Godclads Chapter 15-3 Overlap

Cults in this city are nasty godsdamned rat nests.

Considering what they’re up against, they kind of have to be.

First, there are the Guilds and the Exorcists and the Paladins and the Syndicates and all the usual problems. Let's na the obvious half-strands first to get them out of the way. Most cults get snuffed out here. The idiots get noticed, and then they get dead real quick; the enterprise gets crushed before it even rises.

But then there are those who are used to running the shadows. These consangs got frost running in their veins and minds thought-sealed like knots. They’re not like most of you. When you’re done cycling through these mories, you’re gonna have your drone make you a nice al and cast over to your favorite flick, any thought of being hard leaves you with your next breath.

These fuckers? They live that life. They are that life, none of them don’t wanna be any other way.

No family? Couldn’t give a shit. Out of imps? Steal, poach, kill, snatch… they’ll do it all. Hunted by the big shots in the city? Hells, this identity was boring anyway. Ti for a change of face, and a change of mind.

These are the ones that beco trouble. These are the ones that got the Incubi prowling the Warrens most of the ti.

Most of these types are forr enclavers. The difference is that their enclave was probably run by pseudo-religious freaks.

When the gods got broke and Idheim pissed itself, lots of people died. Lots. Do you think our trillions are a big number? This place used to be an active farm of life and death. If you wanna have so nightmares, you should look into the Nolothi breeder farms. Let’s just say their organ implantation process wasn’t nearly as refined when judged by our present sensibilities.

Anyway, even though the pantheons fell, enough of their priesthoods survived, albeit in scattered pockets after Thousandhand had her fun with the purges. Most of them got the mories cut out of them with the establishnt of the Nether. Ghosts make it easy to mark anyone with mories you don’t want anyone to have, and our new guns made it so you could solve the problem from a couple of thousand miles away.

The diminishnt of the faithful was pretty much an incrental massacre. But still, so of them slipped through. And the children of these “so of thems” are usually the ones to endure in the dark.

They rember so of their scriptures. They recall enough of their canons. And ultimately, they want their gods to co back.

And they’ll do whatever it takes to see that to fruition.

Up to and including slipping into the Guilds themselves or playing Fallwalker.

-Quail Tavers, The School of the Warrens

15-3

Overlap

[Gods, I hope that room is ghost-tight. You left two ticking rash risks right there, Avo. This is on you if it turns into an outbreak. Of course, seeing as we’re burning ourselves into fucking Chambers, I guess you don’t care about the rash that much at all!]

The patterns of thought leaking over from Abrel’s simulated mind were closer to frustration than active annoyance. Normally, she enjoyed a spot of romance, but these were not normal tis anymore. Trapped inside a ghoul, she played secondhand voyeur from Avo’s perspective and realized she would never get the chance to indulge in these little love gas and monts of bonding.

Instead, she would be rewarded with a novel act few humans found relished in: cannibalism.

[Fucking yay,] Abrel deadpanned. Her bitterness remained even as Avo’s fire seeped into the self-supporting rubble that was Chambers’ mind.

The man panicked briefly–the fact that he had ti to at all was a testant to the durability of his consciousness. But as the Conflagration ate through the self-clashing m-cons that were now the paradoxical pillars of the forr enforcer’s mind, both ghoul and man overlapped each other.

But instead of simply usurping the structures of Chambers’ ta, Avo blended to its symtry as he once did with Abrel. Sequences aligned with sequences, and thoughts aligned with thoughts. Across the vastness of his consciousness, two minds were branded into one, and in a shapeless expanse were both egos manifested.

Rotli–uh, Avo? Chambers said. That you? Did you just… burn my mind away or sothing like that. I’m getting these thoughts and urges and they’re… really unsexy. Dead gods, what’s with all the noise?

Working his will, Avo quieted the other templates so as to not overwhelm their newest cohort. He didn’t speak imdiately, instead choosing to study the constitution of Chambers’ cognition.

Perverse, absurd, and all-too-sorrowful urges.

Understanding Chambers was like sampling a subtle tragedy. When viewed from within, the man had thought himself joyous and implacable before the depravities of the city. But when judged in totality, he was a wound that filled his pain using lust and hunger, the need for stimulus compressing the scars of his psyche.

The noise of vicarious pornography and intrusive m-ads captured one’s notice like a garrote. There was no evasion possible, all was sound and havoc and dullness wrought from overload.

You’ve always been hungry too, Avo said.

What? Chambers replied, completely lost as to why these words were spoken. He was still blind to the greater gestalt, a new implant yet to be slotted.

It is nothing. I should have tried to understand you better. All of you. So much wasted flavor. So much. Avo’s lantations ca from the marrow of his being. Vast and distracted as he was, his recent killings had been the finest hits of satisfaction he ever indulged in. To know all that there was to a person, to draw in all that could feel as you drained them utterly…

The flesh was wanting. The tang of blood was not enough. He had imbibed more now, and so this was to be.

