Godclads

Chapter 30-11 The Sins of Myself

CATEGORY [BLEAK] THREAT DETECTED

• Threat Identified: Separate iteration of Aedon Chambers, (Current Host of “Anomaly-Classification-Love-Remembrance”) Bearer of Liminal Frame Pattern Stillborn have been spotted. Iterations have been identified as Propagator behind new variants of the Wombrash outbreak across nine districts. Massist Sovereignties under heavy assault. Death toll rising: present deaths at est. 480 million. Thaumaturgic plague spreading beyond upper atmosphere.

Solutions:

• Deploy restricted Q-Tech for surgical localized singularity and liquidation
• Rejected — Quantum-Disruption Field active. Hidden Omnitech assets setting up perimeters. Risk of technological collapse for the entire field of Quantum Mechanics: 84.513335%
• Deploy Kill-Team Innsmouth. WARNING: HIGH RISK OF EXTREME COLLATERAL DAMAGE. WILL COLLAPSE RELATIONS WITH TERRESTRIALS SHOULD THEY UNCOVER THE TRUTH BEHIND KILL-TEAM’S CREATION
• Deliver info-kill weapon [REDACTED]. Memtric strike system. Override Threat’s existing personality.
• Likelihood of success: 0.31% — Will require the target to revert to ephemeral form, disable wards, and maintain that state for a prolonged period for successful override.
• THE DAGON OPTION — Dispatch Dyson-shell to fully capture the Nullstar. Focus high-entropic, high-[REDACTED] on target district.
• Rejected — Will unit Terrestrial Guilds and trigger full-scale war; diverting Nullstar from proper purpose will also expose vulnerable polities to exo-hemispheric horrors lurking beyond the stable void.
• Divert [Unstable] asset Operative Aedon Chambers to engage hostile asset with “Slicer” support.
• Risks: Operative Aedon Chambers highly unstable. Mentally vulnerable. Neuro-mod effectiveness against Heaven of Love dubious: 1.35341% effect. Hostile counterpart has also openly stated their desire to draw Aedon Chambers out. High possibility of trap. Possibility Operative Aedon Chambers can prevail against hostile counterpart: [Uncertain; More data Required]...

-EGI Contingency Bleak “REFUSAL”

30-11

The Sins of Myself

The recordings sent by Refusal continue to unveil scenes after horrifying scenes, and Chambers lets them play on full display through the use of his phantoms. For several minutes, all he could do was stare in disbelief. High-resolution imaging came together and crafted an ongoing story from multiple perspectives. From on high, the Morobi-Ynneath Sovereignty was slowly getting consumed. Being part of the Undercroft and with the substance slowly approaching, its local population was in the process of evacuation when the attack happened. A large burning series of icons formed a defensive shroud around the eight hundred kilometers of the area the Sovereignty occupied, and somehow, it prevented the Substance from pushing through and consuming everything.

That was among the first things Chambers wasn’t expecting: Considering the Silvers were the Necro-fuckers, he assumed the collapse of the Nether should have taken them out. Not so. According to Refusal, their territories were holding just fine, and they were in the process of organizing a massive offensive against the Saintists.

Here, at Morobi-Ynneath, though, shit was somewhere south of fucked. Though the Substance folded around the strange symbol-based thaumaturgical barrier, something else had broken through its veil. Drones dispatched beyond the obfuscation of the drifting letters revealed a nightmare in progress.

A massive vertical slit was spreading fast across the city. All that was flesh and matter was rapidly mutating as well, with buildings and people alike melting into the slit, joining an enormous Sovereignty-sized set of inflamed folds filled with writhing bodies. Distant screams echoed from between the chasm of darkness, but that wasn’t all. Even the voidtech drones dispatched began to scream.

Just moments before, they had been pieces of dead matter, lacking any real consciousness or sophont aside from extremely sophisticated code. That changed in an instant as they were exposed to the local variant of the Rash. Their data fragmented. That was the first sign of something going terribly wrong. The second was when accretions began materializing around the drones, and cybernetic bodies began to rupture free from beneath their shell.

