There is no light but that which comes from the master.

  There is no will but what is gifted to us by the master.

  There is no life but what is allowed by the master.

  By the act of the Godbreaker, we were damned.

  Abandoned to the darkness of the old world, we were lost.

  With the shrouding of the sun, existence ceased to shine, and the sea that was night swallowed the world entire.

  Damnation was our fate.

  But salvation was his offering.

  From beyond the darkness, he came!

  Yakozitrin, Lightbearer, Godborn, Master of the Remnants!

  Salvation for us, the unwanted, the alone, the abandoned.

  Through the master's infinite mercy alone are we able to continue. By his light are we able to live. By his will are we able to find purpose.

  Praise be Yakozitrin.

  Praise by the last true god in darkness.

  For through his blessing, the dawn rises still.

  -Enclaver Prayer

  20-9

  A Playground for Tyrants (II)

  “The pools shine! The master lives! The master returns! Hold true! The dawn rises still!”

  “The dawn rises still!”

  The words left Aladon’s lip without thought, and what remained of his cohort chorused after, as if possessed themselves. Aches and bruises lined every inch of his torso. His arms were blocks of leaden fire, but his fingers remained fused tight to his shield and fang-axe. He broke his spear against the hardened shell of a gastavoid the transgressors used to shield their frontline, serving as a weaponized mount against the honor guard.

  Slow though the gas slugs were, they still loomed over even the tallest of men, and the heated gases they spewed from the vents along their carapace inflicted lightness upon one’s skull.

  Of course, this was secondary to their true purpose in combat: to be detonated upon reaching shield walls, breaking formations by force, fire, and shrapnel.

  A series of cracks sounded from above. Another dozen gleaming bolts–each as long as Aladon was tall–punched into what few gastavoids the attackers had left. Blasts tore gaps in the pale masonry lining the Second Junction. Down the flame-lit paths, limbs and burning viscera joined howling screams, the noise long sounding as if ambiance in Aladon’s ears.

  Bodies lay strewn along the second rung of the city–the last true city, by Yakozitrin’s grace. Writhing figures lay sprawled amidst the sea of dead and dying. Bodies of all shapes and sizes lay scattered. Red bled into fabrics of white and teal. As Aladon swept the streets for additional signs of movement, he felt bile lick at the roof of his mouth before he forced the sickness back down.

  His faith in the master was absolute. Unquestionable. But he himself was not. He was flesh-in-passing and mind-in-diminishing. Loyalty notwithstanding, killing one’s own people by the scores left wounds within just as without. His heart felt scarred and moist with tears to come, but that was for tomorrow.

  That was for if he could survive this at all.

  For now, the banner of Hand Urrins flapped still along the second rung, and the esteemed Pearlguard stood defiant. But though they were the master’s chosen, though they represented the lightmost caste, the masses gathered under the false prophet named “Dogmother” seemed endless in their number. Worse yet, they filled with ranks of the night-touched–the toilers of groundmost–and the sin-bearers–breeders meant to produce children worthy of rising the rungs.

  Children bearing the master’s visage in every respect. Light of hair. Light of eyes. Light of skin.

  To see them turned from divinely ordained purpose was sickening in of itself. But that was nothing compared to the act of actively cutting them down or ordering his gas-throwers to light their bodies aflame.

  In the shadows of his mind, he could still see her, the breeder among the heretical vanguard. She held her half-light child aloft as if the wailing babe would prove a talisman from fire or blade. She learned of her mistake when Aladon called his gas throwers to ignite their tubes and see the rabble purged.

  In the moment of her burning, both she and her child were closer to their master than they had ever been. It was a good death, to be clothed in dancing bright, and an eternal condemnation to be charred by the stain of black.

  Aladon briefly surveyed his remaining forces and shot another look upward. The darkness of despair was parting with the shimmering of the pools. Dappled lights danced the vastness of the city, unmistakable even through columns of rising smoke.

  The towers were alive again–resurrected by the master's shine. The dark was parting. The long night was approaching its end. And deliverance would soon follow. A prickling sensation played at his skin. Horror. Elation. Exhaustion. Desperation. There was no end to how many emotions could burn inside a man at once.

  Gasps and sobs escaped from his fellow Pearlguard. Of the twelve legions he was granted to hold the Second Junction thoroughfare from the Dogmother’s masses, only half were still capable of fighting. The way ahead of them stood a narrow channel and their gas throwers held firm from atop the edges of the first rung.

  Over the month of fighting, they had conducted an in-depth defense, layering their fortifications across the second rung. The Distributors’ Crescent and the various theaters had been pre-emptively trapped with spark-triggered explosives to deny the heretics their much-loved tactic of taking light-blessed hostages and whittling the Pearlguard down in brutal room-to-room engagements.

  Rivers of running blood marked every inch of giving in the battles that followed. But ground was given. Pearlguards fell. And after a month of continuous battle and no relief dispatched to their section, Aladon found himself forced back between the jaws leading up to the final rung of the holy city, and spent his nights steeling himself to give the order to blow the channels and cut the heretics from final ascent.

