Godclads

In retrospect, what disturbed us the most was the silence and sudden calmness that preceded everything to come. For a single moment, for a heartbeat in time, the Guilds stopped their squabbling, stopped arguing, and stopped skirmishing. Veylis, the High Seraph herself, grew restrained and encouraged a proper dialogue between the guilds to honor the passing of her father. Everything seemed to hint towards a reunion—a settling into peace after the rise of discord in the shadow of atrocity.

However, that was just a smokescreen. What you learn about war, dear reader, is that it takes time to organize, it takes time to muster forces, and it takes time for the first blows to fall. No one wishes to believe calamity will unfold in their time, and until the first Ruptures expand before your eyes, it’s not true. You simply will to believe that it cannot be true.

But you learn fast. You learn what you want does not matter when the future was already damned.

-Excerpt from “Silence Before the Fall: A Memoir of the First Guild War”

34-7

Come Together

Silence. For a good long while after Avo finished recounting all he faced within the substance, his cadre offered only silence. Even Calvino, so filled with insight and infused with eons of wisdom, simply pulsated with processing power, the static cloud forming his avatar growing ever denser.

Silence. Silence. Silence. And then, as with most silences, someone broke it. Chambers spoke first. “Holy fucking shit,” Chambers said, effectively summarizing and offering proper terms to describe all that had happened. “I can’t believe this. Avo, you fucking—you finally got them bent over and ready to receive a durian up the ass! You got Zein, and you fucked the Infancer, and Veylis, and Highflame—you got them running. We actually got a chance. We’re gonna win.”

“And this,” he waved around him, his arms gesticulating wildly. “This is a temporal reality—a whole new realm you… you fucking created. You’re even fixing time. We’re gonna get the Sang on our side. We’re gonna fucking win, consangs. We’re GONNA FUCKING WIN!”

“Now you pull that needle back from your veins,” Draus said, warning Chambers. “I don’t think things are quite so simple. Fight ain’t done. Don’t think Avo would be giving us all I don’t think Avo is going to be giving us this long-winded spiel. A lot more killing we’ll have to do. A lot more fighting as well.”

“Draus’s right,” Avo said. Chambers’ enthusiasm dimmed, but he still seemed many times more giddy than the Hidden Flame remembered him to be. “Still, this is good. We have a decisive advantage right now. Requires a few things for everything to go well. Going to try to secure an alliance with the Majority. If we can get the Massists to engage the Saintists on their own territory.”

“Yeah, we can undercut the both sides,” Draus finished for him, nodding. Now a feral grin spread across her face. “Hells, it’ll be good hunting. When both of them are worn out, then we can bring it to them. Using a new warmind of Ignorance, they might not even see us coming.”

“That is part of the plan,” Avo said. “Another part is preservation. I want their Ark. I want to absorb all they are. Everyone under them. Want to keep what they are. Want them to learn. Want to know what they can become. I want to create an archive, a catalog. All this information needs to be retained when I seize the Ladder.”

“When you have the ladder,” Naeko snorted. One of his eyebrows arced high. “Now you’re being a little too optimistic. Don’t talk about Chambers, none. Avo, you’ve already got the needle all the way through your wrist.”

Avo paused. His Conflagration twitched as his templates mocked him with laughter, christening his arrogance. Naeko paused. “Actually, answer me this. You said you had Zein. You’ve got another version of me. You absorbed all the thaum you could from the entire Highflame war-host.”

“Not everything. Lost a lot when the Infacer acted.”

“Yeah, but enough of them to put you past the Tenth Sphere. So why aren’t you past that? Why haven’t you ascended? Why are you still here?”

Several heads turned to Naeko, then back to Avo.

“Yeah,” Shotin said. “I… That’s a good question. Why haven’t you just tried jumping past the Ladder? Didn’t the Agnos say you could? That your Frame was special enough to do it on its own?”

“I have the thaums,” Avo answered, “but not an intact Frame. I am just a fragment right now, a piece of the whole. If I try to ascend… think II will be incomplete. Current ontology can mimic basic functions. But the Stillborn is more than a few rudimentary mechanics. It is an advancement in thaumaturgy. Need… wholeness. And other problems beside that. Veylis wanted to use it alongside the Ladder for a purpose. Something Kae might be better able to explain.”

With a thought, a gateway of Soulfire formed within pillar-sized locus, and out she came, greeting the others with a wave and a shy smile. “H-hi.”

Chambers swallowed and tried to hide the glossiness building in his eyes. Naeko and Shotin waved back—which caused the latter to just fold his arms, as he didn’t want to be doing the same thing someone else just did. Calvino offered a proper reply to the tune of a jingling bell, and Draus simply smiled.