The feed of the voidtech drones cut and out thereafter, but the flashes of visual information they retained painted a grim enough series of pictures. Chambers saw a similar set of sores opening along the drones, and from them, misshapen variants of himself tore free. Gazing upon his malformed homunculi, Chambers watched as an object of dead metal wept with blood and viscera until it became a tumorous hive of widening orifices that pushed out mutilated versions of Chambers.

A cut jolted through the set of perspectives offered. The holographic projections before Chambers changed, showing a new sortie of drones entering the affected area. With the Tiers mid-evacuation, none of the Guilds were maintaining an active quarantine in the area, leaving the airspace open to Voidwatch’s control.

As these drones entered the space, the Morobi-Ynneath’s environmental state somehow got even worse. Almost nothing was untouched by this point — the plague was eating into spatial reality itself. Worse, it was slowly spreading higher, with the tip of the raw red chasm of birth-attuned flesh crawling higher toward the upper atmosphere.

But within the valley of questionable tissues inched a new presence, a new face. Chambers’ own face.

Cold dread filled Chambers’ stomach as he watched a horrific parody of himself pushing the folds apart, crawling out as if a mangled infant with too many arms birthing itself. As the monster leaned out, Chambers saw it didn’t have a body, but an umbilical made out of thousands upon thousands of people, and they were connected groin-first to the cord. Their faces were contorted with ecstasy—-unparalleled pleasure emanated from their very beings. Worse yet was how their orifices were swollen. Anything that could be an opening had become the departure point of homunculi.

Lumps of children burst out from their skulls and rears while they orgasmed over and over. With each pulse of pleasure, the colossal monstrosity born in the form of Chambers only grew. The falling homunculi were absorbed into his flesh, and even as pierce ordinance slashed down from beyond the void and over the horizon—a bombardment sustained by thaumaturgic and conventional means—it did little but strip the slightest bits of flesh away.

“Aedon Chambers,” the nightmare said. It even sounded like him. “Come find me. Come find me, or I’m going to keep spreading, keep fucking—fucking until I reach the void. You hear me, you void-mind-cocksucks! I’m coming for your precious trophies. I’m coming!”

A half-hearted guffaw of demented laughs escaped the titanic horror, and the last drone feed cut out.

For several seconds after, everyone around the table sat in silence.

“Uh, what the fuck was that?” Marlowe muttered. She shot a worried look at Chambers. “Why did that thing have your face? What did you do?”

“What did I do?” Chambers replied. He reeled back and, preparing to fire a retort — and then stopped. What did he do? Was this a consequence of his Correspondence? Had he created a new plague across New Vultun and created that thing?

{Operative Chambers. Operative Cas. Have either of you been in contact with Operative Avo since the destruction of Scale?}

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Both Chambers and Cas looked to each other.

“We… haven’t, have we?” Chambers said. He needed confirmation. He remembered… he didn’t know what he remembered—he wasn’t sure. Like, there was nothing there, but in that patch of nothing, Avo could be hiding. The ghoul was a real mind wizard. Anything goes when it came to consciousness.

The Columner winced and offered Chambers a shrug before replying to the EGI. {Yeah, we’re not sure about that Refusal. There’s… no easy way to be sure with Operative Avo, if you are aware of his capabilities.}

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

{This response has been anticipated,} Refusal said. {It is because of our knowledge that we ask you. We are reasonably certain he has been in contact with you. Only that you cannot remember. Your reluctance to state anything as absolute has been appreciated. Intelligence obtained from Operative Draus—a highly biased source herself due to close relations with the subject in question has revealed a displeasing likelihood: Veylis and Avo are in the process of merging. Ontologically and mentally.}

{Yeah, so we gotta stop that, right?} Chambers said. {We round up the rest of the cadre—}

{We are uncertain how such a process is to be stopped,} Refusal interrupted. {Moreover, the Substance presents increasingly hostile territory. The space within is rapidly changing, and Omnitech forces have been massing around its periphery. Something is in motion. These movements hint at coordination. Consciousness.}

A beat followed. And Chambers rubbed at his mouth. {Listen, Refusal, consang… are you trying ot say that Avo’s folded? Because you’re wrong. He’s the mind-master, not Veylis. If they’re merging, that should be a good thing, ‘cause it means she’s getting burned, and we’re on the verge of victory.}

