The Highfla Path-Hydra is a Second Sphere Heaven usually attached to a golem. With its extrely low thaumic cost and simple canon, its uses in combat are few but focused.
It will be deployed to disrupted demiplanes or spatial anomalies via paradox.
It will be deployed to shuttle objects and personnel from one of its heads to another.
With the specificity installed in its canons, this Heaven has also proven to be highly difficult to detect when not in full manifestation. With nine heads forming a junction of interconnected pathways, entities trapped within the Path-Hydra can only escape from the confines one of a few ways.
The first and simplest thod is to simply trigger multiple Hells and outlast its Rendsinks. This is a risky option as the Path-Hydra cos with twenty-seven CC-II variant Rendsinks that are easy to eject and replace.
The more technical option is to influence the movents of the hydras. Should one head overlap with another, the Path-Hydra’s ontology will usually collapse alongside the golem’s systems. Doing so is easier said than done, and either requires supre anticipation or sothing akin to directional vector manipulation.
The last and most complex operation is to sohow outmaneuver the ever-shifting interior of the hydra and find the machine or taphysical core of the entire structure. If sothing of matter is thrown into its changing structure, the backlash will be extre and likely collapse the entire Heaven.
If you find yourself trapped within a Path-Hydra, it is best for you to vent whatever spatial Rend you have inside imdiately, while constantly moving to keep the Heaven active and stress its Rendsinks. Additionally, your taminds will function without issue, so if you locate the operational nexuses, nulling the controlling elent is a good option as well.
-Ori-Thaum Prir on Highfla Golems and Auxiliary Units
17-4
Extraction
A beat passed as Avo and Elegant-Moon just stared at the place where the Manta used to be. A sparking cable swayed–part of it also snipped clean through by the passing Path-Hydra.
[Shit, the ship?] Corner cursed.
[“Shit, the ship?”] Chambers sputtered. [Shit, actual-! Did I just watch myself get snuffed?]
You’re fine, Chambers, Avo replied, still sensing the half-strand across their session. The coldtech connection to his cadre was choked with interference though. The micro-singularity generated by his ansible quivered and struggled to stay open. The violations against spatial laws caused it to collapse and reform between the seconds.
{The nature of the plane likely doens’t support the possibility of the Schwarzschild radius,} Calvino said. {Do you see now why we are so adamantly against basing a society on chaotic and ill-thought out “vibes and rituals.”}
Nice when they’re our vibes and rituals, Avo replied.
Abrel’s mories fed him critical information about the Path-Hydra. He really wanted to avoid this. There were good odds that his team had just been tossed over into a Highfla kill box or containnt plane sowhere. Being gone and away was the best way to handle an annoyance like the Path-Hydra, but considering present circumstances…
Yeah. His Galeslither could do with the upgrade and he couldn’t risk anyone learning about him through his cadre.
That, and letting them die would… bother him.
[Oh, shit,] Chambers breathed. [It’s happening! He cares! He fucking cares!] Avo burned away the sentintality and focused on the practical aspects. [...You corpse-licking half-strand.]
Co on, Avo said, speaking to Elegant-Moon. Let’s go get eaten.
The Sang turned to him and shook her head. [I’d call you absolutely mad, but I fear our unfortunate friend is unaware of their coming fate.] A wince ran through her. [Another mind fed to your flas.]
Won’t be the last. Ti till resurrection for your cadre?
[One-hundred and eight-second standard for most of us. Starsinger has a Myrmidon-Pattern, so another thirty seconds for him at max resurrection. Not all of us are fortunate enough to be blessed with a self-tuning Liminal Fra that can return you within thirty seconds.]
He checked his tamind and found himself reassured. He still had almost a minute before the other Godclads revived. Best he make this quick. Boltstride through the interior of the Path-Hydra and locate both the Manta and the golem or Godclad at the heart of things.
Existence shuddered as he felt a sudden weight slam against his Galeslither and Datacaster. Again, a head of the hydra made its attack. Its coming was so taphysically subtle and sudden that actively avoiding it would have required his full attention.
Seeing how he wanted to take a trip down the belly of the whale, however…
Ribbed walls lined with mucus-coated alloy and tallically sculpted replicas of what he assud the insides of a leviathan’s throat looked like filled his cog-feed. The environnt of the Layer vanished around him imdiately, and the ambient temperature plumted below ten degrees Celsius. The path ahead continued to accelerate past him, the folds of the hydras inside blurring together. It was like he was on a train but it was the station that was speeding past him instead.
