scoff] He already had a century of paid leave. We have shit to do now.

-Memories jacked from Paladin Kaeders on the day of the “Twelve Minute Offensive”

25-6

Return Fire (I)

While his base mind suffered the toils of diplomacy, the rest of his consciousness embarked on a shared adventure of extreme material harm. The decision was made even before the conversation with the voiders began. With his ascension to Overheaven, he now had an unparalleled advantage in operational tempo and asymmetry.

More importantly, he wanted to give Veylis and the Infacer something to be paranoid about. Something to make them question every shadow that lurked in the dark, that would demand they expend both resource and attention with every following breach to come.

Retribution was but a part of the equation. They came closer to killing him than almost any other, and in so earned both begrudging respect and lasting resentment. But he knew better than to approach them directly this time. In fact, he was going to implement even subtler measures in his subverts—quiet revisions of memories to have his puppets act under his script while thinking they lived under their own accord.

No more would he waste valuable splinters on piloting egos. Not when he could simply guide his victims along a path of destruction forged from their own volition.

This became his primary means of striking at Highflame. Their culture was individual. Competitive. Vicious. Though their Godclads and forces numbered many, the feud between the Meritocrats and the Chivalrics was ripe for exploitation. It was time to cast fuel upon fire and additionally turn the Great Houses on themselves if he could do so.

With Highflame’s critical players occupied by the assembly, their lessers would be Avo first tool of revenge.

Ambition cultivated rivals and establishing conditions for a crossfire would serve him as a smoke-screen for his more direct actions.

But despite bearing the source of his vitriol, Highflame was but Avo’s secondary target. While one submind would wreak chaos across the Gold’s districts, two other subminds would be devoted to devouring Ori-Thaum from within.

They were the Guild most susceptible to him, after all, and the treasures they possessed nourished his ontology like no other. Through the marriage between his warmind and their Conflagration did his evolution from Ensouled beast to divine thoughtform take place. And now, as the Embodiment of Conceptualization, he found himself slavering for more of their fire, more of their cognition-enhancing secrets.

Similar methods used on Highflame could also be applied to them. The D’Rongos, Kitzuhadas, and Kazaharas were already on the brink. A push was all it would take for open conflict. And such was what he desired. Internecine. Civil strife within all the Guilds. For their own cultures to be torn asunder by the weight of their atrocities and hypocrisy. And so he could provoke their Incubi into using their Conflagrations on him. To feed his very nature.

[Highflame produces a few hundred million Heavens,] the submind he dedicated to assaulting Highflame said, sweeping his perception across a cognitive rendering of New Vultun. From the Warrens to the Tiers, the city rose in layers, climbing from rot to radiance. There were hundreds of thousands of districts to hit. Hundreds of thousands of targets to source. But the limitations of the real didn’t apply to him; if he seized the right memories, he could pave himself a freeway in the Nether with no need for deceleration or reorientation.

The thought bounced to the Ori-Thaum subminds that sorted through all the sessions he possessed. Of his many templates, the Incubi he claimed proved the most valuable. He was not the first to consider creating such a tunnel through the city, and with a thought, he simulated permutations of pathways available for the taking. [Distance is not an issue. What we need to focus on is direction. Find all the districts with critical architecture. Focus on claiming as many golems as possible. Subsuming as many key administrators as possible. Starting as many fires as possible.]

His Metamind adapted to these parameters and the options narrowed for each Guild. The Highflame Submind continued: [Critical objectives. Compromise Highflame logistical pipeline. Kill as many Godclads as possible for ontologics and thaums. Tear through the Regulars too. Destabilize techno-thaumic reactors whenever there’s a chance. Start with critical infrastructure and individuals before working down. Locate and destroy all thaumaturgic installations and golem factories.]

[One thing at a time,] he told himself. [One thing at a time.]

***

–[Director Caul Sennets]–

“‘You’ll be noticed through your service.’ Sure. Sure I will. Any day now. Any day.”

Administrator Caul Sennets muttered the words alone in his office. The room was pitch black with the windows rendered opaque. He paced across the smooth obsidian of his floor in frustrated agitation, walking through the phantoms steaming free from the locus bobbing just below the ceiling, serving both as his primary source of luminosity and also network to the outside.

A waterfall of updates streamed down a window open in the corner of his cog-feed. Most of the mem-data was colored white with a few critical details shimmering green. Every now and again, he caught a glaring red, but those grew fewer by the day. As report after report filtered in, the administrator’s frustration only grew, for his primary attention remained on something beyond his grasp.

Secondhand details about the assembly were being filtered over to him via a childhood friend in attendance. Grateful as he was for her willingness to grant him vicarious insight, he couldn’t beat the envy rising within him.

