New Vultun will be made up of 35313 districts by 288 P.G. That is 4414 trans-polity post-mortem taxable zones. Sovereignties, in a word.

At the rate things are currently progressing, we will only reap 12% of the total taxable deaths, placing us as the lowest profiting Guild in the city.

This is not acceptable.

As of present, Project Alloyed Revival and the “Return From Ashes” Initiative are concluding their start-up phases. Breakthroughs in negotiations with Voidwatch and the Agnosi have granted us additional leeway in the Hellsinks we can produce and spiked our heavy golem industry and anom-metallic fabrication production. By the end of the next month, we should be able to expand and establish a foothold through the Spine into the gutters.

The greatest difficulty remains the “Syndicates.” Though we have a foothold in Hasanastur-South, our assets are flanked by the No-Dragon’s Hundred-Eighters in the adjacent district of “False Oasis” and the Thunderwargs supported by Stormtree. The former is understandable–the No-Dragons have their interests and we have ours. Increased funding to their dissidents and the establishment of our own organizations in the Warrens can serve as a necessary bulwark, though we may need a few Chainbreakers on scene due to suspected enemy Godclad presence.

The Thunderwargs are an ongoing concern. Outright engagement against an allied supported Syndicate will inevitably damage relations between Ashthrone and Stormtree–a strain we cannot afford due to the percentage of combat power they occupy in the alliance–but diplomatic overtures have proven fruitless as their subsidiary runs wild, conducting border raids and committing atrocities.

For this, I would like to bright forth a proposal. Perhaps it would be unpopular, but I implore that you listen, brothers and sisters.

Tensions between the Thunderwargs and Hundred-Eighters have been historically cool in the locality. Since the hardening of borders with the end of the last war, both sides have been content to remain within their own boundaries.

This can be changed. All it takes is a simple “transgression” to occur. I do not believe it will be hard to manufacture an engagement between them, nor will we need to dirty our own hands in such a vile endeavor. There are multiple qualified squires for hire that can lure the Thunderwargs astray. The funding for such an operation is also negligible.

Risk assessment shows that the greatest danger remains mem-data leakage for such an operation, but such is easily countered by deploying the information to a third-party middler with no direction relations.

I understand that the act of… inconveniencing an allied Guild worries many present, but I assure you, the odds of uncovering our operation are below a single digit on the percentage scale.

And for further incentive, I bring this presentation back to the beginning. We are being outpaced. We are failing our people and the word of Jaus.

How are we to stand for the liberation of humanity from the coil of existence if we are too weak to support ourselves?

-Manor-Brother Helmsteed, Ashthrone’s Ministry of Developmental Labor

18-3

Stain the Roots

“Good Christ, Avo. I thought you were going off to talk to the girl? Not start a drag-out brawl against the single most famous Ori-Thaum Godclad there is. And is that Quail Tavers? What the hell happened out there?”

Cas continued to speak at him even as the Cloning Pools came into view. The stress radiating from the man’s mind was enough to drive a normal person into psychosis. An agonizing tug accompanied each of Cas’ thoughts as his blood screamed through his veins. His pupils were dilated, and he was flicking one glance too many at Tavers.

An understandable reaction for someone who valued secrecy, though Avo felt there was something more to the panic attack he was suffering.

{Operative Cas is not suffering from emotional compromise, but memories of past experiences.}  Calvino’s words seeded instant comprehened. {There is only one fate that awaits most cults in this city. And it is all too easy to be discovered and purged. Such martyrdom graced countless of his ancestors who died liberating countless slaves from death-farms during the final days before the Godsfall. Such a martyrdom befell his parents during the massacres of the second Guild War. Such martyrdom is what he believes to be awaiting him at the end of his path. A final death is not his fear–but an abrupt end before he has done enough good in the name of his lord of old.}

Avo studied the Columner again and noted the agitation behind his eyes–now a soft hazel. He had undergone some grafting while they were gone. Begun the process of adapting his shape for subterfuge. “Won’t be a leak,” Avo said, trying to reassure his comrade in this conspiracy. “She’s tied to us. More ways than one.”

“So you say,” Cas said, spittle landing Avo’s shoulder. “You should have told us about White-Rab–about everything you were doing up in the Tiers.”

“No.”

The bluntness of Avo’s response made Cas throw up his hands. “Then how’s trust supposed to live between? How am I supposed to know that your contact isn’t going to sell us out to the Guilds?”

“We trust each other in moderation,” Avo answered. “And I give something the Guilds can’t. And I can hurt him in ways no one can.”

