Chapter 3-11 The Flesh of My Brothers
Making the ghouls was a mistake. I see that now more than ever. Duringwhen we were trying to liberate Old Noloth, we wanted something that would spare the people. Something that we could make easily. A mass-producible bioform like the No-Dragons had.
No. No, we didnt get the bio-template from them. We made the ghouls ourselves.
How? Iyou need to find a Low Master to tell you thatII was just an Acolyte. I was just following scripture. I didnt want this to happenI didnt mean for so many to die.
Trust me, if it were up to me, every last ghoul would be dead. They were a mistake. They were a mistake.
-Paladin interview of Acolyte Sewe Agwar, Former Low Cultist
3-11
The Flesh of My Brothers
Avo kept the gun with him. He might have Mirrorheads protection, but the strength of orders and contracts got real soft when some over-chromed street butchers decided their feelings were hurt.
The enforcers had their eyes on him all the way. Like moving slabs of metal, they all faced him from a center profile. In a sense, they were peacocking at him. Some of them sprang blades out as he passed by, ostensibly to test if their implanted aug worked. The lifter added more tons to their grav-bench, the mag-chains laced to the size of the bar ensuring more stability.
Rantula, true to her habits, just stared, eyes fixed on Avo like the spider she wanted to be.
The discomfort stayed even after they finally opened the doors to lead him out.
Before Avo was a place awash with sound, light, and roaring bloodlust. Not so different from the Crucible, besides the fact that all here were of Conflux, each individual bearing a mirrored mask on their hip, marking them with Mirrorheads favor.
The mall, if Avo could even call it that anymore, stood bifurcated along with the rest of the structure, a gouge of glass running clean through its expanse, scar doubtless left by an instrument of heat. Overhead, pulsing lights spilled from hovering drones while guitars growled on from pillar-sized speakers. From a deck a hundred levels high, tides of humanity lined the stories below, their implants shining, their thoughtstuff clotting into a blended flurry.
This was to be an experience shared. An experience conjoined. The festivities of the circuit called back to times of old, back when the gods did reign and lives were offered in sacrifice and supplication in colosseums made vaster by myth.
At the very bottom of the stairs, the growing gradient of decks lining the intact section of the mall sank before a crude moat bridged by a cracked billboard. Beyond the billboard rose massive pylons that arced with a constant thrum of volts. Within its confines of the electric cage, a place that used to be a food court greeted Avo with all its typical properties. Extendable tables. Holo-ads. Service wights still shambling around, dressed in mocking referees garb.
Right now, two enforcers were messily brawling in the center, hammering each other with blows that would have liquefied most baseline creatures. Smears of blood and the remains of dead bioforms drenched the floor. Avo smelled some nu-dog. Guess they had a war-variant in play earlier.
Crowning the arena itself was a massive hologram showcasing the prize that awaited the participants that drew the most views. It was a newly acquired exo-rig. Nightmantis. In the corner next to its blinking blueprints was a mem-code. After a second of staring, Avo copied its data into his Metamind and let them run in his minds eye.
A remembrance played. The body the memory was hosted in stared at the exo-rig with admiring eyes.
The Nightmantis wasnt particularly large, lined in small cells of hexagonal plating that made it look more like a shelled bioform than the literal tanks that most enforcers preferred. What it did have was a jump-jet system and a ZKS-89 precision cannon attached to its back. Three thin glares of light shone through its armor-splined faceplate. Behind it, a prehensile echo-pulser granted it full spectrum awareness.
Each quality and function lined itself to a specific part of the armor. This was a demo, then. Something to entice the vicious and savage like luxury voidships and custom demiplanes did for bored Guilders and celebrities back up the Tiers.
Avo could see the appeal, but the appeal was still beneath him. If he was in visual range of someone he intended to snuff, something had gone terribly wrong. Now if the prize offered was a suite of fully sequenced combat phantasmics made by Ori-Thaum, he too might be as excited as those around him.
Still, having an exo-rig made up for some of his other deficiencies. Made him harder to kill. Better he take it off the hands of his competitors than be faced with it in active combat down the line.
Aint gonna be yours, ghoulie, Rantula said, her voice taunting. Doubt you know how to use it anyway.
They were standing on opposite corners of the staircase, both eyeing the other from their periphery. Twenty feet of distance separated them and Avo wanted twenty more if only so he could be in front of a speaker. The beast inside him was screaming loud now, its belly full of unslaked savagery from earlier when he didnt tear into Rantula.
