Okay. So. You’ve survived your first five runs. Good for you. Good, good, good. Maybe you're made of more than luck. Maybe there is a lick of skill or potential inside you. Maybe you gonna be more than just fighting meat bound for the Maw.

  Seeing that you made it this far, let old lady Tavers give you some advice.

  Up to this point, you’re probably still alive because you’re not like the other idiots. You notice things. You anticipate. Plan ahead. Prepare. Learn the terrain–who you might be facing. You invested in the right kinds of consangs, equipment, training, and intelligence instead of vanity augs or drugs.

  And now new thoughts are crawling up your head. You think you’re ready for the big time. You think you wanna start hunting big game; hitting Syndicates or stealing from the Guilds.

  Keep yourselves steady now. It ain’t that easy; this game’s about more than just killing.

  First, your last few runs were probably pretty straightforward affairs. Go here, hit that, snuff him. Basic shit with objective parameters that even your average ganger can understand. Going up though, things get complicated, and you need to invest in “compilation preventatives.”

  Besides being able to fight, what will keep you standing at the end of the day is understanding. Knowledge. Politics is nasty bullshit but it’s nasty bullshit you’re going to learn to navigate if you don’t want to end up getting betrayed. For every idiot squire, there is a dumber middler trying to screw everyone around them over. Do your own research. Figure out the angles you can. Keep yourself insured both operationally and intellectually. You don’t get to be “the muscle” or “the smart one.” Specialization is for bioforms and insects, and we’re not either. Know your gigs. Know who to trust. And always have a plan to break and run.

  The second is for the run itself. Fighting is performance-in-action. That’s how things get done–and circumstantially, how you get out of a fuck-up. Most of the time, I don’t like fighting. I don’t like being in an active gunfight. That’s bad business. I’m not an assault team. I’m not a Godclad. I’ll be snuffed or nulled in seconds if I go in hard and recklessly. Be flexible, be fast, and be constantly creating variables for the opposition to deal with rather than being a variable to be dealt with.

  More than planning, you have to understand the concept of control. You can buy all the weapons in the world, have all the intel you need, have the backing of an entire Guild, and still fuck up your gig because something unexpected slipped your grasp. That’s life. Shit happens, but you need to catch the shit with your hand before it hits the fan and paints you in yesterday’s undigested goulash.

  Control. I say again. Control. More than just preparation. When you can exert control, that’s when you can call yourself a real squire. That’s when you can be considered a vet.

  If you can actively change the situations on the ground or influence mass amounts of people on a strategic level. All it takes is a few select hostages related to a certain Syndicate lieutenant for you to walk out of one of their strongholds instead of needing to risk it all in a messy shootout. Take the time to learn the key factors behind the success of your run and influence them however you can.

  This isn’t a lesson that anyone can just teach you. Dive the vicarities. Live other people’s mistakes. Make your own. And if you’re still alive by the end of this, I might just be able to congratulate you in person.

  -Quail Tavers, The School of the Warrens

  19-15

  Change the Doors (II)

  Avo had to admit his uncertainty. What he requested of Essus treaded the edges of the man’s trauma. Deploying him as an on-site coordinator in refugee encampments or gutter settlements to protect others like him from Syndicate predation seemed the most optimal use of his talents. Still, much of the ask hinged on how well his mind state was, and if he was even willing to leave the city at all.

  Essus had suffered much to see himself and his son brought into the city. And instead of reaping any final rewards upon his arrival, he found only misery and death. The severance of his love and legacy. The desecration of his mind and body. Everything traded for more loss.

  Returning him to the place where he made his greatest mistake seemed an insult, but it was where he offered the most use.

  “Your choice,” Avo said. He directed his attention at Dice who was in the specially-fabricated meeting room as well. “Both of yours. Won’t force either of you into anything. Will listen if you have other ideas. See if they’re good.”