Lightning beca him. He leaped, and took the Sang with him, jumping the full twenty-four kiloters he was capable at baseline mass each ti as his Rend grew. Unleashing a breath of matter-withering entropy into the structures around him, his gale rushed through but unmade nothing. Not that he was surprised.
His Sanguinity tasted no patterns present anyway. Attempting to punch through these walls would just see him invert back through the sa path he ca. This wasn’t sothing he broke down physically. The Galeslither, however, remained an appealing option.
REND CAPACITY [WOUNDSHAPER]: 9%
REND CAPACITY [DATACASTER]: 4%
REND CAPACITY [GALESLITHER]: 55%
Forcing the current head he was trapped in to hold still via his stasis, the demiplane didn’t paradox or backlash. It still granted him a window of opportunity to push ahead with one section immobilized.
Suddenly, a sensation rushed through Elegant-Moon’s Heaven–and into Avo’s awareness as well. She felt four life signatures present. The singular organism was thirty-two kiloters away and hidden behind a narrow fold. The others were three tis further, requiring multiple turns and a winding path to travel.
A burst of soulfire flashed through the Path-Hydra as its insides flickered out of existence montarily, dipping them back in the confines of the Layer before turning. Soone was likely clashing Heavens with it, triggering paradox. Draus, he guessed. Likely trying to escape using her reflections.
“I can feel her,” the Sang said, facing twisting into a cruel sneer. “I can feel her perfected lungs and lab-grown muscles and immaculately carved bones and I can–” She made a fist, and through their link Avo felt her prolapse the pilot’s organs through her rectal cavity.
[That was not fucking necessary at all,] Benhata said, regarding the newest mind with absolute disgust.
Elegant-Moon, for her asure, simply smiled. [The infliction of power is always necessary.]
Through her, Avo felt the victim writhe and stain, body struggling as mutilated flowers blossod–
Keep her alive. Incapacitated. Need her mind. The orders left Avo in a daze, his templates helping him snap free from old habits. Bad habits. An echo of Draus sounded in his mind and he further adapted his mind toward pragmatism. A spike of annoyance turned inward as he realized he was wasting ti–taking in sights when he should have been focused on extraction.
Chained to his will, Elegant-Moon did so with a sigh and forcibly shoved the swollen sack of hanging organs back up the way they ca. Every muscle of the pilot was cramping. The Sang read the howling screams of her victim from their body language alone and offered a satisfied smirk. “Be you pleased now?”
He didn’t respond, instead choosing to stride twice more to arrive at the heart of the hydras.
The Sang’s Heaven was a powerful ontologic–and sothing that possessed symtry with his Woundshaper. Part of him was already considering when to kill her. With her mind subsud, he knew everything she did about herself and had the additional advantage of an outside perspective.
Outside perspective that could only be granted by over sixty thousand templates.
The things she has done and the deeds she perford were beyond appalling. He was beyond horror, but even as a ghoul, it was obvious that this one had a problem. Her lustaway drained the amorous excitent with every dose of pain they inflicted. His brothers hunted for the sake of thrill and gluttony. She did because it scratched an intimate, forbidden itch.
[What wonderful company you’ve been keeping, instructor,] Abrel muttered. A bitter sadness passed through her. [At least I can say my cadre wasn’t made up of sadists and savages. We were green but… good. Better team than I deserved.] Sothing inside her wilted. [I wish you’d had burned them too. Godsdamn you Avo.]
He granted her the room to feel her scorn but ignored the sting of her hate. Can’t be damned by the gods. Beyond them already. You already know that.
The heart of the Path-Hydra was a bundle of knotted tubes, circuits, and silicon-looking strips that stretched outward to connect with each of its heads. What staggered Avo more was the marvelous ember of the fire that burned within–the root housing the Heaven itself.
Fifty thaums. If that.
All these miracles manifested by fifty thaums.
How did Highfla even manage this? Creating sothing capable of so much for so little? Even the baseline Galeslither paled in comparison.
{A great deal of experintation and focused developnt, I would say,} Calvino said. {It’s also a modern Heaven, created by the focused minds of brillaint Agnosi instead of the maddened ramblings of god-fearing priests who died so much that losing technology between generations was more common than gaining it.]
Wasting no ti, Avo peeled the cluster of matter protecting the pilot with a flick of his hand and drew her tortured figure into the reach of his flas. As her mind burned and he learned of the functions of his soon-to-be Heaven, he also found himself aware that Aren Dallis–the pilot of this golem–was personally selected by Mondelles for her loyalty and tasked to shadow him wherever he went.
Her mind was also extrely traumatized and required the Conflagration to recompose her as Avo glared at Elegant-Moon before softening and turning away.
