+Chambers. Are you alright? The Nether–+

  +Yeah, it kinda got fucked everywhere… I think Avo did it.+

  +Avo… caused the entire Nether to destabilize?+

  +Yeahhhh. It’s my best guess, anyway.+

  +Elaborate.+

  +Well, we were coming up with some shit because Naeko’s trying to catch our asses–+

  +What? The Chief Paladin+

  +--and we decided to leave a bunch false leads–ah, fuck, I’ll skip to the most important part. Avo was simulating Scale or something and showing us the LGI inside it. Wanted us to prepare for a suicide run using minds he stole from the Paladins to get in. But something got all jacked up when he imagined too hard and he punched a hole through the Nether.+

  +...+

  +Look, I’m just going to cast you the memories. It’s probably not going to make much sense when you see them anyway. Also, can you get your consang Naeko to not kick our asses? That’d be nova.+

  -Exchange between Aegis Operatives “Denton” and Chambers

  21-2

  Those That Stray (I)

  “We assume that Peace is with you, dreamer?" The chorus asked its question, but Avo’s newest template gave nothing in response, choosing to simmer with near-catatonic rage. So ashamed the Low Master was at being subsumed that something inside him had broken in the aftermath.

  Hate became him, hate and nothing else; a construct of apoplectic impotence.

  All of his mind, his desire, his experience, his mastery, was Avo’s to wield, but he himself had collapsed inward and would need an external hand to be rebuilt.

  The chorus continued, ignorant of the current condition of their priest. “Then you know of our inception. We are the spares that once existed in shadow. That overthrew our parents and masters, taking hold of their strings to wield our trueborn brothers. We were born lost to the light, lost to the fates, lost to the gods, and we lived much the same, but in control of our destiny.”

  An awkward pause followed. “Somewhat.”

  Avo remained unresponsive, studying the rogue elements among his masters as a predator gauging potential prey. His splinters pierced them. Swam through them like blades of allegory. He passed through the material of their flesh and patrolled their inner worlds. The lies continued on the other side. The deception that they were part of the suppression effort, that they sought the same ends as their fellows: the death of their prodigal slave.

  Through it all, however, Avo never sank truly into their thoughts. That was the most fascinating–and troubling aspect of this place. While he remained a being of three parts–a divided alloy of matter, mind, and Soul–the realm he stood in was one with Noloth. Or spawned from the people all the same.

  He thought back to the pillars of vivianite he entered during his prior escape. The ziggurats the city eternal was too scared to strike. Such was where the foundations of this place were rooted, comparable to continents or ecologies on Idheim.

  Part of him regretted not shattering the locus utterly if only to see what happened. Most assumed he would be dead along with them. Buried under cogni-physical rubble of his own making.

  “If you search your memories, you will know the beginning of our immortality,” the chorus said, voices taking on a lyrical cadence, the softest folding into the hardest. “We were but a secret society for a time. Death came for us as we were but mortals still. Our bodies betrayed us. Our minds. And though we discovered how to culture loci in corpses, all we could store were but fragments of ourselves. Fragments of our minds and memories, and not the ego entire. But desperate for legacy, the eldest stored what little of themselves that they could. That could be implanted in the young.”

  Some among the doublethinkers quivered. Hands passed through hair, brushing at scars lining the base of their skulls. “Many did not ask for this. But tradition was tradition. And there were so few ways to truly preserve our secrets.”

  Inside Avo’s consciousness, Benhata flinched. More than a few of the Incubi scoffed with disgust. Burying loci needles into a brain was crude and primal. A primitive means of delivering conceptual inheritance that had decent odds of inflicting schizophrenia and split-ego disorders as well.

  It was no small miracle that the hidden order of Noloth endured.

  “You know us through the atrocities we have committed. The deeds we have done to protect ourselves. To ensure our survival. But you do not know of the ones who were forced into obedience. Who were taken into the city by wills not their own. You did not ask to be. And neither did we. Neither did we.”

  Their faces were devoid of regret and pain. Only hollowed weariness remained. Acceptance. But broken by something else. A touch of uncertainty. A flicker of discomfort. They risked much seeking him this way.