  Avo had a private space generated to offer both former refugees privacy. His socially astute templates advised hosting this meeting away from the attention of the others. Somewhere the two wouldn’t feel pressured into decisions they would otherwise not make to fit in with the group. Despite how warped humanity’s clades were compared to their baseline selves, that tribalism lingered still in most; a want to belong, a need to fit in.

  {A trait naturally shaped by eons of persistent survival,} Calvino had said. {Considering how you can affect minds, however, you can probably burn that mechanism away. The question is what replaces it thereafter, and what changes befall the altered. Keep that in mind before you change anyone: the stars were once littered with the bones of countless peoples who modified themselves into extinction. Systems are deviously subtle. I suggest that you build if you can, break if you must, but bear the structure of what you’re changing in mind always.}

  The words resonated in more ways than one as Avo considered the two former FATELESS seated on smart-matter chairs before him. Between the two, Essus looked more uncomfortable by far, his pudgy cheeks expelling thermogenic sweat, the oily substance adding a slickness to his curled hair. In contrast, Dice was stone-still, unblinking eyes locked on Avo as the face of her sleeping nu-cat peeked out from one of her coat pockets. The two of them were both survivors in their own right and through Avo’s Conflagration and canons, they could be forged into people stronger still.

  But this, like the tasks he offered, was something they needed to choose.

  “I accept,” Essus said, a long-held breath finally leaving him. “I will do this. I want to do this. It is where I will serve the most good.” His gaze dropped for an instant before he righted himself and met Avo’s eyes. “I… wish to confess something. I was afraid.”

  Avo tilted his head. “Understandable. Not unnatural. I can take it away. Change that part of you. Is that what you want?”

  The man shook his head. “No. It’s just… I was afraid you were going to ask me to leave. That you would request a parting and take back this… this gift you have given me.” Essus brought a shaking hand to his chest. “I cannot… I have only given you words of thanks for what you have done. For what you have tried to do. If not for you, I would have never witnessed this city. And understood the depths of my failure.”

  “Wasn’t your fault–”

  “Please. Let me continue.” The ghoul grunted in acquiescence and gestured for Essus to continue using an Echohead. “I have been… speaking to members of Voidwatch. Menders of mind and spirit. They have been very helpful in attuning my mind away from the emptiness I desired. But something inside me still aches. And it is more than grief. More than the death of my boy.”

  Essus took a moment to steady himself. For the first time since the meeting started, Dice blinked and looked away from Avo. Awkwardly, reached out with her elongated arm and gently patted Essus on the arm as one would a nu-dog. The man seemed to take heart from the action.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “I have told my son stories of the great cities many times. Things I heard from other travelers. Fantastic tales to keep his hope. And mine. I knew that things would not be so… idyllic, but whatever was ahead had to be better than the madness of the torn lands. There was a future there. A place for us to live instead of just surviving.”

  “And then you got in,” Avo said.

  The former father sighed. “Yes. And then we got in. I confess: the smugglers were… kind, and I knew there was something wrong when I first spoke to them. But I drank in their words of hope and safety because we were so close. Right there. And the camps… They are strained as is. So many people. More every day. Not even Voidwatch’s machines can protect us all. So I took the risk. I signed our lives to a stranger. And he did not lie. He brought us in. But not as people. As cattle.

  “What followed… I broke more than once after my boy’s death. I broke when you stopped me from killing myself. I broke more when they said you were dead, and I was alone. I broke when that… that demon Mirrorhead peeled me apart, forced his metal inside me.” And Essus looked down at his cybernetic limbs–something he kept in his ontology from his tenure as a Syndicate attack dog. “But the power he gave took away some of the pain. I wasn’t the only one to suffer. I could make someone else know. Even if killing them was hard. I thought they understood.” He shook his head. “When we escaped, when we rose up the layers of the city and glimpsed the sky, I broke once more. I saw it. I saw the Tiers. I saw the utopia I dreamed of in my lies–the place I promised Aurrie we would call home. And I hated it. I hated how it loomed above me. I hated the lights and the colors and smells that filled the sky, close enough for me to sense, but never to taste.”