{We are on the verge of only uncertainty. Measurements taken from your anomalous counterpart reveals high temporal deviance—and also a high amount of paracognitive structures as well. Ghosts, in simplicity.}

{You’re staying that’s a path-made entity?} Cas asked. {Or a memory?}

{The Heaven of Truth has been destroyed,} Refusal answered. {Chronology, Continuum, and Conceptualization are aligned. We lack sufficient data to provide a proper answer. Our best estimations indicate that there are alternates for each member of Operative Avo’s cadre. Going by Operative Draus’ experience, they were simulated to counter you in combat should the Stillborn become your inheritance.}

{And now both me and Draus have pieces,} Chambers muttered. Shit. Things were getting… complicated wasn’t even the right word. They had no idea what the fuck was really happening deep in the Substance—and worse yet, now it was shitting out personally-designed Godclads and unleashing them on New Vultun.

The scenes Chambers just saw flashed through his mind, and his stomach grew so tight it hurt.

“So, like, what are we supposed to do about this shit,” a member of the Council of Fuck said. “This shit seems a little out of our Sphere range.” The Chambers offered the original an apologetic wince. “No offense.”

“No,” Chambers shook his head, agreeing. He really didn’t want to use his Heaven of Love. He was only going to make shit worse if he did—he couldn’t control it.

{Operative Chambers. We are recruiting you for a new assignment.} A line of data loaded in the corner of Chambers’ perception, and he groaned.

“Fuckkkkk,” Chambers said. {No, look, you saw what happened back at Everpeace—the Heaven of Love… I can’t control it.}

{We are aware of what happened when you first bonded with the Stillborn fragment. We are also aware of the risks involved. This is likely a trap. You are being targeted for the shard you possess. That is our best approximation of the situation.}

{And you’re still sending him out?} Cas asked in disbelief. {With due respect, Refusal, but fuck that. I agree with Chambers, He isn’t ready, maybe if you expedite—}

{The neuromodifications you requested will not counteract the effects of his Heaven. The desire and influence it inflicts is absolute. Absolute against all things. He views it as an addiction. This is wrong. It is compulsion. It is surrender. The ultimate triumph of mythological love. No force is greater than that which has been woven from a fairy tale. And no human can stand against the nature of their idealized fundamental purpose: to breed.}

{So, what, I’m just fucked when I use my Heaven?} Chambers muttered.

{No. You are not “just fucked.” You require a direction. You require purposeful love. A genuine bond between yourself and another that you can pull upon. But more importantly, your worth right now is not to engage your hostile counterpart in terms of prolonged combat, but to create a functional Rendbomb with your existing entropy.}

Chambers blinked. Right. He had the Stillborn now. He could do that. Speaking of, he hadn’t even looked at his Hell. He didn’t know what harm his venting would have inflicted on the world, but now was as good a time as any to check.

[THE LOVEBRINGER] > Hell

Canon: DISENTANGLEMENT (ENTROPY/CORRESPONDENCE) — THE HOST SEVERS AN ENTITY OR OBJECT FROM ALL BONDS, CAUSING THEM TO BE PARTED IN TERMS OF MATERIAL AND METAPHYSICAL CONNECTION FROM THE WORLD.

PARADOX – [ERROR: ANATHEMA ALREADY ACTIVE]

UNBIRTHING (ENTROPY/LUST/BIOLOGY/CORRESPONDENCE) — THE HOST CAPTURES AN ENTITY AND DRAWS IT THROUGH THEIR WOMBPORT. THE CAPTURED ENTITY WILL BE UNMADE SHOULD THEY FULL CROSS THE THRESHOLD OF THE WOMBPORT.

PARADOX – [ERROR: ANATHEMA ALREADY ACTIVE]

Chambers flinched at the second Canon’s description. “Wombport?”

“It is what we have for a face now,” the Lovebringer whispered. “It is the source of births. Should we find it possible to control ourselves and grow, then perhaps we will learn what it means to be a parent in more ways than one.”

The half-strand blinked. That shit was something nova-weird. “Yeah. Uh, maybe… maybe let’s think about that.” Chambers wasn’t sure about turning into a mom-dad or how this worked. I mean, he did see the Soft Masters force Dannis to give birth to a mess of puppies to drink him full insane and harvest the Heroic Lactate from his altered nips but—

{Chambers, for fuck’s sake you’re still connected to us, you're projecting these thoughts out loud into the ansible!} Cas’s expression was something between despair, disgust, and disappointment. Chambers could only wince.

