Godclads

Chapter 5-6 Immortal Architecture (II)

Do you know what I think curtailed the gods during their long reign over us?

Reactivity.

Worship

They were like... like Parasites! They fed from our deaths, and our deaths shaped them. It was like they deliberately shackled themselves to the design which we bestowed upon them to better feast from us; to better rule their corners of reality.

As they shaped us, so too were they shaped by eating us. Ha. It's... it's a bad diet! Ahem. Sorry. I... this isn't funny to anyone else but me. Oh, no Kae, you're apologizing to yourself now...

Anyway.

A common blood slave meant to be meat for the eldritch in years yonder had such parochial dreams compared to that which festers within the slavering bloodlust of us New Vultunites.

Do you think a slave dreamed of chrono-chain bombs and spatiokinetics? We did! And by fusing our dead gods, we made weapons that could squeeze excess time into ingots of matter from the shine of a star! We could build planar fortresses not bound by structure but by disjointed flows of space twinned to running streams of water!

I suppose in a strange way, the chains between us and the gods ran both ways...

-Mem-log of Agnos Kae Kusande,Musings

5-6

Immortal Architecture (II)

Learning from the mind-shattered Agnos reinforced Avo’s gratefulness for Walton’s tutelage. Where his father was concise and focused toward practical application, the Agnos was a leaking cauldron: filled with knowledge but leaking, and always trying to grasp at vaporous theories that had once been solid to her.

“...S-so. This. This place around us? It’s another reality…reality.” Kae strained momentarily, trying to keep her mind and words running on the same track. “But–but as you can tell, it’s–it’s not that large. Not compared to the totality…” She drifted again.

It already felt like she had been talking for days, but his resurrection was still stuck at twenty-one percent. The little Agnos liked to lecture. Avo strangled his annoyance. She was broken. Possibly more than that.

With how utterly ruined the outer shell of her mind looked, he wondered just how much lingering damage Ori-Thaum left festering within. It would not be beneath or beyond them to pour viruses into her memory chains, to eat away thoughts before they could manifest properly.

He wondered what she might've done to incur such a wretched fate.

“--The totality of existence!” she suddenly declared. She gestured toward his Soul again. “Yours… it’s different–different, yes, because it’s more… like… software and hardware–hardware?” She clutched at her head and gave a frustrated moan. “I–I used to be able to… tell people things–hold onto my words–memories… Took so much from me… Broke me–broke me for doing the right thing.”

He couldn’t tell if she was sobbing or just lamenting. Through her False Heaven, she had been crying this entire time so her anguish came masked. But her moment of self-pity did not linger. Sighing, he watched as something steeled inside of her. A thought perhaps. A new approach that she could try.

She clenched her fist as if trying to grasp his Soul. “Soul. It’s not an engine… It’s… everything. Simulation of another… a reality under a reality. But also something that can overwrite prime reality. Understand? The Soulfire burns to spread… swallow... usurp existence with… with your own reality… and then layer your Heavens over it. Hells too."

Avo halted her. "Wait. Summation. Soul is a subreality? One that can grow larger? One that can swallow parts of the... main?"

"The... the technical term is overriding," Kae said.

The simplicity of his words made her face contort with discomfort. Strangely, he knew the feeling; the bitter taste one gets when trying to convey the full magnitude and complexity of Necrotheurgy to someone of the laity.

Still, what he needed right now wasn't theory. It was understanding. The academics of thaumaturgy could come later. Right now, he needed to comprehend its design as a weapon.

"I suppose you can see it as that..." Kae said, sounding slightly disappointed that her earlier lecture has splashed against him, rather than filling him. “When... when the Soul over-overwrites, reality Ruptures–but your Heaven pulls it back inside. Inside. Then… then counter-miracle. Your Hell. The anti-Heaven. Inflicts opposite Rend. Inverse damage. Rend plugs Rend. Entropy leaves the system. Equilibrium is maintained. ”

And finally, a flash of clarity. Insight caught flame in the corners of his mind as he began to understand. A Liminal Frame was a metaphor for many things because it was many things. It was supposed to be a system unto itself, but still capable of spreading the fundamental laws that ran the confines of its enclosure over reality.

