The lives outside our borders are an untapped resource. I know–I know. We’re not supposed to touch them and Voidwatch is watching per the Articles, but we need to start making special considerations.

  They are currently a resource drain on our efforts. All those sanctuaries of subjects, publicly funded, offering nothing but trickles of lives. It’s maddening. Our installations need to be insulated against the Sunderwilds–protected against whatever madhouse these people escaped from, and that we also need to provide education to them? A livable space? Possibilities for community prosperity?

  It’s ridiculous. It’s outdated.

  The dream is dead, long live the dream, but now we need to think about winning the war.

  And war is about numbers.

  Do you know how many Souls Highflame has? How many Omnitech has? How many the No-Dragons have? More than us. Sure. Our edge is in information and techno-thaumaturgy but right now–I guarantee you–if we get the ability to see ten years into the future, it’s going to be of Highflame burning our districts and butchering our citizens.

  Foresight does not equal power. It can influence it, but we’re not lacking skill or awareness or any of that. We need force and unfortunately, it’s the only thing we still seem to lack. Highflame has eight times more techno-thaumic armor; Omnitech has whatever nightmares they’re cooking up in their nexuses. I don’t even want to count the No-Dragon troop numbers. I’m sure everyone recalls what happened to our martyrs at Irisues Vale when they got overrun by the Breeder-Hawks.

  Of course we can level things out by counting on Stormtree to achieve some degree of firepower parity, and counter-thaumic operations through the assistance of Ashthrone and Sanctus, but our alliance is contingent on the Sainists, and I’m sure we’re all under no illusions about what’s going to follow after we win.

  Ugly truth’s the truth: we’re not just playing to overcome the Golds and their lackeys. We need to watch our “esteemed” allies as well.

  We might be in agreement on some things, but in the end, there’s no such thing as “second winner.”

  So. Back to my proposition. I think it’s time we do a little exploring of our own in the Sunderwilds. Send out teams to… establish enclaves “allied” to us.

  I’m uploading the mem-data for my proposal right now. Technically, we’re not really breaking the rules. We’re just being flexible with its interpretation.

  -Elder Iyar Kazahara (Ori-Thaum)

  20-3

  Outside the Garden

  Not even light could escape the defilement of reality, but still, the brightness of dawn fell, lathering all things of solid shape in a thin sheen of radiance.

  Merging from the horizontal crevice that was New Vultun lowest level, the outer layers of the Maw crept forth in diminishing detail, no longer the intricate sigils dividing the districts and Sovereignties back within the layered city. Here, there were but vast rings rounding the perimeter of the city itself, pierced through by channels that cleaved into the light splashing down from dawn ascending.

  Drawing from the histories of ancient Noloth with a thought, Avo learned and then knew the Maw to be a living construct. Something that was meant to be expanded to fulfill the needs of its ever-growing population, blossoming outward like a flower fed by wither and rot to encompass Idheim evermore.

  But with the loss of their Ark–and thereby the history of Noloth and whatever power they had to influence the future–the Maw was cosigned to merely be a great wonder of the world. A nigh-endless reservoir for Rend, but nothing worth any weight in culture or significance.

  Another dead dream among the countless.

  [And thank Jaus for that,] Abrel scoffed. [Listen, Avo, I know I’m not exactly an unbiased party here, but that primer your “dad-uncle” gave you isn’t exactly what I’d call reliable. Propaganda. Everyone does it. And from what I know about Nolothi history, there’s no way their little “waste disposal expansion project” wasn’t going to cost a few billion more lives.]

  Avo regarded her words with a faint note of acknowledgment. A few other templates within his gestalt provided their own insight on matters, but most were gazing forth as he was–peering far into the light.

  “Draus,” Avo said, the Soulfire within him stirring, igniting the many deaths cycling his Fardrifter, “going to accelerate our progress. Make myself wind. Expand our progress.“

  The Regular acknowledged him with a slight nod. “Mind the light. Been forming reflections all the way behind us while we flew, but the light itself feels damn slippery. And wet.”

