+Hey, hey, New Vultun. Do you have a migraine? I sure do. How did everyone enjoy this year’s annual Low Master mind-fucking? At least that’s who I’m guessing is behind this. Either that or Ori-Thaum tripped over the “Nether” cord again.
Anyway. If the threat of another Guild War followed by a new Nolothic Uprising wasn’t enough darkness for your day, we also have to ask ourselves just who exactly shit in the Chief Paladin’s dinner for him to beat us like that.
Jaus. I haven’t been slapped that hard since I broke up with that Scarth-sow I used to know. Makes me wonder if the trial is even still going to be–Oh. We have a syncer. Special request–sorry, I don’t do… Okay, that’s a lot of imps…
Fine. I’ll put up you on. If you’re a rash-dumper, I send my–+
[FATE-SKEIN IDENTIFIED: NAEKOTHEONLY]
CALA MARLOWE: +What? I–Okay. Okay. Chief Paladin, this is surprising–+
SAMIR NAEKO: +Hey. We spoke once. I think. You ambushed me in Stormjumpers or something. I’m just here to make an announcement. And because I really don’t wanna talk to Guilder Proparazzi types and doing this with you instead should piss them off.+
CALA MARLOWE: +...Alright. Well. I’d say welcome, but I don’t really wanna bullshit you, so… Yeah. Chief Paladin Samir Naeko everyone. Special guest for the FATELSS Thoughtcast.+
SAMIR NAEKO: +You fine with me making an official announcement here? Your lobbies might be getting spiked with traffic.+
CALA MARLOWE: +Fuck ‘em. If they do, they do. You’re the Chief Paladin. And I don’t really care. Do whatever.+
SAMIR NAEKO: +Alright. Thanks, juv. Anyway. Hey, uh, New Vultun. Uh, FATELESS..es. Chief Paladin Naeko here. Now, I’ve been told there are rumors in the Nether. Talking about why I tore up the gutters and who I was fighting. I’m here to clear the air and let things be known. I was not, in fact, “engaged in competitive domestic abuse” against the High Seraph. I would also like to thank [12INCHESISSTILLTOOSHORT] for sending me that detailed simulation of me, the Stormsparrow, a nu-dog, and the High Seraph passing shit into each other’s asses. Wonderful rash-contraband. I’d like to make your day better by telling you that your mom died during my slap and that she was a shitty Syndi in charge of slave smuggling.
The Exorcists will be seeing you shortly.+
CALA MARLOWE: +...Nova.+
SAMIR NAEKO: +Anway. It wasn’t Veylis I was fighting.+
CALA MARLOWE: +Right. Kind of ridiculous if you think about it.+
SAMIR NAEKO: +It was her mother. Zein. Thousandhand. Godslayer. My old vicious sow of a master. That one.+
CALA MARLOWE: +Okay. Holy shit. What the fuck. Unexpec–Wait, isn’t she dead?+
SAMIR NAEKO: +Would’ve probably been better if she stayed that way. Anyway, you don’t gotta worry. I tore her old ass in half, fought her some more, and then shoved her into a containment pocket. To all you Necros and Guilder agents, I can feel you. I know you’re there. Come for her, and I smear you.+
CALA MARLOWE: +...+
SAMIR NAEKO: +So. Finishing with that. I’m just here to announce that I’m adding another person to the trial and that citizens and subjects should expect justice to be done, and all the other shit a Chief Paladin is supposed to say, I guess.+
CALA MARLOWE: +Can you do that?+
SAMIR NAEKO: +Huh? Do what?+
CALA MARLOWE: +Just add someone to the trial. Isn’t it literally days away? Hells, considering everything that’s happened, is it even still on?+
SAMIR NAEKO: +Well, Marlowe, technically there’s supposed to be a process to this thing, but the last person who gave a shit about all that got snuffed by her brother. So. I’ll give you my way of seeing things: I’m Chief Paladin Samir Naeko. I am the Force-Breaker. I just killed the Godslayer. I’m somewhere north of pissed, and I intend to stand and deliver on this enforcement. Test me. Test me and I’ll reel you out into the Nothing and see if you catch a glance of Jaus. The soft days are over. And you consangs on Stormjumpers can rest easy knowing I’ll be taking a hiatus.
The trial will be delayed till Nulrise next week. In the meantime, I intend to enforce some peace.+
-Chief Paladin Naeko on the FATELESS Thoughtcast
22-6
Matter of Time (I)
A death and a deluge of curses later, Agnos Kae Kusanade summarized her opinions on Avo’s Frame thusly: “Avo, what in all the hells did you do to your Frame.”
Her exasperation was capped off with a squeak as frustration leaked from her Soul.
Gathered atop Avo’s haemokinetic tower overlooking the enclave, the members of the cadre were split between watching for any encroaching threats while also anticipating their personal upgrades.
Already, however, did they find themselves beset with problems.
The smaller matter was that, despite Kae’s multi-disciplinary brilliance as an Agnos, her Knowings did not extend to the Domains of Chronology or Time. This ignorance, however, proved to be the lesser issue when finally entered Avo’s Frame to make initial inspections.