Frankly, being boxed in by so many Syndicate goons wasn't making his mood any better.
A loud crack echoed out from the area, followed by a roar of agony. Looking down, it looked like one of the brawlers had won. Snapped the left leg of their opponent in half. A strange show of sportsmanship and caring surprised Avo afterward, when the victor lifted the loser out in their arms, laughing all the while.
Mightve been doing it for the spectators. Might not have.
War drums began to thunder around him as the next match was announced. The speakers behind him crackled.
Alright you bloodthirsty savages, the announcer growled. Her voice was, honestly, too high for her to achieve the desired effect. But she was trying. And hard. Its time for our next event, specially requested by the one, the only, Rantula!
Rantula lifted her armsall of themand flexed. From the decks below, hundreds of Conflux personnel cheered while spectators clapped. She turned to Avo as the announcer droned on.
Time to give up the gun, Rantula said, holding her hand out, expecting him to just hand his weapon over. Dont worry. I wont hurt you. Yet. The boss wants this to be a personal affair down the line between me and you. Youre gonna be up in a minute.
He stared past her blankly. Still havent told me what I need to do.
She grinned. Itll be obvious, ghoulie.
Alright. Avo bent the gun. It cracked down the middle. Rantula frowned at his act. Good. Best that she was confused. With a grunt, he cracked the magazine open as well, letting most of the ammo spill out.
While her attention was pulled by the falling clatters of micro-rockets, he cupped the two left and hid them in his fist.
Careful, Avo said, as multiple enforcers backed away around him, cursing, might go off. Should get someone to clean them up.
They would be useful for what he planned later. The only problem was that his temp-skin undersuit was too shredded to hold anything anymoreit dangled from his upper body in tatters. He would have to replace it with something more rugged, more
Avo noticed an unattended synth-leather jacket bedecked in plates of rusted metal hanging over a nearby chair. He reached over and took it.
Owner was probably someone he would eat anyway. He put it on and found his arms far too long for the sleeves. A common problem for most clothes he wore; had to get them custom-made. Still, it fitted him well enough. He slipped his two micro-rockets into its inner pocket.
You just steal a jacket? Rantula asked, her confusion growing.
Yes, Avo said.
...and for our next vicuhcontestant, one of the survivors of last nights Crucible! Offered to the circuit under Rantulas recommendation, give it up for Essus Sibupan!
An ensemble of jeering cheers rose as Avo narrowed his eyes. Down, standing right in front of the pylons, the father stood. The enforcer had already taken the man's collar off and handed him a steel-headed cudgel far too heavy for a flat to bear.
Yet, like a hollow puppet, the man dragged the weapon behind him as he moved forward. The electric field dropped. The fathernamed Essusentered to find an end to his pain.
The end didnt take long to come.
The smell betrayed them first; their hissing voices after. Stepping to the edge of the top deck, Avo saw an oozing cluster of boiling thoughtstuff, the wavelength of violence and bloodlust so familiar to him as it mirrored his baseline.
From the other side, beyond the rumble, the pylon's dropped their field as pale monsters bound over tables and tore into the wights.
Ghouls. They had unleashed ghouls on a flat.
There, Rantula said, pointing down at the ghouls encroaching on the father. Thats your task. Moonblood. Go fetch. Her grin was ugly and wide and made Avo want to do violent things.
Unafraid, the father walked forward, hammer raised sloppily overhead. One of the ghouls noticed his weakness and flicked a claw over the mans leg. The father toppled over howling with pain. His cries only grew louder when he dropped his weapon on himself.
Some watchers laughed. Some yawned. Almost all were content to watch the ghouls savage the flat.
Almost.
Avo moved, leaving Rantula behind as he drove down the steps in a dead sprint. Glasses of mead and cups filled with questionable contents shattered against his back as certain watchers pelted him, baptizing him with their disdain. He cared not.
Below, the father fought like a man already dead, swinging from the ground, but never scoring a hit. With each miss, the ghouls took more pieces out of him, sampling handfuls of his flesh between bouts of screeching laughter.
Thank the dead gods these brothers of his were more brutal than practical.
His unbelievably, incomparably stupid brothers.
