Godclads

I...

I can feel it inside me.

I can feel...

I can feel... how...

I can feel... love.

All the world is just... love.

And all the world is... hunger.

—Excerpts recorded from a Stormtree soldier infected with the Beloved Virus (Also known as the Nu-Ghoul Contagion)

29-14

Back to School (V)

—[Vator Greatling]—

One moment ago, Vator had stepped through a gleaming reflection the regular had presented to him, prepared to embark on a journey of most dubious loyalty. Now, he found himself sailing through the air at 4,500 meters per second, while material and metaphysical destruction lashed the world beneath him apart.

Life came at you quick these days in New Vultun.

He only got flashes of what was unfolding across the district. A bit of nuclear fire here. A cadre of Heavens pursuing what looked to be a Chronoframe strike group there, both sides barreling through entire blocks—memite now sorely missed.

And then there was the place Vator was approaching. It looked like a patchwork of eldritch tumors tearing at the seams of reality. The fabric of existence resembled rotting wallpaper peeling from the wall, and from these wounds gushed anomalies—rogue miracles untethered from governing mythos. Without a Heaven and a Soul to further fuel their devastation, these ruptures would mend over time once the entropy was drained. But as things stood right now, Vator was heading into a hive of madness, and he had only one person to blame.

Perhaps the Regular did want to kill him, but wished to do so in the most amusing of ways.

Waves of displaced space crashed over him, threatening to displace his being from where he existed. But a countering emanation from another rupture pushed the first anomaly back, allowing Vator to continue unburdened. He was effectively falling between stable clefts—clefts created as a delta between conflicting existential fissures.

Scar Charts. That was the word. Strange how the Sunderwilds were leaking into the city now. Strange times. Fascinating times.

Where are we? the Portrait screamed. It reached out into existence, and Vator felt countless catalysts respond. Millions of bodies belonging to those alive and dead resonated with the Heaven of Biology, and countless among them were brutally injured, the death rate rising at a staggering rate. Thin threads extended out from him, forming a network of connections he could use, and through these pathways, he gained access to miracles of blood, skin, sinew, bone, flesh, and more. He gained a glimpse of Thronerest through the eyes of the people, and what he saw left him less than pleased.

Stormtree was pushing in on one end. Sanctus and Ashthrone rolling down the other. And now the middle, an unreasonably placed dragon housing an entire cityscape of its own bifurcated Highflame across its own territory.

A squadron of drones buzzed over Vator like an angry horde of hornets, emerging just beyond the edge of a rupture that oozed blackness over into the real. They traded fire at an unseen target—and then a cascading wave of flames swallowed them before materializing as an armored humanoid form with six arms and a ring around its head.

SOUL DETECTED

HEAVEN DETECTED

SAMSARIST OF THE PURIFICATION (FIRE/WAR/MEDICINE/DESTRUCTION) EST. [955]

The manifested Heaven was about a hundred meters in size and with each passing second, the air around Vator grew hotter. The only reason he had burned was due to his enhanced physiology, but even so, every intake of breath was beginning to sear. Then, just as he noticed the Samsarist, so too did it notice him.

And a spiraling flame built in that ridiculous little ring fused over its head.

Wonderful. He so hated fighting Godclads of the Fire Domain. Burns were some of his least favorite wounds. However, before Vator could manifest his Portrait in response, a dozen glass shards punched through Samsarist’s midsection, each one the size of a small building and traveling at nearly the same speed Vator was. The instrument blinked in surprise, but the wounds on the flaming Heaven seared closed in a gush of roaring flame.

Seemed material harm was less than useful—

The glass shard detonated. Fractures spread out from them and extended over spatial reality—and the Samsarist—as well. The fragmentation they inflicted was absolute. As they sundered space, they struck a paradox as well, the Samsarist breaking apart into pieces before its being dissolved into motes of unstable Soulfire.

Now, Vator felt the biology of the Godclad as well. Foreign implants—Stormtree by size and crudeness of the organs. The Instrument prepared to reap another life using his Portrait, but his Heaven cried out in rejection of the act. Not that it was necessary in the end, either.