It’s… alright, consang. I–you know, you try a lot more than lots of people. Hells, I’ve only known you for a bit, but you’re already more nova than–hells–most of the people I know! Chambers was trying to grin, but the act was difficult to perform without facial muscles.

Avo decided to form a rictus on Chambers’ behalf. As his senses solidified a catastrophe of cog-feed ford into shape. Chamber's template clicked into place along with the vast myriad of others, and new perspectives beca known.

Stumbling montarily, he found his legs like stumps and his arms too short, and it took drawing from Chambers to properly gain command of the body’s new instances. Avo adapted with a thought, but the stabilizing grip pressed against his shoulder was a welco one.

He didn’t need to see Draus to know it was her. It was in the impossible control exuded from the ebb of her thoughts, and the unmoving weight behind her palm.

Yeah, good ol’ Draus, Chambers sniffled. She didn’t kill any more tis after you left, so I think our relationship is improving.

Sohow, Avo thought otherwise; it was more likely that the novelty of butchering unequal prey diminished her interest. Chambers. Listen. I have need of you. Going to improve you. Give you new understandings. New skills.

Excitent and glee erupted from the forr enforcer. The overwhelming spike in the man’s happiness made Avo’s simring thoughtstuff recoil. Fuck! Yes! I love you, ghoulie! What’s happening! What’s happening? New Soul? New Heaven? New what? Lay it on . Chambers can take it.

Talk about not looking a gift-ghoul in the mouth.

That cos latter. Going to teach you things. Burn years of experience into you. Saw you trying to figure out how to jack earlier–

“Avo?” Draus said, interrupting from the outside. “That you?”

“Yes,” Avo said, but Chambers’ voice answered for him. It was strange being smaller than Draus. A growing sense of dysmorphia arose imdiately, and the worst thing he found about being Aedon Chambers were the strange pangs of phantom pain coming from his–

Oh. mories accelerated through him, and he understood. The aratnid left scars that ran deeper than bone. The fact that Chambers retained them ant he didn’t consider them altogether unpleasant, however.

All the other templates cringed in sympathy and disgust.

All except Corner. [Fuck it. I’ll respect this. Seen nastier shit done by nastier half-strands. This is nothing.]

So, you think I have the potential? Chambers asked, adding another voice Avo had to heed.

No. Too much feeling. Too easily distracted. Too much fixation. Wouldn’t have even made a bad one.

His words made the man’s mind flinch. Ouch. So… training program?

No. Burning the necessary mories and habits into you. Adding them to your structure. You’re habits and choices are still… suboptimal. But you will understand how to operate now. At an acceptable level. Avo hoped.

Hurt was an evanescent thing to the half-strand. Where but a breath before he was insulted, now he was elated at the prize bestowed upon him. Hells yes! I’m not gonna lie, rotlick; I was a pretty bad student. Probably wasn’t that much chance in having the self-discipline to train so this is perfection. Wait… have you thought of charging imps for this? You can show people anything! Make them rember too! Wait–wait, wait… can you even do that? How does this new fire-thing work, anyway?

Action proved to be more efficient than elaboration. Avo willed it, and the contents of his currently simulated consciousness reassembled itself. He let Chambers see past the obfuscation, and for the first ti, the man found himself greeted with the templates. Years of unearned mastery were torched upon the branches of his recollections.

Holy fuck… Chambers said, gasping as he struggled to bear all the weight of foreign mories. The fires were assembling his new cognitive architecture still, it would be a mont longer before he had the requisite capabilities to serve as Avo’s aide. How many dive-vicarities did you just dump inside ?

A bit more than twenty thousand.

That’s a lot of dives…

Letting the new structures marinate, Chambers studied his new internal fixtures, cut off from his senses as Avo sealed him. As flas wove the ghoul’s mind into place, perception manifested fully and he found himself staring up at Draus.

Her shimring optical implants spun and regarded him like a wolf would a rabbit. A mont’s surprise was all it took for her to realize the change. That, and the blaze seeping from his halo. As she withdrew her hand from his–Chambers’ shoulder, Avo noticed a ring of glass shards spinning through the air in a weightless ballet.

They were still hiding the demiplanar dormitory, but it appeared the Regular had pierced its bounds using her Heaven.

“I’m back,” Avo said.

“So you are,” she replied giving him a slow second appraisal.

“Enjoying your new canons?” Avo asked, glancing at the pirouetting glass spiralling about them in the plane’s second level dormitory. The question was thinly disguised as a taunt. “Rember you said you didn’t want them. Rember you wanted to die fighting. Die clean. Die feeling the weight. Are we getting forgetful? Or does power taste too good?”