She spoke of this, then. The progress coming hard, but even drips could fill the bottom of a bucket.

The assembly of his form came in three major aspects. The Soul. The cycler. And his Nous--a construct she best described as the melding of his mind and willpower. Two things left dismantled from a person's being upon death after the Godsfall.

Once, Souls could not grant themselves ever-sustained succor. Hence the need for mass sacrifices and hyper-inflicted dogma. Like tyrants festering beneath your mind and flesh, the gods had taken to ravenous feasts to fuel their needs. Empires rose and fell at their whims, the history of this period a calculated slaughter in the great game between the eldritch lords.

Idheim was a slaughterhouse. The gods were butchers and feeders both. And humanity was the meat. Wasn't hard to see where the Guilds got their habits from.

Sometimes, your abusers can still inflict their power over you. Even long after their passing. So was Avo reminded by the constant burning violence that boiled through his every sinew while he was still clasped in his living flesh.

"You... your Heaven, then is like a... a living coat over... uh... an element. Or concept." Kae was getting slightly better at holding herself together. Her growing focus might've come from the narrowing of her topic. "Gods... gods used to be purely elemental... you know--very interesting... but with there being many Gods of Fire, they started eating--"

"Focus."

His interruption startled her, but she took no time getting back on track. "Your... your Heaven. The Sangeist you're using right now... has many parts. The first.... first is the Domains. What... what aspects or concepts in reality it alters... It's..." she chuckled as if fondly remembering something, "something shaped by us. To narrow the throne of a god."

Avo considered that. "Like matter. Or blood itself. And the canons? Hubris?"

She hummed. "Those... those are decrees. Like specific influences... code-changes they made to... to the source of reality. The roots. Gods... they mimic the patterns of reality to... to make their own. And the weaker ones... like... like a Sangeist, can only afford minor... minor alterations. Hubris, too. It's... meant to be an anchor... an ontological flaw caused by... by specificity. Or sub.... the instability of their substructural.... substructural reality."

"More canons; more thaumic mass?" Avo asked.

"Yes--yes, but not only." Kae said. "Imagine--imagine the scope and vulgarity of a canon. You... you have one of haemokinesis. It is... is tactile. you bring things... touched.... touched by your concept into your reality. Makes... makes them mutable. Not that high in Rend. Not... not that much Soul... Soulfire required to sear away reality's roots... roots for it to manifest."

"Scope. Vulgarity. What are they?"

Kae hummed. "Scope... scope is like... not just how much you influence. Not just. But also, complexity. Size of pillars. Like gravity. Or time. Or... or space. Reality uses those... those as pillars. Affecting them causes... severe harm. Much... much more of reality must be burned away. Much... much more Rend."

Around the blood that comprised Avo's ontological shell, he felt a tungsten glint flick down the fluidity of his blood, like the running red was unsheathing blades from the scabbards that were their cresting waves. But the change was tied to him. And only the blood that he could touch. The changes made were ultimately quite limited.

"So," Avo said. "Larger Heavens also inflict more Rend?"

"Not... not always," Kae replied. "It... it also depends on vulgarity."

"Vulgarity?"

"A spatial... spatial Heaven that can store... an aerovec in a demiplane. Imagine one which is stored directly by compressing... compressing matter into shadow. Versus... versus one that just... just pockets the matter."

If Avo could frown just then, he would have. "So. vulgarity. Just disguising and hiding it better."

"I... guess you can--"

"Just disguising and hiding. Okay. Understanding." Silently, he considered the implications of this. Was this why when he wanted a canon of unending blood, it simply cost too much? "Agnos. Infinite canons--"

"Can't work!" Now it was Avo's turn to be startled. The pedestal of the False Heaven drew in closer, her face poking past the open chasm exposing him--his Soul. "Infinite... we can't comprehend it. So, the gods... they can't derive worship very well. It's like... more than I can use. Canon-smithing... it's... it's art and engineering both... like... like a baseline Heaven is... is joined of two Domains, so... so is the knowledge it takes... it takes to change them."