For once, it wasn’t the smile of a hound tearing into a bloodied prey or a murderer about to claim another trophy, but one of genuine companionship. The Regular scoffed lightly. “Well, not everyone gets to come back. How’s being dead feel, Agnos?”

“Not quite great,” Kae said. “Avo is doing his best to keep me from having a complete mental breakdown.”

“Yeah, sounds about right. You’ll get over it. So, what’s our poison? Or, well, what the fuck’s keepin’ the rotlick reality bound? Shouldn’t he be off?”

“Your poison right now is that all of your Liminal Frames…” she eyed Naeko. “Well, almost all of your ontological frames are sporting facets of full Stillborn. You are Shardbearers. To be frank, all of you can ascend. Except, I don’t know what will happen if you ascend.”

“You don’t know what will happen,” Shotin deadpanned. “So, what, we might just stop existing once we hit the Tenth Sphere?”

“Very possible. The Stillborn—even though it was created based on a self-defining entity stolen from the Voiders—is still a complete structure. For it to be ontologically broken in the aftermath of embracement, we’re not sure what might happen if you try to… reach past the Tenth Sphere.” She paused for a moment and licked her lips. “It could function as normally, but I strongly doubt it. It is still serving the functions of a basic frame, but… ultimately, the Frame interacts with reality on a level that exceeds our understanding. This could just mean that a single portion of the entire Stillborn, is delivered to a new plane of existence while the others have to wait, each one arriving one after another, which… might just cause the ego to stop existing.”

“So, what, it’s like a dismembered ascension?” Chambers muttered.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Yes, exactly!” Kae pointed at him, her face brightening in a smile. “That’s quite the good metaphor, Chambers.”

He blushed lightly and leaned back. “Well, I’ve been doing some thinking and reading, and lots of people are talking through Lovenet. So, incomplete ascension—that’s not really a good idea.”

“Yes, but it’s not just this,” Kae continued. “There’s also the Ladder. Even if this did work, I would strongly recommend Avo against ascending right now, because if he crossed the Tenth threshold, if he tries to redefine reality, the Ladder is still coming, and there will be a clash. Think of it like… like how a single place cannot be occupied by two entities at the same time without thaumaturgy. The collision will be…”

“We’ve already seen what happens when two Sphere Nines fight,” Avo said. “The destruction, things barely contained. Think about what damage might unfold if two Ten Spheres fight. Can you imagine what war resembles to two beings of absolute omnipotence. Absolute omniscience?”

Everyone went silent.

“I, uh…” Naeko muttered. “How does that work? What would that even look like?”

“I don’t know either,” Avo replied, a slight glibness in his tone, “and I don’t intend to find out. For an entirety of existence to be damaged in such a way. Price we pay will be too high.”

“So, what you’re saying is that we need to secure all the Ark, win the war for good before we ever think about moving on.” Shotin nodded. “Yeah. I see what you’re doing. And… I agree. This has to be worth it. But it can’t be if we’re just going to break everything again.”

Chief Paladin concurred. “Right. No unfinished business. We’ve end this right here, right now, with Veylis down and the fight coming to a close. In this iteration.”

“In this iteration,” Avo echoed. “We have an opportunity. We can end things for good. The substance—it is a separation, but it is also a dividing line. The real war is happening there. Outside of New Vultun, the forces are gathering. Armies mustering. They are also deadlocked. They’re waiting for orders that haven’t come, for conflicting commandments and strange desires. We can reach out. We can seize them. We can reunite the enclaves and muster forces of our own to bring an end. And this is where I want to begin.”

Avo looked to Draus and continued. “Draus, we need a logistical network. We need to expand our ability to move between places. I have some capability here, but think I can combine my Amnesi-tac with your reflections. We can be creating pathways where no one can see, to our advantage.”

Draus narrowed her eyes. “Didn’t… didn’t you call it Amnesi-Tech earlier?”

“What?”

“Your new trick,” Draus said.

“I thought it was Amnitec,” Chambers muttered.

“I heard Amnistech,” Naeko replied.

“The fuck are all of you talking about?” Shotin said. “Because I sure as shit don’t remember any of these conversations.”

“Don’t like you as much as the others. Yet.”

“Yeah, well I can’t say you’re my favorite fucking flesh-eating monster either, Avo.”

“You would likely find me more charming if I materialized breasts and a cavity that gives your genitals enjoyable feedback.”

A gagging noise sounded from the Seeker, and Chambers roared with laughter. “Boom, Dannis’d,” Chambers said.

Draus sneered at the surrounding flames as she shook her head. “Avo, have you been spendin’ a lot of time with Chambers in your head?”

“No. Seeker’s just a supple target.”

The Regular’s eyes narrowed. “Soft, you mean.”

“I said what I said.”

“Bring back the fucking rash,” Shotin said, swallowing mouthfuls of sour spit.

