Chapter 10-7 Fires in the Backdrop
You dont need to be a sadomasochist to be a Wargskin, but it sure as hell helps.
'Cuz Wargskins sure aint Regulars. Not even close. Theyre like uh, snuffers, in a way, but they come expecting to hurt and die so that morale thing? Yeah. Doesnt really work the usual way with them.
Most of them are selected from one of the Pit-Cities in the Skuldvast, which makes most of them Scaarthians. In recent years, theyve opened their doors to suicidal bastards of other clades and creeds, but the overall make-up still applies.
From there, they need to prove themselves by earning seven scars. The first is to walk the Skuldvast for a fortnight unarmed and unequipped. The second is to tame a warg. The third is to live with the warg and to hunt its old pack down with it and kill them. The fourth is to complete ten kills of the human variety. The fifth is to submit oneself to torture at the hands of a Longeye. The sixth is to survive. And the seventh is to ritually sacrifice and eat the warg you are bonded with in order to conjoin yourself to them.
After that, you get assigned to a Bloodthane, offered all the drugs, vicarities, guns, and Woundhound injectors you want. Not too bad a gig if you want to play at being destruction incarnate.
All in all, theyre a bunch of fucking freaks. Kill them. And shoot their bodies a couple more times for good measure. Null the ghosts too. Their minds usually arent good for much beyond serving as traumas.
-Quail Tavers, The School of the Warrens
10-7
Fires in the Backdrop
The corpse Draus brought back with her was mutilated beyond measure. Tassels of flesh shorn free from biotheurgically enhanced limbs while intestines trailed out of a welling pit spewing an endless mess of crimson.
No visible weapon implants could be seen, but along their back the spine of a warg was graftedthe skeletal shape of the animal's skull weaved into the humans back through the melding of skin and fur. There was something of a metaphor about the design, a blur asking if the person was wearing the wolf, or if the wolf was taking over the man.
As Draus tossed the body upon the daisbouncing them off a throne in the processAvo noticed they were using a limited exoskeleton of some sort. Rod-like installations connected lattices of carbon nanotubes in a tight spread across their bodies and limbs. Yet, it only cupped them from behind, exposing their chests to harm. A final peculiarity could be seen with the dozen open ports lined down the stretch of their back, the glint of metal shining like dots through the fur of the warg.
Wargskins, Draus said. Stormtrees favored dyin meat. A look of disdain passed through her expression as she regarded the remains. He didnt need the resonance of her Metamind to notice the absence of respect. Ran into a pack of em while makin my way around Nu-Scarrowbur. Well. More like they ran into me. Crashed my aero into one of their packs. Wasnt the only one runnin an Incog. Not even close.
That narrowed Avos attention. He pushed Essus back, and Draus winced as she caught sight of the man. They would need to speak about him later.
Running her memories through phantoms for review offered a full depth of insight into the new problems they faced. Her initial collision with a group of Wargskins in a cheap Stormtree Gnome wing came without prelude. She was diving down to circle a block, trying to judge potential firing angles when they were coming up. She got lucky as she clipped them with one of her engines, sending herself spinning through the top floors of an empty Scalper owned club.
The ones she hit werent so lucky. They skidded off the side of the structure and ended up tail-spinning into a wave of oncoming traffic below.
A mixed turn of events for certain: Though it compromised Draus position, it also revealed the scope of the supposed trap that lay in wait for Conflux.
The Scalpers, as things turned out, were not missing. Not at all. Instead, they seemed to have fled within what looked to be an interconnected demiplane of some kind, emerging suddenly as entire blocks filled with their thoughtstuff. Pulling the memory from Draus, her surprise hitting the Scalpers as hard as the aerovec hit the smoking dance floor.
Avo frowned as he had his Metamind filter a count. Through the sequence detailing her fighting retreat, approximately seven thousand unique accretion profiles were blinking back out into the real, with likely more on the way. Scalpers suddenly just were, trajectories painting columns of red through strobing lights as Draus made to extricate herself.
Worse, mixed in with the Scalpers were forces of a higher quality. The aforementioned Wargskins were on Draus immediately. She exchanged fire with them through a few blocks, managing to kill or disable two packs.
However, as she moved, more followed, and this time with the ones she failed to kill came Woundhounds.
They were not the worst of the problems.
