+I was thinking…+
+Oh, no! What happened?+
+Kae… Come on, I think sometimes.+
[Giggle] +I’m sorry. You try. Oh! I’m sorry, what were you going to ask?+
+So, this is about my hubris–the one tied to my “Breaker of Arms” canon. I’ve been thinking about what you told me, you know? About how canons are supposed to be necessary flaws for each miracle to integrate. Like a… single point of agreed impossibility between our subrealities and the real itself that lets us crossover…+
+Uh huh.+
+Well… can… can mine be changed to something else than “striking a surrendering opponent will incur backlash”? Because some of these Fallwalkers are getting real smart when I talk to them…+
+Hm. Theoretically, but your Heaven is a pre-fall ontologic. It used to belong to an actual god so there’s history there. A fixed detail in chronology. For that to be changed, we would need to affect and adjust every echo of Essence in your cyclers. And considering your Spheres, that would take upwards of…. Maybe two hundred thousand deaths a minute to upkeep.+
+Jaus.+
+Hm. You actually want to know if the Imitators can modify your Heavens, don’t you?+
+...Was it that obvious?+
+You didn’t care that much about thaumaturgy before, Paladin Morrow. It’s a pretty sudden spike in interest you just showed, and some of how you felt spilled over through the link when I showed you memories of the project’s progress. The answer is maybe. Theoretically. If we can “kill” them somehow – shift them over to being metaphysical entities that can be integrated into a Frame.+
+And how’s that going?+
+Well… Let’s just say I’m sliding closer to requesting a stasis test for it.+
-Paladin Dawton Morrow and Agnos Kae Kusanade
13-4
Necessary Flaws
For a passing moment, Avo just watched as the Woundshaper’s twin rose to prominence.
The second tower was every inch a copy of the first, growing out from storm-forked streams of flowing ichor. From the dog-like head at the spire to the shell of blended matter plating its periodically fluid structure, the Woundshaper became a duality unto itself.
Yet, with each inch that rose, the flame-painted world within the Woundshaper grew strained.
All too evidently, the demand was too great. Alternations he considered placed a greater ontologic mass on his Heaven than it could bear. Parts of the subreality fractured as rippling radiance flooded through the gulfs like a breach in a ship’s hull.
Both Heavens began to flicker, and though the sacrifices began to gouge at their own arteries and veins at a greater rate, it was still unable to feed the growth.
In rapt quietude, Kae studied the halfway ascension of the second tower and cocked her head in curiosity. “Yes… That makes sense. The Heaven having specific multiple vessels and parsing the hubris might offset the mass limit, but it does spike scope substantially and deviate it from common regard.”
INSUFFICIENT THAUMIC MASS TO ACHIEVE DESIRED ALTERATION
REQUIREMENTS: FIFTH-SPHERE LIMINAL FRAME
Fifth Sphere. A bit rich for his current list of kills, but if he struck a few soft targets, raided a Syndicate or ten…
“Avo, make a slight adjustment,” Kae said. “Try to have your Frame simulate new hubrises in the form of… wait… show me your canons of blood.”
He did as she asked without much protest, and watched as his resurrection climbed past fifty percent.
Lost in consideration and mumbling to herself, the Agnos was back in her element, a creature returned to its natural habitat after being so long deprived. As he earlier witnessed parallels between him and Chambers, so too did he align with Kae.
She drowned in her art, but her mind–even mended–was that of ever-shifting vectors and ever-increasing acceleration. Her attention shifted between the miracles offered by his Domain of Blood, and after a brief but intense half-mumbled conversation with herself, she roused from her trance and returned to offer a new determination.
“Okay. Good. Several very good things, in fact! First, a confirmation: Heavens are chronologically linked. Because your Heaven is not a post-fall Heaven, its mass is a fixed property. The nature of its flaw is scarred into the Heaven’s chronology. Maybe if we made a new Heaven of Blood… or found a way to directly culture the sacrifices again using new mythos… that’s for later. Right now, you just need to understand that since you’re using a Sangeist as a structure, we’re going to have to work around the problem.”
“Must stay at 80 tons?” he asked. He could not deny the slight disappointment blooming in his chest. So close to being more.
Power denied had such a unique hurt to it. The closest comparative would be the ultimate denial of long-lusted flesh before he could clamp his fangs down.
Her response, however, pulled his plummeting expectations back upward. “Only technically. Scaarthian mythology has Saathwu–the Bloodforge iteration specifically–being a tower of a recorded height and mass. The tonnage is related to how much blood needed to be offered to it in the cycle of a month. The tower specifically. That needs to be eighty tons. So… we can make a simple adjustment to keep both strains and essential limitations unchanged. And we do it using Sanguinity’s Reign.”