That meant that his Meta-Fac needed more meat than just desired outcome to design new canons.

"Heavens. How are they made?"

"Most... most are cemented," Kae said. "Years of worship. Ingrained scripture. Solidified into... into a living concept that's--uh--carried over into a god's Soul upon... upon death."

"But new Heavens have been made."

Kae nodded, her expression growing distant. "Many. Constructed in chrono-accelerated prisons using... using prisoners as... as the delivery mechanism."

"Sacrifices," Avo said, echoing the action of the gods.

"If you call it that," Kae said, shrugging. "Thaumaturgy is... we are not creatures of the absolute. Only of relativity. With death, however, that is changed. In... in death, we finally cross into the same threshold that the gods occupy. A shared... shared wavelength."

Or maybe they just had a very particular diet. Not so unlike a ghoul in that regard. "What of Hells?"

That drew a chuckle from Kae, though not a mirthful one. "It... it is an... anti-Heaven... inverts the design... like a... like a funnel. If Heaven is built by belief.... then, Hell is--is raw disbelief. It's the opposite made into... metaphysics."

"Hell's smaller than Heaven. Rend building fast."

"Hm," Kae said, "Open the specifications again. I want to see."

HELL - [FIRST CIRCLE]

  DOMAIN: (MATTER/ENTROPY)

  THAUMIC REQUIREMENTS - 10 thaum/c

  REND VENTS ONLINE

"Good," she continued. "good... it's tied to your... your matter. Entropy is... is always the second... second Domain for Hell. But the waste expelled is... is always different.Yours... when did you get the Hell grafted."

Now there was a good question. He knew that it didn't come from Little Vicious' Sangeist. At least, he didn't think so. It downloaded a Heaven for him, but moments before that, when he flared after killing the two hunters, a sphere of space and matter was outright unmade around him.

"Can't remember. Think it was put on sometime before."

"Sometime... before..." She wanted him to elaborate. He couldn't.

"Missing memories. All of the week before.Might've been installed then."

"... Not... usually the way it's done... at least one Domain needs to match. otherwise," she gesticulated, pushing the fingers of one hand into the palm of her other, "it's not lined parallel. Perpendicular Domains are asymmetric, and... and the Rend doesn't cross over right. Subrealities aren't aligned that way."

Symmetry. Sequencing phantasmics relied much on the concept as well. Necrothurgy and Agnosticism were both studies under the school of thaumaturgy, by technicality, but the nature of the latter was deleterious to reality, while the former was like scaffolding--affecting only cognition.

On the topic of Hells though, a problem yet remained. He was generating too much Rend and wasn't soaking it fast enough. "Hell. I'll need a new one. Where?"

The way he asked it knocked a stutter into Kae's dais. "I--uh, do you have a... a chronologically accelerated plane? Or prison?"

He judged her expression to see if she was mocking him, but found only confusion. "No."

She winced. "Could... could claim one from an enemy Godclad. Or... or..." She blinked. "You have a Meta-Factory. You can... you can unmake Heavens... deconstruct them?"

"Yes."

A smile spread over her face like a growing fire, savagery briefly glinting in her eyes. "Good. You can... can build a Hell then. Break down a Heaven. Fold it inward. Link it to your Heaven... Heaven of a shared Domain."

A location of interest sparked in Avo's mind. Each district had at least one techno-thaumic reactor contributing a local Heaven or two to the overarching Sovereignty. Ten districts made up a Guild-taxable Sovereignty; that was the case during more reasonable times, but after the war, plenty had been left fallen. In disrepair.

Like Burner's Way.

There was a Fallen Heaven there. Right across from Scalper territory, but there was a promise...