Avo fought the urge to fire Celerostylus immediately. Such an act would be one of wasted haste. What kept the father alive was the ghouls' penchant for cruelty; his body would serve as sustenance enough, but pain was a flavor unto itself. If Avo burned through his reflexes now, the best case was a five-on-one against him.
Not good.
Ahead, someone stuck out a leg, trying to trip him. Avo drove his heel claw down into their ankle and twisted. He left them screaming as he pushed off their bleeding limb. As people in the deck below turned to look up at the commotion, he snatched a bottle of liquor from a messy table.
He had need of the drink, but no want to actually taste it. Instead, he was going to use it as an offering.
The enforcer who walked the father on the leash looked thirsty.
The chromed-out bruiser waited there for Avo just before the billboard bridge leading to the pylons. The enforcer just stood there, whistling while he spun the fathers shock collar on a finger like it was a hoop. Closer now, Avo could see the main had a holographic mohawk projected from his skull and two flashing imp-signs where their eyes should be. They grinned, upper teeth spelling hard while the bottom said fucka.
Youre late That was as far as the enforcer got before a bottle of liquor broke against his face. Yelping, he toppled back, dropping the shock collar. Rot-fucking
Avo snatched up the collar before it could hit the floor and clamped it around the enforcers neck. The chromer was unprepared; stunned by the bottle and blinded by the liquor. The situation was made worse when said liquor was ignited by Avo clenching the shock trigger. Surging volts danced up the leash, beckoning pitched wails from the enforcer as he gripped at his neck.
Avo wasnt interested in a fight. Avo just wanted him dead. With a kick, Avo pushed his newest victim across the bridge into a sparking pylon. Whips of lightning lashed into the enforcers flesh, coaxing a spray of flame from his faux-hawk as his implant malfunctioned. Gleaming red, his optics burst while his howling cries grew louder than the droning music. Pale-white synthblood pooled from his ears as Avo listened to implants popping inside the Syndicate goons flesh, skin bulging with every burst.
THAUMIC CYCLER: 24 thaum/c
GHOSTS - [35]
The cheering cries for bloodlust had choked off in the deck behind, the jubilation of their thoughtstuff now betrayed by rising horror and indignance. They came here thinking they were going to kill and not be killed. But they forgot themselves. Violence didnt play favorites; anyone and everyone could be a victim or an agent.
All it took was a simple choice.
Stepping up to the electric field, Avo waved impatiently, trying to get someone to drop it. On the other side, a sickening slap echoed.
The father tumbled head-first across the floor before Avo. A chorus of sibilant laughter and encroaching shadows drew closer, the ghouls themselves hidden behind the pylon that was still cooking the enforcer.
The field shut down with a crackling fritz. Avo stepped forward, halting his brothers in their tracks. As soon as he crossed, the field flickered back on, sealing him in. Hummed static danced across his skin.
Timed perfectly, the drums began a climb to a steady crescendo, the echoes of the beats ringing down from on high. It was a vulgar thing of marketing, to paint him as an arriving savior after he just killed someone, but who was he to deny others of their delusions?
Sniffing the air, his brothers studied him, the largest of the groupthe firstborn to emerge from the nestleading them, claws already dipped in the red of the fathers blood. Avo guessed he must have struck them as a strange sight to behold. One of their own, yet not dressed like them, not sharing their stance, not tearing into the flat as easy feeding.
Brother, the firstborn hissed. This one was a creature of respectable size, even compared to the standards of their kind. If Avos muscles were like layered ropes, this one had tires instead. Our preyours!
The other four clawed the ground, hissing and screeching at him with spittle flying and fangs bared. One threw a handful of loose flesh at him. Avo tilted his head and let the giblet sail past.
The firstborn and his brothers were five of a nest. Their features and movements were too similar to make Avo suspect otherwise. The Syndicate had dressed them in gore-soaked skins of synth-leather stitched with Old Nolothic runes. Runes that amounted to gibberish since the sigils were all in drawn random sequences. Bloodied entrails clung to the ghouls bodies as well, flapping from them like dripping dresses of offal.
What a joke this was. In Confluxs attempt to instill his kind with greater savagery, they ironically pulled his brothers further away from their nature. Most of his kind wore no clothing and bore no ornaments. It was the will of the Low Masters that they died clean and bare. It was their own will to have their skin be baked the flowing crimson of their prey.