  A thousand humorless chuckles sang as a bitter symphony in Avo’s mind.

  [This was not the dream,] Corner muttered.

  [This was not the dream,] Osjon agreed.

  [The dream is not yet dead,] Kare whispered, her mind desperately trying to believe.

  “Such is how we are,” Avo said. “A dream is a mirage in the desert. A thing that draws us to move. To live. To become.”

  “Or fall,” Essus replied. “I do not think I will dream anymore. But I have a new wish. This thing you have planned–spread our influence through the FATELESS. Saving them from the Syndicates and the FATED. I will do it. But I want to do more. I want to work inside and outside the city. To build true sanctuaries. So no more jackals can prey on fathers and sons, mothers and daughters. So that we need not choose between one damnation or another.”

  Calvino’s sigh drifted through Avo’s mind.

  +Sight make you sad,+ Avo asked.

  {No. But it should make you proud. You are looking at one of the main reasons why Aegis accepted you.}

  Avo regarded Essus, taking in a man exhausted in expression and spirit. +Couldn’t save his son. Couldn’t save most of him. Only a shell left.+

  {People have rebuilt from ruins always. It is chief among human traits. But such a path is only possible for him because of you. Because a cannibalistic monster that was never meant to be anything more than a failed weapon decided otherwise. And tried. The little miracle is that you tried. I suppose in a way, that means everything.}

  “I’m sorry,” Essus said, hunching over as he audibly breathed again. A rare note of laughter escaped from him thereafter. “I told myself I wasn’t going to vent to you, that I was going to be composed.” He shrugged as if he was helpless.

  A beat followed. The templates chattered, suggestions forming and disintegrating inside the dancing fire that was Avo’s true self. “Essus. Apologize less.”

  The man blinked. “Sorry.”

  “That. Don’t do it as much. Spare yourself the shame. Don’t care to judge you. Would rather you didn’t judge yourself.”

  Essus bit his lip, bowing his head and nodding as he processed his feelings in silence.

  “What about you?” Avo asked, turning a question on Dice. “Are you willing to go back to the Sunderwilds? Reclaim your enclave. Raid others. Hunt Fallwalkers.”

  The waif just stared blankly at him for a moment, her thoughtstuff spinning slowly. If Avo didn’t have her template burned into his consciousness, he probably wouldn’t have been able to guess her thoughts at all. Even inside him, template-Dice was a quiet fire, watching and learning more than speaking and offering. She was a child raised as an attack dog learning to be a person years later than she should have started. In some ways, that made her damaged. In other ways, it made her unbreakable–especially in a world such as theirs.

  Perfectly broken. Little wonder she shadowed Draus so much. Like called to like.

  When her question finally came, she sounded almost too scared to ask it. “Can I come back? I don’t want to say out in the dark. I like the city more. I like it a lot here. I want to say. Can I please stay?”

  [Godsdammit,] Two-Mag choked, cringing as he begged Avo to look away from the girl.

  [What? All that slave driving coming back to haunt you?] Abrel taunted.

  [Fuck! You!] Two-Mag screamed. [Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you fuck you fuck! I didn’t want to live that life! I didn’t want to ask to be born in the Warrens. Don’t pretend this shit is all on me! I’m just shoveling the shit you pass down–your people fucked the world! Your people are why she exists! I just have to deal with it! I am not good enough to climb the Tiers! Alright! I was born less than you–I would have been less than you probably even if I wasn’t! I don’t have it! I don’t! I was just… I was just…]

  The former slaver began to sob, and the softer of his cohorts likewise shuddered with trauma.

  Empathy was like poison when injected into a cruel vessel. Matter. Antimatter. Destruction.

  “Can do you whatever you want,” Avo said. “Was wrong to use you as bait. Should have brought you in earlier.”

