+This is Instrument Cavara Arrano! We are being overrun. We have been cut off by… something! My cadre is down to less than eight Knots and two fleets of patrol drones. Ashthrone is massing on our borders. The demiplanes aren’t going to last longer than a day.


    Again… again… if there is anyone out there… if anyone can hear us—


    H-hello?


    H-High Seraph? Is that—


    Yes. Yes, I understand. Your will be done.


    Blessed be the worthy.+


    -Instrument Cavara Arrano


    29-5


    Between


    —[The Dyad]—


    In a place between all places, grown from a wound festering upon the surface of existence, and nourished from waters of conjoined mind and time, two cognitions manifested within a single healing being. Their return was as if the melding of molten metal, destruction of four Frames, resulting in the creation of a new ontological alloy.


    Their awareness was dim, nascent. True consciousness greeted them in bursts and increments. And as the two were conjoined, they fought over everything. Deaths. Cognitive capacity. Heavens. And even memories.


    With each passing second that the substance spread across New Vultun and Idheim, a fragile stability returned to the two. And from the incomprehensible chaos that once consumed both of their beings, they forged a new realm, infusing the shattered Soulscape with memory, time, and will.


    A battle-weathered street came into existence within the soulscape. Its face was lined with cracks, pockmarked by artillery. And at the middle of the street was a fractured panel of glass, bifurcating it in half. Within the reflection, two stood, separated by a brittle threshold. But rather than facing each other, they were extensions. This place, this street, was all but a metaphor for how the dyad understood themselves.


    The dichotomous entity stood there, split evenly down a vertical line by the panel of glass. On the right side was a monster of human make. His skin was coated in a layer of fluid armor, ancient and advanced, an impossible relic left over from a lost age. His eyes were as insightful as they were predatory, betraying lifetimes lived—lifetimes not his own.


    A drifting spiral of tendrils hovered behind him, four Echoheads chittered in this unfinished place, sending rattling echoes outward, trying to catch a glimpse of his environment. And from the one skull extended a shadow, a manifestation of his truest soul. A looming bird with a single burning eye furled out its wings as ghosts merged with the world, twisting the meaning of space, time, and causality itself.


    The Burning Dreamer, Avo of Noloth, shifted, and to his left, he felt his great rival roused from her slumber as well.


    Veylis Avandaer, long rebuilt beyond the limits of humanity, loomed over the ghoul—a cybernetic giant dwarfing a nightmarish toddler. Her human face showed the only stretch of skin she possessed, her features placid, but her gaze determined. The rest of her body was a composition of impossible metal and technothaumic engineering.


    It was her core that Avo felt the most. A semi-circular turn of brushing hands encapsulating a pulsating singularity. Both of them had subconsciously reached over into the world, influencing it, manipulating reality to serve their own ends, to further their own means. For every moment they existed, they were at war, struggling to seize the bulk of their shared consciousness, their shared power.


    And now finally, as their reach infested existence itself, they were arriving at a point of sufficient impasse, arriving at this point of severed coexistence.


    "Dreamer," Veylis spoke, and Avo spoke with her.


    "Seraph," the ghoul replied, and he stared forward, unable to glimpse the post-human woman fused to the other half of his being.


    For a few moments, both took in the ruins that comprised their Soulscape, observed the discordant patterns splashing out from them, a result of their ruptured heavens and fallen miracles. Finally, a mocking chuckle escaped the Burning Dreamer as he taunted Veylis with hisses of rising pleasure. The High Seraph regarded her counterpart with a serene expression. "Speak then, oh twin of my Soul, let me know the truth behind your mirth."


    "Desperation," Avo replied. "You must have been truly hopeless on the brink. Didn''t take you for the type to be willing to suffer ontological mutilation."


    "Then you underestimated my resolve," Vaeli said simply.


    "No, never underestimated that. Knew your will to be more than most, knew you to be a considerable threat. But this—the self wants to be, and you have cast yourself into me, entered yourself in the hopes that our reforging would favor you. Strangest way someone has joined my gestalt, so far."


    And now it was Veylis’ turn to smile. "You mean our gestalt,"


    Avo chuffed in indignation.