The father was crawling along the linoleum floor, a bloodied pulp of a man hissing shallow breaths. Still, he groped along the ground, looking blindly for his weapon.
Avo understood. The man wanted death. He had little left but death. But dying at the hands of a ghoul was no death at all. If the man wanted to seek an end, he should claim by his own hands, not in this macabre game of amusement that others inflicted upon him. That seemed right to Avo. What Walton would have wanted.
No, Avo said. Hes his own. A survivor; Crucible champion. Not for you. Not for anyone else.
The firstborn studied Avo, their head tilting, trying to gauge his odds in a fight. Stupid as most ghouls were, their stupidity was less a matter of lacking intelligence and more a problem of crippled impulse control; less that they couldnt think, more that they seldom did.
With the firstborn, the thinking didnt last long. It fixed the twitching arm of the sizzling enforcer with a look. The corpse was now melding flesh-first over the metal, like a fly on a zapper. The smell was divine. Avo wished he could take a bit from the body without getting shocked.
Share, the firstborn said, barely managing to work out the words through his seething hate. The ghoul was twitching with barely bottled energy. He pointed at the father again. The man was trying to pull himself up using a table. Share him.
Avo laughed. Share?
The firstborn bared its fangs. Will let you have arm. Little. Brother. Choose which.
Avo sighed, struggling not to snarl at his brothers. Gods, how stupid they were. Gods, how diminished they made him feel. Why? Why was he the only of his kind who could see them for what they were? See them for how they acted. Was it all Walton, then? That which made him more than this mockery of sapience gathered before him? All impulse. All want. No control.
Here they were, performing not for their original cause, but for a new master all the same. And unlike him, all that was needed to cajole them into function was just live prey.
All the power to think, and none of the want to do it.
The Low Master should have made his kind animals.
Forgetting the alternative, Avo said.
Alt-alter The firstborn growled, infuriated by his inability to say the word. What you mean?
Why share him, Avo continued as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, "when you five are more than plenty?
Avo fired his Celerostylus.
The firstborn twitched back, freezing as a coursing bolt of electricity lit his skin, looking as if ivory beneath naked moonlight. The other four moved no faster, their pace clenched to a near halt, bade to stillness in Avos perception. By fractions of inches, they moved, unprepared for what was to come. And by fractions of a second, he would part them from this world.
Striding, he wasted no time stepping past the father to claim the cudgel. It was an ugly thinga clump of thick steel on a rusted pipe. Felt like it weighed over a hundred pounds. Little wonder why the father couldnt even hold it well.
But a ghoul could. With a weapon in hand, Avo proceeded to his task.
What followed was no fight, and could never be considered one. A fight entailed someone fighting back, capable of a struggle.
There was no struggle in the moments that followed.
Avo struck. The firstborns head pulped inward, brain matter spewing loose from a fissuring skull. The rival ghoul didnt even know how he diedlikely didnt see how he died. The last thing the firstborn probably remembered was a blur of motion.
Then nothing.
Carried on rising bloodlust and momentum, Avo tore into the rest of his kind, hissing, cudgel rising and falling. The tendons in his arm tore and ripped amidst his swinging onslaught. He didnt care.
The survivors of the nest died. Their heads folded behind their necks at unnatural angles. Fangs were shattered. Skulls burst. But always, Avo made sure to crush their brains. Anything less was to leave a chance for a ghoul to mend and rise again.
As he brought the final blow through the forehead of his last brother, a discord roiled inside him. How easy this was. How base was his kind. Three real seconds had not passed yet. His mind wasnt even burning. Why then, did the Low Masters make his kind? For combat? Look how parted he was from their weakness with but a single alteration. What worth were they against the alloyed peoples, against machines armed with gauss and fire?
They never had any chance to win the war. None. To the Guilders, they were nothing but fuel for a Soul. To the Warrens, they were just monsters that never should have been.
Avo quelled his Celerostylus. Time resumed its pace. His arms fell by his sides, limp, the cudgel bouncing from his grasp. Around him, five skulls finished splattering apart, the bodies collapsing almost synchronously, their deaths timed to perfection.
THAUMIC CYCLER: 29 thaum/c
GHOSTS - [42]
A new flick flashed inside him. The mass of his Liminal Frame was expanding. Growing. One more, and he would have his Hell.
Roaring cheers and calls for an encore came up in the crowds. Drifting ghosts called out his stage name, cheering him on for his nobility for defending the father.
