The garden always outgrows the gardener, and the young will always surmount the old.
-Ancient Sang Proverb
14-12
Facets of Truth (II)
The rest of Walton’s memories completed Avo’s portrait of his father.
The Famine of Defiance was long intended as a venom seeped into the bloodstream of the usurpers. His creation was of an offensive variety–to infiltrate and sabotage and discover. But most importantly, he was meant to understand.
Stripped clean of hate’s touch, he, alone of all four branches, was meant to catalyze into a self-changing poison capable of toppling the empires that broke Noloth.
And for a while he did, betraying Incubi operations to Highflame, Sang plagues mean to devastate Stormtree territories, Voidwatch raid against Omnitech “experiments.” With each action he committed to, he kept the power between the Guilds balanced and used them to whittle each other down.
Their confrontational deadlock had been what protected the Low Masters for all those years since their first defeat. No sense in surrendering his advantage before time was due.
But with every movement came a counterforce, and where he was meant to serve as a disease to break the great powers, so too was he infected in turn by the cultures of New Vultun and the experiences with its people.
Standing over Avo was just another instance that the other Low Masters would never have. They would never feel the significance of witnessing a creature so wretched struggle for life still. Struggle, even though there had been nothing in its life worth living for but death and flavor.
Flavor.
What Walton wanted for him.
A kaleidoscope of instants rushed through him, he experienced Walton’s trials and experiments toward “rehabilitating” various ghouls.
His initial “self” hadn’t survived its malnutrition despite Walton’s best efforts, but his father did preserve the mind of the initial ghoul as best he could. From there, the continuation of “Avo” was an interactive process, with the ego inserted into a series of ghouls possessing high executive controls and instinctual intellect.
What he remembered of the megablock assault was also true and served as a foundational memory of his “childhood” but the ghoulling he was in those recollections was not of the same flesh as the one that passed not long after the war, and thereafter, the one that mourned Walton’s death from Wombrash was a new interaction altogether–one specifically created as a test to gauge ethicality.
One that the “Avo” series managed to pass with flying colors.
Being connected through a single chain of continuous memories and traits built the facade of a continuous consciousness, but perception and truth shared a loose relationship.
Other cognitive augments were added to him. His dislike for socialization hid a resistance toward mem-cons due to this indifference to most experiences. The shotgun that so excited him was another such deliberate tweak–most ghouls loathed large noises that shredded layers of their eardrums.
Avo recalled nothing but joy when he used Anvil Mechanic’s Multi-Alloy Reflex Weapon. He could still remember its brutal recoil and the splattering of bodies when he clenched the trigger.
His instinctive fear of fusion burners was left in to deepen the mental tissue connecting him to the war and to ensure his personal history led to a believable narrative.
Other moments flashed through his consciousness. Skimming through them, he found himself once again taking on Walton’s perspective, this time as White-Rab’s unseen guardian and companion in the Nether. This adventure predated the first instance of “Avo” himself by twelve full years.
It seemed Walton had taken on an adopted apprentice long before he decided to build himself a favored son.
Their meeting had been by chance–just a dive gone wrong for the younger Necro. Trying to steal mem-data from a mind already marked by the Incubi was just a twist of poor fortune.
Raldi Nauser should have been gutter trash like his parents. He should have died as a FATE-donor growing up, his childhood body used as a makeshift incubator for cheap gammaware implants. Lots of things should have happened to him.
But for one reason or another, death never came.
And it was just as well. Raldi Nauser had a gift, and that gift was keeping his mind together. Trauma greeted him like oil running over water, and Walton wondered if it was his neurology that ensured his resilience or just a lifetime of harsh and specific conditioning one couldn’t get anywhere else but the Warrens.
It took little for Walton to feel a certain fondness for the boy. It seemed that between Avo and White-Rab, the Famine of Defiance was a patron of survivors if nothing else.
After sparing Raldi from a premature end at the hands of the Incubi, Walton began training him under the guise of the Strix, teaching things few others would ever master, imparting on him the intricacies of sequencing and diving wrought from centuries of trial, error, and mistakes.
More than a few teachings had been inherited by Avo. It appeared that the bulk of his considerable skill as a Necro had been derived from White-Rab rather than Walton. This had been a deliberate decision to keep Avo insulated from the Low Masters’ ability to track him. They knew nothing of how Walton trained Raldi, and thus with the mingling of memories, Avo would still gain the skills he needed to thrive without leaving a direct link between him and his father.
A delivery made through a buffer in the form of another individual.
Walton played a careful game.
Coordinates appeared in the depths of Avo’s recollections thereafter. Loci, proxy minds, and other resource stashes littered across the city. Leftovers from Walton’s term as an infiltrator, with many of the materials still viable for service.
No other messages followed Avo. No final farewell or sentimental greeting as with the previous encounters. Only injections of information and detailed assets.