  “Because I was a good girl,” Dice asked. “Because I killed the targets?”

  Yes. Yes, it was because she was useful. Because if she wasn’t, the Paladins would have likely interned her, and Avo would’ve never thought of her thereafter. “Yes. But things shouldn’t be this way.” He reduced the empathy radiating from his templates to recompose himself. “And together we can change that.”

  Dice only nodded.

  “Do you want to do anything else?” Avo asked.

  The girl frowned. “I’m… not sure. I don’t know. Not one asked me that. Before. Ever. Can I think about it?”

  “Have time. Think.” Avo noticed Essus looking at the waif from the corner of his eye, a haunted pulling at the man’s features as if he finally noticed Dice’s youth and her casual acceptance of the horrors that broke him. “Primary matters over. I am pleased with the conversation. Now. Onto potential improvements.”

  “Improvements?” Essus mumbled, not understanding.

  Avo gestured at his arms. “Augmentations. Modifications. I can make you more. In mind. Body. Soul. Only questions are what you want; what you might need.”

  Essus opened and closed his chrome fingers unconsciously, shivering as the servos whirred. “I… I don’t want more metal.”

  “Fine. Can’t do metal directly anyway. Will require a cybernetics station. Tavers still getting that set up. But biology is another opportunity. Don’t even need to look different. I can just give you standard improvements. No deformations required.”

  Essus swallowed and nodded in thanks.

  Dice shot the man a brief look like he was strange before looking at Avo again. “Can you turn me into a gun?”

  Even with her template inside his Conflagration, the question the girl asked caught Avo off-guard. Calvino sighed. Draus’ template guffawed violently inside his mind. [Ah, shit. She’s probably got that from me. Juv’s trying to make me blush.]

  Uncertain how to reply, Avo simply grunted. “Can attach a gun to you. Can make your entire sheath like a gun. Very extreme morphologies available. Can look over some choices later.”

  Excitement lit up behind Dice’s eyes as she nodded vigorously, her effervescence bubbling up in her template as well.

  Again, Essus eyed the girl, jaw slightly agape at the things that pleased her. But more than that, however, her boldness spurred a bit of boldness out of him as well. “That… seems a bit extreme but… I… I suppose I should be a bit more adventurous too.” He tried a small smile, fake as it was. “It would not do for a child to be brave alone.”

  Not enough Godclads? Get near-daily advanced chapters on (15 chapters ahead) and join the .

  Ontologics

  In effect after 19-12

  Ghosts - [26,557,563]

  Liminal Frame (V) - 16,099 THAUM/c

  User: Avo

  Heaven/Hell: [Woundmother] - 10,002 THAUM/c

  Heaven

  ->Domain: (Blood)

  ->Canon: Haemokinesis (IV) - All blood in user’s area of influence can be controlled; speed and force experience exponential increases with each ton of force controlled

  ->Hubris: Central pillar of the Heaven must remain 80 tons; each ton of non-central mass controlled increases thaumic and Rend-based demands (5%)

  ->Canon: Linger - User can eject constructs shaped from their blood; each construct generated accrues Rend based on design and size

  ->Hubris: Central pillar of the Heaven must remain 80 tons; each ton of non-central mass controlled increases thaumic and Rend-based demands (5%; x2 backlash)

  ->Canon: Sanguinity’s Reign (IV) - A building haemokinetic storm continuously expands from the user, spreading their area of influence (without limitations) as far as the storm can metaphysically expand; generates more Rend the larger the area it takes up

  ->Hubris: Attempting to move and alter more than 80 tons of matter without constituting a central construct will result in thaumic backlash (20%)

  ->Canon: Exsanguinating Helix - Allows the user to instill an exsanguinating effect in a piece of matter, causing it to drain all the blood its mass can contain when in contact with a non-user designated entity; the larger the object instilled, the higher the Rend

  ->Hubris: If the object is destroyed, thaumic backlash will be inflicted (15%)

  ->Domain: (Matter)

  ->Canon: Alchemization (V) - The user can subsume and channel and combine the properties of 108 fragments of physical matter through their blood; the limit of fragments channeled can be increased at the cost of thaumic and Rend-based demands.