Year after year, he worked tirelessly, giving all the time he had, sacrificing any pleasure, any chance at having a family, to ensure his district was in the upper ten percent of Highflame’s productivity leaderboards. He used every method and resource at his disposal to ensure his workforce was without compare. Invested in his elites. Sourced gutter-trash for the dangerous work. Stayed abreast of every cutting-edge development in the industry.

Year after year, the factory district of Kolot grew. Not even being of the Warrens stopped it from outcompeting some of its “peers” in the Tiers.

On an average day, the gigafactories of Kolot produced over fifteen thousand golem chassis, two hundred thousand aerial drone frames, and thrice that in various multi-functional mech units. Absurd numbers compared to other factor districts in Light’s End. Absurd numbers achieved by constant toil and management on his end, experimental enhancements applied to his workers’ hypothalami, and constantly rotating shifts to ensure there simply was no time off.

He even had the factories built over the housing blocks—connected labor of life directly by stacking the structures together.

Sure, there’ve been a few disturbances, attacks, and intrusions, but his security was elite. Unmatched. His Necros were personally hired to make sure the minds of his workforce remained clean, and that any dissatisfaction would be removed while adjustments were made to tie their useless libidos to their key performance targets.

He did all of this year after year after year without fail, always growing, always producing more for Highflame. He did it tirelessly. Without complaint. Standing. Delivering.

Another memory slipped over from Annat—bless her heart and damn her fortune. This update was a few hours old. An Instrument was compromised. One Marisov or something. The Faithtaker was demanding they cast themselves into the flames. Oh, to be addressed by the Faithtaker—to even be placed before the rest of his peers as a face worth seeing—

Bitterness rose inside him. Was it because his line was weak? Was it because he was just a chancer? A citizen by lottery? No. Highflame wasn’t like that. They cared about achievement over ancestry. Not that the latter didn’t matter. Annat’s certainly did. It was half the reason she had her Frame.

So, then what was it? Why wasn’t he being called back up to the Tiers? Why was he burning his life down here in this pit just on top of the vermin and scum that couldn’t stop killing each other—that wouldn’t stop trying to raid his fucking factories.

What was he missing? What was he lacking?

With each thought, the pressure inside him grew. At first, he thought it was frustration. Or impotent anger. He knew those well. Knew them since his school days. But as it only continued to grow, the ache inside him parted to become genuine pain.

+Do you really want to know?” A voice—deep and sibilant voice thundered within Caul’s mind, and the sheer weight of the intruder’s thoughts crashed his cog-feed.

“What–who–” Caul didn’t manage to get any other words out as his consciousness was torn inward from his body. When his awareness returned, he was falling. Falling into a sea of burning ghosts. Falling as what looked to be a blazing citadel ringed with animated nightmares spread out its expanding tendrils to embrace him.

And then one such tentacle poured through him—drowned him in a flood of scalding memories.

Death after death began to sear themselves into Caul’s mind. Deaths he was responsible for. Deaths of workers that died from overwork. Deaths from the families he left destitute after he crushed all other industries aside from his factory. So, so many deaths when one plant crumbled past unmaintained foundations, trapping thousands beneath tons of rubble.

He left them there. He cleared the damage on the topside and moved on. So few managed to crawl through the crevices below. From their trauma, he remembered the madness of hunger, he remembered weeping tears of joy as an aratnid drew close. He remembered hate. Hate for him. Hate for all he did to them. Hate for the sky he took from them.

Something inside Caul broke. He didn’t want to know this. He didn’t want to know any of this. “Stop! Stop! Stop!”

And it did. The ethereal currents curved away from his body, and he drifted to a stop before a baleful light.

A fissure of living fire glared down at him from behind ringed battlements born of torment and existential wrongness, it resembled an ignited crown with a nest of dragons slithering around its exterior. Eldritch radiance poured out as rivers of ghostly divinity and bathed in the immensity of the alien entity, Caul’s mind howled with madness.

Yet was forced by another will to remain sane.

+And you know the most damning thing?+ the crown asked. It spoke at him with a voice of outrage. From every ghost. From every part of reality. +You weren’t chosen. You aren’t special. You’re just convenient. So many like you all over Highflame. Too boring for Veylis’ interest. But that’s okay. I want you. I’ll have you. I claim you. You. And the opportunities provided by your factory’s thaumaturgic pipeline.+

“I don’t understand,” Caul breathed.

Another presence materialized beside him. Caul blinked. He knew this one—this was one of his hired Necros. “Neurokill” or something. The chrome-skulled woman with corded dreadlocks simply shook her head. “Doesn’t matter anymore, consang. We’re already gone. He already took us. This is what’s left. Welcome to hell.”

“Hell?” Caul squeaked.

“Yeah. Find a spot with me somewhere in the sequences. There’ll be lots more coming after us.”