The last major thing of note were the emotions Walton left infused in these memories. From them Avo’s subminds extracted the ability to simulate his father’s appreciation for aspects of the city, and some of its people.
Thinking of White-Rab while such a cognitive pattern was running, for instance, now filled hm inside with a sensation of brightness, and so strange was the shine that it was hard to not smile.
He still cared little for Reva and wouldn’t mind feeding from her in mind, body, and Soul, but when considering the torment it would inflict upon Raldi, the act no longer excited and more appalled.
[Humanity is like wearing chains.] One of his subminds griped.
The other disagreed. Channeling the various templates and new subsumed memories, and regarded his present state with a broader perspective. [No. They just have a different diet. Different intentions. Different wants. Brings different choices in the end. Our cruelty insulates us from the worst of the city; our cruelty is a drug that draws us into mistakes. Aren’t we chained too?]
[But we–]
[Enjoy it? Pleasure is not an argument. Pleasure is a feeling. Feedback. The two in front of us enjoy each other. Have tasted joy we would never know. Abrel loves her brother. Even now. Same with Benhata and his sister. Everyone wants to be ontologically superior. Better just by being. We all have our own mythology. Abrel believed in her rage and the nobility in her blood. The Talons and Shadows thought themselves peerless beasts of the deep. And Walton believed in the Hungers.]
Yes. The Hungers. Avo considered why Walton only passed paltry few memories related to his old masters and the absence of reverence within his thoughts.
Perhaps he’d been turning away from the faith long ago.
Or perhaps faith itself was like a contagion, and what the Low Masters granted him of Noloth’s history was made to convert as much as it was to supposedly educate.
Pulling himself out from the depths of his own consciousness he exhaled slowly. The real loaded back into shape around him as small hexagonal cells came alight across his perception while his cog-feed began to interface with the visual data around him.
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On the sofa opposite him, Reva continued to judge him in stone-hard silence, her body loose but eyes unblinking, settled for mercy but ready for violence. Next to her, a spiral of ghosts rose from the Wight as White-Rab peeked out at him, trying discern what he could.
+Thank you,+ Avo said. +These memories are… precious to me.+ He regarded the expected stream of perception shining upon him from within the Wight. +You’re curious about the contents?+
+’Course I am,+ he said. +I’ve been holding onto that for a while now. Not being able to jack through it bothered me something fierce, and watching you swallow the whole thing and just understand it somehow got me feeling all kinds of salt on my tongue.+
Ah. Jealousy. From one Necro to another, he understood. He couldn’t blame his cog-donor. +It was complex. Difficult. Don’t think I could have accessed it without being what I am now.+
Raldi tsked through the Nether. +Still a problem of skill, huh?+
+Almost always is. Improve or be denied. You were supposed to be in Penumbra to open it. Under the city. Had a specific time it could be accessed because the sequences cycle–but you also have to put your own builds into the sequences to align them perfectly. Won’t open if you don’t collapse them into a single path using symmetry.+
+Great. Legwork with my jacking. Sounds like the Strix alright.+
+Don’t like going on walks?+
The ghost of a smirk crawled across Reva’s face. “Only when I make him.”
+Hey, I chose to go with you to that gun exhibition. No one “made” White-Rab do anything.+ Something in the Necro’s voice told Avo that this lie was more for himself than anyone else.
[He’s not lying, ghoul,] Abrel sighed. [This is foreplay. It’s foreplay. You’re missing an obvious game in front of you.]
Or that.
Humanity had a subtle and strange relationship with deception sometimes. Sometimes, the subtext was hard to grasp.
The Bloodthane hummed. “Really? Well, you gotta do a dive through my mind and clean up my memories, because I recall you bartering for certain favors–”
+So, Avo,+ White-Rab said, sudden picking up the previous conversation, +what exactly was in those memories?+
+My past,+ Avo said. +Mostly. You’re included too. Moments from when he found me. How he tried to raise me and other ghouls. How he kept you from getting nulled and training you. You’re the foundational basis for my skills and instincts. At least Necrotheurgically. Also around three hundred and twelve stashes.+
+Stashes?+ White-Rab asked.
+Leftover from his war with the Guilds.+ Avo lapsed into silence and turned his attention back to Reva. Actually, this was a good opportunity. So far, his encounters with other Godclads had been mostly hostile engagements, and Abrel existed in a permanent state of capture now.
Here, Reva Javvers was a specimen in the wild.
He could learn from her. See what she knew about the great war itself. There was still so much about his enemies he remained blind to.
So many flavors untasted.
+Do you know about the war against Noloth?+ Avo asked. He directed the question directly at her using his ghosts.
The narrowing of her eyes hinted at suspicion, but she didn’t keep to silence. “I know enough. I know about the things they did to their own people and their attacks on the voiders. I know about their Uprising and the ghouls. Your kind, if I’m guessing right.”
