12 Miles Below

“You’re gonna have to explain that one to me a second time.” Aztu said, waving a hand at me. “How did you come to know a sentient bioweapon obsessed with Mites? How’s that even a sentence in the first place. Did they really plan that far out?”

“Strictly speaking, I’m pretty sure Bob is outside the mite plans. They don’t like Bob. But Bob likes them a lot, and constantly follows them around. As for where I met Bob, you can thank my good friend To’Orda for the lift. In certain definitions of friend. I am actually dead serious about that part, he did give me the push to meet new friends out there.”

I sent her the files and video footage of the entire thing, and Aztu ate it like a cracker, chomping it down and processing through it in seconds. Then she shook her head more in dismay than anything as she sat back down on the couch. “Well kid, looks like you really have everything you need to be a mitespeaker. Right down to who to ask for the mite colonies. Not sure if you’ll be able to pull it all off before fighting To’Orda, but if you can get in contact with Wrath through the mites, and then stall that Feather long enough, you might make it.”

She stared at another empty bottle on the table. I still hadn’t been able to pull it off, even after trying every idea that came to mind. I'd given it a rest for now, aiming to continue later. “Was Talen also a mitespeaker like Urs? Before being the emperor.” I asked.

Aztu nodded. “As far as I know, they both were. Not sure when Talen became that, before or after meeting Urs. Could just be a coincidence the only two emperors of mankind were also mitespeakers. There’s a lot of mitespeakers that remained sane, in theory.”

We continued a bit of small talk about things as I looked down where the virtual miteseeker remained. “But I get the feeling the mites wouldn’t have gone this far to setup every item needed for me to become a mitespeaker for nothing.”

Aztu sighed deeply, sinking into her couch, looking up into the ceiling of the terminal. “I didn’t want to fill your head with dangerous ideas kid. I could see the mites asking your blood and soul out of a whim, but everything else seems too… deliberate to me. Especially finding out you’ve been carrying a mite lantern all this time, and not just a normal one but the ones built by Tsuya herself. And as much as I hate to say this, you remind me of both Talen and Urs together.” She gave me a lazy glare, one finger wagging at me. "Don’t let this get to your head. You got the engineering chops, while able to fight. Best of both, weakness of neither. With the mites stirring up and making demands of Abraxas for the first time in decades, along with finding out I have a granddaughter and she’s already part of their schemes? I think they’re making another go at their prophecy. So the human emperor has to be coming out soon. It could be you, or they could be sending you on a quest to bring him back.”

“You know about the mite prophecy?”

She gave me a flat stare. “We were in the middle of it kid. I’ve heard and looked into it more times than I can count. Mankind’s emperor, to draw out the final enemy. The vow, to hold the vessel in place. A god’s wrath, to break the cycle. And the heir apparent, to take the throne left behind.” One hand raised up, and she counted off the list. “Talen was the emperor that would force Relinquished out into the world to fight him personally. Urs was the vow that would trap Relinquished in place with what he’d learned from the mites. Tsuya would then finally shatter Relinquished. And Abraxas would take command of the machine empire, the throne Relinquished would leave behind, to bring peace to everything.”

“How would Talen have drawn out Relinquished? That’s the part I don’t completely understand. If I were an evil goddess currently winning the fight, I wouldn’t take a single step outside my fortress of solitude until everything else out there is blown up. Preferably twice over just to be safe.”

She laughed, and for the first time it felt genuine. “If the hero of a story gathers up power, becomes the leader of all humanity, brings a massive army behind him to her fortress of solitude, and then steps out past everyone to challenge your evil goddess in a one on one duel for the sake of the world - while there was a known grand prophecy stating this final battle was fated - what is Relinquished forced to do? Narratively speaking?”

“You’re kidding.” Then I stopped and leaned back, thinking through. “No wait, you’re not kidding. She really would have to come out and fight him in some giant final confrontation before everyone. She’d almost have no choice but to do that.”

Aztu wagged a finger at me. “Exactly. And it’s even better - she’d have

I thought about it some more, and then connected a few dots. “No, it wouldn’t have worked. Relinquished found a loophole.”

Aztu lifted her head up from the couch, “A loophole?”