“Sorry, consang. My bad.”

“There’s just… so much beauty in the world. And you fixate on this.”

“What?” Marlowe said, sounding increasingly annoyed. “Alright, look, assholes—get me one of those ansivels or whatever. I’m tired of being left out of this tech-cast convo.”

“He’s just horrifying me with the Soft Master Collection again.”

“The puppy scene,” Chambers said, turning the Marlowe.

“Oh, yeah. Total classic.”

Cas began to pray under his breath. Refusal surprisingly was absolutely silent. Kant and Calvino would have made multiple comments by this point. The Contingency Bleak, meanwhile, was closer to a rock in terms of responsiveness.

{So. What you need from me is just Rend, right?} Chambers said.

{Correct. That is what we desire as a first step. We wish to provoke a response from your alternate. Force them to respond. Deploying you in direct conflict risks too much. However, we cannot delay much longer. We estimate that his afflictions will slip past the upper atmosphere before midnight. Within the week, the polities will be at risk. Understand what you present is our most efficient, direct, and surgical means of eliminating the target. We have a suite of other options, but each one represents risk thresholds that the Consensus currently finds unacceptable. The threat posed to our polities will alter the range of acceptability. Do you understand?}

{Yeah. Got it. So. Looks like I got some venting to do and a bomb to deploy, huh? I can do that. I can get this done.} Chambers mustered his resolve. Yeah, if there’s anything he was good at, it was fucking himself over with stupid choices.

{We will also be dispatching additional assets on standby should your Domain-specific entropics create an opening.}

So. Sounded simply. Hells, it sounded much safer and low-risk than he expected. Which was when his paranoia started acting up. He extended a Ghost-Link over to Cas even as he kept chattering away at Refusal. +Cas. Hey. You got any way to get to Calvino?+

The Columner’s expression didn’t change. +Me? No. But if we can find Denton… maybe. Very hard maybe. We’re dealing with a Contingency Bleak, Chambers. They created to deal with this like this. Problems like us.+

+Godclads.+

+Anomalies,+ Cas said.

Chambers nodded. +Yeah? Well, the option we’re getting here is too neat, and my fuckery alarms are going off inside me. I think there’s something bigger happening, but we can’t exactly piss Voidwatch right now. So… Think I’m going to play along and set up some bombs. But there’s no way I’m using my Heaven. Not until I can… I figure out how.+

+I’m with you on tha—+

And just then, a single fly landed on Chambers’ shoulder. No. Not a fly. A bee. A bee connected to a long chain of static. He blinked. Sunrise? He mouthed?

And then the damn bioswarm stung him. Chambers winced as something was injected into his neck. But before he could respond, a line of text loaded across his vision. A few steps away, he watched both Cas and Marlowe curse as well.

CHAMBERS

CALVINO SPEAKING

DO NOT REACT

CREATING LOCALIZED SERVER INSIDE YOU

CONTINGENCY BLEAKS PROVIDING ALTERED INFORMATION

DO NOT TRUST

YOU AND DRAUS POSSESS FUNCTIONAL ITERATIONS OF THE STILLBORN

AVONO LONGER NECESSARY

OPENING TO ELIMINATE HIM AND VEYLIS PRESENT

WILL NOT RISK RESURRECTION

CHANCE TO WIN THIS WAR FOR GOOD TOO ENTICING

PRIORITY IS NOT CONTAINMENT OR SUPPRESSION

PRIORITY IS ELIMINATION

HAVE LOCATED DICE, LUCKY, DENTON, NAEKO, AND… JAUS

Jaus? Chambers blinked. How in the godsdamn—

I AM RATHER CONFUSED ABOUT HIM AS WELL. DO NOT REACT. STAY ON TASK AND STANDBY…

THINGS AMONG THE POLITIES ARE… A BIT MORE UNSTABLE THAN THEY APPEAR ON THE SURFACE.

Cas and Chambers shared a look.

If the end of the world wasn’t enough, voider politics was coming home to roost as well…