A final shard of glass, far smaller than all the others, drifted just above the Bloodthane. A bullet, almost too small for Vator to perceive, darted out and struck the falling Godclad. When it hit, both bullet and Bloodthane ceased to be. Reality jolted. And then something wasn’t. It was more like Vator had forgotten what was in front of his own face than anything else.

Witnessing the scene caused Vator to sustain trauma damage. His wards shuddered as if he had borne witness to something he shouldn't have. The Instrument blinked. It had been years since he had suffered true trauma damage not inflicted by an enemy Necrojack.

Then, the shard drifted close to him, keeping pace as a thoughtcast from Draus spilled free. +Alright. You’re about to drop into City Eternal. A part of it anyhow. Gotta get up through where it pushes through the substance. Axtraxis should be waitin’ on the other side.+

+And your ticket into the arteries of Highflame,+

Vator replied, folding his arms as he fell. +You’ve become quite the virus, Guard-Captain.+

She ignored his statement and continued. +here. Take—+

A warhead blinked into existence next to them. Vator’s eyes widened as he saw the missile twirling through the air, its delivery platform malfunctioning. And then it clipped the edge of a partially inflamed looking rupture, and suddenly, a new dawn splashed toward him just as Draus’s glass construct flared gold and…

And with a flash of gold, the explosion winked out. Only to rematerialize among Stormtree forces down in Thronerest. Vator realized this through the eyes of his catalysts. Somehow, Draus had been fast enough to transfer the unstable warhead from one place to another. Fast enough that Vator didn’t even perceive was she was doing. Or perhaps it was something more than speed. He saw gold within her glass after all. Gold. The same divine hue possessed by Veylis.

+As I was sayin’,+ Draus continued, as if she hadn’t just shuttled a nuke away into hostile forces. A new shard slipped free from her main one, and it was barely the size of Vator’s finger. +Keep this with you. Don’t lose it. Don’t break it. Don’t do nothin’ that will fuck with it.+

+Your means of keeping me on your leash?+ Vator asked.

+My way in,+ Draus said. +And my way of keepin’ you alive.+

+You know, I could have aided you in the defense of this district. I am well versed—+

+Wasn’t the need. Handled things myself. Time for you to do your part.+

Vator frowned. +If we are to work together, I would expect some level of trust. Or at least respect.+

A snort came from the Regular. A storm of gunfire tore out from her primary shard, cutting just over Vator and shredding a dozen passing drones down to burning fragments. +Nah. Don’t gotta do nothin’ like that. But tell you what I can do: I will let you change your Heaven. And I will let you have a chance at savin’ the Strix and the High Seraph. And you will do what I tell you to and stop playin’ cute with me, synced?+

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+Yes,+ Vator said, her rough demeanor lessened by the sweetness of her offerings at the end. +Synced indeed, Guard-Captain.+

+Perfect. Now. We’re gonna pass through the what’s left of the Sunderwilds real soon. If you got any way of carryin’ the shard across unseen, now’s the time to do it. Also—+ Draus trailed off again. A sudden burst of tension leaked over from her mind. +Ah, fuck. Faster ‘n I thought.+

+What? What’s wrong?+ Vator reached out through his network of bodies, but they showed nothing else out of the ordinary. Just chaos and war and… and…

A vague shape darted behind Draus’ shard. A massive shape that brought with a crushing weight. Vator knew what it felt like to be in the presence of a high Sphere Godclad. Draus was at least two ratings higher than he was right now. But the being that just materialized out of nowhere made both of them seem paltry. It was like being near Chief Paladin Naeko.

+Who is that?+ Vator asked.

+A problem Highest Avandaer decided to create for me personally. But it ain’t none of your concern. You keep movin’. Get through the substance. Get to Axtraxis. Don’t lose the shard.+

Vator took the small shard out of the air and created a skin-compartment to store it within his body. It resided in a small patch of space under his right armpit, his tissues moving to carry it over. +I can help you. I am more than willing to stand alongside you. Let me prove my—+

+Less a question of loyalty and more a deal about survival,+ Draus cut him off. +Don’t think you’ll last long against this one, juv. Pull a runner and get vacant. I’ll play cat and mouse for a bit.+

Part of Vator wanted to linger on the battlefield out of spite. Despite Draus power, he had more than a few miracles that could confound far mightier Godclads than he. The body was more than just a canvas for him—for his artistry expressed itself in a myriad of forms, from science, to architecture, and even cartography. But he withheld his childish spite. Mainly at the behest of his Portrait.

