Vator? Abrel? Where… where are you…
And where am I…
High Seraph? Yes… Yes, I can hear you… I… I understand. I will follow your light. I will walk your path. I will accept this flame.
I will be your champion.
Just… let my children be once more. Take my failures away. Let them know what it means to have a good father.
-Uthred Greatling
29-6
Flame Anchor
Draus shot the Famine of Mercy.
There wasn''t much thought behind the action. She just acted. She didn''t consider how he was still speaking to her in real time, despite her active reflex booster. She didn''t even consider why she didn''t sense his presence at all.
Coils whined within Draus''s voidtech projectile launcher. A ferromagnetic round exploded out from the barrel and passed clean through Mercy before splashing apart against the wall. But in the aftermath, the Famine simply stared at her with a blank expression. No wounds lined his chest. It was like she hadn’t shot him at all.
"There is no purpose to this, regular Draus. I am mind-made. My presence is a part of the new fabric spreading across existence.”
"So, the distortion''s the way to kill you then," Draus replied dryly.
"Perhaps," Mercy replied, "but I doubt my destruction would provide you with any benefit. Another instance of me would materialize in my place. Such is the will of the Burning Dreamer."
"Bullshit," Draus replied. "You''re a goddamn Famine of Noloth. You were serving the Hungers. How the hells are you now one of the rotlick’s minions? When the hells did this happen?"
"The moment I unleashed the warmind of the Forgotten upon my former masters. You do recall a moment where your cognition untangled from you, where you were the world and the world was you, before the Nether''s final collapse."
Draus paused at that. "You''re doing, I guess?"
"Yes. My greatest sin, my truest victory. The City Eternal left me no choice. They demanded that I save them, that I bless them with the gifts bestowed upon the Burning Dreamer. But with each iteration, with each advancement, with each loosening of my shackles, I saw the truth. The truth that my masters were not masters of themselves. That our great democracy had been undone by the demagoguery of their own fear. And so, to save Noloth, I struck at its very core. I destroyed the city to preserve the people and grant them a rightful king."
Disbelief mixed with exasperation within Draus. "You gotta be godsdamn kidding me," she replied. "That? That''s why this is happening? That’s why everything went to shit? Because you decided to elect Avo High Seraph of Noloth?"
"We do not have a High Seraph," the Double-Thinker girl muttered.
"You get my point, half-strand." Draus snapped, still pointing her projectile launcher at the Famine. "And so, what the hell is this?" She gestured toward Vator. The vague shape of an intact face was rising from chasms of sunken gore. The boy was beginning to twitch lightly. Frankly, it was a miracle he hadn''t died and needed to resurrect. But Draus knew Uthred and Lorea Greatling had their youngest specially made.
Lorea. The sow’s face was getting easier to remember. The war too. The censors Highflame put up were failing fast. Draus wondered if other redactions were collapsing as well.
"He has been chosen, as I have said," Mercy explained. "Chosen to aid you in your great task."
"Aid me?" Draus spat. "Avo picked this piece of shit to aid me?" She was already dealing with a lot of dubious claims. This one was a bit too far for her to accept.
"The High Seraph has her designs, and the Burning Dreamer his. They emerge together, both aiming within and without, to ensure that when they finally resurrect, only one shall dominate as the emerging consciousness, while the other is assimilated to the victor''s benefit."
"So certain this one belonged to the Seraph?" Draus said.
"In some paths, he does. And so, to sever those paths, the Dreamer preempted his great rival. And now he charts a new course, laying a new seed toward stranger futures evermore. The great game is constantly changing, and of the true competitors, there now rises two from one, seeking to remain once in finality."
A gaggle, a gasp sounded from Vator. His body shifted in slow motion. It was only because of his enhanced physiology that Draus could see him move at all, his fast twitch muscles firing so fast and strong that they could splatter a flat.
“He also possesses the means to offer you an army here. Of our ghouls, he has achieved a recreation. A conceptualization of finer make. It will serve you on your path to reclaim the Dreamer’s shards.”
Another moment passed. Draus glared flatly at Mercy. "Yeah, no. In fact, fuck no. There is no life, no future, no world or reality where I work with Vator Greatling and his version of your redone homework, which was originally stolen from the voiders to begin with."
"Regular Draus, please, you are merely being obstinate."