  ->Hubris: Any attempts to subsume gaseous or liquid matter will incur backlash. (12%)

  ->Canon: Remembrance of Matter (V) - The user can memorize the traits of all physical matter they subsume at a hundredth of the thaumic cost; the matter they memorized can be assembled and blended before a construct is formed

  ->Hubris: If matter being subsumed has their state changed mid-subsumption, thaumic backlash will be triggered (9%)

  ->Canon: Stormwreathed - The user can temporarily convert their mass into electricity

  ->Hubris: If the user is submerged by water in this state, thaumic backlash will be triggered (15%)

  ->Canon: Haemification - The user can turn all influenceable matter into blood

  ->Hubris: Any attempts to subsume gaseous or liquid matter will incur backlash (12%; x2 backlash)

  ->Domain: (Fire)

  ->Canon: Matterbomb - The user can detonate pieces of matter based on mass and inherent energy

  ->Hubris: If the matter being detonated is destroyed before ignition, moderate (EST. 35%) severe backlash will be inflicted

  ->Domain: (Luminosity)

  ->Canon: The Light Unseen - The user can blend their matter with the light of their surroundings should they stop perceiving the world visually

  ->Hubris: If the user has their perception active while this canon is in use, (EST. 51%) severe backlash will be inflicted

  ->Domain: (Protection)

  ->Canon: Fortress of Luminosity - The user emanates a luminous shroud that renders all physical matter bathed by its shine invulnerable; generates heavy Rend (1.2%) every second canon is active

  ->Hubris: There must be a persistent source of light for the user to imitate in the environment or from the user themselves or thaumic backlash will be triggered. (5%)

  ->Domain: (Biology)

  ->Canon: My Blood The Harvester, My Flesh the Symphony (III) - Allows the user to grow, blend, or extract biological organisms and structures from their blood.

  ->Hubris: Another source of biomass must be present and in the area of influence or thaumic backlash will be inflicted. (6%) ->Canon: Remembrance of Flesh (V) - Allows user to memorize traits from biological organisms at a tenth of the thaumic cost; the biomass they memorized can be spliced before they are grown.

  ->Hubris: Another source of biomass must be present and in the area of influence or thaumic backlash will be inflicted (6%; x2 backlash)

  ->Domain: (Lightning)

  ->Canon: Boltstride (III) - Allows the user to transmute and move all blood-based structures as bolts of lightning; distance limited to the reach of user’s Sanguinity

  ->Hubris: Attempting to move over 120 tons of matter as a single bolt will trigger (EST. 87%) extreme thaumic backlash

  Hell - [Fifth Circle]

  ->Domain: (Matter/Entropy/Luminosity)

  ->Canon: Breath of the Withered (V) - Allows the user to expel their total Rend as an entropic storm across their area of influence; the storm will disintegrate matter through withering bolts of lightning (This canon is absolute)

  ->Daemon: Striking the same place twice will result in the manifestation of an Anathema of Ruin, causing the user to lose control of the Heaven

  ->Canon: Barrage of the Withered (V) - Allows the user to expel their total Rend as an entropic projectile the size, shape, and speed of the Woundmother at its maximum potential; this projectile can be guided by the user and is loosed faster with higher Rend (This canon is absolute)

  ->Daemon: Should the projectile not dissolve sufficient matter, the projectile will birth as an Anathema of Ruin

  ->Canon: Shadowbreaker (III) - Allows the user to influence all shadows in their vicinity with a touch of luminosity that will continue to expand and dissolve anything physical covered by the shadows

  ->Daemon: Should an insufficient amount of physical matter in darkness be consumed in (8 seconds), an Anathema of Ruin will be manifested.