To say that bathing in the Hungers’ blood had changed his ontology was an understatement. Most Domains were foundational pillars for Heavens, their corresponding canons and underlying mythos sculpting the metaphysical constructs with fixed patterns–comprehendible aesthetics.
Such was not so for his Domain of Chronology. To paint a simple portrait, branches of coursing gold were forming and dissolving across the entire space simulated by his Soul. They sprawled out like circuits or arteries from each of his cyclers, writhing free from between the dragons’ scales and burrowing into his Heavens, into his Hells, into his very Soul itself.
The radiant ripples emanating from Soul took a condensed quality; faint waves thickening to become progressing tides.
And beyond perceived changes, there were also metaphysical effects. Miracles manifesting. As Kae’s Soul was bathed by Avo’s light, the surrounding corona began to form afterimages: echoes not so unlike the ones used by Zein. With every action she committed, every glance she cast, more distorted copies of her Soul broke off along different currents, each moving down a trajectory of time, playing out possible choices.
When she directed her questions to his Heavens, the reawakened gods proved no wiser than she was.
“My cities were forged to defy the passing of the ages, little oracle, not to embody them,” the Woundmother said as she plucked at a passing string of gold, the act resulting in another cascade across Avo’s inner paths. “Though the master has seized this gift for us, it is a new layer added to my foundations. But it is a vague thing. A soft and shapeless thing. I despise this; best to enforce upon it shape lest it whistles past uselessly – like air.”
The Fardrifter responded to the Woundmother’s prodding by stretching itself wide, casually dwarfing the Heaven of Blood with its expansive dimensions. More curses followed suit.
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“Editor: please hold!” the Techplaguer’s interjection came with a burst of flashing static, the alloy of its tower-like structure groaned as it turned, pointing the tip of its antennae at the Agnos in mimicry of a face-to-face conversation. “The temporal progression is STABLE-100%! Very, very, very nice! However, the Administrator has not designated specific directives for the channeling of the structure. THIS WILL BE INCLUDED AS A NEGATIVE IN FUTURE RETROSPECTIVES! Very, very, very incorrect behavior.”
A torrent of Soulfire washed over the Heaven of Signals as Avo glared at the questionable Heaven.
Another cascade of Soulfire passed through Kae’s Soul, and a splash of dissolving echoes collapsed outward from her–potential actions and replies she could have responded with, now never to be.
“So. It’s active in all of you. But when we checked earlier, there was no sigil–no sign. Your mythologies are unchanged! How is that supposed to work? How? How? How?”
“Ask us once more, little one,” the Fardrifter huffed in quiet annoyance. “Perhaps the answer will suddenly arrive then.”
Kae’s Soul shrank in disappointment. “Avo. I wish to admit something: I wish to admit that, back many years ago, before I was this city’s favorite plaything, I, as a novitiate Agnos, wish I could have spoken to the gods. Very forbidden, yes, I know. But I yearned to see reality through them. To comprehend how they viewed the tapestry of existence and were shaped by their respective civilizations.”
“What changed,” Avo asked, amusement rising, already anticipating the answer.
“I met the gods. And they’re all unhelpful assholes.”
The Woundmother merely whipped at the Agnos with disdain. The Fardrifter snorted.
Unfortunately, whatever Omnitech did to create the Techplaguer’s precursor left them nowhere near as balanced as the old gods. “ANOTHER LIE! FALSE-CLAIM! FALSE-CLAIM! Administrator! She lies! Another liar is with you! FALSE STATEMENTS ARE BAD FOR THE CHILDREN! BAD FOR CIVILIZATION! Administrator. Take away the bodily trait she has accused me of having. It will be a lesson in EMPATHY!”
“Do no such thing, master,” the Woundmother replied, taking the side of the Agnos despite the recent insult. “Insolent as the oracle is, I deem the displeasure she has inflicted on the poorly-made tower more than suitable recompense for the affront she showed me.”
“BETRAYER! JUST LIKE THE SKY-BURNERS! SURROUNDED! SURROUNDED BY BETRAYERS!”
The Fardrifter’s heads coiled in over each other. “Remember your promise. I must run free. You have returned me to fullness without my choosing and inflicted this prison upon me, and cursed me further with vile receptacles of madness as my fellow prisoners. It is an ill thing you have done.”
“Kae. Can you make any changes or not.” Avo was growing tired of the carnival that were his Heavens. “Should try to make changes quickly. Heard them act like this before. They usually start arguing after. Don’t stop for hours.”
The Agnos turned her perception on him, bathing him in sympathy. “How have you not gone mad?”
“Usually too busy to care. Sometimes I direct their noise over to various templates.”
“Oh. I forgot your mind’s a madhouse too.”
Avo just stared.
“Ahem,” Kae said, shifting to approach his Woundmother. “There are… implications here I don’t fully grasp. O-once again, your Frame has become the source of a thaumaturgic mystery! Again! Ridiculous! Absurd. And–and observing the state of this space, I deduce that the catalysts the Domains are using to manifest are your cyclers. The dragons themselves.”