  Now, however, it seemed like there wouldn’t be the need. Soon, the master would arrive, and all would be made just.

  The wind whistled down the narrow confines of the Second Junction. Faintly, Aladon could hear the cries sounding out from the distance. Cheers as well.

  “The dawn rises still!”

  “The dawn rises still!”

  “The master returns!”

  “The dawn rises still!”

  Aladon clenched his teeth with practiced effort, hissing out wind to halt himself from the forbidden expression.

  “Fucking shadow-touched,” Kaiss, Aladon’s blade-bearer, said. The hulking second spat through the thin crevice offered by his carapace helmet and sneered. “That Dogmother bitch has them dreaming the wrong shades. They think they’re the righteous ones in this. They think the master will favor them instead. Think of it. The master, choosing the night-touched over us.”

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  More cheers rose from all around the city, above and below. It was a dissonant thing how both sides in this civil war shared much of the same practices, same battle cries, same beliefs, but how was it to be any different?

  They were the last true chosen people left, and all who dwelled in this city of light existed by the master’s blessing.

  The master, who was now soon to return.

  But how long? When previously the master’s touch made brightened waters dance, it took fourteen shifts in the tides of night before he arrived.

  It would be hell to endure that long. But no longer hopeless.

  Looking to his left and right, Aladon filled himself with resolve as he took in the remnants of his forces. Each man was encased in their blessed shells, lit eternally by the master's blessings as if shimmering pearls beneath the waves of yore. Even the blood drenching the gambesons they wore beneath could not diminish the luster. Even cracked and chipped, their armor still shone.

  To win the right to wear the carapace was an honor beyond honor. But even so, they were as mortal as the master was divine.

  Though the heretics broke blades, fists, teeth, and seeds against their armor, what did not pierce became blows of bluntness. Exhaustion, more than any other thing, was the downfall of countless among their number.

  Flashes of prior days passed through Aladon again. Cries of terror as flagging members fighting in their lines were pried away from the formation by the masses, dragged into snarling mobs of humanity to be desecrated before their fellows prior to death. More than a few blade-bearers followed their shield-firsts into death in these moments, unable to stand witness.

  More than once did Kaiss sever scores of groping limbs trying to pull Aladon free from his line.

  And judging from the heavy footfalls shaking the ground beneath their feet, such moments were soon to be commonplace again.

  “Re-ady!” Aladon choked, his voice hoarse and cracked from days of shouting. A series of wheezes escaped the men beside him, each of them clenching their jaws to halt the expression as he did. He took a moment to take inventory of his forces again while his throat recovered.

  Three thousand were in the frontline, holding the lip of the thoroughfare via a line of constructed battlements while five times that number formed the rear behind, firing, supporting. They were out of grease and half their seedshooters were dry of shot, causing them to join the line as auxiliaries and runners. The dozen or so gas-throwers remained fueled. Small miracles there. Without the flames, they would have likely been overrun days ago.

  “Ready legions!” he cried again, his throat dry with pain.

  The First cohort across from him repeated and so on. Aladon checked his armor and gave Kaiss a look. “Runner?”

  “Don’t see nobody,” Kaiss sighed. “Rumors are flying. Legions of the Fifth Junction counterattacking to save the Fourth. Third might’ve already blown their channels. Second’s holding. Like us.”

  “For now,” Aladon said. The sound of river rapids roared, causing Aladon to look over his shoulder. Along the steep marble ramp leading up to the first rung, grand platforms the size of an entire section of the city screamed down, their momentum powered by water, their position kept in place by sparking rails. Crates and boxes were stacked high, but reinforcements remained few.

  Such was the continuing narrative of this struggle: they had all the material, and the enemy had all the manpower.

  “Think dark thoughts, brother,” Kaiss muttered. “If we collapse, we might just be gifting the Dogmother enough supplies to arm her ascent. Wouldn’t want that now, would we.”

  Aladon scoffed. “The rearguard knows their duty. As we do ours. The enemy is flagging. We will endure.”

  The towering blade-bearer shuffled uncomfortably. “Seems to me like we all got a hit of morale. For the same reason.” Kaiss squinted at dancing pools of water splashing in the master’s atrium above the city. “Explaining this will be an ugly thing.”

  In response to this, Aladon cracked and turned low, hiding his transgression from his comrades. They all had their lots in life, some more miserable than others. Yet, for the first time in his life, Aladon found himself unable to envy Hand Urrins’ fortunes.

  “Movement!”

  The cry came from the far left of the line. Immediately, Kaiss stepped to the left and readied his blade. Aladon drew up his shield and ignored the cracks sounding from his left shoulder. Squinting out into the haze, he saw naught but hills of rolling corpses, still burning from the gas throwers’ kiss.

  Mutters and barks for clarification followed, but Aladon staggered as he felt his insides quiver, the blood in his veins jolt as if they were strings strummed by clawed fingers.

