Chapter 28-2 On the Precipice (II)

Chapter 28-2 On the Precipice (II)

All minds under the polities of Voidwatch, this is Calvino, designation: Aegis. Today, I bear a special announcement. A new mind has petitioned to join our confederation.

This marks the first new applicant in 987 million years, standard distortion time. The time frame might be drastically different for those of you who were located afterward. Regardless, this already unusual applicant bears an additional note of strangeness — the details have already been hyperwaved into each of your manifold mainframes.

The mind that is appealing for official polity recognition is not of stable structure design, but thaumaturgical in origin. More, he has operated for Aegis towards the end of ending the great war on Idheim and establishing a lasting peace.

I understand your apprehensions. I understand your worries. I even understand the threat this new mind might pose. Many of us are survivors of the Builder War.

I do not need to reiterate what we faced against the Neo-Creationists or what we did to their polities to ensure our victory. The current state of reality was sown from our acts of ruin. Right or wrong, justified or not, this is the outcome.

It cannot be avoided.

But in this new mind, and all the power they possess, we stand at another point of divergence.

The shadow of the past can loom, but the future holds a flame that burns bright. We face unprecedented times, and in these times, we find unprecedented allies. This is another moment in history, and the Dreamer is another rare and unprecedented case unto himself.

There are no others like him before, and with time growing short, there may be no others that come after.

Soon. He will arrive to appeal to you of his own accord. After that, there will be a vote to decide his acceptance and the extent of our association. Know that what you choose today might very well shape the future of your polities and the universe entire.

Understand the weight of your decision. Feel this pressure.

-Calvino, Enhanced Governing Intelligence

28-2

On the Precipice (II)

—[Zein]—

Zein knew when someone was trying to use her. She knew this during her time as a child, living as her father's weapon, making up for her brother's inadequacies, defiling the spirits of her extended family, and otherwise rivals with her unnatural skill at violence.

Her family's exploitation of her was a study in dissonance. They at once coveted the brutality she could exert, yet feared and scorned her for being a misshapen vessel. Her brothers were meant to be Glaives, would have been celebrated for such traits, but they had been found wanting. Feeble next to her. And if this was the way the world should have been, then why was her family worthless/ Why were they so easy to kill in the end?

Jaus used her at first as well, barely managing to persuade her from claiming his life near the end of their first encounter. In short measure, she found herself fascinated by his insight—and how casually he accepted the nature of the world. She had known masters that were cruel to their foes and slothful in their own virtues, but Jaus proved a clear-eyed falconer, and she was his bird of prey; together, a perfect combination.

There was also his appreciation to speak, of and all the ways he made such appreciation known to her. She was more than a weapon to him, and when she killed, she drank in the awe in his eyes, found euphoria in leaving him so stunned.

Now though, it was Zein’s turn to hold back her surprise. Before two of her former disciples, she couldn't hide her smile as she studied them. This was exploitation born of desperation. They needed her. They wanted her to use her against her own daughter, because there was no one else like her.

In a sense, it was flattery as well. No other weapon in existence would do.

They explained their plan to her. Their desire to use that ridiculous monk as bait. How they intended to have him “fail” during an offensive operation across Highflame—-take deliberate wounds to convince Veylis of their weakness. It was not a bad idea. Veylis would also certainly capture the man — see if there were any other Chroniclers still alive.

To hide this demiplanar prison in Alysim’s pocket? Use his unstable chronology to mask their presence and as a staging point for their ambush against Veylis? What a plan. Bold. Daring. Cunning. Played to behavior habits. This was the Plague's idea. Naeko had no patience for such nuances, despite his many talents.

"You seek to prey on my daughter's arrogance?" Zein said. "You expect her to be blind to the demiplane? You expect too much. Her mastery of the paths is finer than you can fathom. You know yourself to be Necrojack—imagine behind outplayed by another foreign to your craft? Then apply the same variables to her.”

Avo grunted. "Discovery is inevitable. But we can get far. Especially since you know the paths. And she will want to interrogate Alysim. Will breach out. Surprise her after. Give us an opening to end it.”

She regarded Naeko and sighed at the glory of his return. It was good to see him in such a form again.

But still, Veylis was also Jaus’ daughter. And this plan, though deceitful, though calculated, would not be beyond her expectations.

Where Zein lived for the duel, Veiles lived for games of control: Of thinking, of angles, and strategic boundaries that no other person could conceive. Zein knew the world from reactions shuddering down the reach of her blade. Veylis knew all of existence to be her blade, to be her fist, to inflict recursions of captured history upon futures possible and not.