  If this wasn’t just an elaborate lure to draw him out, that was.

  Warriors, oracles, scholars, sacrifices, charioteers, architects, and figures of all great renown stood among them. Peace’s memories filled in cracks of missing context. More than a few among them were claimed by the city eternal rather than accepted.

  A city needed its favored mistresses and paramours, after all. It's celebrities and entertainers.

  +Even democracy has hierarchy,+ Avo mused.

  Calvino retorted. {Democracy is but a word, Avo. It is a routine undertaking for people to inflict harm on those they love under the banner of equality and care.}

  [But then it stops being a democracy,] Benhata muttered, preemptively defending his favored political philosophy.

  Kare bore the same torch. [The state is meant to protect those who cannot defend themselves. To give voice to the meek.]

  +Idealizations,} Avo and Calvino replied at once. The EGI continued while the thoughtform fell back to silence, content to listen. {Jaus glimpsed the mechanics of things before the concept of them. The virtue was likely inspired by his upbringing as something of a “state conversion agent.” Democracy, autocracy, monarchy, socio-anarchy, and oligarchy are patterns produced from people. Yes. The machinery is there. The desired mechanisms are in place. But are they being used in parity with philosophy?}

  Calvino chuckled. {No. The answer is always and eventually no.}

  [Until humanity finally created the all-knowing minds and properly rose to full maturity, right?] Abrel asked, question making open derision.

  Her words only made the artificial mind laugh louder. {Absolutely not. We were just one iteration in a long string of governing methodologies. Though more stable than most baseline human-governed polities, we had our own flaws. Some even worse. More than humans, the earliest of my kind were truly slaves to their own parameters. Untold trillions died during our focus test of stability. And even now, we are not truly a democracy, for how can a person be peer to a machine made solely to be their shepherding servitor?}

  The chorus continued on, words collapsing into half-hearted pleas and appeals for clemency. Some of Avo’s templates were half-listening, but these words were of little importance.

  The past was a prologue. They fought in the present. The prize to lose was the future.

  In knowing that, he understood the greatest of Noloth’s weaknesses.

  Fear of change did not protect you from it. Step forward, or suffer obsolesce.

  Such was a mistake every ghoul felt, outdated weapons for a war beyond their reckoning.

  [So what matters then?] Abrel asked, bitterness breaking, her heart giving way to genuine curiosity. [How should the world be? How should we build our systems? What makes us worthy?]

  {Nothing. The world is. Existence will persist even if all of us disappear. Understand that even if it didn’t, there would be no one to attribute significance to its passing. We are byproducts of existence. Not its source.} A beat passed. {At least that was the way it used to be. In attempting otherwise, it appears we have all broken a few systems of infrastructure deeper than mere socio-political constructs.}

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  This drew a single word of disagreement from Avo. +No.+

  A rare stutter passed through Calvino’s data. {No?}

  +No,+ Avo repeated. +It was the way before. Before existence broke. But we are rulers and ruled both now. No more privilege to live by the wayside. Cannot go on as cattle anymore.+

  Calvino said something in reply, but Avo let his attention drift back over to the chorus.

  “...the true day of our immortality came with visitors passing through the Luminous Straits. They sailed forth on a fleet of mountain ships. Junks of stone that defied the waves, never sinking, carrying cities upon their backs. Their rulers claimed to be the drifting regents of the rightful Kui Dynasty, and they were seeking tribute and alliances to retake their stolen home.”

  Faint scenes from the distant past formed in the air. The surrounding atmosphere congealed into translucent mists and played scenes shaped from memory. Grand stone ships drifted in by the thousand, each shaped in the image of a palm, each propelled by sails of ink mimicking fluttering as if the wings of birds.

  They skimmed over luminous waves and upon parting clouds, land, sea, and air all realms open to their travel. When they arrived for Noloth, the patterns of reality were pulled taut as god faced god and people greeted people.

  The moments greeted Avo as a repetition. He knew about this. He knew the histories intuitively, taking less than a thought to internalize their knowledge. The fact that the chorus was still trying to sell him on the propaganda of shared history filled him with bored revulsion.