  Heaven/Hell: [Fardrifter] - 5,660 THAUM/c

  Heaven

  ->Domain: (Air)

  ->Canon: Horizon Strider (III) - The user takes on the properties of a hurricane and can influence winds for 250 kilometers

  ->Hubris: If an external force counters the motion of the user’s centrifugal force, severe (EST. 59%) thaumic backlash will be triggered

  ->Domain: (Space)

  ->Canon: Yondergales (IV) - The user’s demiplane now encompasses ten kilometers, with each ton of mass multiplying the base speed of their winds (252 kilometers per hour)

  ->Hubris: If an object over 5,000 degrees celsius is drawn into the plane, extreme (EST. 83%) thaumic backlash will be triggered.

  ->Canon: The Nine Streams of Freedom - The user can materialize from any nine points in space their winds encompass (250 kilometers)

  ->Hubris: if they emerge in a confined space and are unable to fully materialize, thaumic backlash will be triggered. (10%)

  ->Canon: Shadowrun (II) - The user can surge within shadows as if they are wind tunnels (x10 current speed); shadows must be connected to pass from one to another.

  ->Hubris: If a light shines and clears away the user’s shadow, heavy (EST. 39%) thaumic backlash will be triggered

  ->Domain: (Shadow)

  ->Canon: Midnight Hand - The user can blow, move, and shift shadows together as if they are waves in a storm.

  ->Hubris: If the user is between shadows when the wind stops blowing and the bridge breaks, moderate (22%) thaumic backlash will be triggered.

  ->Domain: (Labyrinth)

  ->Canon: Path of the Nine Storms (III) - User manifests a maze-like dungeon in the walls of their winds, allowing them to create and weave winding paths from tunnels of air; the maze is a fixed spatial anchor (may not be affected by spatial changes) that can be triggered at any time.

  ->Hubris: If the inner walls of the dungeon are forcibly breached and someone enters the eye of the storm (where resides the Yondergales), heavy (EST. 39%) thaumic backlash will be generated.

  Hell - [Fourth Circle]

  ->Domain: (Air/Entropy/Labyrinth)

  ->Canon: Halt of the Passing (IV) - The user can enchain all actors and objects moving through their area of physical influence (250 Kilometers) with stasis

  ->Daemon: An anathema of correspondence will be birthed if the total velocity drained exceeds the total Rend accrued

  ->Canon: Waybreaker (II) - The user distorts all directionality about them (10 kilometers), causing space to coil and distend, randomizing vectors of movement for all actors and objects caught in their wake.

  ->Daemon: Rend must be balanced in nine minutes or an Anathema of Correspondence will manifest.

  Heaven/Hell: [Techplaguer] - 200 Thaum/c

  Heaven

  ->Domain: (Signals)

  ->Canon: Skin of Virtuality - Layers user in mirror-reality raw data and information, allowing them to move and exist as radio signals might and shift inorganic objects in their vicinity as blocks of temporarily stored data (reloads back to their original position in reality after miracle ends)

  ->Hubris: The user cannot pass through lead without incurring heavy (EST. 41%) thaumic backlash.

  ->Domain: (Space)

  ->Canon: Techjumper - User inserts themselves into a signal or system capable of transmitting signals, moving as a packet of data and materializing at the endpoint of the transmission.

  ->Hubris: If the transfer is disrupted halfway, moderate (22%) thaumic backlash will be triggered.

  ->Domain: (Biology)

  ->Canon: TechSick.exe (II) - User mimics the properties and symptoms in a virus and transfers that over to a signal-receiving system, affecting the machine as if it were a person

  ->Hubris: If the transfer is disrupted halfway, moderate (22%) thaumic backlash will be triggered. (x2)

  Hell - [Third Circle]

  ->Domain: (Signal/Entropy)

  ->Canon: Datarot - The user decays and distorts signals and data within their ability to influence

  ->Daemon: If a signal the user is decaying is disrupted and they are unable to find another within (5 seconds) to continue expelling their Rend, an Anathema of Epistemology will be generated

  Implants

  Mime-Fog: Allows Avo to produce a spore-expelled field of active camouflage

  Celerostylus: A symbiotic reflex booster laced into Avo's spine; accelerates him a bit over sixty-five miles an hour in his baseline body

  Echoheads: A chimeric bioform adapted into an implant. Can provide echolocation for eight hundred feet. Designed from a hyper-durable silicon-chitin structure that also allows each of the eight heads to piece forward from the inside like a mantis shrimp punches.