That clutched Avo’s entire attention. “The tower specifically. So. The base of the Heaven becomes fixed to the tonnage. Like a core. Or a spine. But expand the Heaven itself? Treat constructs created by the haemokinetic broadcast as separate entities?”
“Yes! Yes! Let’s try it. I think it’ll be a far more stable configuration. Oh, and don’t think about specific numbers this time. Use generalities and let the Meta-Fac work with the loaded builds.”
Again, he initiated the alteration of his hubris again but sent with it a drip of personal desire metastasized from his recent experiences.
When one survived long enough in New Vultun, they began to notice a rhyme to the city – themes that ensured his enduring survival.
His skill in Necrojacking was compounded with recent memories of Sunrise’s swarm and the plague-like Conflagration he captured from Kae’s mind.
Decentralization. Asymmetry. Angles.
These motifs had protected him, and upon straying from their grace, he found himself punished.
Against Abrel, his ontology was too fixed, too rooted in rigidity. Against the Low Masters and the Hungers, he was a creature of lesser skill, yet had saved himself using their ignorance and misdirection. And when entrapped by Naeko’s all-powerful might, Denton sent him away with words and information alone.
Options.
He needed more options.
He needed to be flexible.
The second tower did not collapse into nothingness. Instead, it speared out in sinuous threads and began to orbit the first. Rings of circulation broke apart into individual motes of haemokinetic debris. The effect came to be similar to a belt of asteroids tumbling around a planetary body, the tower itself a governing module but no longer the totality.
UPDATING LORE…
HUBRIS: THE CORE OF THE HEAVEN CAN ONLY BE EIGHTY TONS OF BLOOD; WITH EACH TON THE USER MANIPULATES BEYOND THE CORE OF THIS HEAVEN, THE GREATER THE REND AND THAUMIC REQUIREMENTS WILL BE (VARIABLE)
HUBRIS: ATTEMPTING TO MOVE OR IMBUE MORE THAN 80 TONS USING THE CORE OF THE HEAVEN WILL TRIGGER THAUMIC BACKLASH; WITH EACH TON THE USER MANIPULATES BEYOND THE CORE OF THIS HEAVEN, THE GREATER THE REND AND THAUMIC REQUIREMENTS REQUIREMENTS WILL BE (VARIABLE)
The mem-data was secondary in Avo’s mind. With the inner world of the Woundshaper revealed, the lines of text were but summarizations of the entire process.
As Kae chittered excitedly at the alteration proving to be stable, he had his simulation run estimates on just how many tons he could reach now.
“I wanted it to be like a hive,” Avo said.
Kae fell silent. “A hive?”
“Decentralized. More vectors of attack. Be like facing an infection from afar.”
She turned back and studied the clotting fragments forming a hardened veil around the Heaven. “I understand. I like it. I like it a lot. Hm. I think we should include Draus in these discussions as well. She knows about combat far more than I do so, with her input, I think we might be able to build even more specialized canons.”
Turning her attention back to the expanding Heaven, she wriggled her nose and set about examining its structure.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“The thaumic requirements are unchanged. No major spike in stability or paradoxing. Yes. Yes. Shifting the hubrises works. And variable hubrises too… I haven’t seen many of those at all…”
“Risky?” Avo asked.
She hummed. “Some. But that’s mostly just Godclads ignoring the limits of their Frame and overloading themselves from Rend when they pack too much mass on their Heaven and their Hell can’t counterbalance it. My guess is you can pack up quite a lot of tonnage judged by your current thaumic output but… your Hell won’t be able to handle too large of a spike for very long.”
His Frame brought up new estimates. If he diverted every echo of his thaumic mass to his Heaven of Blood, his Woundshaper could contain over fifteen thousand tons of mass.
At the same time, his Hell would immediately overload with Rend and his Frame would Rupture from overload, ensuring his cessation in a nigh-instant.
Best that he proceed with caution.
RESURRECTION - 77%
Kae settled into a new routine as she checked his systems and structures, examining each and every angle pertaining to the Woundshaper. Afterward, she spent an equally disproportionate time scanning the faces of all the present sacrifices.
It was only when she requested to do the same thing for the Galeslither that he realized why she wanted to examine his Frame so.
The Imitators comingled within his eldritch shine stored memories. Stories of mythos and lore. But mundane memories as well, supposedly.