  “Probably an effect caused by the Sunderwilds.” Avo reached out using his Woundmother’s Domain of Luminosity and found himself in agreement with Draus. There was an uncanny slickness to how light flowed here. Like rain of liquid arrows flung outward by the weight of a rushing monsoon.

  He triggered his Fortress of Luminosity out of curiosity, and though spherical oscillations formed of clashing brightness briefly layered the points where Avo expressed his canon, no backlash followed, no paradox laid him low.

  “Should be fine,” Avo said. “ Still. Keep being careful. Going to draw the Manta into my Yondergales.”

  And with a simple effort of will, he did just that. A gust of sudden wind folded over the stealth ship as it was swallowed. A coiled knot of space, air, and shadow tightened, lacing the Manta in a demiplane of black clouds thundering with torrential gales. Here, these Yondergales formed the yolk that was the Fardrifter’s inner plane while the coiling walls of wind containing its ten-kilometer expanse extended outward as nine galloping steeds.

  Beneath the surface of spatial reality they charged.

  Four of the steeds snaked across two hundred and fifty kilometers of land. Air currents shivered in the air as if to foretell a hurricane, and empowered by the Horizon Strider canon, Avo and his cadre moved at speeds matching such a calamity.

  Then, when another of the Fardrifter’s heads burrowed into the shadows cast by the towering structures of New Vultun, they plunged forward even faster, Shadowrun granting Avo ten times his initial speed.

  The Manta itself was a marvel of human ingenuity and technological achievement. Yet, its structures still obeyed laws. Capitulated to rules. Fast though it could accelerate, it would never be able to treat drifting contrails as folds of space to hide within or augment its base velocity by assuming darkness to function as if wind tunnels.

  Despite this, Calvino merely sighed.

  +You disapprove?+ Avo asked.

  {Hardly,} Calvino responded. {I'm merely lamenting the fact that we can't enjoy a nice leisurely flight over the land without wrapping ourselves in reality’s disemboweled entrails because we’re suspicious that the light might kill us. Somehow.}

  It probably wouldn’t, but the potential it could was all that mattered.

  As the horizon tumbled closer, so emerged the first hints of the refugee sanctuaries. Situated directly beyond the final Maw-ravine wrapped around New Vultun’s perimeter, grand towers made from alloy and vivianite climbing a full kilometer high stabbed at the sky, their tips pulsing with Sprites. Static thoughtstuff lashed from spire to spire, functioning as if a relay.

  “A weak force tugs,” the Techplaguer muttered. “I do not wish to be tugged. Administrator, they touch us without permission. Their MAINFRAMES transgress. We should get them sick so they DIEDIEDIE!”

  “I still do not think you have repaired this one properly, master,” the Woundmother murmured. “One must be considerate when building their own structures, for faulty sections betray the foundations of the structure, and only when the collapse is imminent does one realize they were too tardy in replacing what they long knew to be ill-suited.”

  “Disagreement,” the Techplaguer said. “I am perfect. I am wonderful. Children love me. You will cease these negative assertions against my morale.”

  As the two Heavens began to bicker anew, Avo expanded his awareness in all directions and took the face of reality beyond New Vultun for the first time in his life.

  He remembered how things were out here–was unsurprised thanks to the memories provided by his templates. The Godsfall had broken Idheim in ways too deep for words to fully convey. This he knew to be the truth.

  However, knowledge did not equal experience and theoretical awareness did not match existential gnosis.

  Here, nested in the present, he brushed the tattered patterns of reality, felt entire sections torn, twisted, and taken from the tapestry of existence.

  Dice let out a gasp of girlish discomfort. Beside her, fused within his own latticed cocoon, Essus clenched his restraints and choked. The uncanny sensations burrowed deep into Avo as well, and where almost all of his templates flinched, Corner, Lip, Osjon, and Draus endured the initial embrace of the Sunderwilds without recoil.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Next to him, Avo heard the Regular chuckle. “Feels like runnin’ my tongue across broken bits of tooth. The numb and hurt mixin’ together. Echoes of where pieces of yourself used to be. But ain’t no more. And that twang in your gut when you find fragments buried deep in your cheek.”