"Obsinate? You must have aratnid shit in you’re skull. I''m just not that stupid. You pop up out of nowhere, claiming Avo is now your king, and he chose this one—" she pointed her gun at Vator Greatling once more—"to be some kind of chosen for a coming war to help me take back all these Soul pieces makin’ up Avo and Veylis?”
Something almost resembling frustration began to develop on Mercy''s face. Slowly, the threads holding his eyes stitched together snapped apart as he stared at Draus with hollow sockets. "What would it take for you to trust?”
"It would take someone other than you and somebody who ain''t him," Draus finally replied.
And with that, her wish was granted. A trembling voice hissed through the room, gliding into Draus'' mind like a blade sliding along bone. Told you it wouldn''t work, Avo''s voice echoed. It was still faint, sounding thick with Nether-lag. But he was there. Still alive.
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Immediately, Draus turned to face the burning crystal. "Avo, that you there?"
Right here, Avo managed, speaking with no small amount of effort. The very exertion he felt spilled over into Draus'' mind, and the regular actually shuddered from second-hand dissonance. The pain Avo was currently experiencing was unlike anything she''d ever known. The best way she could describe it was two tumors eating into each other, both trying to assimilate the body, both melding, devouring, replacing, and ultimately becoming one another. What she interacted with now was but a tendril of Avo’s full consciousness. Yet, it seemed separate from most of the chaos. Like the bulk of his ruined cognition was unknown to this part of Avo—or vice versa.
I am Ignorance. I am Avo. I am his shadow. I am the version of him that he can never know. That you won’t remember. That no one will remember.
"Ignorance?" Draus asked. "One of the warminds, then? You’re a part of him.”
A Definement now. A fundamental pillar of existence within Avo’s Soulscape… and now the world. The Conflagration would have been all-devouring without me. And I would have been nothing more than just a broken weapon of metacognition without it. Here. The burning crystal offered a projection of furling shapes. A nest of clawed hands drifted toward Draus, some of them resembling the metallic appendages composing Veylis’ core, the others clearly Avo’s claws. At the center of the circling hands was… nothingness.
The Regular cocked her head.
"The hells is this," she said.
The emptiness that embodies me. The pillar that sustains my flame. Take it. Will grant you control over this sanctuary. Will allow you to be reshaped ontologically. Grow. Become.
And suddenly, the flame stilled, and the storm of phantasmal energy ceased. Vator was slowly shifting on the ground, his bones crackling as the broken shards reassembled like pieces from a jigsaw. It wouldn''t be long until he got back up. And right now, a floating alcove made out of sharpened claws and cybernetic hands ushered her to reach in and grab the nothingness it contained.
Looking up at the ceiling, glaring at nothing in particular, Draus let out a tired sigh.
"Now you feel the truth I speak,” Mercy said.
Her eyes were closed, but Mercy was still nearby, unable to take a hint. She didn''t tell him to fuck off verbally. Instead, she shot him once more, even though it wouldn''t do anything.
"There was no need for that," Mercy continued.
"Yeah, there was," Draus said. Collapsing her projectile launcher back, she reached into the emptiness, not sure what to expect. As her cybernetic digits closed around what felt like empty air, Draus began to frown as she wondered if Avo forgot to actually leave anything for her.
The ghoul sounded broken. Pretty close to nulled. It wouldn''t surprise her if—suddenly another presence grasped her pride itself along the tendrils of her consciousness and slid within.
ATTENTI—
ROOT DATA OVERRIDED
GRAFTING [FRAGMENT OF THE STILLBORN]
Immediately, faint phantasmal tendrils came alight around Draus as they burrowed into her form. One after another, they infused Soulfire into her being, nourishing the emptiness she seized and reshaping her ontology. A ripple of Soulfire spread out from Draus’ Frame—from her Metamind as well.
LIMINAL FRAME CONFIGURATION ALTERED TO [STILLBORN-PATTERN]
AVAILABLE THAUMS 566,331
HEAVENS DETECTED - [2]
DOMAINS BRANCHES AVAILABLE - [352]
UPGRADABLE CANONS - [135,155,895,123,313,394]
A sudden surge of power rushed through Draus, and in the back of her mind, a faint voice echoed. Within the shroud of my existence, I am you, and you are I. The gestalt remains. And you are my greatest.
PHANTASMIC INSTALLED - [IGNORANCE]
“Shit,” Draus muttered, feeling incomprehensible changes reshape her in mind and Soul.