Leaping out from the block as the wound-bearing hounds chased her, squeezing through gaps and crevices in solid matter, the top half of the block she was in imploded behind her with little rhyme or reason. The only hint of things to come was from a sudden compression of air.
Fortunately, she managed to hijack another aero mid-fall and use the chaos to reactivate her Incog functions, passing through a series of Specters rising high into the air as mobile spotlights carving through space, hunting for a target elusive to the conscious mind.
A series of skirmishes took place thereafter. She had to abandon her new aero after a series of fragmentary anti-air missiles forced her into a dive that exposed her to a perception chokepoint at a low intersection. She ejected one of her ghosts containing a near-term memory into the locus as decoy before shooting her way out from her still moving vehicle, diving through the neon tentacles of a phantasmal kraken clinging to the top of a noodle shop.
Before it could even strike another surface, the vehicle she abandoned crumpled into a mangled ball of glass and metal, the air coiling like a slithering vice around it.
Her Phys-Sim screamed. Lines of fire painted trajectories of orange and yellow through the air. Leaping off the side of the noodle place, she dropped into an alleyway just as the first mag-flung needles came seeking her last known location.
A shot slipped an inch away from her head. One rang off against her shoulder, inflicting a partial tear on her ligaments and sending her into a tumbleone that she caught the momentum of and turned back into a roll.
A few more shots followed. Plascrete burst apart next to her. Screams sounded from inside walls as collateral damage joined the inevitable equation of an urban firefight.
Then, strangely, the shots became fewer and fewer.
As she twisted down the winding gaps between buildings and across street-level quick-fabbed shanties, the distant wails of Exorcists' Specters rose, then all suddenly fell quiet again.
An anomalous brightness formed tendrils around all shapes bearing an edge, and a mind-shaking presence instilled a song of strain in the plasteel infrastructure.
Something was approaching. Something powerful.
Paladin, Avo realized vicariously through Draus memory. That was the power of a Paladin. She had seen it before in her time serving Highflame.
But just as sudden, the light winked out, and all the Exorcists Specters went with it.
Draus froze mid-step for a beat, wondering just what was going on before shrugging her confusion off.
Uncanny darkness settled upon the Nether. In the false sky painted by an endless sea of thoughts and ghosts, the first drips of dread and confusion descended like droplets from a waterfall.
Through all the Layers, standing above the Tiers, a chorus of sirens filled the Warrens above with mind-numbing noise.
Something was happening. There was a shift in the atmosphere. A change in the Nether.
Draus kept moving.
She was one block away from the extraction point when she ran into someone for the second time. As she collided with a lone Wargskin, their thoughtstuff widened in surprise. Draus did not return the sentiment. She shot him four times, splaying open his midsection and blowing apart his limbs, thento deny him a final act of revenge via autojected Woundhoundsshe slammed his skull against the walls of the alley and dragged him along as he ran, snapping the injectors free from his back.
New accretions lit up in the blocks around her. With the Exorcists gone, the first of the Scalpersor whoever they were withcast the tides of their perception through walls and streets. In seconds, Draus was basked in hostile attention, and in seconds, the first flechettes began punching through the walls.
Using the Wargskin as a shield, she blocked shots with the corpses reinforced spine while she called Avo to open the gateway. The last thing she saw before entering the tunnel was the tentative reawakening of the district, blocks igniting with thoughtstuff like flames crawling across cloth.
The Exorcists were still missing. The Exorcists were missing and the Scalpers were reappearing, their minds lit with the song and taste of confusion as they peered over into the real.
With the sequences at a close, Avo glowered at the memories. He turned to Draus who was busy pulling pieces of flesh out from the edges of her bio-rig. Supposed to be quiet. Scouting run.
Lotta shits supposed to be, Draus replied, a slight sneer on her lips. This is just what happens sometimes.
Yeah, Chambers said, nodding vigorously. Sometimes things just go wrong. You know. Like like unexpected guests. He gestured at the Wargskin. Things are hard to predict in this city.
Avo pretended to contemplate the former enforcers words. He nodded. Chambers beamed. Sometimes people who dont do preparation get eaten. Tortured beforehand too. Maybe I should find another aratnid.
Chambers no longer smiled. A distance filled his eyes and a lump descended down his throat as he swallowed.