“Do not let your pride deny me my restoration,” the Portrait seethed. “You spoke to me earlier. Make your words ring true.”

And so Vator did, turning his attention outward once more.

Ensconced within a nest of boiling entropy, Vator’s actions were perfectly shrouded from all prying perspectives, beside those unlucky few that dared dive into the chaos alongside him. More, he suspected the Regular launched him into this stretch of ruptures deliberately. Using the eyes of the Nolothi peasants far below, the air above them resembled drifting fangs crashing and breaking into kaleidoscopic patterns while entering this space through Thronerest required one to navigate a funnel infused with fire, darkness, and unstable space.

Draus had lined the perfect firing trajectory for Vator, threading a narrow needle and placing in a patch of stability that also didn’t impede his Heaven of Biology for that matter. Already, he was merely miles away from where the city eternal curved upward and through the substance, exiting the anomalous veil like a tunnel through a wall.

Tapping into bodies in his vicinity, Vator focused his powers and prepared to inject himself across his many strings. It would take little effort for him to superimpose his ontology with a lesser catalyst of biomass using The Flesh My Home canon. Taking Draus’ shard with him might require a bit more Rend, but—

Something exploded behind him. A blastwave of force ragdolled Vator through the air as time began to jolted and twitch progressively forward in dizzying increments. Golden fractals twirled alongside Vator before he stopped thinking and just used his Heaven. Immediately, his own biology poured along thin trails, carrying Draus’ shard with it as he melded with the blood running within a Nolothi flat’s veins.

Blood that quickly ran out as the body he was inhabiting had their head torn to mangled tatters by passing shrapnel.

“No!”

The Portrait cried. A feral, elemental urge to protect his host and keep the body he was inhabiting alive passed over from Heaven to user. Vator winced as the sheer sensation consumed him, and he used his This Body a Painting Remembered canon to regrow his host’s head from what little remained.

Veins and arteries extended out from the ruined pulp that once made up a full skull. But even tissues filled empty space, optical cords bore eyes like ripe fruits on the ends of bloody vines, and the brain regenerated itself furrow by furrow, no consciousness returned. Vator knew the nature of flesh, but the realm of the mind and awareness was not his to command.

He guessed once, long ago, that man might have been a purely material species, their cognition working by the few pounds of brain matter while consciousness was formed by the narrow tubes within, interacting with quantum wavelengths somehow. But that wasn’t the way of things anymore.

“Why…” The Portrait murmured. As the body was vacant of thought or internal drive, Vator assumed control, rising on feeble, fragile limbs. “We healed the child, but she does not return…”

Child? Vator looked down, only then realized that he was, indeed, piloting the body of a young Nolothi girl. Not that young. Frankly, from how short these flats were, it was hard to tell. That and the sheer amount of cell damage already inflicting them. What brutal little lives. Ah. Well. He tried. But her’s was a poorly designed vessel to begin with. Like a paper too thin to even endure the strokes of his paint.

Immediately, he began rebuilding his own biology using her own, and slowly, Vator hatched out from the peeling flesh of the girl, her skeleton melting into his, her organs sinking deeper and transforming to his enhanced variants in seconds.

What remained of “his” old brain tissue spilled down the wall as Vator stumbled to his feet. Nolothic bone runes jingled along archways, revealing veritable drone fleets battling within the confines of the City Eternal. It seemed like plenty of the world beyond had found their way into the space within Noloth.

Right now, he was standing along a corpse-strewn canal. An intricate system of aqueducts extended across the cityscape, and thousands of Nolothis were leaping into the fetid waters to escape roving bands of Stormtree nu-dogs tearing through the streets or Highflame Regular Kill Teams fighting to secure ziggurats and other structures of significance.

+This must be corrected,+ Mercy sighed. The sudden manifestation of the Famine made Vator flinch, but he scoffed after that.

“Mercy,” he greeted. “Glad to seek you again. How nice of you to leave me in the hands of that most unpleasant Regular.”

