+MY PRIESTS!
THE MOMENT IS UPON US! THE OUTSIDERS GNAW AND TEAR AT ONE ANOTHER! THE BURNING DREAMER AND THE BETRAYER’S DAUGHTER HAVE EMBRACED EACH OTHER IN THEIR STRUGGLE. AN OPENING HAS PRESENTED ITSELF. ANGLE TOWARD NOLOTH’S SALVATION—AND ASCENSION!
HOLD NOTHING BACK. GIVE ALL OF YOURSELVES. GIVE YOUR LIVES. GIVE YOUR WARMINDS. GIVE EVERYTHING YOU HAVE, AND GRANT YOU ABSOLUTION, REDEMPTION, AND RESTORATION!
DO ANYTHING YOU CAN—ALL THAT YOU MUST TO ENSURE THE +FORGOTTEN+ REACHES THE GATEKEEPER THAT BEARS THE WEIGHT BETWEEN REALMS! LEND AID TO DEFIANCE’S GREATEST TRANSGRESSION AND SEE THE BETRAYER’S DAUGHTER BE FORCED TO RELINQUISH HER HOLD.
AND THEN—CONTAIN THE DREAMER. CAGE HIS FLAME.
WE HAVE BEEN IN THE DARK AND COLD FOR FAR TOO LONG.
WE HUNGER FOR A PROPER HEAT TO WARM OUR RETURNING HEARTS.+
-Thoughtcast from Hungers to All Surviving Famines
28-13
Plots Within Plots
+What,+ Avo said, utterly taken aback by Jaus’ statement.
+Let the Heaven of Love fall,+ Jaus repeated, resolute in his proclamation. +It is a transgression that must come to fruition. As you have discovered this node of mine within the Remembrance, then the Guilds are at war. At war for the return of the Ladder. None of them can be allowed to succeed. Not even Veylis. Bring the Heaven down and cripple them.+
Stunned murmurs spread across Avo’s Soulscape. No one was prepared for such a whiplash-inducing change in Jaus. One moment, the man was the embodiment of purest nobility. Now, he was demanding the death of untold billions.
Avo, however, found himself concerned with another distressing detail. +You knew the Heaven of Love was going to fall.+
+Knew?+ Jaus replied, his voice steady. +No. But the future comes only in so many common permutations. The Guilds, they are constructs of community and culture. Bindings of the old faith, as it were. But ultimately, they are also engines that crave power—humans of greed, avarice, and terror towards the existential. I cannot recount the sheer number of paths I have experienced, but in all the futures where I am no longer present, when the Gatekeeper is not properly established, and when my project remains undone, the guilds are always bound for war.+
Jaus paused, his expression unreadable. +My daughter, despite all her capability, her skills, her power, faces substantial opposition. They all do. No one’s victory is assured, but I have gazed upon the utopias they bring and… oblivion eventually becomes preferable. Should any of the Guilds win in their current state, the next world will be born a diseased fruit of fated misery. And so I sought a solution. A means to shatter all Guilds of power. To render them vulnerable before Voidwatch and my Paladins. Such means were revealed to me by the paths—the perversion of the Remembrance. The horrors of the birthing plague. The sheer devastation brought by falling love.+
+So the Heaven of Love always falls,+ Avo said, the weight of inevitability settling on his shoulders. +It is always corrupted.+
+Yes. What you are beholding now isn''t a grand conspiracy, I suspect,+ Jaus continued, his voice growing lighter, almost resigned. +Rather, it is a compounding mistake—a mistake I allowed to fester. The Heaven of Love, at its inception, was meant to be a communal source of miracles. The canons I provided were meant to foster unity, collaboration, and positive understanding between all cultures and peoples. But the guilds under me also had their own interests. Scaarthians adjusting fertility rates for critical districts, the Daughters of the Cycle seeking to escape their cursed fate by twisting away their fated pregnancies to no avail.+
He sighed, a deep rumble of regret coloring his tone. +I bore the Heaven once. It was a tool to empower my diplomacy. To twist the desires of entire nations to my whims and engender the foundations for peace. As my conquest to stabilize the world reached a point of stability, I surrendered the Heaven and gave it as a gift to all. For all to use. For all to alter to their needs—so long as their demands could be improved by the Council of Guilds. Beneficial canons and minute updates came at first. But…+
A faint rumble of anger entered Jaus'' voice as he held out an open hand, an imploring gesture at Avo, as if trying to share his outrage. +There were always those who wish to twist kindness toward selfishness. With my absence, without the establishment of the Gatekeeper and culmination of a new order, the Guilds always turn on their oaths and target the Agnosi who helped me attune this Heaven. First, Guilds try to procure their loyalty or assert control. Then, the ones who lose arrange assassinations. Soon, the original theologians that established the Heaven of Love are lost, and the changes that follow are made by unwilling or unprepared practitioners. Changes that bring about targeted carnage.