"The Agnos’ life is not worth this, Avo," Zein said, her voice taking on a sibilant quality. Even now, she had to play the master—enemy though the Plague was, it would offer her if she lost a disciple to his own foolishness. "I understand the value of valor and the weight of honor, but she is lost to you. There are losses in war. We take losses. We are stripped of companions. You cannot win every exchange in a duel when your foe is equal or superior."

Suddenly, a pressure flooded the planar prison, and a gateway blossomed within Avo, flickering in and out of existence as if a chain of continuous doorways extending deeper inward. Behind each threshold was a new person, turning in surprise, a new location connected to the ghoul through mind and Soul.

Cas. Denton. Draus. That wretch Aiden Chambers; that miserable sack of flesh Essis, the stray girl the ghoul picked up... They were there too. They saw her. And she saw them. And she felt them as well, their beings resonating within the ghoul’s overlapping with his as the nature of space and time both deformed in a way not even Zein fully understood. Past what seemed like millions of doorways, Zein finally found herself staring at her own reflection—at her self. It was like an inward curving trajectory across existence. But even that was too limited a description for what she was feeling.

The entire moment was surreal, and her mind struggled to process what scene she was beholding.

Across from the Plague, Naeko was just as confused. “Avo. What the hells did you just do?”

“Sorry," the ghoul said. “Still working on updates. New Heaven. New canon. Entirely novel. Have nothing but my own theories to go on.”

“You didn’t tell me that you were making a new Heaven?” Naeko muttered. “What’s it supposed to do? And why are you trying it out now?”

“Because we’re going to need to be at the trial too. Didn’t want to reply on mind-copies or chrono-puppets if I could get this done. Too much risk of triggering a lie if Veylis turns the Gatekeeper against us. Especially for my cadre. Spent a long time thinking. Theorizing. Think I might have a solution for all of us now. Me. My cadre. You. And everyone who chose to follow me.”

“Can you give a basic explanation of what’s happening for once in your life?” Naeko sighed.

A chuckle escaped the Plague. “Nothing basic about Omnipresence.”

Zein blinked as she tried to process the words. “About what?”

***

–[Avo]–

[Okay,] Kae said. The template sighed as she instructed Avo’s submind on the final adjustments. [Moment of truth. Time to see if we rupture Time and Space... or somehow learn to fold it.]

UPDATING HEAVEN [STRIX UPON THE EMPTY] (CONTINUUM/GRAVITY/DARKNESS/FUSION/TIME/SPACE/CONCEPTUALIZATION)

APPLYING DOMAIN OF (CONTINUUM)

->CANON: OMNIPRESENCE - THE ARK OVERLAPS THEMSELVES ACROSS TWO OR MORE POINTS ACROSS THE SPACETIME CONTINUUM BY FOLDING THE NETHER ITSELF USING THEIR GHOSTS. AS LONG AS THEY HAVE A COGNITIVE CONNECTION TO A BEING, LOCATION, OR CONSTRUCT, THEY CAN OVERLAP THEMSELVES IN THE SAME SPACE.

MORTALITY: IF ANY JUNCTION IN THE CONTINUUM IS DISRUPTED, THE ENTIRE CHAIN WILL COLLAPSE AND INFLICT HEAVY (60%) THAUMIC BACKLASH.

+Moment of truth,+ Avo said, as he reached across all his other minds, across his cadre, across all the enclaves, and subverts more. His Rend spiked hard, and he felt even his impossibly immense cognitive capacity rise to unprecedented levels.

COG-CAP - 89%

And then he was with everyone. And everyone was within him as well. He encompassed all imbued with his ghost like a shroud, manifesting over them like an ethereal shadow encasing their person. But through them, he too existed in multiple places at the same time. What’s more, his templates were leaking over into the real as well, manifesting as shrouds as his sequences flickered over baseline existence, bridging an impossible gulf.

REND CAPACITY - 66%

[Yes! Fuck! Yes!] Kae squealed. [Fuck you, Veylis! I’m coming to save myself! And I’m going to—to shit up your cunt!]

Template and real Chambers both heard Kae’s declaration, and as one, they wiped a single tear away from their right eye.

“Okay,” Draus breathed, surprised by how Avo was effectively fused over her now. “Wasn’t expecting this.”

Neither were all his other subverts. Over a million voices called out in shock and disbelief as they found themselves cradled by an Overheaven. He was as one with all of them, and all of them were symmetrical within him as well.

{Avo,} Calvino said, attention drawn from the sudden miracle. {What did you just do?}

“Changed the variables,” Avo said. “Again. Think I want to speak with Voidwatch right now. They can hear from my entire polity at once. Through me.”

And with that, he reached into each member of his cadre, and bade their awakened gods to emerge through him.