“So what’s your solution? Tyranny? Avo, people are used to getting squeezed. What hurts you now supersedes what might hurt you later, all it takes for him to betray us is a single mistake on his part. One fuck-up.”

Something that White-Rab proved to be good at avoiding. Avo looked down to meet Cas’ stare. “Meet Zein while I was in the Tiers too. Question has been swimming in my mind. Something I didn’t want to ask: trust. Would you trust me over Zein? Would you choose me over Zein?”

Quiet. No response. “Well, that’s a pretty situational question, isn’t it?”

“Your lack of answer means you understand. We have trust. But there are thresholds. We exist on a spectrum of interest to each other. I must maintain my own as well.”

Cas grunted a humorless chuckle. “Damn. There he is again. Your father. Despite building you out of other peoples’ minds, you sure take after him a lot.”

Seeing the Columner’s growing frustration, Avo rebuilt his mind and sought a smooth amelioration. He needed to quell this spat before it became a problem. Weaving aspects of Benhata and Kare into his cognition, Avo immediately felt a spike of shame pierce him as he realized the betrayal he was inflicting. Words were likely not going to solve this. He needed to offer actionable recourse. Material manifestations of good faith and progress.

“Will loop you into the next meeting with him,” Avo said. “Keep you updated on what I do. Show you my memories too. Hm. Might not trust that. Give you something better. Mem-data to access Paladin lobbies. Eyes on the inside. A new contact to protect your asset from Exoricsts and public safety departments.”

A bit of ire bled out from Cas. “What are you talking about?”

“Turned two Paladins. One is connected to Shotin. His niece. The other is a rapid response officer for the Spine. Kassamon. I’ll have Chambers cast you the details.”

“...Alright,” Cas said, after a moment’s deliberation. “But we don’t do this, Avo. Not again. Cells live and die–”

“Cells die,” Avo said, interrupting. “Too many eyes. Can’t hide forever. You know this.” Cas stood silenced. “But we can engineer the deaths. Mask ourselves by putting assets in key positions. Hunting ourselves. Burning cults are easy. Burning cults already targeted by another Guild risks conflict.”

Cas was now empty of tension. In its place swelled curiosity and promise. “Yeah… yeah, that might work.” His posture sagged. “At least something came out of that mess.”

“More than something.” Chambers chattered as he spoke to the grafters, his halo overlapping with the throne’s locus as the nanomolecular mists of the Cloning Pool swirled and made their changes.

Ten translucent pods were slotted above them, each representing a testable build–usable as both bioform and sheathes. Of the dozen, Subject One was nearing completion. The vagueness of its enshadowed contours resembled an egg sporting twelve jagged appendages and six whips. According to Chambers, it took Jack, Jane, and Ruveca more than a little arguing to reach a unified consensus about what was “optimal.”

The initial presentation filled Avo with considerable doubt, with Elegant-Moon added to his gestalt, he found himself increasingly appreciative of the prototype.

Fungally spread and easily replaceable, Subject One was to fill a mixed role between skirmisher and scout. In time, should this morphology prove worthy, its primary duties would be to stalk the shadows, surveying, stalking, and hunting gangers and ghouls alike. There was space to be made in the gutters, and inevitably, when the next war arrived, the cadre would have need of expendable infantry that could hold or seize ground.

The only difficulty that remained now was building a good enough mind for the creatures. Despite Avo’s requests, Aegis was against uplifting these bioforms to even the barest level of sophoncy. Not unexpected but still annoying. It took a single instance of simulated morality for Avo to understand. That didn’t make Voidwatch’s morality and ethicality any less an impediment,

Without the pre-installation of a full ego, other options made themselves known. Implantable coldtech combat minds were easy and available, though exceeding vulnerable to the Nether. Their cognitive half-life before nullification from data decay was less than five minutes. Thinking back to Ori-Thaums cognitive constructs, regret finally caught up to Avo as he wished he could have claimed one of the prototypes while he was at the Trident.

Omnitech had their own variants of “artificial intellects,” but the very thought made Glitch break into a fit of psychosis.

The “caretakers” that Omnitech built were protective. Too protective. Psychotically protective. In a strange way, it seemed they ran human society more than they served it, and despite the best attempts of rival and allied Guilds, no one was fully capable of changing their directives. Not even the Agnosi.

The strange nature of an Omnitech caretaker made Avo think about his Datacaster and its corrupted mem-data. If it was corruption at all.