  Behind him, Kaiss whimpered–a sound Aladon had never heard him make. A series of gasps and the jingling of armor followed. Bodies swayed and battled to remain still. Pressure prodded at Aladon’s insides, and spots formed in his vision.

  For a moment, he thought he saw a series of cracks travel along the marble walls lining the sides to the channel–arteries fissuring through the coral-made battlements he stood on. But the moment was gone in a flash, streaking out of his sight, there and then not.

  The sensations passed. Aladon mastered himself.

  “I’m going to find whoever made those rations and kill them,” Kaiss said, announcing his own recovery with a quip of dry wit.

  Aladon remained silent, however. Though the unnatural left his flesh, his heart was flooded with building dread.

  He had felt the master’s touch before once. Stood in his presence. The way light and life bent to him was perfection. Absolute. Irresistible. The weight that emanated from his being ineffable in sensation.

  There was something about this that felt the same but…

  Greater.

  Impossibly greater. Deeper too.

  Aladon swallowed and barely heard the following cry.

  “Movement! One heretic rising. Third mound beside the lip.”

  His eyes snapped to place almost immediately, for he had been among those to stack those bodies, building them high during the lulls between so the heretics would have to crawl between the narrow channel of their dead if they wanted to process.

  The emerging threat, however, did not come from the lip of the thoroughfare. No. Instead, bodies rolled down the mound of corpses as a shuffling form pushed free.

  A unified expulsion of disbelieving breaths escaped from the Pearlguard.

  “Fuck me,” Kaiss said. “We have ourselves a hard ‘un–what in the master’s will…”

  Aladon saw it too: towering of crackling fire, both brilliant and uncanny as if the union between a raging inferno and coiling mist. It climbed forth from a translucent halo slipping out from the bodies, and a landslide of corpses toppled free, Aladon struggled not to recoil at the sight.

  There, on the few bodies that remained, stood the breeder he ordered burned. Pockets of boiled fat still dripped from her heat-melted skin. Her skin, once divine, was raw red and midnight black, and her meat clung to her bones in hives of melted flesh. As every inch of the city was imbued by the master’s light, shadows could not shroud her, and so Aladon witnessed her in detail.

  He saw cooked tension struggling to tighten beneath patches of skin burned away. He saw the open socket of her eye with embers still sizzling from what remained of her eyebrows, cord hanging free. And worst of all, he saw the child he ordered to be burned along with her flame-fused and sunken into her chest, its flayed face half-exposed in a perpetual scream,

  “Impossible,” Aladon choked. He bounced off Kaiss, and only then did he realize he was backpedaling.

  “Aladon?” Kaiss said, eyes alight with a rare expression of concern. “What? What’s wrong?”

  But the large man could not see. He hadn’t the eyes.

  And such was a blessing, for what followed next undid Aladon completely.

  From across the sixty meters of space, she gestured at the burning halo surrounding her and summoned what looked like an apparition of her own form shaped from the flames themselves. Then, her ghostly twin–unblemished in flesh and naked in her sorrow–wept as pointed at the battlements, and him in particular.

  A moment thereafter, the ghost faded, and the burned breeder’s ruined flesh began to peel.

  It happened in an instant, and Aladon felt the weight of divinity pass through him again. A tide of blood rose from bodies below, drenching the woman in crimson. With a casual shrug thereafter, the blood then flung itself from her body, and she stood naked.

  And unburned.

  “Yako-Yakozitrin,” Aladon sobbed. The resolve within him was beginning to crumble. Beginning to break. Kaiss was holding from behind, whispering worried words while the rest of his cohort paled, never expecting to see him like this.

  The woman took a step forward and looked down at her chest. Her infant was still boiled into her body. She tilted her head as if it were a curiosity rather than a dead babe. With a casual motion, she tore the conjoined infant free from her bosom and held it high for Aladon–and all the legions to see.

  Cries of dismay and horror erupted from all who held the walls.

  But night’s disfavor was not done visiting Aladon, for then the woman flung the child out at them, and it sailed out across an impossible distance, at impossible speeds. It came to an impaled halt torso-first against the jutting parapet. Several members of the cohort flinched back. A scream came from the left, followed by the crash of a falling body.

  Through it all, cold terror just continued to flood Aladon’s stomach. Shivering, he looked at the slumped body of the baby, his mind unable to comprehend what had just happened.

  This was when the infant lifted its head up and fucking smiled at him.

  The sickness exploded within Aladon. His will gave.

  He threw up all over Kaiss’ boots.

  ***

  {Avo,} Calvino said, disappointment arriving in the form of a long, drawn-out sigh. {Was any of that necessary?}

  The ghoul nested in the sheath of an almost-dead woman grinned and savored the flavors of minds breaking, morales shattering. +For my entertainment? Absolutely.+

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  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: The cadre solves a war in a few chapters and aborts several other characters' stories in the process...

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