  He said nothing in response. Her words were more than apt for what they all just tasted.

  Behind them rose the titan that was New Vultun, a behemoth risen from man-made materials. The Layers segmented the base of the structure, with scintillating neon lighting the contours of distant sprawls. Only the Sovereignties of Light’s End were graced with the touch of day, and even then, Avo sensed a faint shimmer intercepting the light, an unseen shroud preventing the moisture present in beyond the borders from leaking into the city itself.

  Then, onward, past blocks and streets of glass, plascrete, plastic, and chrome, the Tiers itself rose like a mountain beyond mountains, a titan standing on the shoulders of a giant. The sheer face of the leveled pillar was smooth and perfect, with threads of light zipping up and down, its territories guarded by unseen protections of its own. But higher still stood testament to the triumph of humanity: the Elysiums burrowed up into the firmament, blending light, shape, sound, and power into the flesh of reality itself.

  Faintly–almost imperceptibly–Avo thought he could feel the touch of the Guild Arks even here, their presence seemingly not so far away. Gold. Silver. Black. Blue. Grey. Green. Red. And crowning all of them was a beacon of purple projected down from a place located beyond even the sky itself.

  The apex of New Vultun was a warring canopy, each hue a Guild clashing, straining, digging into another, the branches of their pantheons spreading, growing, blooming.

  Yet, for all its grandeur, New Vultun was but an oasis of magnificence in an ocean of calamity.

  Around the curated reinterpretations of reality spread the cracks of desolation.

  Sunder. Because the world was broken.

  Wilds. Because chaos spilled through the fractures like invasive tendrils, shapes quivering, their flows clashing.

  If New Vultun’s heights were a garden, then the world outside its borders was wilderness unfettered. Twisted vines bleeding geometric fractals and lined with oozing cancers curtained entire portions of the sky. Rancid rivulets of filth and mercury flowed higher up still, the composition of the Sunderwilds a myriad of threads, twisting up further and further until currents of blinking darkness made of nothing but eyes and chomping mouths fused the madness below to vaster horrors festering in the great nothingness of the void.

  As the wind rustled, Avo felt fingers prying at his Heaven. Whispers brushing his protective labyrinth as beings too alien in shape and comprehension begged for him to allow them in, but not to stare upon them lest they shatter under the weight of his perception.

  It was under these skies that the wilders lived. And it was blanketed by such madness that the refugees endured outside New Vultun’s protections.

  For as brutal as the city was, consistency still had its reign. You understood when someone shot you, cut you, heard you.

  But what could someone do if they simply encountered a note they weren’t supposed to hear? Or a shape their mind couldn’t stand to witness.

  As the sun rose further, light settled upon the world’s disfigured visage, and between the necrotized folds of existence, Avo glimpsed things that made thousands of his templates shatter and scream.

  [Fuck,] Abrel whimpered. [Stop! Avo… stop! Pull your perception back. Stop looking–not the light! Look away from the–the–sky is… is a lie… is… oh, Jaus, oh, gods…] And then, strong though she was, even Abrel couldn’t help but weep.

  Still, Avo couldn’t turn away. To reel his awareness back. Even as multiple of his templates cracked and shattered, costing him ghosts to repair and reform, he found these losses a paltry sacrifice in exchange for taking in the portrait of destruction that was his world.

  To view this as apart from Jaus’ legacy was pure delusion, Avo realized. And in this realization, he found himself appreciating it more.

  This was ungoverned reality left to fester; the Sunderwilds were, much like the guilds themselves, at war. Though these were at war across every individual strand, every stray pattern, every rogue miracle. They were warring infestations, invading themselves and each other as much as they did stable existence.