Her lip twitched upward in the briefest of sneers. “A samplin’ ain’t a al.”

“Spoken like a joy-fiend.”

She shrugged off his insult “I still wanna feel it. The point behind every kill. You did this to . You owe a centerin’.”

And he could deliver using his flas. But would she let him?

“How’s your ti been playin’ with your new toys, then?” She pivoted before he could reply. “ Have fun jumpin’ around burnin’ egos into yourself? How many did you kill this ti?”

“Few thousand?”

“That it? What? Feelin’ soft and rciful after Nu-Scarrowbur? Bit too much to chew on.”

“Taking in more now. Claid much on this sojourn. Where’s Kae? Essus.”

“Downstairs,” Draus said. “They’re talkin’ with the Columners. Our poor flat might be gettin’ himself so fancy voider mind-nder to help ‘em or sothin’. The ‘Glaive’ is gettin’ all details about Godshaper clean with Kae. Been down there for just about thre minutes.”

“I consud an Ori-Thaum administrative node. Have secrets. Have Incubi inside . Know the identities of surviving assets that ruined Kae’s life. Have a gift of revenge to deliver.” He paused. “And got so other things. Souls. Cyclers. Heavens.”

The Regular’s features brightened imdiately. She wasn’t so easily swayed by bribery, but resistance wasn’t immunity. “Shit. You could’ve led with that.”

“And miss out on mocking you?”

She smirked and began to chuckle darkly. A cool pit opened inside Avo and he felt his insides squeeze, instincts warning of potential violence.

And extre lust.

That which he took from Chambers hardened in ways Avo imdiately suppressed.

[Gross! Fucking gross!] Abrel gagged.

Thinking back to Reva now, Avo thought himself a fool to ever compare the Bloodthane to Draus.

The Shatterborn Godclad was a woman of iron will with an honest disposition. Bloodshed and conflict were familiar constants in her life, but there was sothing about her that suggested she was enduring these trials rather than relishing in the lifestyle.

Not so with the Regular. There was so facet of humanity missing inside her. Sothing that made her radically acceptant of death and horror, severing her from fear and hesistation entirely. War was like breathing to her. Nothing special. It just was.

She just was.

Draus shrugged a shoulder and Avo found himself dipping over into Chambers’ mories. Only when he confird the man was clean of Rend before he let the tension leave him. Good. The only risk they suffered now was death. Checking on Chambers’ ego again, Avo found him listening along to the conversation, his new skill enhancents already out of his mind.

Avo made a few more adjustnts to his distractedness. That was going to get him nulled more than once. So iterating for his habits will likely be required, but he still wanted to keep Chambers as himself, if possible.

The point here was augntation rather than alteration. Chambers’ death ford a finer vintage if he greeted his ends led by his own choices. In each life, there was a unique brew of culmination.

Like he was potentially facing right now.

“You should kill yourself,” Draus said. Her words caught Avo off guard, but they weren’t uncharacteristic. “Let Chambers have his own body. He’s wretched enough on his own. Don’t need a cannibalism habit too. You didn’t pick up any of his mind contagions, did you?”

“Trying not to think about that.”

She just shook her head.

Alright, guys, co on. Co on. Chambers sighed. My mind’s not that bad.

Avo let Abrel speak to him.

[You rotlick fuck! Don’t put next to the rash risk–you don’t talk to ! I don’t want to know anything about Dannis Steelhard.]

Confusion surged through Chambers as he found himself taken aback by Abrel’s sudden appearance. I–

She was promptly banished.

Not going to be popular when I claim your template. But there was nothing for it. Avo burned it. Now he would know him. But it wasn’t so bad. Truthfully, all Chambers wanted was to be wanted, and knowing that made him the perfect vessel for intersecting under Avo. But I accept you. Don’t have a problem with you.

That struck a touched pause in Chambers, and across Avo’s consciousness, many of the snuffers he claid began to gag in an exaggerated fashion.

Then, with but a nod as an indication, Avo liquefied his body for the second ti within minutes and felt Chambers’ pri ego die. The template, however, remained synced.

[Not gonna lie, that felt weird as fuck,] Chambers said, ntally shuddering as he regarded the disintegrating mist that used to make up his vessel. [I’ll be back right? I an, actual -. Not -you. Or you-.]

Should be fine, Avo thought. He turned a cast on Draus. Bodies not enough for anymore. Need to be disrupted now.

She regarded him with a nod. “You wanna do the honors?”

Yes. I’ll do it. And call the others. I wish to speak with everyone. Tell them I want to start a cult.

Draus’ nodding turned into a double-take. “What?”

Avo’s answer ca in the form of a Thoughtwave Disruptor activating from the core of his being, and a ripple flensed his ethereal presence from existence.