Those. A tickle of knowledge surfaced in Avo’s ego. “Going to need to grow more of those. But need to be able to manipulate chronology. Using my Woundmother specifically. Going to need to extract a cycler. Use its material to create an egg. Thinking about seeding it in the enclave after I fix the minds of the flats. Using them to nourish and culture the cyclers.”
A beat passed. “Avo, I never really got the chance to ask you more about this because our lives have been, uh, shit-fuckingly insane,’ to steal a phrase from Chambers, but how–how–how do you know this?”
“Don’t know. Can’t remember. Don’t care. Came with a promise. Probably has to do with one of my warminds.”
“You–you are a pile of bullshit! A big… pile of burning… shit!”
Avo chuckled. “Don’t blame me. I’m just special.”
“I hate you. I hate all the stupid… stupid things that come with you! I liked you better when I thought you were just an experiment! I was going to use you to fix the Heaven of Love! Why couldn’t you just have been that! A happenstance of good fortune! Why did you have to ruin my life?”
“Are you talking to me or the Frame?”
“There is no difference now! You are the Soul. You are this–you are the Soul! The Soul is you. We can’t even get infected by your Imitators because they are entirely fused to you!” A pitched cry of building frustration served as her final retort.
Silence followed.
The Woundmother constructed a few thousand hands and began clapping at the show.
“Yes, Administrator, MAKE HER FEEL BAD!” the Techplaguer cheered.
Kae’s Soul perked up. “Fine.”
“Fine?” Avo asked.
“Fine. It’s not like there’s any risk to me. It’s not like my life can get any worse. I’ll go in. I direct the build. The only risk is that chronology contradicts itself, we get flung backward–or stuck in the present–and then all stop existing.”
“No, Administrator, MAKE HER FEEL GOOD! She might be PLANNING TO DESTROY US!”
They interfaced with the Woundshaper first, and as Avo mantled its inner structure again, it was unchanged from before. A building storm of arterial lightning flashed, leaping out from the veins of a blood-forged cityscape. Within its mythology, the sacrifices continued to kill themselves in that pool of blood, unaware of the trailing gold spearing past them.
“Okay. All we can do is experiment.” Kae let out a resigned sigh. “Avo. Begin build-simulations of canon under the Domain of Chronology.”
He did just that. Which promptly caused the mem-data to glitch and flicker while the currents of time flowed into the Heaven of Blood.
Threads of gold lined the Woundmother’s veins, lining its alloyed structure in a backdrop of glistening threads. “I feel…” She reached out and plucked at the world. “Deeper. Like I’ve sunken into something fundamental.”
“This can only go poorly,” the Fardrifter mused.
Kae ignored the running commentary. “Tell me if–”
Then, the mem-data finally loaded.
DOMAIN OF (CHRONOLOGY) [INTERNALIZED]
->SUITABLE CANONS FOR INFUSION SIMULATED:
->WOUNDMOTHER (BLOOD/MATTER/FIRE/LIGHTNING/LUMINOSITY/PROTECTION/BIOLOGY) - [12 CANONS]
->FARDRIFTER (AIR/SHADOW/SPACE/LABYRINTH) - [7 CANON]
->TECHPLAGUER (SIGNALS/BIOLOGY/SPACE) - [2 CANONS]
Avo wasn’t sure what “suitable canons for infusion simulated” meant, but he selected the Woundmother regardless.
Potential changes flashed into his mind, but the options came only as augmentations to existing canons rather than canons for a new Domain. He projected the strings over to Kae, and the Agnos drew closer to the orbit of his Soul.
“What? What! This makes–agh! How? We all know there needs to be an ontologic to channel and manifest the construct. And why is it only changing your active cano–Oh.”
There were times when Avo very much wanted to just burn the Agnos. “Oh?”
“I… have a theory. Or, maybe I just going insane like the rest of you. But… perhaps you don’t need to have a Heaven because… your Frame itself has adapted to possess traits that can be found in a dragon.”
“Did bathe in Hungers’ blood. Wait. Telling me I’m ontologically a dragon now?”
“The transfusion might have done something. The Frame might not need it because… the Frame is substituting the Heaven itself.” She gave a scoff. “Change something. Apply the Domain to a canon. Preferably one you commonly use.”
The choice was simple with that recommendation.
INFUSING CANON - 1%... 25%... 100%
->DOMAIN (MATTER-CHRONOLOGY)
->CANON: BLOOD FROM TIME - THE USER CONVERTS THE PASSAGE OF TIME INTO BLOOD; EACH TON OF BLOOD CONVERTED ACCELERATES THEM [108 SECONDS] INTO THE FUTURE
This was already enough to make Avo stare and Kae gasp.
“Oh… oh, yes, master,” the Woundmother purred.
Then the hubris loaded.
Or more specifically, loaded, and displayed nothing.
->HUBRIS: [NULL]
Kae’s Soul swelled. “What the fu–”