  Yes, indeed, the Sunderwilds was Jaus’ legacy. Just as New Vultun. Just as the guilds. But horrible and terrifying and dreadful as destruction is, it was also sublime in its symbology, for this, just as much as New Vultun and its Tiers, was man-made.

  And, if Avo were to be granted an opinion, a piece of artistry greater than the megacity itself.

  [Yeah, yeah,] template-Draus sneered, taking in the sight with indifference. She along among all his templates remained unbothered by what she saw. [If you’re done waxin’ lyric out your ass, maybe we can find a place to settle? Scope out the sanctuaries. Do what we actually came here to do? Gettin’ bored of you just lookin’ at the sky.]

  Back in the real, Avo looked to the Regular herself as she spun a shard of glass next to her head. “Well. Are we gonna do somethin’ today, or are we gonna wait till Tavers here finally cracks? I just built a place where we can set down. Got the beginnings of an underground base goin’. Got it linked to the passages leadin’ back into the city already. We can disembark after. Get a lay of the land. See if we start shittin’ new colors out our eyes or somethin’.”

  She flicked him locational details regarding her new installation. It was located some twenty kilometers behind the innermost sanctuaries over a relatively lush patch of land.

  Within the Manta’s confines old squire glared at the Regular, but Avo noticed Tavers was disconnected from the Manta’s systems, the static lining her cognition directed inward, no longer accessing the vessel’s feeds.

  Beside her, Dice and Essus were also withdrawn, but no nervousness accompanied them. They knew where they were, and they walked these broken lands.

  “Fine,” Avo said. “Let’s walk the wilds.”

  ***

  Avo deposited the Manta in the vitrified bivouac Draus made using his Nine Streams. Moving things across nine points of space was easy, but he had to admit slight jealousy at how the Regular could step across impossible stretches of distance so long as she had a reflection to work with.

  Settled some two hundred feet below ground and with the glass on the topside formed beneath a layering of shrubbery, their presence couldn’t be detected at a glance, and from what Avo understood, the Guilds didn’t tend to waste golems or drones on reckless patrols, trying to sweep every inch of the Sunderwilds for hidden dangers.

  Emerging from their temporary operating base, Avo coated his cadre in a protective shell using his blood, channeling his Incog through his Haemokinesis and keeping them veiled from notice.

  From there, they observed the surrounding sanctuaries for a moment, taking in the settlements that served as blockades for migrants trying to enter New Vultun.

  The first thing to note was that they were domed and that their shells were lined with insulated solar panels. Avo sampled their material composition from afar and frowned. He sensed a few golems present in the area, but few other protective assets beyond them. Some drones patrolled the sanctuaries’ surroundings while others continued to work on new architecture.

  A complex network of tunnels between each of the settlements. Much like how each sanctuary had a techno-thaumic communications tower, they all seemed to have something of a maglev station as well, with fast-moving trains constantly shuttling new people in and around per population capacities.

  Over rolling hills in the distance, Avo noticed trailing drones projecting light-marked lanes. Expanding both his Woundmother and Fardrifter, he found migration caravans running at least a few hundred kilometers long. Tents, vehicles, beasts of burden, and haggard-looking people were the norm.

  Voidwatch’s coldtech drones did what they could, but Avo could feel the strain affecting their machinery, the Sunderwilds wearing them down in moments when such degradation should have naturally taken years.

  Strangely, however, the people remained unaffected, and Guilder assets functioned without fail.

  “I remember this route,” Essus said, coming to a stand next to Avo, still careful to keep his eyes averted from the sky. “I was far that way. You see? There. Where a patch of light is shining down on those hills.”

  Avo saw what the man was pointing at, but only momentarily. In the next moment, a vast city-sized tendril whipped down across the sky and briefly blanketed everything in darkness. With the obfuscation of light, so too faded the hills, the space changing to be a lagoon instead.

  “Ah, yes,” Essus muttered, rubbing his chin. “We had to get away from the hills when the light goes away. Many of us drowned the first day. Of course, those of us who went left instead of right were also met with unkind fates.” He sighed. ”Artad protect them. How could they have known the rocks were carnivorous.”