If any of her dead friends and family were among the collective, they would have been simulated in some capacity. Avo himself would have noticed considering he already knew what Morrow looked like from Ninth Column showed him.
As they drifted back out into the outer confines of his Soul, the smolder of excitement died down to a hiss again. Something in her was extinguished – a desperately kindled flicker of hope.
“Didn’t find what you wanted,” he asked her.
“I was hoping that… some memories would be found inside you. Through the Imitators, I mean.” She paused and brought a hand up to rub at her opposite arm as her gaze dropped. “I… When I remembered everything, I remembered that our testing plane was breached when we were attacked. Some of the Imitators got out and I was hoping… I thought even if they were packed into your Frame–”
“That you could use them to see what happened that day?” Avo asked. “To seek out remnant memories or echoes leftover by those you knew?” An uncomfortable silence settled between them. “Did you see his face? Among my dead?”
He didn’t need to speak the Paladin’s name for Kae to know who he alluded to. She shook her head with deliberate slowness, eyes distant as she recalled a moment long past. “No. I mean, I thought I did–I was afraid he would be here but I also wanted it but he deserved so much more.” Her face tightened and she dug her nails into her arm. “We deserved so much more. I was happy. There was… we were just…”
Avo understood. Humans liked epitomizing concepts. It was probably part of the reason why there were any gods in the first place. When things went wrong without reason, the fortitude of ego would grow tested, and from lips would flow words of self-soothing sophistry–platitudes to ward against the full weight of the offenses arrayed against them.
Spiritual homeopathy.
The alternative was to face horror and accept there didn’t need to be any reason, that things just were sometimes.
In another path, in another life, perhaps he would be faced with another Agnos who decided to commit to the project and Kae would still be living a happy and carefree life in the Tiers.
Maybe she would meet her Paladin in that life as well. Maybe not.
Maybe maybe maybe.
That was the part that tore at her the most, it seemed. The reality that could have been. The reality that should have been. The reality is that would never be.
If Avo was nested in mortal flesh at that moment, he would have broken into laughter. How absurd it was that the architect of the divine was just as easily denied happiness and joy as any other joy-fiend or FATELESS in the city.
The sheer indifference of it all was absurd.
And once again, for the first time in a long time, Avo found himself glad that he was a ghoul.
To be human was to want things beyond the flavors of flesh and the vivacity of violence. He was, right then, “happier” than he had ever been in his memories; more satisfied, though still hungry. He would always be hungry.
But Kae and Essus lost what they wanted and would never recover from it…
The loss of a dream was an ugly thing to behold.
With that loss in mind, he spoke his next words, seeking to divert her thoughts from pain to promise.
Dreams died. But new wants could take the place of what was decayed. New dreams. New colors and new flavors.
An easier hubris for her heart to survive.
RESURRECTION - 99%
“Kae,” Avo said. “I still have a Frame in me. And the ones who hurt you are still alive. They’re living in the Tiers. Living in bliss. Comfort. All the things they took from you. Used you as a weapon against yourself. Burned you when things went wrong. Can do a few things for you. Can take the memories away. Or resequence them. Kill the pain.”
“No!” she yelped. Embarrassed at her sudden outburst, she hugged herself. “No. I want to remember. I don’t want to forget… it’s… I… uh… It’s just so hard to think and say something. I thought working on your Frame would make me focus more or–or find something but I can’t calm down and I can’t–”
“I have another Frame,” Avo repeated. “Can tell you what I could do with it. Do you want to hear?”
She paused. “I… yes?”
“I could take all the cyclers. Integrate them with my Frame. Graft the Heavens. Hunt for more thaums. Could give them to Draus or Essus or Chambers or even the Columners. Could give them to some joy-fiend. For amusement. Or I could make you a ‘Clad too.”
Kae knew this was coming on some level. He saw it in her eyes. He saw it in the way she straightened herself. And he saw her apprehension when she reached up to touch her eye. “Before. When you asked me I…” She grimaced. “I couldn’t remember so much but I think I didn’t want to remember either. I wanted to… believe in the fantasy that things could go back. That after you healed me and I could go back up the Tiers and just… live my life again.
A flash of a memory passed through Avo’s mind. He remembered having fish in the Tiers. He wondered if they were still alive.
Or real at all.
“But that’s not going to be happening anymore. Not with what they did. And not with what you are. I need… I need them to burn. I need them to burn! Burn! Burn!” The way she stamped exposed a child-like tantrum. She wasn’t used to this kind of rage, nor enacting violence on her own behalf.