    "Mine."


    "No, you, Veylis… You don''t want others to be themselves. You want them to be puppets. Puppets, not people. And so, even in your paths, you are alone. I have never been alone. I do not know the meaning."


    "But you will," Veylis retorted, without a hint of doubt. "Already, you are beginning to feel what it is to be me and I you. Even with this crude demarcation parting us, the nature we now assume, our new ontology. Denied of death and rebuilt by the powers of the stillborn, and your ascended cognition will see us eventually joined—a single being. One, not separate."


    "That remains to be determined," Avo replied. "Things can change. And the final structure we assume is no longer fated by your paths."


    A moment passed; silence assumed itself. Avo spoke once more. "Felt you earlier, reaching into my memories, using my soul to create your temporal echo. Saw your simulation of Draus, an iteration of her, given my frame."


    "And I felt you as well," Veylis breathed. "A sliver of you, anyway. Like a silent, subtle serpent snaking beneath the surface of my thoughts. I keep trying to capture the intrusive strand, but it always slips me. It always leaves me in the dark."


    "There are things we don''t know about each other still," both of them said at the same time, a moment of temporary synchronicity jolting through this place between.


    All of a sudden, separation became a full superimposition, as Avo and Veylis spilled over each other, tearing their own forms open as they tried to crawl outwards, fighting to be the encompassing ontology. But a moment later, the merger failed, and once more, they jolted into their bifurcation, their stalemate resuming itself.


    "So, you have saved her then, blessed her, with an echo of my mother''s power. So you have made simulations of my cadre, prepared to counter them with themselves in the circumstance of my death."


    "You have your designs, and I have mine," Vaeli said.


    "And so it continues, and so it shall be," Avo replied. He let out a building hiss of hunger. "Know that everything you do, everything you create, it will not stop them. I have seen in them both potential transformation. I will forge them. I will make sure they carry my flame.”


    “ And know that no matter what you invest in this fallen instance of humanity, they will fail you. I will twist the world to my will. I will bend time to show you the moments where heroes and saints collapse and falter. Your cadre will be brilliant. Your templates will burn bright. You will clash. But before the end, you will learn to spare, and you will give yourself unto me.


    If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.


    “And we, when this is done, we will set upon this final journey, seizing the last of the Arks, our final service, to prepare the world to come for a worthier master, even the sum of our parts.Stand and deliver, Dreamer. Gaze inside and face the empty," Veylis finished.


    —[Draus]—


    "You gotta be fucking kidding me," the Regular said, taking in the assembled Nolothi standing before her.


    First, these double-thinking, wall-facing—whatever the fuck they were called—half-strands approached Draus with open palms, trying to placate the Regular.


    "We do not jest," one said.


    Draus kept her projectile launcher lined at the Nolothi’s face. She looked to be a relatively young girl, about three full heads shorter than Draus. Her skin was a light brown, but her eyes were abnormally blue, as if she was wearing lenses or possessed an augmentation. Curving rings of Nolothic glyphs spiraled around her collar and decorated the rest of her white shift. Some bangles sporting detailed decorations ran down her right arm as well, and Draus sensed specks of glass dotted inside them.


    Finally, there was that circlet she wore upon her brow. It looked like it was made from a locus, and a phantom projected a ghostly flame from her head. The other twenty-five Doublethinkers wore a similar band.


    The sight was absurd. Draus couldn''t help but snort. Even dead and ruptured, that half-strand ghoul was still achieving impossible feats. How the hell did a dead ghoul manage to make themselves king, anyway?


    "We''ve been expecting you for some time," the Doublethinker girl continued. "The shadow of our master, he sometimes speaks to us. This sanctuary has been awaiting your revival. Please, take a moment to recover.”


    Draus spat some blood and pushed herself to her feet. The nanosurgeons were working quick, and she''d fought on more than once, reduced to less than half a torso, a single arm, and a mostly nulled mind. "Fuck recovery," Draus grunted. "I ain''t dead yet. Ain’t even that bloodied. Would''ve resurrected if I needed to."