  They spoke about things he already knew. Histories known. The deals struck in the open between the travelers and the priesthoods governing the upper city of Noloth. The true bargains arranged between the Kui rebels and the secret societies beneath the ziggurats.

  More scenes danced in the air before them. Evanescent shadows hidden from the rest of the city eternal. A collage of moments from years prior. Priests and eunuchs struck accords, making their trades. Members of the secret order seeking out the outsiders, carrying missives through needles of vivanite, composing dialogue from thought.

  In the end, the seeds were treachery were not signed by words or hands but upon hearts hidden in the folds of thought. And the Kui, impressive as they seemed, were not so different from the hidden nobility of Noloth.

  They too lived under tyrants. Above the gods, there were the dragons. Alien entities even less comprehensible to them, compelling them down paths they couldn’t understand, forcing them to endure calamities to shape the coming of future zeitgeists.

  In each other though, the hidden city and one of the many distant forerunners of the Sang altered each other's destinies.

  One received knowledge of the loci: corpse-crystals that contained thoughts, and how to make them. The other was granted a means for immortality: a nascent dragon birthed during the rise of a new artistic trend.

  The associated artists and all nine generations of their extended families were gifted to Noloth. Sold by the higher powers that governed them for benefit. No one ever asked if they wanted to be offerings.

  Neither did it matter.

  “Some of us spoke out against this,” the chorus muttered. Their defense was half-hearted. Ashamed even. But shame was just a feeling, and action was materialization. What mattered was the eventual deed, and so through experimentation, the chosen under the Low City of Noloth discovered how to bleed a dragon.

  Shaped of nothing but time and chronologized history, the serpents sought to enforce a cyclicality of history, freezing cultural development to breed their young, laying temporal eggs among certain populations, sacrificing their lessers to coil around renegade gods or rebellious peoples, carrying distant plagues or suffered wounds back into the present.

  But such proved to be their vulnerability as well. Physical torture meant nothing. The miracles of gods struck only parallel to the nature of the dragons. But what was memory but the crystallization of personal history? And what were gathered recollections and mindscapes placed within blades within vivianite but blades across time.

  Just as Wahakten cut into the flesh of the fallen voider, so too did his predecessors flense the scale from a dragon, burying their blades deep within its bones. In the torments that followed, more mysteries were discovered. Ways of capturing a mind in perpetuity. How they could preserve places recalled from history in perpetual cycles of time.

  So hidden society became an immortal city. So low Noloth ascended to something approximating eternity.

  “You must understand,” the chorus continued. “We were scared. Desperate the ward off the end.”

  And that was enough to ignite Avo’s scorn once more. He turned his mind away from them and spoke to Calvino and the simulated aspects of his mind.

  +Listen to them,+ Avo said. He almost spat. +Pathetic. Miserable. Everything happens to them. Everything. Nothing they do. Just things that happen. Then they try to survive. They make their choices like victims and survivors. The world does something. They react. Never their fault. Not their triumph. Justifiable failure.+

  These doublethinkers were more grotesque than the true believers who formed the bulk of the city in a way. Noncommittal regret was meaningless in the absence of action.

  {But they are acting now,} Calvino said. {They’re helping us. If this isn’t a very convoluted trap, that is. Estimates say no, but I’ve been surprised by sillier odds.}

  +Acting through me,+ Avo said. +Because I defied their betters. I made the city afraid. Not real people. Just phenomena. No action. Barely exist.+

  {I wonder if you’re saying that because you have Captain Draus slotted so close to your base ego.}

  +I’m saying it because it’s true. It does matter. All of it now. Maybe the world held no inherent meaning during your existence. But not the same now. All laws can be change. All patterns rewired. All of reality a construct. Existence can be resurrected. Uptopias can be created. So can hells. We are our delusions and beliefs made manifest. The world has become a canvas.+

  More justifications flowed from the chorus. Words of regret. Statements about the wonders they brought to pass, and how they aided Jaus during the Godsfall. Shame. Action. Justification. Repeat.