Through the capture of Elegant-Moon came the most viable option. The Sang had their own methods of cultivating specialized bioforms. Incarnates. Beings that bore enough of a mind to heed commands but not the will to act without orders. A legion of organisms perfected towards use, more instruments than slaves. When pools were finished growing Subject One’s hardware, she would bless them with a final touch. Afterward, Avo would line their brain matter with a haemokinetic lattice as a means of direct control.

Part of him hungered to kill the Sang. Claim her ontologics, Soul, and thaums. But deaths were easy fruits to claim and he could recreate her build by harvesting the Domains he needed from vulnerable golems. The only cost there was time.

Time, and a final, newly growing idea gifted to him by Tavers.

Considering the condition that her third son suffered–permanent ego erosion from what was implied, a new possibility caught fire in Avo’s mind like a match striking napalm.

He could not split his Conflagration. Not truly. His mind was his mind, and even with his subminds and templates working in tandem, he was hypercharging his own processing power and executive intellect rather than splitting thought-stream or twinning his ego.

But what if he lit the dormant mind of a bioform and filled it with one of his templates? What if he Ensouled them during the process, and then killed himself thereafter? Would this be a method to create a genuine nous?  A full being capable of self-direction and thought, the richness of its existence ripe to offer both ghosts and thaums should death’s blade fall?

Such was a thing he looked forward to testing in the near future, and within his mind, both Elegant-Moon and Calvino shared in the excitement.

{The ethicality of this is… going to be something of major debate among the polities. But I must admit to be fascinated by the possibility. Creating a full sophont mind using a Soul as an exploit? I’m sure one of the Guilds must have tried, but the nature of your mind and Frame allow for something that has never been done. There is the issue of these… prototypes going from simulated fragments of your consciousness to mentally pre-enslaved replicas of living or dead people but…}

[You could perhaps return me to wholeness,]  Elegant-Moon muttered, less joyous and more curious. [Should success transpire in the aftermath of your deed, then I would be interested to see what expression graces the face of my restored “sister.”]

“There’s one more thing we need to talk about,” Cas said, breaking the silence. He had been looking at Subject One as well. Studying it with dismay in his gaze. Calvino explained this the days prior as well. Apparently, Cas’ lord was supposed to be the purveyor of life, that birth and naturality was a holy thing. Twisting living beings into weapons was a sour action to partake in, and the Columner's mind stank of resigned regret. “Chambers. What are we going to do about him?”

“Help him,” Avo responded.

“He’s a mess. An addict. He barely–”

“What is the deepest memory you hold of your father?”

The Columner paused. “I… I don’t understand.”

“Chambers. I remember the smell of his flesh cooking. Crying. Urinating himself and begging and pushing at his father’s screaming jaw. I remember the stink of the alcohol. Honey Earl.  Stormtree brand. The type the father liked. I remember how it felt for the heated barrel of a gun to dig deeper and deeper into his armpit. I remember why it happened. Of what the father caught him watching. Why he was punished.”

Cas just stared. “So, what? He had a shitty childhood and he gets a free pass on mass murder born from his… sickness ? What he did back there–”

Avo cut through the conversation. “Saved us. Killed thousands of others. Yes. That is what happened.”

“ That’s  your response?”

“My response is acceptance,” Avo said. “Acceptance of him. How he is. How he can be. Many flaws. Yes. But he can grow. Change.”

“The FATELESS are dead!”

“Yes. Unfortunate. But inevitable. All too inevitable.”

“Why? Why the fuck  so? Because they’re not Godclads? Because you view them as food?”

Avo shifted his mind. “I can make myself love them. But the world inside does not agree with the world without. They are currency before people. Because they have no agency to enforce their own personhood. Only I can grant them that. And only we really care.”

Biting back another argument, Columner rubbed at the dark scruff growing from his jaw and let out an exhausted breath. “The people didn’t deserve to die that way. We visited hell on them, but they committed no sin. Damnation for nothing.”

“There are no sinners,” Avo said. “Only victims.”

“...That’s honestly what you believe?” Cas said.

“I believe that we hold the power to determine what is and what will be in the absolute. You are Godclad too. The fire in us is both authority and edict. Highest privilege born of power.”

Tavers, Denton, and Draus stepped back through a mirror in the periphery of Avo’s vision. They were doing something–squire was showing them places and contacts. New safehouses and middlers to contact. They moved ignorant of the conversation unfolding between man and ghoul beneath a misted chamber in the process of incubating new life.

“Death can be undone if we win this war. Fates changed. But the FATELESS. I want to empower the meek. Unleash consequences on them. So they can feel power and pain in equal measure. Understand who they are. Who they live among.” He looked upon Cas and spread his teeth in a smile. “You’re fascinating. I didn’t think that before. You value phantom  beliefs. Things less than metaphysical power. Soft faith. A god never materialized. Never seen.”