    The young girl flinched and took a few steps back. Clearly, she wasn''t prepared for how temperamental Draus might be after a fight. Guess the rotlick forgot to give them a rundown about her winning personality.


    Extending a scepter, Draus swept the room with her perception as she eyed her surroundings. She was surprised about how familiar the place looked. It was about 50 meters by 50 meters, shaped like a dome. The walls were made from something like clay from what she could glean, and its surface was corrugated with Nolothic script running down the vertical slits lining the walls. Painted bones cascaded down from the ceiling when carved in intricate detail.


    And then there were the vivanite veins spreading through the structure, the corpse crystal shifting between jade and blood-red. She guessed that to be the lingering presence of the Wound Mother revealing itself. And right next to Draus, a massive locus rose in the form of a piercing spike, forming the core of the room, projecting waves of ghost-infused soul fire. In rhythmic pulses, neurothaumic wavelengths splashed over Draus and infused the environment with a presence of stability.


    Once more, Draus regarded the crystal and gave a light scoff. "Avo," she said, as its surface oscillated between stable green and the flowing red of blood. "Avo, you in there? You hear me?"


    A faint whisper greeted her mind, but the interference that accompanied it was too severe. Rot-lick was there, all right. There, but not alone. Whatever Veylis did left Avo crippled in some fashion or another. Godsdamn it all.


    "His flame, it burns, dismembered though it is," the Doublethinker spoke. They offered Draus a look of sympathy. "They understand that he meant much to you. You meant much to him, too. Your presence within his mind ate away at alienation. Of this, we are sure. Of this, his memories have been inherited by us."


    Regular knew what the Nolathi was trying to do, but she had no intention of talking about her relationship with Avo with some former hungers. How were the hells that worked? "I came through the crystal, didn''t I?" Draus gestured toward the massive locus passing through the ceiling.


    The entire room gave her a feeling like it was a cracked teapot, lacquered back together by ghosts. Green River might have had something poetic to say about all this. Draus just wanted to figure out where the hell she was, what the hell she needed to do, how the hell she was going to put Avo back together.


    "You stand now in the between, a hidden space constructed from time and memories. The Nether has been unmade, but in its place, a new realm is being reborn. But alas, it grows, burrowing through the flesh of reality. We were never meant to be here, Captain. We were meant to be above."


    "Yeah, well, lots of things were meant to happen till they don''t."


    Looking around once more, Draus frowned. So was the space completely closed off? Was there another way out of this place? Some Doublethinkers looked to each other, and one gestured at a wall. Suddenly a rumbling sounded, and along the middle of one depression, a cleft opened as ghosts began snaking through.


    Slowly, the entire dome-shaped structure unlatched like an opening jaw, and then Draus caught a glimpse of the space beyond. A crashing presence slammed down against her wards. Immediately, her cog camp spiked by twenty-two percent. However, where lesser mental defenses would have shattered instantly, she possessed phantasmics created by the famine of peace and sequenced onto her mind by Avo''s own will.


    As such, the madness-inducing sight went from traumatizing to merely disorienting as her conundrums adapted. This, too, however, caused her retinue to climb, and already the regular was dangerously close to overload.


    VENT! VENT! VENT!


    "The destruction our Lord''s Soulscape sustained from the High Seraph''s self-annihilation was near total, yet there was kindling enough for his consciousness to remain burning, kindling enough thaums to feed what was broken in his ontology."


    The realm beyond this little patch of sanctuary was a kaleidoscope of fragmented movements. Trails of emanating ghouls spread wide upon the tapestry of the firmament, and through them Draus could see people and places all meshed together, but they were changing and twisted and merging. It was the close representation of mutation she’d ever seen.


    Someway, somehow, the paths and Avo’s Soulscape had gotten merged.


    As she studied tapestry around her a bit longer, Draus finally noticed how countless strands were tethered to the corpse-crystal next to her. “Alright. Alright. I got the gist. Shut it.”


    At once, their little sanctuary slammed shut on the regular''s side. "Alright, now that I got front row seats to how fucked everything is, here''s the point where you tell me how we go about fixing it."


