Chapter 10-8 The "Distraction"
+What the hells? Central, Im seeing what looks like a coil of dragons eating into itself. Think we got a No-Dragon problem on our hands. Were casting Specters to+
[010 - error metamind wavelength lost]
-Last thoughtcast of Chief Exorcist Nivina Kisjie (Along with all two thousand members of the 1st Descent)
10-8
The Distraction
The immensity of the damage revealed itself with tides of fragmenting ghosts tumbling further into the Warrens like clumps from a collapsing ice shelf.
Reaching his mind through a gateway, Avo watched in muted awe as his Metamind tried to estimate just how many mind-deaths it took to simulate the appearance of a phantasmal blizzard laced with fragmented shards of memory.
He remembered what mass nullings looked like after dives gone wrong, but this had a more familiar touch to it, the damage subversive and overwhelming.
A recollection returned to him. A moment distant by days. He remembered how the minds of all those in Ox-Three had shattered beneath the whims of the Low Masters, how their damage seemed clean and absolute, reducing the cognitive shells holding the pneuma of countless consciousnesses to shrapnel and powder.
There was a semblance here. A similarity in the damage. But the scale was beyond measure even by an exponential measure.
A sea of mind-stripped thoughtstuff continued to tumble deep into the Warrens, and its waters flowed undistilled, bearing the homogeneity of a single prime emotion: Terror.
Avo. Draus was talking to him. He didnt respondhis thoughts were too halted to respond. Avo. What the hells is goin on out there.
I dont his voice trailed off. A blastwave tore through the Nether then, its force catching all in its wake as it scythed down from the Tiers to the gutters. The weight of a warhead swatted all ghosts aside, cleaving a gouge between the flowing tides of the Nether. Avos mind rattled as the thought-quelling avalanche slammed his ghosts back into the sheath of his own mind.
In the back of his head, something cracked. A piercing howl came from somewhere. His perception fissured as his Metamind spewed error codes. Equilibrium drained out from his hearing and gravity tore him from his feet. He fell for but a second before he felt an impossibly strong limb halt his descent.
Through the spots forming in his eyes, Avo felt his hearing pop in and out as his ghosts swirled behind the protections of his wards, behind his thoughtstuff. Lines of mem-data danced across his eyes but pulsing spots impeded his literacy. Blinking, he found himself held up by Draus. Her thoughtstuff had been shorn clean from her Metamind, but still, she responded, action coming before thought.
The ghosts chained to his perception twitched across his vision. The nexus brightened and then dimmed. The line of mem-data rebooted.
THOUGHTWAVE DETONATION DETECTED
Yeah, Draus said, grunting a subtle wince of discomfort, no shit.
Stabilizing himself using his Echoheads, Avo took a step back and felt dizziness scythe through his shivering skull. He kept his tendrils embedded thereafter to prevent another fall. Essus was moaning, crying out as he pawed along the ground, gripping the ankle of a stunned-looking Chambers who somehow managed to keep himself standing.
Of all present, only Kae seemed untouched.
More than untouched: For that instant, her mind was no longer afire, and even through the distortions of his visual display, he could see the flesh of her inner mind, the sequences mapping the constellation of her memories slowly building to a glimmering whole again like molten metal poured down a network of channels.
Eyes wide, she stared at him, a lucidity filling her eyes. The disbelieving twitch of a smile pulled at her expression. Avo I can remember why An expulsion of flaming exhaust plumed free, rippling from the center of her again. The jet of memory-rending tore a squeal of pain from her as she gripped her skull. He moved but Draus reached the Agnos first, catching her before she could collapse.
In moments, a low moan slipped free from the diminutive woman. Gone again G-one I was I could think! Itit was clear! But but The softness of her sobbing reminded Avo of a child too shy to cry openly, but too hurt to resist the pain.
A shuffle came beside him. Both Chambers and Essus were slowly emerging from their thought-rending stupor as well. The former fathers glowing eyes cut about the room, looking for where the sobs were coming from.
Even with the Nether sundered, the turbulent seas leaving Avo exiled upon the island of his own mind, he knew what the man was seeking.
The boy. The sound of Kae crying reminded him something of the boy.
Avo didnt need a Metamind to taste the pain twisting wrinkles of anguish into what skin remained on Essus face.