"How can a Rupture be stabilized?" Avo asked. "A Fallen Heaven?"

The Agnos' response was all reflex, slipping free before she even fully realized what he was implying. "Should the... Heaven's system be returned to equilibrium you can... you can break it down without..." Her voice trailed off. Her eyes widened in dawning comprehension. "You want to harvest a Heaven from a reactor?"

No sense in hiding it. He would need her to help him understand how to conduct the stabilization process properly. At least for the first time. He should also make a vicarity of the operation for the sake of being thorough.

"That... it's..." she stuttered.

"You object."

"It's a great... I love the idea! Fu... fuck the Guilds!"

Unexpected. Again, a shine of that hatred there, but it dissolved fast along with her thoughts. It seemed that the only thing keeping her mind together and not a blank mess was the external cortex she had implanted. His prior curiosity regarding the damage inflicted upon her sprouted seeds of genuine interest now; hers was a story he would delve into once he claimed a Ghostjack.

"You... you're going after one of the Fallen Heavens right... right?"

His Sangeist warbled blood in a loose approximation of a grunt.

"Okay. Right now, you have a Heaven of Blood. Domains are matter and blood. Hell is tied to matter... Matter--I recommend you keep going for matter if you can. If... if you can. If... if you can get a one-to-one ratio in terms of thaumic mass... or more in favor... favor of the Hell... you can have... keep your miracle-vent cycles minimal."

"Equilibrium is primarily based on mass? Of the same Domain."

"Y-yes. From... uh... from one aspect of subreality into a parallel one. Like... like an abacus.”

Avo thought he got that, though he didn't fully know what an abacus was.

"I--It's mostly thanks to your Soul, you know," she smiled, and this time, there was no hate tied to it. She was happy; a creature in her element. "Yours... it's the most advanced subreality I've ever seen. It's... it's nearly alive and it's... it's entirely integrated with your Nous. No... no core-tuning needed... at-at all.

But if it was so special, how did it end up with him? Why wasn't it burning inside some Ark-top Guilder?

Unfortunately, Avo had a guess for this question. Walton. His father had something to do with this, despite being dead. Whatever Ninth Column was, he would not meet them unprepared and ignorant. His continued survival could not be left to coincidence.

"So. My system has a Meta-Fac. And is more reactive. Can break down Heavens internally?"

"Automatically... is what I'd say," Kae said. "It's like a condensed system of self... self-worship. No need to throw in sacrificial prisoners to modify or rebuild."

She sighed, looking on in admiration, the expression matching that of a wager leering at a new aerovec. “Your flame. It’s special–special. It’s… inverted. Also, it's rippling. Expanding. Other patterns of Soulfire… older ones, yes, those… they–they don’t ripple. It’s an external furnace built around a... a cycler. Fixed size. Dismembered from a god. No growth. No Meta-Fac. Like... like dead matter."

“Wait,” Avo said, halting her questions. “Mine emits. Others can’t do that?”

A strain spread through her features. Her hand sifted through her hair again, her lips counting as if she was passing prayer beads through her fingers. “It’s… it’s like… yours is a sea. It’s–water. Deep. Growing. But remembers as well. And also… more than water. Can–can shape things. Older ones are… are like a container. Uh... you have something like... like a full-spectrum nanosuite. Normal... normal Souls are just... just cybernetics. One Soul. Heavens. Hells. Fixed build. Needs sacrifices to tune.”

And that, then, was also why he was gaining ghosts and thaums with every kill. At least when he made physical contact with them. He was pulling them into himself. Drinking them empty, and snatching them away from the Guilds through the act of killing.

"There's... there's more but..." Kae turned and looked at the Galeslither again. Behind her, the horse-heads stared on blankly, the stuff of their skulls a swirling mass of storms centered around their eyes. The fissuring ribs of lighting at the chest remained frozen then as if the bolts were not allowed to flow--were not granted enough stay in the local reality flow.

"I want to conduct an experiment," she said. "I want you to switch Heavens."