+Her decorum is irrelevant. The Burning Dreamer has chosen her to be his Ignorance.+

“His what?”

+You will remember when he allows it.+

Vator blinked then shook his head. He felt a vibration pass through the building next to him and triggered his reflex boosters. Shifting back a step, he barely avoided getting “his” head burst apart a second time as a fléchette exploded out from the wall. Overlapping his senses with all the others in the area, Vator frowned as he got a glimpse of just how chaotic the battle was within this stretch of Noloth.

There were Golds, Silvers, Greens, Blacks, and even what felt like some unaffiliated personnel. Soldiers from all factions and even Squires were scattered across Noloth, and all of them were massacring the locals as they fought each other.

+The outsiders are lost. Just like the City Eternal itself. Worry not for the citizens. They belong to the Dreamer. What is lost can be restored. Bodies are ruined. But minds are preserved. Such has it been. Such will it be. But for this iteration of the city, the nodes of these citizens… they deserve better. They deserve a chance to survive.+

“Why?” Vator asked.

Mercy turned to him, his eyes a cold hazel. There was another difference between him and Emotion—that poor fool’s eyes were stitched. +Because you do not want any Guild controlling the inner expanse of this city. Not with all the viviante available. Not unless you wish for them to capture the ziggurats and unleash district shattering traumas at their pleasure.+

And then the Portrait spoke. “Vator. User. I will not rend flesh. I will not harm. This is not my way. This will not be what I am. Whatever this one asks of you, use me not as a weapon, for that is not what I am.”

The Instrument merely nodded. “I agree. But you have never been a weapon. You were always—”

“Your expression is horror,” the Portrait said, cutting Vator off. And then it receded deeper inside him, leaving the boy with a sourness on his lips and a frown on his face.

Make your own way, another voice echoed from within Vator. He knew this one. It was— Gods operate beyond the limits of man. Be a creator. Destruction does not need to come from your hands.

“Ignorance?” Vator breathed. “You… you’re the one that took me from…”

And then the voice was gone, and Vator forgot who he was talking to. But in the absence of the speaker, he found new memories instilled into his mind, and the Instrument felt his thoughts flare with excitement.

MEM-DATA ASSIMILATED

Roused by his excitement, the Portrait returned as quickly as it left. “What is this? What is the shape of a monster gracing my page?”

For some time, Vator worked on improving the design of the ghoul. Such was his want when he pursued the Burning Dreamer in the aftermath of his brother’s murder, toward the end of proving his sister’s innocence. But he and pitiful Abrel were all the same in the end, mere pawns in a greater power’s game. Now, however, he had an epiphany. He knew Avo’s sheathe by heart—could combine it with nu-ghoul “rough drafts.”

The bulk of the forces assaulting Noloth were mostly mundane forces. Few Godclads or even golems managed to get this far in, and though Vator wondered why, that meant his resolution of this crisis could be simplified—and outsourced.

“It’s not a monster,” Vator said, answering his Heaven of Biology. “It is an artpiece. An unloved, unfinished work born at the hands of Noloth, come back to save this part of their city once more.”

+What are you doing?+ Mercy asked, gaze fixed to Vator.

At once, the Instrument’s flesh began to crawl and tear, and drawing on the full power of his blessed epiphany, he extended his influence across the city, infecting all non-Nolothis he could feel with a new strain of the Haemophage—one that even Guilder enhanced immune systems couldn’t resist.

Not without updated vaccinations anyway.

And across a thousand bodies, be they Vator, Regular, Wargskin, or other, eight limbs burst out from their backs. Eight Echoheads, like the legs of a spider sliding free from a discarded exoskeleton, followed by a cloud of static spores, and elongated bodies that gleamed bright in the light.

A new power would be joining the battle soon. Not truly aligned with anyone, but compelled to hunt Guilders above all. Yet, even as Vator continued along the guided path of his inspiration, he failed to notice pinpricks of consciousness dotting the minds of these nu-ghouls, small burning orbs granted by an unseen influence.

And high above, the sky tore once more, a spreading chasm of gold consuming all other ruptures as Jelene Draus faced her path-wrought alternate while Vator finished seeding Noloth with his final touches before he returned to his task of departure.