  Next to them, Tavers was fully encased in her armor again, face unseen behind inches of protective alloy. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I fucking miss the city already. At least I can take a piss there most days and not wonder if my urine is going to wake up somehow and eat its way back up my cunt.”

  “Oh, what’s a matter, Tavers? Too much of a city girl? Country life ain’t to your likin’?” Draus shot the older woman a grin as she swept their surroundings using the scope of her rifle. Tavers flipped her off.

  Avo meanwhile pushed his awareness far south. There, a few million migrants were flooding into the protective tunnels that would lead to mass security screenings, and temporary housing, followed by a wait before enough people left or died inside a sanctuary for them to be granted a spot. As fascinating as the process was, Avo was seeking something even further beyond.

  In Dice’s memories, she had come from that direction. Followed her master out of a place where pillars of murmuring darkness called to travelers, where beasts shaped of matter and shadow both preyed upon the supple flesh of baseliners. Such was the life Dice knew. And such were the monsters that have almost certainly overrun her enclave in the long absence of her master.

  Soon, however, they would be purged. Or least repelled. Avo was interested in knowing which Fallen Heaven they originated from, and if he could staunch the Rend.

  If nothing else, the abandoned enclave would serve as a place where they could operate freely without worrying about the Guilds.

  After months of scurrying about the dark, Avo found something cathartic about playing the harbinger of light. The more superstitious among his gestalt had taken it as a sign. A changing of the times.

  From beast of darkness to the bringer of the bright. An auspicious change, if judged from the sound.

  But before Avo could reach any further, a session sounded in the depths of his mind, and saw “Nandu’s” Metamind identification flashing across his cog-feed.

  A frown overtook him in an instant. Somehow, Draus knew, and pulled away from her gun, turning to look at him. “What’s wrong? Is it Kae?”

  “Don’t know yet,” Avo said. “Hope not. Chambers calling. Has to be important. Costs a death.” As certain templates inside him began to speculate, he connected to the session, and his Conflagration erupted out the other side like fire striking a lake made from napalm.

  [Hey!] Chambers said, mind reassembling as Avo overwrote the false Nandu memories. [Whoa! That feels weird. It’s like I didn’t know myself at all a second ago. Why the hells did you need to make me look so godsdamned ugly anyway, you know–]

  +Chambers,+ Avo said, tone even, but annoyance evident.

  [Right. You’re not gonna like this, consang. Not one bit. You wanna know who just called me? Green River. She wanted to talk to you, and so I played along and spoofed her using some artifacts I assembled on the fly. Chief Paladin Naeko gave the Second Fortune a visit earlier today. Put the squeeze on our least favorite Sang. He’s looking for someone. And it ain’t me.]

  A coldness filled Avo from the inside. Tension plucked at his nerves. +Draus? Kae?+

  [You.]

  Somehow, he expected that answer, though he wished it weren’t so.

  [He came around asking about your Bone Demon sheath. Think you’re going to need to change up soon, consang. Switch up your glamor and shit. ]

  [Naeko? Working? What the fuck?] Paladin Kassamon was practically at a loss for words. [We… might want to consider an impostor. Maybe burn Kare and have her shadow the boss.]

  [Please don’t volunteer me for such a detail, Sergeant Kassamon,] Kare said, her calm tone still ripe with frustration. [It is unbecoming conduct.]

  [I know. But honestly, he scares the piss back up my balls.]

  A brief pause followed. [Is that where the piss goes?] Chambers asked. [I thought we have like a ballon in there or some shit.]

  [A bladder,] Benhata provided.

  [There is no reason why one cannot make such a thing possible,] Elegant-Moon said. [The bladder and testicles can be merged.]

  Avo looked up at the sky. His templates screamed. He sighed.

  “Problem?” Draus asked.

  “Yeah,” Avo said. “Problem.”

  Not enough Godclads? Get near-daily advanced chapters on (16 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: Avo gets a new headache...

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