As stability pooled back into his own body, Avo took his first supporting steps with the aid of his Echoheads. He could no longer detect what was happening in the plane beyond, though the gates remained open. More interestingly, it appeared the EGI Core tolerated the blast with minimal harm to its own structure.
That was good, at least. That explained why the systems still seemed to be running, and how the lights stayed on.
What the fuck was that? Chambers said. He rubbed the back of his head as if he had been cuffed there. Jaus. Fuck me, consang, but that felt like the time I ended up putting my head next to an ejecting Rendsink. A series of odd looks greeted him. Chambers continued. Its like a hammer inside my head smashing up all my thoughts before they could formgodsdamned.
As Draus helped Kae over to her seat, the Agnos had mostly calmed, though she was still relying on the Regulars support to walk. Faint murmurs of muttered sentences sprinkled with choice curses for Ori-Thaum became Kaes self-commentary even as she found herself reseated.
Draus fixed Avo with a look. She gestured toward Kaes head. You saw?
Yeah, Avo said. I did see. Might be something I can do for that after.
Draus nodded. She looked up and around, glowering at the nexus. We trapped here or what?
Think the Cores still working. Shadows still connected. Nethers shaken. Thoughtwave detonation. Largest Ive seen. Since
Since the war, Draus said. Yeah. I felt the kick. That wouldve been a cat-five Thoughtwave Detonation. Called a few of those myself when the Silvers reached too deep behind our wards. Shit. That was reserved for when we was about to lose a Sovereignty.
The implications were clear: Something immense just transpired above.
Didnt she say she was gonna send us some pictures or a location or somethin, Draus continued. The hells happened to that.
Dont know, Avo said. Never got any details. Was too focused on Mirrorhead. Figured it was drug-talk with her.
Draus wanted to say something but her words choked off into an annoyed acquiescence. Yeah. Alright. Maybe. But not knowin dont help us none. If we was hit this hard then She trailed off for a moment.
He connected the dot. Damages. City outsideAeros. Infrastructure. All disrupted. Breaking must be severe. Mirrorhead cant reach him. Cant sink into his mind anymore either. A growl began to build inside him.
So close. So close, but to be denied nowand through no fault of his own
No. He wouldnt allow it. He knew. He read enough of the Greatlings memories to know that the fool wouldnt run. Not now. Even if the Warrens were collapsing into the Maw, if all the Guilds were standing against him, nothing would stop Mirrorhead from making this final run on behalf of his mother.
And it was that kind of obsession that made a person predictable.
Not much time, Avo said. He turned to face the locus that typically connected him to the EGI Core.
So far, fractals of internal memory reached out but came unraveled in the shifting instability that was the Nether. If the realm of cognition was a sea, then the wavelengths forming the water itself would be yet parted underwater explosion. Presently, there was just absence, not nearly enough phantasmal substance to bridge ghosts, but just enough where the minds themselves yet gleamed like naked ponds hovering in a void.
Inching near the locus, he overlapped the halo of his Meta with its reaching memories and attempted to establish a link.
[ERR
A flicker pulsed across his cog-feed. A broken line of mem-data speared through and greeted him.
+Sysable+
The thoughts of the hive cut in and out as if they were surfacing and submerging over and over again. More cracked pieces of data came through and he found himself unable to integrate it into his Metaminds systems. He took a pause a considered his options.
He could try to directly integrate with the minds of one of the crew, but how he was going to do that was in question. Perhaps he could attempt it with his Galeslither, but the risk presented by the cores temperature and his Galeslithers hubris was great.
He took a step back. Too far, Avo. Thinking too far ahead. Ignoring Draus as she asked him something, he tried accessing the locus again.
This time, instead of waiting for a response from it, he sent it a command instead, ordering to open the gateway he used to receive Essus and Chambers.
Fractured flashes of vicarious memory spilled over into his Metaminds interface. He remembered holding a toddler up by her arms as she kicked, the flower fields of a place called Mars rising in verdant stretch behind her. He remembered a flash of something bursting in the distance, a news-feed reporting on the rebellion of the colonies at Alpha Centauri. More moments came, but what little cohesiveness they had disintegrated.