“She built a placeholder for herself.” I pointed at the table, and a small chess piece came out from my own imagination. A queen piece. “A01, your big leader. Before he turned on her, he wasn’t just built to be a counter to the emperor - he was her lieutenant. The right-hand loyal mook of the big villain, who the heroes have to beat first before they get to challenge the actual villain. If he’d been beaten, then Relinquished would have had to step in. Except none of you could die, because she’d use the unity fractal to bring you out of danger. So he could never be beaten in any way that would force her to enter the stage personally.”

Aztu stayed quiet that that, head going back to the couch’s arms, looking straight up at the ceiling. Mulling it over. “I really am not enjoying how much this is making more sense in retrospect. Almost to the point I think there's probably some things in my code that are stopping me from guessing this myself." She flickered a hand to her face and started chewing on a nail. "Damnit. You think her actual plan had been to have him and all of us buy her enough time to build a mook that could actually get her out of her coming checkmate?”

“And she managed it on the fifty seventh attempt. A strategist model that could think in ways she wasn’t allowed to.”

There was some quiet between us as I let Aztu ruminate. I thought about it, from their point of view. The prophecy had been subverted before it had had a chance to be used. And after that, they’d never been able to assemble a backup. No Deathless had been powerful enough to be the human emperor, or capable of holding Relinquished trapped.

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Wait. Trapping a goddess. Abraxas. “Wrath told me Abraxas had a mission here. You told me he’d told you the words and that all of you were debating what it could mean. Nine words or something like that.” I snapped my fingers, trying to remember what he’d told me once. It was in one of those communication attempts where he’d snuck in his comms into my room like the little stalker he is. “What was it the mites told him? I remember there was the word trap in there.”

“Thou shalt guide a betrayer to trap a goddess.” Aztu said, hands giving finger quotes in the air. “We debated over that one. Lot of interpretations, including separating them entirely. He could be guiding a betrayer, and the ultimate result is a trapped Relinquished later due to his actions. You got an alternate take on it?”

Wrath had told me the mites had given her the fractal to heal, along with another fractal that she wasn’t sure about. There’s something suspicious there. “What if Wrath isn’t the inheritor in all this? What if she’s the one meant to trap Relinquished in some way? What if the wording Arbaxas got is more literal - guide Wrath to trap Relinquished. She replaces Urs. In that case, Wrath is the vow, Abraxas remains the inheritor, and Tsya is still the god’s wrath - all you need is the emperor of mankind now. Someone to draw Relinquished out with narrative pull. A57 is dead, as is A01. There’s no queens on the board to block checkmates. No emperor, no lieutenant.”

I thought back on my chess match with Relinquished. How she’d sacrificed both queens on the board. A01 was gone, but so was Talen.

The goddess of machines had to foreshadow how she would win, before she was allowed to win. She made it seem like she knew every step I’d take, but what if that had been a bluff?

Aztu narrowed her gaze at me. “You’d need to either heal Talen somehow or take up his mantle. And both options have you come up against him in a fight. You’ve gotten strong Keith, but this isn’t in your league. Kill two mad gods, or one uber-powerful god if A57 killed Urs, and then you still have to find a third god deep in hiding to plead your case. Basically impossible three times over.”

“Impossible feats always seem impossible until someone makes it.” I waved a hand at her. “But I think I can skip having to deal with any emperor in the first place. I could potentially get Relinquished out of hiding without the fractal of Resolve.”

“What do you mean?” Aztu asked, “How are you going to become the human emperor in that formula without the power?”

“You said it yourself earlier. Narrative.” I spread my arms out wide like I was in a theater production. “She met me personally already, she knows my name. I’m recognized by her as someone, maybe not the emperor but someone she’d be compelled to squash personally. We might be closer to victory than you think. All I need to do is find the right time to challenge Relinquished to a duel”

“You wouldn’t survive without the fractal of Resolve.” Aztu said.

“But that’s the thing. I don’t need to live through all this or even beat her. That wouldn’t be my job, that role is for the god’s wrath of the prophecy. I don’t even need to keep Relinquished in place, Wrath would do that. She’s on the path to do that, guided by Abraxas. All I have to do is make sure everyone’s in position and draw Relinquished out. Everything after doesn’t need me.”