Her judgment came far too late to be accurate. +I don’t think I have a kind anymore,+ Avo said. +It’s just me now. But that’s okay. I’m not lonely.+
[Creepy as fuck, Avo,] Abrel muttered.
+Okay. That’s creepy as fuck,+ White-Rab repeated.
+Have things to tell you. Both of you.+ He turned his perception on the Wight. +You will get to remember.+ He returned his gaze to Reva. +You will probably have to forget. But this is what I know. This is about the coming war.+
Reva suddenly leaned in, the flow of her accretion tightening as she drew close to his proxy. “Are you saying there’s going to be a Fifth Guild War?”
+It is inevitable,+ Avo replied. +And it is going to be soon. There is no time left.+
“Why? What are you talking about?”
+The Flayed Ladder. Jaus’ death and the great game to rewrite existence. It’s all coming to an end.+ Avo basked in their staggered silence.
For all the time he had spent in the dark, clawing and listening and manipulating pieces of key details out from his foes to get a clear understanding of the world around him, now he got to know what it was going to be like on the other side of the curtain.
Holding the keys to enlightenment really made one feel a hefty weight.
+Everything will be over in over a year and a half’s time,+ Avo said. +The Ladder is returning. A war to determine the rules of reality and the history that was is coming. And you don’t know even know you’ve been drafted.+
These words were directed specifically at Reva. Godclad that she was, she was as ignorant as he when he first embarked on this path. Now, she was in the throes of confusion, but soon he would give her liberation via understanding.
They were both useful. Reva would be an excellent entryway into Stormtree and another Godclad he could direct, while White-Rab was clearly a Necro of an extreme caliber–one that likely operated on similar wavelengths as Avo did.
This started as a conversation, but he wasn’t thinking expansively enough.
If he wished to assault the Rash, change this city, and be a proper player in this great game, he needed assets of his own. A power structure unknown to all others but him, and directable by own his will.
Ninth Column existed under the umbrella of Zein’s power.
Perhaps there could be a new force that drew succor from his.
+We just met,+ Avo said, channeling all the honesty and rhetorical charm he and all his templates contained. +The situation behind my existence is, likewise, troubling. You could get a lot of money by offering information about me. Perhaps a promotion. Or even enhancements to your ontologics and lifestyles. This might be enticing to you. But I think I can offer you something better. Something no one else can.+
Prying herself away from the scenes of his past, Reva found herself burdened with uncertainty about what she knew. It was easier to regard him as a deceiver, but part of her knew she gazed upon something she shouldn’t have, that she caught a glimpse of this world’s true nature. “Make your offer. I doubt I’ll be–”
+I’m going to end the Wombrash and restore the Heaven of Love,+ Avo said. +Going to do it as a means to make amends to a friend. Going to do it for power. Going to do it because it will give me pressure to use against the Guilds. And think you two might want to help me. Even for selfish reasons.+
Reva shot a glance at the Wight. “Selfish reasons.”
+I will leave them unsaid. Out of courtesy. But I still think you want to feel human more. Human. Not this chained thing you’ve all become.+
These words came pure and true from the minds inside him. All of them had felt the strain. All of them. Years of being touch-deprived and starved of genuine love had left most with lingering wounds inside them. Here was exploitable symmetry in culture and across peoples.
As he was, Avo would have never thought of approaching the situation from such an angle.
Now, he could guide them how he wanted. Give them something to hope for, and something to dread losing.
He just needed both of them to understand the other part of what made him so special.
His Frame.
Drawing up information connected to Ori-Thaum’s informational network, he accessed the last known location where the Glaive in charge of Kae’s “suppression” was operating.
If he managed to play his advantages right, he could see one success lean into another.
But first, he needed to procure the awe and acquiescence of the two before him.
Walton would have wanted him to keep White-Rab safe. Avo himself didn’t much care for the Bloodthane, but she was an excellent lever to use against the Necro, and vice versa. Together, he would use one to move the other, and should he manage to get them to follow his path down the rabbit hole he was making, he might not need to ignite either of their minds at all with his own.
“How are you going to do it?” Reva asked. “The Rash is–it’s a Sphere Nine Heaven. The Agnosi that created it–”
+Aren’t needed. I have my Frame.+
“Yeah. Stillborn or something. Never heard the pattern. Is it some kind of new configuration?”
And so, he found another path to convert the Bloodthane. +Reva. How would you like to get a new canon right now?+
Her paranoia spiked and so did White-Rab’s.
+Hey, Avo, let’s not go snuffing or rupturing anything,+ his cog-donor said.
+No need,+ Avo replied, anticipating the tension. It would be all the sweeter when he resolved the problem. +I have your salvation here. I just need both of us to die temporarily. She’ll understand better if I show her.+
“Show me what?” Reva said.
+The Frame Highflame was going to use against you and your Ark. The Frame that was fated to rewrite histories. Come. Follow me this once. It’s just death. I can’t stop you from returning. Follow, and return as more.+