“Own dicine,” he grunted, accepting that he wasn’t much better. Hovering in place using his ldskin’s thrusters, he let his Soulfire wash forth and claim this much desired ontology as the maze-world entrapping him and his cadre collapsed. Spatial reality reverted back to Layer Two.
Heaven claid
->Path-Hydra (Space/Labyrinth) - 50 THAUM/c
When the world returned, he found himself in another section of Layer Two altogether. His HUD scread with radiation warnings as he found himself looking down into the open mouths of nuclear reactors, each emanating a bluish glow from their insides.
The body of Mondelles’ operative remained intact solely because Elegant-Moon was rebuilding her faster than the heat and cancers could consu her. Through Avo’s eyes, Aren stared at her breaking and healing figure, skin dancing between perfection and disfigurent.
[Oh, shit,] she moaned, a pit forming in her nonexistent stomach as he unlatched her mind fully and left her sheathe a hollow vessel. [Oh… oh, fuck. You… you killed .]
He felt her death dip into his Soul. Suppose I did. Let her go.
The Sang did as he said. The body ca apart in an instant. In depths of his mind, the newcor began to sob as Corner scoffed. {Chin up, wuss. Take it like Vultunite.}
She didn’t respond. She was inconsolable.
With chanics of his ansible stabilized, he cast a ssage over to Draus as he re-linked with the mbers of his cadre. {Dealt with the golem. Ate the pilot. Understand the situation now.} He checked the Manta’s position and frowned. Eighty three kiloters away. Looks the Path-Hydra’s collapse displaced them as well.
{Nice work,} Draus said. {Summbitch didn’t play right with my Heaven. Think it was ant to counter it. Path-Hydra, looked like.}
{Yes. Probably spotted your accretion or felt the Manta move through space. Was providing overwatch for Mondelles. Soone he trusted with his life.}
{Mondelles? Starsinger Mondelles?}
{Does everyone know this guy?}
{I think I t him once too,} Kae added. {One of my ntors was commissioned to upgrade one of his canons.}
{I might’ve seen porn-fakes of him,} Chambers said, not wanting to be left out.
Elegant-Moon grinned at Chambers and spoke from within Avo. [Oh, he’s going to hate this one. Never let Mondelles et him. Death and bloodshed are certain to follow.]
Not going to be eting anyone, Avo replied. This run was finished. Trying to engage seven–or more–enemy Godclads with four of them still operating as total unknowns and Mondelles possessing a Sphere Five Fra without the elent of surprise was a fool’s plan.
He doubted would surprise them again as he did when he broke out from the Starsinger’s cage.
Despite this, however, he considered the run a rousing success. The setback of his death and coming upon a eting between elents of Highfla and Ori-Thaum aside, he had a new asset to examine.
And a new way to interface with both Guilds.
{We’re done for today,} Avo sent. {Made a new consang. Bringing her back with . Going to make new introductions for us. Be redeployed as an asset.}
Through it all, Elegant-Moon just smiled genially at him.
What?
She shrugged her shoulders. [There is no “,” anymore. There is only you, and what you keep of . I stopped be real the mont your flas torched my mind.]
Her words left him struck with silence as Draus spoke across the line. {...And I still didn’t get to shoot nobody in the end.}
{Take a detour through Syndicate territory,} Avo said, absentmindedly. {Going to need to give Dice a gift anyway.} He regarded the Sang again, and she rewrote her flesh to resemble his, bones elongating, skin paling, sceleras turning black with curved, white irises. Then, with a snap, she turned back to looking like herself again.
This gave him options. Many options. He was going to have to convene with Ruveca, Jack, and Jane again.
{Need to leave you a passage?} Draus asked.
{No. I’ll catch up with you using new Heaven. Going to test it. Avoid notice. Kae. Going to like to see this one.}
The Agnos chirped with interest as a response.
[Shall we leave now, “myself,”] Elegan-Moon asked. [Or do you wish to wander the confines of this lovely part of our city so more?]
He dove deeper into her consciousness, wrapping his mind in the quintessence of her and recoiled. There was sothing wrong with her. Sothing broken. Sothing missing. The mory of her affliction returned in the form of a death–sothing that occurred with each of her Heavens at over fifty Rend.
Her nous went through ego-searing entropy both ways that day. What ca back was missing fundantal facets of herself. Joy. Kindness. Humanity. All gone.
The Agnosi and her sisters called her continued functionality a miracle, but she knew. And now, so did it.
[It was perfect damage,] she whispered. [Broke perfectly so I only have the one joy left…]
Pulling back from her ego, he released a breath. Co. We’re leaving.
[And you will grant my final end afterward?]
We’ll see.
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