+Now, the birth rate of rival Guilds will be altered. Children will arrive stillborn. The flow of thaums slow—but never at a pace to truly provoke deeper suspicion. Worse, it is not only the Guilds who transgress, but individual citizens as well, warping the Remembrance against their rivals, as if it was some manner of cheap weapon.+
+Mistake after mistake,+ Avo said. +It fell because too many contradictions were installed. Clashing updates in its canons.+
Jaus just nodded. +Uncountable little nicks instead of one large cut. Take Lorea Greatling, for instance,+ Jaus practically spat the name. +Across countless paths, I''ve witnessed her injustice. The depravity of unworthy citizens like her, who used my communal heaven as their instrument of defilement, twisting specific Agnossi and forcing them to make the smallest of changes during annual updates that see rivals of House Greatling rendered utterly barren, their ailments suspiciously incurable by technology or thaumaturgy.+
+Lorea Greatling,+ Avo echoed, the name resonating within the depths of Draus’ memory. This was Mirrorhead''s mother. This was the missing matriarch of House Greatling. Once more, her specter loomed, and an anguished shout echoed from among the templates.
[Gods fucking damn it, mom!] Abrel’s Template raged. She clutched and clawed at her head, her patience, her stress exceeding her capability to tolerate. Some others gazed upon her with pity, most simply ignored the outburst.
Jaus stared through the crowd, frowning as he noticed Abrel. +Is that… is that Abrel Greatling? How is she…+
+She''s technically not,+ Avo answered, his tone flat. +She''s a template. A mind clone. So are you. Everyone here aside from me is, even you, functionally. You are just an emulation of Jaus'' consciousness running on my cognitive capacity. Or you were.+ Avo studied the pinpricks of accretion that dotted all his templates. It was growing, swelling larger with every passing memory he internalized. Hysteria was magnifying their awareness. +Things are always changing. Nothing ever stays quite the same. Might not be copies for that much longer.+
The Godbreaker regarded Avo with a few rapid blinks and then nodded. +Well, herein lies the weakness of the paths. You can only predict the future with the variables you''re already aware of. You are quite the black swan, I’m pleased to say. I welcome surprises, and I certainly don''t recall encountering anything like you in any future.+
Avol took that as a compliment. +The Heaven of Love. Trying to collapse it on the Guilds in retribution for what they’ve done?+
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
+No, not for retribution,+ Jaus said. +Never for retribution. Rather, I wish to cripple the Guilds utterly. To leave them at the mercy of my Paladins and bereft of deaths to draw as the birthing plague leaves the Warrens barren. I will not lie—what we do here will be monstrous. But with what follows, the choice is between an act of atrocity rather than the construction of an eternal one. We are… humanity devours itself. We cannot be allowed to disfigure reality again. We cannot. Not us. Not the minds.+
A brief lull entered the conversation.
+But the atrocity is not done here. For as the Heaven of Love falls, its entropy will eventually spill down into the Maw. And the next can begin.+
+The Maw?+ Avo asked, trying to determine as to where Jaus was going with this. +Why?+
Even with this dialogue happening at a hyper-accelerated pace compared to the outside world, entropy was still being channeled through Avo’s Frame—the Rend capable of rupturing five hundred thousand Sphere Threes.
As this persisted, Avo found himself increasingly sure Jaus knew nothing of the Stillborn. So far, nothing the savior made mention related to Avo’s impossible Frame. Which meant that though the Savior''s influence on Volton must have been substantial, but at least part of the plan remained the Famine’s own.
Perhaps that was also what Jaus desired—an unexpected agent to enact his will beyond the predictions of Veylis or Zein.
+You understand that the Maw is attached to the border walls?+ Jaus said.
Avo grunted in acknowledgment. +I have access to their Souls. Also working with the Paladins.+
Jaus'' eyes widened slightly. +Truly? Good fantastic. Things are far better than I expected. You will need to secure these walls and align them to Scale. There, you must inflict a specific shared canon. One connected to the Domain of Chronology.+
Before Jaus could say anything further, a cognitive interface expanded before him. Followed by another. And a few hundred more.
ACCESSING SE-8313..
ACCESSING SE-7777…
ACCESSING SE-1033…
SOULS ONLINE
Avo expanded his Synchronicity through the Paladins he held under his influence and imposed his will upon the border walls directly. His sequences were like transparent tendrils burrowing through countless other souls now, each burning flame pierced upon a nettle-tipped branch made from hungering ghosts.
The savior’s mouth dropped open momentarily as all the information splashed down around him. +This… what is this?+
+Accessing the borders right now. Souls. Heavens. Domains.+
+How many?+
+All of them.+
Jaus’ jaw dropped slightly. +How are you doing this? Are you directing my Agnosi in some kind of connected lobby?+
+Not exactly.+ Avo summoned Kae next to him with a thought, and the Agnos'' template blushed slightly as she clasped her hands behind her back and greeted the savior.
[Ah, h-hello, Citizen Avandaer. It is a pleasure to meet you. I would greet you personally, but, well, my actual self is likely currently undergoing a slow and painful process toward cessation inside the Heaven of Love. But! Avo is trying to fix everything! His Frame—it can edit ontologies from within! And—and it can fix Heavens as well. Like the Remembrance. I—it—there are so many things—agh! Avo! Don’t just throw me in front of Jaus Avandaer like this! I’m not ready! You tell him!]