Draus looked between them and scoffed. Alright. Look: I dont know if the Scalpers and Stormtree want Mirrorhead dead too, but from the way things are lookin, there really aint anyone else worth huntin like this down here. She paused. Cept you, maybe.
A low growl of annoyance left Avo. Just how many people wanted Jhred Greatling dead? Or was this for him at all? And where did all the Exorcists go? More questions. Every step led to more confusion.
Avo hated conspiracies. He hated being ignorant more. His desire to just throw everything into chaos and go hard after Mirrorhead increased. His prey might escape, but from the look of things, it seemed like everyone and their nu-dog was gearing up to intrude on his hunt.
Wargskins usually get thrown ahead of Bloodthanes, Draus said. Put in a battleline along with bioforms and elementals by Stormtree if theyre still on that Shifting Cascade combat doctrine shit. She eyed the body and spat on it more out of habit than hatred. Swear, if there werent so many of those suicidal half-strands, we wouldve licked em by now.
We. Couldnt take the Highflame out of the Regular. Not completely, it seemed.
Regardless, it was her first sentence that made his insides tighten in anticipation. Bloodthanes: Individuals chosen to be Godclads by a select Coven of Longeyesthe semi-prophetic, destruction obsessed, and possessed matrons who were reputed to have hung themselves from one of the many branches of the eldest tree that bore their Guilds namesake.
More competition. And more flesh and Heavens to sample.
Good tidings, master, the Woundshaper said, its lasciviousness matching his. If fate smiles upon us, we might yet be graced with more fragments to us. Joyous day.
Bloodthanes, Avo said. Think theyre in the district?
Draus lips thinned. The Skins dont run alone. Were lookin at a cadre. At least. Probably four of them. Maybe two.
He paused. Four. Possibly even eight Godclads arrayed against Conflux. Even four Godclads of the Second Sphere or higher would be able to tear through much of the gutter-chaff fielded by a Syndicate. Pair that with Guild-standard forces and this should be a slaughter.
Another moment from Draus memories came back to him. The Exorcistsand possibly the Paladindisappeared too. They were the main reasons why the Scalpers were keeping themselves hidden. Them and these new forces.
What did their absence mean now? And why did they leave?
A discomforting shiver ran up through the threads compromising Avos new musculature. One of his Echoheads twitched in the air.
He had a guess, and he thought it was a pretty good one. Exorcists. All of them vanished by the end.
Yeah, Draus said. Like they all jacked out at the same time. Felt some leakage come down from above. Whatever that was, it was loud, and there was a hell of a lot of minds thinkin the same thing. She paused. Hey, you think that got somethin to do with
Dont, Avo said, trying to keep the sigh from his voice. Things messy enough. Dont want to think about her.
The Regular rolled her healing shoulder and flexed her hands. Well. If it aint her, then we got another thing happenin on top of us. Possible. But its gotta be real loud to recall or disrupt the Exorcists And things have a habit of not really bein coincidences when youre involved somehow
Avo hissed. Contact her soon. He considered the situation. Not going to have long. Exorcists gone. Paladin too. Nothing stopping an attack now. Other than fear. Paranoia. Wont last.
Draus disagreed. Dont think theyre rollin out to hit Greatling. Most of their shit seemed defensive from the glance I got at them. Firing emplacements from buildings. Anti-air. Packs and troops stationed up and low, far and near? Yeah. Feels like a defense. Think theyre hunkerin down. Settin up an ambush.
Ambush, Avo said. He collapsed the memory sequence and had the phantoms manifest as his DeepNav interface instead. He narrowed his focus down on Nu-Scarrowbur and looked at the layout. Layered and stacked with defensive ring-shaped blocks, most pathways in the district had a curve to them, with some parting and shifting unless you decided to take an overhead route. Think theyre trying to grind Conflux down? Trap them within the district.
Could be, Draus said. But we both know that aint gonna stop Jhred from doin a runner.
Maybemaybe they can, Kae said. A-Avo. Play play back those memories. The ones where when the aero was crushed. Byby the wind.
He did as he asked, rewinding the sequence back to the point where the wind wrung the aero out of shape like towel being twisted dry of water.