She would learn. It might take a few deaths, but she would learn.
“Yes.” The steel and resoluteness in her words rang clear. “Yes. I’ll take it. I want the Frame. Fuck the oaths. Fuck the Guilds. Fuck it all. I don’t want to feel this way alone.”
RESURRECTION - 100%
Avo felt light-formed fingers pry his consciousness back up into existence. As his subreality began to inject him back across the veil, he watched as Kae dissolved, her expression hardened, her gaze locked to his fading Soul.
Existence shuddered into shape around him as mem-data flowed across his cog-feed. Spawning over his corpse, he found Kae standing right before him, their conversation interrupted by his return, but not concluded.
From the stairs, he could hear sharp, clicking footsteps. Draus. Her bio-rig rattled a specific way.
“You know you have to die to become Godclad?” he asked.
Kae snorted a soft laugh. “I’m an–I was an Agnos, Avo. I know more about your Frame than you probably do.”
“Was,” he noted.
“They just let it happen,” Kae said. “If not for Draus and then you, they would’ve just…” Her voice choked off. She shook her head.
He grunted. Wasn’t much he could say about someone’s extended family leaving them to face torment on their own.
“I can do it if you’re afraid,” Avo said. “Can make it painless using my Heaven.”
“No.” She squeaked with fear as she said it. He could hear her heart pulsing, see her blood coursing, smell the stink of her breath as she breathed and swallowed back bouts of rising panic. “I can do it. I want to do it.” Blinking, she struggled to compose herself. “Avo? What… what do you want? Why are you helping–I’m grateful but… why? I know you don’t care. Not like that.”
Why. That was a good question.
One that he was only beginning to develop an answer to. His Echoheads picked at the ground. “Walton. He wanted me to see the colors. Experience new flavors. Live. His jaws widened for a moment before he forced them shut as his eyes swept over the softness of her throat. "Still hunger. Still want to hurt and kill and eat. Don’t want to deny it anymore. Don’t want to lie to myself. But… there’s no taste in hurting the choiceless. Bad diet. My father was right.”
“So it’s about what he wanted?” Kae asked.
“No,” Avo said. “Walton was a good father. He did everything he could for me. For my growth. My agency. But he was a monster to everyone else. No one else’s choice mattered. I was the goal. He hurt everyone to achieve it.”
Draus emerged out from the entrance and stopped to regard the two locked in conversation.
Avo continued. “Don’t want to be him. Want more–I am more. More than ghoul. More than Necrojack. More than Godclad.”
He turned his gaze skyward, and though a featureless expanse greeted him, he imagined himself staring at the Tiers. “It’s not done. Guilds will be coming for my Frame. They will keep killing the FATELESS. They will keep fighting. Someday they’ll break the world for good. Done with that. Done with letting them choose. Seen their decisions. Seen their wars. Seen them suffer no consequence.”
Nearby, the blood in the pool was bubbling, drawn up by a will unseen.
"No more. Going to readjust the food chain. Do what I was supposedly designed to do.”
He spread his fangs in a wide smile, his many teeth clasped over one another. “Mirrorhead. Got me addicted to quality meat. Can’t go back. Won’t go back. Still have to hurt his sister. Still have to break his father. Still have new hunting grounds to prepare for.”
“You’re going to war against the Guilds?” Kae breathed.
“War?” Avo said. “No. War is their business. I’m just going to make victims of them. I just want to hurt them.”
“And… that’s it?” Kae asked.
“For now,” Avo said. “Tastes change with experience. But either we hurt them. Or they hurt us. No other way.”
“No other way,” Kae agreed. “Well, I might have a few people we can start with.”
Ah. Ori-Thaum. It would be a thrill to see if they could withstand a weapon of their own creation. “Find the Glaives? The Incubi that hurt you?”
She nodded. “It’s a start. We’ll see how the experience changes me.”
He had underestimated the little Agnos. There was more to her than knowledge and scholarly charm.
Turning, Kae regarded Draus with a polite smile. “Hi, Draus. Um. If you have a gun or something, can I borrow it? I want to shoot myself.”
“What?” Chambers’ footsteps slapped against the steps. “Whoa! Wait! Hold on there, we just fixed you–don’t snuff yourself! Essus! You other half-strands! Fucking–come on!”
More footsteps followed. It sounded like a collective stampede.
Sunrise circled around Avo’s head as the swarm buzzed above. “Unexpected. Most unexpected.”
The Regular, meanwhile, just glared at the ghoul. “The fuck you say to her?