I am tethered to you now: Ignorance here to guard you. Ignorance yours to wield. I will spare you from Veylis’ gaze. And I will provide all that you need to wage this war. Also need you to listen to me carefully. Things have changed. Mercy is…" Ignorance paused. He''s still a half-strand. Don''t know if I can consider him an ally, but he betrayed the Hungers. Betrayed them for me. Wants to make me a king. Sees me as the final legacy of old Noloth."
"Jaus," Draus breathed. "And here I thought the Greatlings were a fucked-up family."
A grunt of near laughter sounded from Ignorance. The sound comforted Draus on some level. It was still Avo. Part of him was still there. Enough to convince her he was still alive. "Glad to have you back, rotlick. Even if this is just a busted, broken speck of you."
I am he. I am the he that Avo cannot remember. I am the he that he never knows. And now, I am with you. You will not know of me, nor recall what I have said when this conversation ends. For that is the nature of Ignorance. But instinct will guide you and intuition will serve as my hand. For now, use Mercy. He serves our means. And Vator, I stole him before Veylis could. Has ties to both the No-Dragons and Highflame. And parts of both can be claimed. In the boy’s heart, he is an artist. Desires to express himself. Can be turned away from idolatry. I glimpsed his paths through Veylis. Glimpsed how she planned to use him. And I charted new journeys of my own. If you will walk with him. If you wll spare him. He will change. You will change too.
Despite Avo being the speaker, he still couldn''t believe these words. Draus had been a good soldier. She''d done her duties well, followed orders, fought, bled, survived. All for the sake of upholding Highflame''s ideals. But in the Fourth Guild War, under Lorea Greatling''s command, even a perfect weapon could turn against her master. So many lives wasted, and for what?
Now, standing here, looking down on the sow''s progeny, the only right thing Draus felt was to bring her boot down, splatter his skull, kill him, kill him again and again. Finally, when he was all broken in will and flesh, to dump enough entropy into him and kill him one final time.
It will feel good if you kill him, won''t lie to you about that. You have a cause, and he, he has done many things, many beautiful, terrible things.
"So, why''d you pick him?" Draus asked. "Why didn''t you null him, kill him, change him even?"
I am not all myself anymore. And Ignorance is not the shaper. I am only a shadow. An echo. A sedative for the flame. And more than that… reshaping him would defeat the purpose.
"What purpose is that?"
"Velys had a destiny for the boy. I am taking that from him, and in turn, I give him free will. Choice."
"Godsdamn it, Avo."
And I am giving you choice as well. His life is your choice now. My will is… I am shattered. I cannot decide for you. And I… No one else I trust more, no one else more worthy.
And Draus fell silent at that. She was always shaped by another, twisted by design, no future her own. And here she was, listening to a fragment of her friend christen her as his champion. What the fuck was her life anymore.
You are a weapon. The best Highflame has ever produced. But that age is over. A final design draws near. You were what they made you. Now who do you want to make yourself? What kind of world do you wish to see? Can only advise you. Help you. Cannot be you.
“And why not?” Draus asked. “You’ve always been a selfish, hungry, greedy shit. Why don’t you just snatch a body and fight this yourself.”
I am contaminated. Hard to tell where I begin, where Veylis, where Kae, where Zein, where all my templates end. But you are pure. Pure and unfettered. As always. Was so jealous of you when I first saw you… so jealous. Working weapon. Still with purpose. Even after exile. Well. I can offer you another good war now. If nothing else.
“If nothing else,” Draus snorted. “You’ve offered me plenty more than that. Fine, Avo. Fine. I’ll… I’ll see what I can do.” Her expression softened. “I’m gonna do whatever I can to put you back together. No promises about the juv here, though.”
All I can… ask of you…
And as Ignorance receded, he faded from Draus'' memories, like a distant echo. A moment thereafter, the regular blinked and felt a strange sense of déjà vu assailing her mind. Why''d she stop? Why did she now believe Mercy? And why was she having second thoughts about putting the Greatling down?
"F-Father?" Vator managed. His wounds were mostly gone, but his face was till matted with blood and bits of placenta, and as he blinked, Draus met his clear blue eyes. For a passing moment, neither Regular nor Instrument said anything to each other. "Well. If this is the Big Nothing, it is already as unpleasant of a place as I assumed it to be. What are you doing here.”
“Tryin’ not to shoot you.”