“You’re willing to die for this?”

“Other way around Aztu, I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t try. And who knows, I’ve cheated death once so far, I might get away with a second time.”

Aztu said nothing for a moment, but her gaze was on the miteseeker by my side. “I really need that drink kid.”

The bottle remained before me, empty on the table.

We turned to silence. Both of us thinking.

Urs had done incredible things with the Occult. Aztu thought I could do the same. This was the trial she’d put to see if I was worthy of being a part of all this. I’d messed up the entire way through so far, but it didn’t matter how many times I failed, I only had to succeed once.

It didn’t matter how many humans died fighting Relinquished, it only took one of us winning a single time.

And I had something neither of them had at their time. All their fragments of knowledge put together. Urs had managed to weave the occult together - but Hexis had managed to cast it out from his very mind. The warlocks held a vast repository on philosophy built over centuries of humans all passing the knowledge down. Hundreds of Occultists before me. Things Urs and Talen didn't know as it was discovered after their time.

What if I could combine it all?

I changed my perspective, thinking on Hexis’s collection, adding Urs’s final thoughts into the mix and then my own experience.

Kidra saw concepts of combat. Shadowsong saw concepts of loyalty and betrayal. Father saw death. And I could see concepts of engineering and machinery. All belonging to humanity, or life itself. And the occult had recognized these concepts, assimilated it into itself somehow.

What if the occult always existed as it would in the void, but humanity’s appearance - some awareness of the world and concepts within it outside the occult’s own system - might have been close enough to the occult to link to it? And from there, influence it?

It clicked in my head: I could put it together. It felt right.

I focused on the bottle again. And reached out in my memory for what I’d felt during my drunk binges. The emotions, and feelings. Bubbly happy thoughts, dancing and talking. Into that well of experience, I made it the only thing on my mind.

I can’t explain the thought process well. The best I could do is close to what Hexis once told me, how he could visualize fractals within his mind’s thoughts. And simply doing that was enough for the universe to recognize him.

It wasn’t that the universe could see into his mind and spot the fractals - it was that Hexis himself, and all of us, were already part of the occult.

Those memories, that concept of being drunk and everything about it, already existed in the world out here - in my head - and if I was already a part of the occult zeitgeist, then these memories and concepts in my head would be recognized by the occult.

I turned my eyes inwards, and at the center of my soul, I found a concept. A bundle of thoughts and feelings that I felt described… being drunk. With careful hands, I reached the bottle on the table and passed my soul through it, carrying the concept like a river out of me, splitting it in half, a copy left within the bottle itself.

When I focused my eyes again, the bottle remained empty on the table. But inside, I could see it clearly in the soul sight. The concept of being drunk. Not just any random drunkenness. Specifically my concept of being drunk.

“You did something.” Aztu said, sitting ramrod straight on the couch for once. “I could feel something change in that bottle and it’s scrambling data exactly like occult meddling would do.”

I reached out, grabbed the bottle and handed it over. She looked over me once, then popped the cork and tilted the entire bottle up as if she’d been drinking for years. When she set it back down, Aztu was all smiles.

“Are you drunk now?”

“Not anymore. But for a moment, I touched on it. And it's all still in there." She held the bottle closer to her, now suddenly possessive of it. "And it was everything I’d hoped it would be. Congrats kid. It took Urs years to figure out how to imbue the occult into objects, and what’s left in the digital sea of his are rare hoarded treasures. You really are something.”

I looked at the bottle with critical eyes. “No. I’m not. I think Urs could have done the exact same thing I just did, and he'd have done it faster. It's not ability he was missing, it's knowledge. He walked so that Talen could run. And Talen ran so that the next one in the line could sprint.”

For a moment, I saw the world as it really was. A long line of people, stretching across history. One after the other, each getting a little bit further ahead. Urs and Talen had been the last ones in that chain, but there must have been hundreds of kindred souls, so many nameless heroes in the past, trying and dying. Each passing on their knowledge to the next in line. Hoping one day, one of them would have enough pieces put together to succeed. All these different chains of people from different directions, all converging on the latest inheritor. The next one to make the attempt at defeating Relinquished.

And now all their heads turned to me.