    "Our lord''s resurrection is beyond us," the girl began. Draus frowned, but the Doublethinker explained before any questions could arise. "His resurrection is fated as his fire spreads. Slowly, he will repair himself in mythology, so in soul, his ego is beyond that of mortal ken. And for he has never been extinguished, so too will a dismembered flame turn to wholeness."


    "Once they greet? Once they finish consuming most of existence, you mean," Draus said.


    "That is a potential outcome. We are custodians to this divine anchor. A critical shard that composed the Burning Dreamer. There are others. Many others. The total count fragments of our master numbers seventy-two, and of them, there are only so few we can reach.”


    "And so I gotta capture these shards, then," Draus said, naturally understanding her new role. Right. Raid and occupy. She could do that.


    "Thy Seraph, her sacrifice, was not a spiteful one. It was a thing of calculation," an older Doublethinker spoke up now. "With the severity of our lord''s destruction, and as he consumed Veylis before the point of her demise, so too has she been regarded as a critical portion of his ego. And her strength of will wrestles against his even now. They war not only over reality, but over the architecture of this new, nascent plane, and of what personality will finally cement itself with the resurrection of the Burning Dream."


    "There are others who guard these fragments," the girl said again, "but not all belong to the followers of the flame. There are some that cling to the old ways, broken loyalists, desperate to see Noloth restored even beyond the destruction of our City Eternal. There are the agents of the high flame, supported by the ordained individualists, the Saintists in your words. They hold dominion over fundamental thresholds in reality as well."


    "Nether shit, it always and forever came down to Nether shit." Draus said. "Right. I know what the run now, so here’s the next question: how do I go about gettin’ it done?”


    "By taking a fragment into yourself." As one, the Doublethinkers gestured towards the rippling locus at the center of their chamber. "As he has drawn you across the threshold of reality, so too may you take this threshold within your being. Become an anchor for the Burning Dreamer. For the Lord is not a Lord alone. For you are ordained, chosen before all other chosen. First among his trusted acolytes."


    "Don''t call me that," Draus said, pointing a finger. It took a lot to make a Regular uncomfortable, but these damned Noloth fucks were doing it. "I''ll do a lot for Avo, rot-licking, eyeball-eating ghoul he is, but I''ll be godsdamned before I ever become a Famine of Guns or some shit like that."


    "It is a great honor," the girl insisted.


    "Yeah, Highflame said the same thing to me after I spent the better part of a week digging Gray Widow eggs out of my frag-hollowed cunt cunt. Gave me a mighty fine medal to commemorate that wonderful moment. Don''t reckon you guys have a system like that."


    A series of frustrated expressions developed on the Doublethinkers'' faces. Awkwardly, one of them pointed at the locus again. "To be chosen to bear the Flame-Anchor is a great honor. You bear the legacy of the Stillborn and the future of Noloth.”


    "Yeah, yeah, I know," Draus sighed. Turning, she faced the crystal again, and her shoulders sagged. "So what the hell am I supposed to do with this? Just put my hand—"


    And before she could finish speaking, its surface shuddered once more as a blast. Phantasmal lightning changing between pale white and ichor red cast a new form at Draus''s feet. The Regular''s reflexes were already firing. The world was in slow motion. She could feel a new presence materializing within the sanctuary. Another Godclad was being pulled over from baseline reality.


    For a moment, Draus thought it to be the Deliverer. But the weight that crashed against her frame was too low, too close to her own Spherage. And in an instant, the lightning faded, peeling away from a mangled, unmoving body that was slowly threading itself back together sinew by sinew, vein and arteries emerging from ruined stumps.


    It took a moment for their disfigured face to fully heal. And when it did, Draus''s urge to shoot the newcomer redoubled. "Vator Greatling," the Regular muttered under her breath. She didn’t know how the little rusted bastard had gotten here, but one thing was certain: it was time to reduce future threats.


    And just as she aimed her projectile launcher down at the incapacitated Instrument, another voice interrupted her. “Stop.”


    Draus’ gun shot up and she found herself facing the Famine of Mercy, the priest half-submerged in the crystal, now ablaze with Soulfire. “Stay your hand, Jelene Draus. He has been chosen. Just like you.”