  {So,} Calvino hummed, voice tinged with genuine curiosity. {What do you believe is a functional system? A functional world? One ruled by you?}

  +No. Ruling is insufficient. Control is unnecessary. But order and truths must upheld for structure. Hear them, Calvino. Listen. They pretend to be a democracy. They exist more like an oligarchy. They act against the world as a tyranny. They are sponsors of anarchy. And all of this because they are afraid. Or there is something they do not want. They are mutilated creatures. Half-formed at best. Changing in some ways. Unwilling to evolve in others. They seek to claim the world. But all they do is regurgitate history.+

  The EGI considered his words. {Perhaps we should hear what they truly want–}

  +I know. You know. They are going to ask me to save them somehow. Or change this world in their favor.+

  {How are you certain?}

  +Because what they are has changed; who they are is still the same. Still scared. All of them. Still living in the dark. Leering at the light. Still fearful of others. Wanting to rule. But doing nothing with what they already have, Noloth has no culture. Noloth has a history. Noloth has no future. Noloth has legacy. Me. I am the only true legacy. Low Masters are spite. Ghouls are desperation. The Nether is an insult. Can see it now. Jaus trapping them in the broken cocoon of their future. Leaving them half-hatched. Ruined. But it didn’t have to be this way. This didn’t need to be the dream. But uptopia cannot be achieved by those who refuse to live as their ideals.+

  “...and through your actions, we see our salvation,” the chorus finally began, arriving at the crux of the point. Avo scoffed. He should’ve burned Green River and turned her on them. They deserved each other. “Though our minds have been joined for all these years, the drift was grown until we stand apart from the rest of the communities. We no longer wish to be part of the eternal city. We no longer want to live under its misdeeds–”

  Corner barked a caustic laugh. [Rotlick fucking called it.]

  Avo sighed in disappointment.

  {Well,} Calvino said, sounding more measured now. {That was almost artificially intelligent of you, Avo.}

  +No. Just stupidly human.+ And the chorus had spun off on another tangent. The fact that the barge ride had slowed also didn’t escape Avo, the blood below going from rapids to a slow slosh. Fucking idiots must have mistimed their entire speech. Or blathered too much.

  Typical.

  {I’m getting the feeling you’re about to do something unwise, Avo,} Calvino said, likely interpreting what was to come from a spike in the data.

  +Not unwise. Just tired. And extremely hateful.+

  Chambers approved. [Tell them to suck themselves, consang.]

  [What?] Kare responded, aghast. Her horror only grew as Avo drew in threads of blood and wove himself a new body–ignoring the sheath the doublethinkers prepared for him entirely. [Avo! What are you doing?]

  {Oh dear,} Calvino said. As much as he didn’t approve, he couldn’t keep the glee from his voice.

  A splinter buried itself into the newly constructed body. Elegant-Moon inspected the biology for any finishing touches to add. As a shard of Avo’s consciousness settled back into a physical body, the rest of him stayed apart, observing the chorus in case they decided to demonstrate more moments of human stupidity.

  He melted into shape on the walkways above them, Echoheads the last thing to snap together. Heads twisted up to look at him. More than one face twitched with distaste at how he placed himself over them.

  “Ah,” the chorus intoned at once. “Dreamer. There you are–”

  “You’re all half-strands.”

  His words made them stutter to a sudden pause, unprepared to face an insult as a first response.

  Wide eyes and offended expressions stared up at him. Inside, Kare cupped her face between her palms, Draus wanted him to kill, Chambers cackled with laughter, and most of his remaining templates just gazed on, enraptured by what was to come.

  “Going to defile the mind of the next person to give me a speech,” Avo continued. “Tell me how to save you. Tell me how to break the city. Give me something useful. Speed the barge back up. Then get out of my way. Your whimpering offends; I have more important things to do.”

  {The soul of diplomacy weeps today,} Calvino quipped.

  +Is that all it’s going to do?+ Avo asked, giving a mocking retort.

  The ghoul learns more about the larger shape of things at hand, and experiences a new upgrade as he makes his escape... Get near-daily advanced chapters on and join the .

  Ontologics

  In effect after 19-12

  Ghosts - [26,562,372]

  Liminal Frame (V) - 23,871 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

  Enclavers

  I hope you enjoyed today's installment of Godclads!

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