The father. Essus.
Turning, Avo saw the man he came to defend leaning against a chair, looking at him. Sobbing. His heartbeat was pulsing a near-constant. Blood and snot poured down from his nose.
I wanted it to end, the father whispered.I just wanted it to end.
There were words that could have been said to this man. Words that could coat his pain with comfort, at least temporarily. Avo knew nothing of those words. The best he could do was cut the boy from his memories with the right phantasmics. Remove the pain altogether.
But something in the fathers face told Avo that forgetting was never going to be in the cards.
There you have it, consangs! Moonblood! The good-ghoul! The one! The only of his breeding! The announcer coughed briefly. Hatched not from the flesh of basest-beast, but a fallen saint of absolute virtueone bearing the Will of Jaus! Praise him! Praise the Moonblood! Glory to his strength. Glory to his humanity! Praise him
Searing aches ran down his arms. His joints and sinews healed, reknitting after the exertion he put them through. Bringing a shaking claw up, Avo looked at his bloodied hands, and between his claws, at the bodies of his brothers.
Humanity, he said, laughing mostly to himself.
He glanced at the father again. The man was broken. Weary. Wounded. He needed to leave. He needed medical attention.
Avo needed to bring this nights affairs to a close. Turning, he pointed out at the crowd. Time to give Mirrorhead what he wanted so he could see this day done.
Praise me another way, he called out. The crowds went silent. Floating Specters splashed their rapt attention down from on high, bathing him beneath a hundred thousand eyes. Praise me by giving me Rantula!
He pointed up, right where Rantula was. He knew she would answer. She thought she wanted this as much as he did. She was wrong.
Forced a flat to fight your games, Avo said. A survivor. Now without a son. Did my part. Now you fetch.
A rift opened amongst the watchers. The enforcers in the decks scoffed and spat with indifference and scorn. The Specters bled rank horror at the accusal. Two different worlds. To the latter, the father became a full person the moment he made it into the citysomeone who by survivalshould have earned a spot in the citizenship roster. Such was the opinion of those bearing Massist political leanings, anyway.
The enforcers on the other hand were just backing up their own.
Snarling with laughter, Rantula descended, her steel-tipped boots ringing loud with each step. She rolled out her arms and extended her spider legs. With a sudden push, she thrust herself high into the air, leaping forth from the heights of the deck and darting into the air. On the same limbs, she landed, shards of linoleum flaring out in a tide.
Avo pre-emptively fired his reflexes again and stepped in front of the father. The soft tips of the shrapnel pierced his skin slightly but penetrated no deeper. He halted his reflexes. As the dust settled, he walked over to reclaim the cudgel he dropped, keeping his eye fixed on Rantulas thoughtstuff. His arms were healing, but he could still feel a throb ebbing through them.
He would need to make his swings count. His tendons werent built for how hard his muscles could twitch in tandem with the Celerostylus.
A titanium leg drew a semi-circle through the debris as the curtain of dust lifted. Rantula stood behind the fog, greeting Avo with a grin. She bore a bronze hammer in her arms the size of Avos body.
He stared at his cudgel and suddenly found it wanting.
Scare you that much? Avo asked
Nah, Rantula said. Just want to make sure you stay down after I tap you. Mirrorhead said he dont want you deadhells, Im willing to bet he told you he wanted the same fucking thing for me, yeah?
Yeah.
Rantula nodded. She flipped out her lower lip and shrugged with a hand. Suppose I wont go for your head, then. Feed you your brothers after Im done so youll get all better. After. Her lip curved up. But I am gonna kill the flat.
Avo grunted. Wont crack your mind. Promised Mirrorhead. Wont feed you my brothers if I win. But I am going to make you beg.
Rantula snorted derisively. Clever ghoulie. Clever fucking ghoulie. She spat, shouldering her hammer. Youre smart. You. Are. Smart. Even I can tell that. Her mechanical limbs rose into a slow shrug. But it aint gonna change anything. You might got some fancy new reflexes, but youll get tired. And when you do
She brought a leg down and buried it deep into the ground.
Avo grinned. He could still feel the two micro-rockets in the pocket of his new jacket. Little did she know, his thinking ahead was going to affect everything. She would live. He wouldnt touch her mind either. Not phantasmally.
But when he was done, the enforcers in the stands would beg him to grant her mercy.
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