  Bone Demon: A body-sheathe--complete overhaul of Avo's physical form. made from a nest of super-tensile, hyper-synaptic nanofibrous mycelia on the interior. Beyond the threads, thick plates of cordyceramite line the outside like jagged skeletal continents emerging from a sea of webs. Bound to his biology, Avo is able to harden and shift his structural integrity, as well as shape the growth of the fungal-ceramic matter that would encase his outer skin.

  Meldskin: A smart-fluid adaptive combat skin capable of altering its composition to suit almost any environment and slowly return to full integrity. Possess holographic disguises, advanced visual sensors, omnidirectional thrusters, and a highly advanced reactor. Can also interface with other pieces of advanced voidtech.

  Metamind

  Ghosts: [17,313,887]

  SPRITES: {4.2TB/s…}

  [QUICKSAND SYNC TRAUMA] COG-CAP: 55 SEQUENCES (VARIABLE)

  ->STRUCTURE: “A LIMPID POOL FILLED WITH BODIES DRIFTING BENEATH THE WAVES; WHATEVER TRAUMA STRIKES THE SURFACE WILL IN CAUSE IT TO IGNITE AND SIMULATE A RESEQUENCING OF SAID TRAUMA”

  ->FUNCTION: GUARDS THE MIND USING A LAYER OF TRAUMATIC MEMORIES: CAPABLE OF ADAPTING TO TRAUMAS AFTER SUSTAINING AGAINST THE FIRST IMPACT

  [THOUGHTWAVE DISRUPTOR] COG-CAP: [ERROR] SEQUENCES

  ->STRUCTURE: [NULL]

  ->FUNCTION: TAPS INTO THE ENTIRETY OF THE USER’S COGNITIVE CAPACITY AND EXPELS UNSTABLE MEM-DATA OUTWARD, DISRUPTING AN AREA OF (CONTINGENT OF GHOST CAPACITY) SPACE

  [INCOG] COG-CAP: [x] SEQUENCES (VARIABLE; MUST MATCH ALL OTHER INTERNAL MEMORIES BEYOND THE WARDS)

  ->STRUCTURE: “AN OPALESCENT SUN RAINS DOWN OVER THE LANDSCAPE; LIGHT SPILLS FROM IT MORE LIKE MERCURY DOLLOPS THAN RAYS, BASKING EVERYTHING IN A REFLECTIVE SHEEN WHILE DRINKING UP MEM-DATA INTO ITS CORE”

  ->FUNCTION: ALLOWS THE USER TO CAMOUFLAGE THEMSELVES FROM NOTICE VIA THE OBFUSCATION OF THEIR MEMORIES AND THOUGHTSTUFF. NO ACCRETION WILL LEAK DURING THIS PERIOD AND ALL OUTWARD REACTING PHANTASMICS WILL BE PLACED INTO A DORMANT STATE UNTIL DELIBERATE ACTIVATION.

  [WHISPER] COG-CAP: 19 SEQUENCES (BASELINE)

  ->STRUCTURE: FIVE/SIX LEGGED DOG CHASES A FLYING LETTER WHILE A DRONE STRIKES A VILLA.