Finally, however, a pulse of ghost-fractured green splashed over his perception. Along the walls formed two gray-hued doors blanketed in static. It seemed the Low Masters' aesthetic choices had been affected as well. As the darkness swirled outward in a tube-like whirlpool, noise screamed down the funnel.
The first thing he beheld was a triangular aero smearing into wreckage and flames as it spun out of control, colliding sidelong against a distant megablock, error codes shimmering in the space once occupied by long stretches of holo-ads.
The outside winds brought tidings of chaos. Voices and engines were joined in a unified scream as chaos and confusion enveloped the districts. No one was prepared for the disruption. Echoing sounds followed the impacts of countless aeros, the song of their demises akin to the endless percussion of artillery heard during the war, heard in Draus palace.
Most of all, it was the emptiness that stood out to Avo. The Nether was a second layer to reality itself, but in its absence, the filter of the world around faded, and gone was the semi-ethereal tint that lined the world, gone were the highlights and ghosts forming the backbone of information and communication.
Only accretions remained. Accretions, and a thick film of falling ash speckling down like snow.
All who dwelled inside the nexus gathered before the opening and stared out into the city beyond. A gust of wind swept in a haze of grey, but Avo took hold of the air itself and cast the ash back out.
Standing at the forefront of their group, Draus took a few steps into the tunnel and gazed out. Jaus. Aint too keen on findin out what that crazy old half-strand did to cause this.
Not even sure its her, Avo said. Despite all of Zeins oddities, there was still the touch of the clandestine about her, like she was used to living large while avoiding the gaze of the Guilds. This was not something that could be ignored. He felt it. He saw the damage. You couldnt get that many broken pieces and unraveling ghosts without nulling a mass number of minds.
And with it happening at least in the topmost and most occupied portions of the Warrensor even the Tiers themselves?
No.
His little act of lacing a locus provoked an Exorcist sweep and a Paladin investigation. This, however, was magnitudes more severe.
He needed to see it. The extent of the damage. And just what was still operational. More importantly, he needed to see the condition around the Conflux megablock. Mirrorhead wasnt about to give up on his revenge, but everything was different now.
Without the presence of Exorcists and Paladins, the Guilders options opened up, but he was crippled communicatively and blind beyond what senses he possessed. The golems stored in his demiplane would also be effectively useless without a proper pilot, and the drones wouldnt be of use until the Nether reknit itself.
On Avos end, he was severed from accessing his subverted memories remotely. Not even his session would work now. But they were still there, and in time, they would return. The question was if he had enough time and if Mirrorhead was content to delay.
Ultimately, though, he knew the answer to that. Abrel Greatling had given Jhred a deadline, and now, this moment could be a blessing in disguise. Everything was in chaos. Hells. They didnt even know what the ambassadors condition was.
Going out, Avo said. Need to see extent of damage. See situation. Going to ascend. Take a look. Draus. Open the tunnel again in ten minutes. Still taking commands. Only ghosts are choked offget close.
She fixed the locus with a wary look and flicked her eyes back to him. How about I head out and
No, Avo said. Not ideal. No working aero. Cant judge Nether either. I have Galeslither. Can get up high. Get overview. Check Conflux and Nu-Scarrowbur. Review options.
Draus looked like she wanted to argue, but her eyes slid away from him and she turned to look at Kae. Kae and Essus. Understandably, she didnt much care about Chambers, who was standing off to the side, mimicking Essus expression while trying not to draw too much attention himself.
Wont go after him alone, Avo said. Dont worry about that. Just for intelligence. Detail. Understanding the situation. Getting lay of the chaos. A beat passed. And see if you can get Kae stable. Need to talk with her about Mirrorheads Heaven once I get back.
Alright, Draus said. Ten minutes. Dont be late.
Avo grunted. Worst case is a delay. Contact you when Nether comes back. He tried to get his Metamind to give him an estimate of the disruptions duration, but the number kept jumping between five minutes and fifty-two hours. Useless. In this environment, he wouldnt even be able to cast out his Whisper and scout ahead.
The limitation was neutering.
And there wasnt anything he could do about it. It wasnt like he could replicate
Or maybe he could
Perhaps it was time to see what happened when he made his Woundshaper mimic the matter pattern of a locus.
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