“It keeps my soul clean. Not this cage that keeps us from a final embrace. That’s just a means. An end. When all this is done and everything is made right–”

“You will return your god to its righteous place?” Avo asked. “Or grant him sovereignty over all things and usher forth an age of virtue?”

Cas breathed. “Neither. God is the absolute. We’re just demiurges. Fallen things playing in the garden he made. You can strip omnipotence from its throne or conceive the shape of omniscience. He is the shepherd and I am his hound. It just pains me deep to watch the lambs bleed.”

Avo tasted the belief in Cas’ words, and the first inklings of true understanding began to kindle.

This wasn’t about him. This wasn’t about him at all. He was crusading for others, and so his Ensouling was a means to an end.

What agony living in New Vultun would inflict on such a man.

“Shepherd and hound, hm?” Avo said.

“Yeah,” Cas replied.

“I suppose that I… have a duty to Chambers then. To give him a better path. And to see him better at preserving life than wasting it.”

A choked laugh of pure disbelief sounded from Cas. “Avo, did you just… liken yourself to the lord?”

The ghoul blinked. “Poetic?”

“ Blasphemous ,” Cas replied.

“Ah,” Avo said. “Well. I have the ego.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty damn obvious.” Cas shook his head. “So. Now what? You… train him to be better. Fine. What about the girl? Dice? What about her?”

Avo glanced at the waif seated upon the dais behind him, petting the cat as she continued to look around. “City’s dangerous for her. Not used to it. But she has talent. Potential. More than just a distraction. Going to give her choice. Think I already know what she’s going to choose.”

“Because you have her template living in that fire you call a mind, huh?”

“Yes,” Avo said. “Will be releasing our infiltrators next. Elegant-Moon. Kare. Proceedings will begin soon. Abrel will be coming back planetside. Should claim someone else from Highflame as well. Meritocrat preferably. Need more points for my flame to spread. But while we breach the top, also need to claim the roots of the city. Force the Low Masters out of hiding. Consume the smugglers and Syndicates. Open a path out from the city. Ways the Paladins and Guilds can’t stop.”

Cas understood. “You’re going to use the girl as a wilder operative? Is that it?”

“More,” Avo said. “Need a seat of power beyond the gaze of the Guilds. Places they can’t see. Places where we can amass greater forces in the open.”

“The Sunderwilds? The Ruptures?”

“Yes. Other Fallwalkers have been… unpunished . Commit sins. Depravity. Think their Souls shouldn’t be theirs. And I think the deaths that fuel them will be worth more to us.”

“Your scope’s growing too fast,” Cas said.

“So are my templates. And deaths. Time is not our luxury. But power soon will be. Power and knowledge. Power. Knowledge. Initiative. Guilds are preparing for the next war. But they don’t see us. Experiences have taught me things. Given my understanding. Our Spheres must grow. But Heavens alone are too limited. The Nether, the physical, the metaphysical. Must dominate them all. All spectrums. So we will need militaries. Relations. Money. Political influence. And all of this can be consumed from the flesh of our enemies. We grow inside them. We grow beyond them. We grow. They wither.  We decide in the end. Our flame. Not theirs.”

“This is getting to be more than just a cult, Avo,” Cas said. “You’re trying to build a… hidden empire.”

{Oh. Nice ring to it. Ask Operative Cas if he needs a new bass player.}

Avo ignored Calvino. “Perhaps. Or perhaps just a boiling flame.”

“Alright!” Chambers shouted! Throwing his fists up. Phantoms leaped from his mind and projected growth percentages across each pod. Only one metric mattered.

SUBJECT ONE - 100%

READY FOR ADDITIONAL GENETIC THERAPY

“We should gather the others,” Avo said. “Want to speak with you. All of you.” Benhata compelled him to place a hand on the Columner’s shoulder. “Talk to them like I spoke to you. Honestly.”

A startled, blank expression passed through Cas’ face. “I–yeah. Sure. I… glad I could…”

He didn’t finish his words.

It wasn’t a week ago that Avo would have struggled to understand the man. Struggled not to mock his faith or fight the urge to eat him. Now, so much of what he did was clear. Too clear even. Avo thought he understood the man’s actions and wants better than himself in some ways.

The Conflagration was just freedom. It was a change. Change unfettered. Change of the ego with a change of the mind.

The weight of what he was becoming pressed upon his shoulders.

If he was capable of so much already–so different than he was before.

What was he to be when the Ladder finally arrived?