The ghoul simply chuckled and directed a snaking injection of memories into Jaus, informing him of the Stillborn and all the details surrounding it.
The savior took a step back and closed his eyes. +Well then, that… changes a few things,+ he frowned briefly. +Though… the Imitators… No one was supposed to know about that… which means I must have revealed the vulnerabilities of Voidwatch to Defiance. Strange. I wonder what could have compelled me to betray them so.+
Jaus looked disturbed at first, then awed, then, ever so slowly, a smirk crept across his face. +Well. Evermore the enigma you become, my friend. And quite the masterpiece you’ve made, Agnos Kusanade.+
Watching Kae’s template blush while her actual self was actively fraying apart within the Heaven of Love was uncanny.
+Tell me what we need to do,+ Avo said. +The effects. Not the process of the fall. I can keep it ruptured. I can even engineer its proper collapse. Just need to extract Kae first. Already channeling the entropy into the Maw. Supercharging the Rend. What are we going to do after.+
+Chronology,+ Jaus sighed. +The border walls can process the Rend into another form. Time.+ A growing ache built within Jaus and he stopped talking. But what he said was enough. Avo understood what the man was a planning.
+This is your contingency against Veylis. The rupture. The Maw. The borders venting ruined Chronology against her. More than even a Sphere Nine can endure.+
+It will ensure her release of the Gatekeeper, at least. But the greater prize is her… defeat. Her death. Though my daughter does not win in all futures, she reigns in a distinct many. And it pains me to witness who she becomes.+
+Probably won’t like her much right now. Me, Naeko, Zein, the Stormsparrow, and Alsyim are actively fighting her. She’s the reason why Kae is trapped in this Heaven in the first place. She wants me to preserve the Remembrance. Sent me here to restore it to function.+
+Yes, I—+ Jaus did a double-take. +Alysim? The Chronicler?+
+Yes.+
Jaus just stared. +How is he alive?+
+He’s not. He’s already dead. But he dies in the future. When the Ladder arrives.+
And then Jaus Avandaer did the impossible. He broke his own image. He sneered. And spat hate at someone. +I should have anticipated that bastard slipping across time. He and the other damned monks. Degenerates. I should have listened to the Infacer about them. I let them live too long.+
Templates looked at each other while Kae coughed.
Avo directed a fanged grin at Jaus. +Hm. You’re human, after all.+
Another rare surprising emotion from Jaus: annoyance. +I’m a father, a husband, and a leader. And if you knew just what kind of ridiculous future these so-called monks desired, you will share my opinion for wanting to see these degenerates removed.+
+Already know. Humans have strange fixations.+
Within Avo’s mind, Alysim’s template remained out of place and hidden.
+Yes, well, some of these ‘“fixations” make coexistence an untenable prospect.+ Jaus scoffed. And snorted, shaking his head at the absurdity. +A demonstration of why utopia is impossible: one man’s happiness will eventually be the rest of the world’s hell. Even for those he loves.+
The Overheaven grunted. +So it is.+
Jaus shook his head and hardened his expression. +The Heaven of Love… Once you extract your companion, if you can find means to get the Gatekeeper to lay its gaze upon the Remembrance—the next phase of my process might continue.+
Once more, Avo failed to anticipate Jaus’ forking schemes. +You planned to shunt the Heaven of Love over into the Deep Nether? Into another plane above reality?+
+Into the Hungers, in fact.+
The Overheaven was at an absolute loss for words. Peace wasn’t.
The red-faced Famine materialized right next to Avo and greeted Jaus his customary way. [CUNNNNNNNTTTT! CUNT! CUNT! CUNT! WHAT ARE YOU PLANNING YOU FUCKING CUNT!]
Jaus studied Peace and looked back to Avo. +Just how many people do you have in your mind? Do you have the other Famines too?+
+Only this one for now. Millions of other templates.+
The litany slurs and curses coming from Peace in the backdrop went ignored by both Avo and Jaus.
+It’s to unravel the city eternal. But also to return the idea of love back to the people of New Vultun—and in turn give Naeko or Defiance a chain to use. A chain to pry on the wills everyone on Idheim. Including my daughter. If she survives.+
The amount of expanding layers and possibilities to this mad scheme was frankly awe-inspiring.
+Ultimately, it is another angle for the common people to mentally afflict each other. This angle one almost no one can avoid, that all are susceptible to. For to want is to love. And to covet the Ladder—+
+Makes you vulnerable.+ Avo paused. +Has this… always been your plan? Did you always see this coming?+
A beat passed. +Absolutely not,+ Jaus said, letting a look of exhaustion creep over him. +I simply lived through future after future, and sowed so many seeds in preparation for Defiance that quantity must have taken the place of prescience. For the true future—I fear I am as blind as you.+
Another lull entered the conversation. +Jaus. Would you like to greet your daughter again? Distract her so that I might able to make something of this madman’s plot?+
+The selfish answer is no. But I will do what I can.+
+Good. Because I can feel her across another branch of my consciousness; she’s getting close to overloading my Frame again.+
+Again?+