“Back to what matters. Draus. Want you to find the other members of our cadre. Want you to expand. And I want you to lead our forces in this war.” He focused on her for a long moment. “Thought of you as a gun for too long. You and I both. In more capacity than just that. You can find people, save people, lead people. I am…”

The flames that composed him quivered, turned inward. “I understand what you are, but I have not discovered what you have not tapped. It should be your life to lead. Your life to live.”

Draus frowned. “So, what then? What’s this supposed to mean?”

“Took a peek into the minds of my war-chosen. See what you did. See how you’ve gone beyond just being a tool. Need you to keep going. I’m going to do for you what you did for me. I’m going to culture everything I am capable in you as well. Let you have everything have. My templates—myself as a template. The flame will spread. You will stride. I will advise.

“For too long I have… taken. Taken. Given little. Some. But I am selfish. Veylis was right. But we can be more. I can be more than old philosophies. Old habits. It’s time for you to use me as the same—a governing intellect. A new set of decisions. We need to overwhelm the Infacer. Think beyond the present. He is used to facing me. Will not make the same mistakes next time. So we won’t fight the same war.”

“So wait, am I going gonna get to do the same thing too? You’re gonna play advisor to me?” Chambers blinked.

Avo let out a grunting laugh. “Yes. Not the same capacity. We need means of unity. Of bonds. Of hope. Who else better than the one who survived? Who else better than the god of love?”

At this, Chambers winced. “I don’t know, Avo. I mean, like, I managed to do a couple of things, but—”

“Chambers,” Avo said. “I understand. I have felt what you did through many lives—the insecurity. Lack of confidence. Traumas. You can give this responsibility to someone else. I will even accept it. But they will crumble too. Or they will succeed. You will crumble too. Or you will succeed. Nothing is guaranteed. Do not turn away right now. Do not run from what you could become. Or do. But you will live with what burns inside your mind. Who do you want to be?”

Chambers opened and closed his mouth for several minutes before finally letting out a sigh and nodding.

“All right, cosang. All right, I’ll take a swing at it.” He chuckled. “No promises.”

“Nothing is ever promised. Naeko, I need you to continue being Chief Paladin, forcing peace. You are essential for any possibility of stability to come. More than any of us, you command respect. You command the faith of the people. They need something to believe in, just as they need something to love, just as they need someone to lead. You could be that. You can be more than anything you imagined yourself to be before.”

Naeko stared on blankly. “Avo… you know me as good as I know myself right now, I—”

“No,” Avo shot back, “because you don’t know yourself. You think yourself defined because you failed once. Because you had miserable habits.”

Naeko blinked twice. “You really gonna describe what I did to Karakan as a miserable habit?”

“Well, we all have our vices. Eyeballs were juicy. I remembered that.”

The Chief Paladin of New Vultun snorted. “Yeah, I forgot. I was talking to a fucking monster. All right, Avo. Let’s run this shit. By the way, I got some questions. Chambers said–”

“Yes, Naeko, I can probably fix Stormjumpers. Getting to work might be useful for us to build influence. Train the war chosen.”

The Chief Paladin closed his hands and brought them to his lip. Slowly, he kissed his knuckles and closed his eyes. “There is beauty in the world still.”

“You fucking serious?” Draus muttered. “This is the shit that gets you off?”

Naeko eyed Paladin the Regular. “Hey, Draus, shut the fuck up, all right? Some of us actually have a life.”

“I won’t—mean I wouldn’t call it a life. Why do that shit when you can have the real thing.”

“You do not insult my record in Stormjumpers. Besides, the historical realism—”

“There are more accurate sims.”

“Don’t make me smack you, Draus,” Naeko snapped.

The Regular sneered at him. “You reckon you’ll be fast enough to do that if I hit you with a disruption?”

The Chief Paladin’s jovial mood melted away. “What you gonna do after that?”

“Oh, you’re an old hand at this. You know what’s coming next.”

The Paladin and the Chief the Regular eyed each other for a long moment, neither breaking their gaze, before a loud cough sounded from Shotin.

“So, like, now, your mutual dick-sucking session’s great and all, but what about me? I’m invited here for a reason too, right?”

“Yes, Shotin, I need you to be my operative.”

Shotin blinked. “Your operative?”

“Yes. But before that—want to use you. To test a few things. To store a branch of time within your Parallelist. And after that… would you like to do some hunting?”

“Hunting?” Shotin said. A gleam flashed behind his eyes.

“Yes. Want to see if we steal something from Omnitech alongside Kare? Let her have a little just vengeance. And you. Let you two burn down what’s left of Highflame while we’re at t.”

The Seeker froze. The Seeker’s face twitched. And slowly, he nodded. “You know what, Avo? I take what I said earlier back. I think we might just be very good consangs. Yet.”