A-again? Kae said. Her mien was that of intermittent focus. Her thoughtstuff sputtered and burned as her exocortex screamed, thrumming at a higher energy intensity. Something resonated in Avo: He was beholding how the Agnos was before her crippling. A character of obsession. And detail. It was still there, but only revealed in fractured instances.
II think thats A-Askagimmard, Kae said, pointing at the Draus second aerovec being mangled by the wind. A Heaven Heaven of Forces.
Another golem? Avo asked.
M-maybe but thats not i-important. I I worked on this. If if this is the Stormtree build, then then maybe maybe they can trigger a backlash. A backlash in the hubris in the Twice-Walker. Ive been been going through the Elder Mythos. And and the mem-data you p-puhprovided! There a hubris to the Canon of of Reflectionsat least, I think Jhred has one of those. Itit says that that if the structure he is connected to through his Heaven is shattered while hes channeling his miracles through them it shouldit should cause have a risk of causing a spatial backlash! Outright! Maybe even a rupture!
Avo, Draus, and Chambers stared at Kae. Essus gaze remained fixed on the memories, his transplanted hands shaking as he watched the metal of the former aero lengthen and then compress.
Right, Chambers said, face contorting with intensity. His ignorance was palpable, but something compelled him to join the conversation. Fear. That was the next emotion Avo sensed. The enforcer was afraid he would be considered useless now, so he was doing his utmost to discover a new dynamic for himself in this group, to ensure his survival.
Chambers was right to fear. Avo had considered eating his eyes and harvesting his Essence for a thaum. But that would come afterward. The mans mind presented unique properties he wished to study. Properties he considered testing against the phantamsal conflagration afflicting Kae.
Avo had theories he wished to test, and someone unnaturally resilient but ultimately expendable was just what he needed
So, Draus said, massaging her nose-bridge. Youre sayin that they might-gotta option to keep Mirrorhead in place?
Kae shrugged. A shyness fell over her when she was pressed. The flash of who she was faded. She was lost in her thoughts again. Uncertain. Uncertain to what was asked. Then back to just being uncertain as she remembered again. They they might know his canons. But I dont know. This the mem-data came from inside his mind. Jhreadhe he definitely made modifications. Im not done parsing everything but but hes hes a Sphere Three. High Sphere Three I think. But only information on one Heaven. One Hell. One cycler. Hes a tower. No sea to his design at all. Which means
Backlash is death for him, Avo said. He understood. He stared at Kae for a moment, trying to remember how Walton reacted after he managed a success in his memories. True or not, the emotion remained real.
Awkwardly, he tried smiling at her and nodding. The effect was less than pleasing. Kae paled at his widening fangs. Chambers took a step to the side, doing his best to remain about of Avos view.
A laugh rasped free from Draus. You tryin to smile there, rotlick? Theres somethin between your lips.
He stopped trying to be Walton and went back to glowering at Draus instead. Flicking a look and Kae, he muttered: Good job.
At least that made her eyes light up with appreciation. Her nose had a habit of wrinkling when she was happy. And then it was gone. Forgotten.
So, Avo said, we have Stormtree in Nu-Scarrowbur waiting to ambush Mirrorhead. Have Ori-Thaum Incubi trying to help him assassinate one of their own. We have us planning his death; in his mind. And we have his sister. Who is coming to take him in.
Wow, Chambers said, fuckin... who doesnt want the boss dead?
The sister. Real-death, anyway. Resurrections were probably fair game.
Dont forget Zein, Draus said. She looked up, hinting who she suspected to have lured away the Exorcists. Shes in this too. The Column with her. Jaus. A beat passed. Shit. You think shes got somethin to do with how fucked everything is?
And as if her words had invoked something dreaded, Avo felt the Nether shake as if a nuclear warhead had been detonated underwater. His phantoms twitched and shivered, splashed by motes of foreign memories stinging their echoing static with flashes of shattered memories.
More and more, broken shards of memory fell like a rain of shrapnel, spearing down from on high. And from the initial hail followed a deluge of broken ghosts carried on tumbling waves of screaming thoughtstuff.
Avo, Draus breathed, her wards alight at full capacity, you feel that?
Yeah, Avo said.
You think thats
Yes, Avo said. He wasnt sure. He had no proof, but something in him knewjust knew. Three hundred thousand. That was the number to beat. Zein. The growl escaped him.
What the hells did she just do?
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