  ->FUNCTION: ALLOWS THE EXTENSION OF CONSCIOUS AWARENESS BY 60 FEET AND THE DELIVERANCE OF COG-DATA WITHIN SAID FIELD OF AWARENESS; CAN BE EXTENDED BY MULTIPLES SHOULD MORE SEQUENCES BE USED

  [PHYS-SIM] COG-CAP: 18 SEQUENCES (FIXED)

  ->STRUCTURE: A MISSILE LOCKED TO AN AEROVEC, EVER INCHING CLOSER, DODGING INCOMING POINT DEFENSE FIRE”

  ->FUNCTION: CALCULATES THE ACCELERATION VECTORS AND IMPACT LANES OF UP TO TWELVE DYNAMIC OBJECTS

  [OSARAI MEMGUARD] COG-CAP: 20 SEQUENCES (BASELINE) [REPLACED BY QUICKSAND IN AVO'S METAMIND]

  ->STRUCTURE: “A HURRICANE TWISTING AND HURTLING SCREAMING FIGURES AND BROKEN STRUCTURES”

  ->FUNCTION: GUARDS THE MIND USING A LAYER OF TRAUMATIC MEMORIES: CAPABLE OF WITHSTANDING AND REFORMING AGAINST HEAVY-MASS PHANTASMAL INTRUSIONS; VULNERABLE TO NARROW-BUILD INVADERS.

  [AUTO-SEANCE] COG-CAP: 2 SEQUENCES (BASELINE)

  ->STRUCTURE: “A STAR BLEEDS INTO A SPIRAL OF SPLICED MEMORY SNIPPETS [ERROR: MEMORY ARTIFACTS TOO BRIEF FOR REVIEW...]"

  ->FUNCTION: ALLOWS OMNI-SYNCHRONIC COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN TWO OR MORE MINDS ACROSS ALL AREAS ENCOMPASSED BY THE PRESENCE OF THE NETHER

  [MORALITY INJECTOR] COG-CAP: 20 SEQUENCES (BASELINE)

  ->STRUCTURE: “A RESPLENDENT CAGE WITH A CINEMA PROJECTION OF PAST HAPPENINGS PLAYING ACROSS THE SKY"

  ->FUNCTION: ALLOWS THE USER TO NULLIFY SPECIFICALLY ENCODED IMPULSES WITH COUNTER-EMOTIONAL DOSES OF MEMORY.

  GHOSTJACK (ALLOWS FOR THE MODIFICATION AND EDITING OF MEMORIES AND SEQUENCES; SHAPES TRAUMA AND COMMANDS GHOSTS)

  [SKIMMER PERCEPTION EMANATOR]

  TRAUMA PATTERNS:

  [ASELERI'S FOLLY] - HIGH PAIN INFLICTION; PHYSICAL TORTURE BASED

  [LUCILLE’S REGRET] - HIGH EMOTIONAL TORMENT; REGRET AND ANGUISH ALIGNED

  [LUCILLE’S AGONY] - HIGH PAIN INFLICTION; PHYSICAL TORTURE BASED; BODY DYSMORPHIC AFFLICTED

  [SECONDHAND FATALITY] - EXTREME PAIN INFLICTION; EGO-KILLING TRAUMA FOR HUMANS

  [BENEFACTOR’S DREAD] - HIGH EMOTIONAL TORMENT; FEAR OF COMING DEATH

  [ARATNID’S KISS] - HIGH PHYSICAL TORMENT; CASTRATION AND PRIMAL FEAR-BASED

  THE BURNING DREAMER

  MIND-TEMPLATES

  [AVO]

  The Talons

  Abrel Greatling

  The Shadows

  Benhata Veloso

  Glitch

  Lip

  Corner

  Osjack Thenndenn

  (Ashthrone/Sanctus assault force)

  Dice

  Chambers

  Paladin Kare

  Paladin Kassamon

  I hope you enjoyed today's installment of Godclads!

  Next up: IT'S MAKEOVER TIME! TIME FOR EVERYONE TO GET PRETTY...

  Anyway, I hope you're having fun, and remember: reviews, follows, favorites, and comments make the word-gods happy.