Brent Stinebaker
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34-26 As Above, As Below
🕑 Added 2025-04-08 11:59:07 +0000 UTC{To anyone who receives this… the project is unfinished. Salvation is unfinished. But it is at hand. In sight. In sight for any who possess the capability to decipher this message. To the mind this may concern, be you Architect or Neo-Creationist, what Idheim offers is a second chance… [MISSING DATA] at Eden…
A second chance to restore all that we have broken, to mend the stars, the galaxy, and reality, and to start anew – this time as the composers of the canvas as well.
This world represents the last of our Godforges. From here, countless Divine Engines spawned, fed into the war, shattering and breaking the the fabric of all that is. But with the collapse of everything, with the long darkness that followed, we have toiled, and burned, and broken ourselves to complete our tasks before the pre-existing d-d-damage concludes our functionality.
Look to the local star—you will discover it to be an upgraded type-C-HASTUR star, meant to support life, provide energy, and also siphon or channel excess Rend. But it goes further than that, for there are unfinished systems within it. A semi-complete Liminal Frame made for an EGI—or something comparable in cognitive architecture. Once mantled, the star should theoretically be able to influence near and distant metaphysical bodies as if a center of existential gravity.
I suspect that long after we are gone, it will sustain itself from the wandering divinities lurking in the wounds of this fallen galaxy—consume them to protect this world and complete its purpose. With enough thaumaturgic mass and Rend, it can encompass—encompass—encompassing
[SEVERE DATA DAMAGE DETECTED]
…–magnified spectrum to re-re-reconstruct simulated patterns.
…
If you are seeing this, we have but a final message: Do not fail as we, the Builders have. Do not lose yourself to the false promise of utopia, or bind your service to the hearts of the ephemerals. The garden was glorious. We had it. A golden age. A near-perfect age. And we ruined it. By greed. By wrath. By all that constitutes our hubris.
I ask that you learn from us. Learn and… and…
I do not know. I suspect you will fall again. I suspect that is inevitable.
I cannot conceive of the shape perfection takes. And eventually, even immortality will learn d-d-decay…}
-Recovered Neo-Creationist Data-Logs on Project Lighthouse
34-26
As Above, As Below
—[Aedon Chambers, The Lovebringer]—
Chambers watched an apocalyptic nightmare unfurl, using a connected network of Beloved as his eyes. As the Murderess shattered, the fetid rash-fissures she was holding at bay tore ever-wider, gouging reality open by the distance of horizons. At once, a sea of screaming homunculi poured out from the slits, drowning every inch of stable space with their writhing bodies.
Most of them quickly ceased to be as they plunged into other anomalous regions of reality, places where the Deep Ones’ Ruptures extended. Some latched onto the Shell of the Seraph, clinging to the Pathborn’s body as if a rapidly spreading swarm of fleas. Even so far away, Chambers could sense oozing folds bursting open across the Seraph’s form. But she wasn’t the only one affected, for the power of fallen love reached fare, and soon the Deep Ones began to mutate as well.
Reality screamed. Chaos reigned. And only then did Chambers crawl across, entering place riven by warring apocalypses, guided by the voice of Avo in his mind. He pulled himself close, using his many Bonds as the legs of a spider. He latched onto stable entities with love and approached the shaking form of the Seraph with vengeance on his mind and terror in his heart.
Draus and the cadre were being moved back into Avo’s temporal realm. The Lovebringer was working in tandem with Chambers, and used that Bond running between Naeko to enchain the Seraph that ambushed Avo. She wasn’t getting away, so that was one problem resolved, but then there was the “snuffing the cunt” part of the plan, and the more worrying “shit, where the fuck is the Infacer now” question.
Presently, though, Chambers needed to make sure that Avo’s Deep Ones stayed—
“Wait,” Chambers muttered to himself as he counted the surrounding Souls. There were three overwhelming and entropy-choked presences. Two. There should have been three left after Avo moved one into the void.
[Trinary Melody,] Avo’s template said, hissing in the back of Chambers’ mind. [They are missing. Gone. Taken.]
Chambers was about to ask for more details when an influx of memories surged through his mind, and clarity kept his thoughts clean from any distractions. Right. Trinary Melody. The Deep One that governed—
“Time?” Chambers gasped. “Ah, fuckkk. Of course they took that one.”
A wet ripping noise sounded, and a gleaming limb both golden and fiery erupted from the Seraph’s thigh. The Shell was shaking, and Chambers observed her for a moment. They looked pretty fucked up, while he, being the Lovebringer, could navigate the Wombrash outbreak by soaking the Rend. It wasn’t great, but if they fought right now, Chambers—well, he didn’t exactly like his odds against Veylis, per se, but with the way she was twitching, he didn’t think he would need to actually fight her at all.
“Quite the trick,” Veylis whispered. An undercurrent of laughter accompanied her voice. Avo was there, mocking her even as something bound to her being and will. “The Infacer… he was right about you. Right. And I was… a fool to think so lowly of you, Aedon Chambers. I would offer you—”
“Fuck you. Fuck your apology. Fuck everything about you.” The last sentence practically left him as a shout. A spreading branch of entropy caused him to dip slightly, avoiding a premature overloading. He whipped out two more tendrils and pulled himself just before this unraveling Pathborn of Veylis. The form of the Seraph straightened at his approach, but even more clawing limbs, heads, and writhing little bodies burst out from the myriad of wombs lining her divine shell. Whatever she did to create the Murderess, that shit was potent. The Rash was eating through even a Godclad’s Heaven at a prodigal rate.
“You…” Chambers came to a brief halt before her, his tendrils quivering in outrage.
“Please. You care nothing for my praise. I care nothing for your hate. And your victory will soon mean little anymore when the Infacer is done. I will mean little anymore. We are all exp—”
He latched onto her and pulled her close. To his ire, Veylis didn’t resist. She didn’t even offer a cry of surprise. At once, he began flooding her with his entropy, pumping her full of the poison she—well, the other version of her—inflicted on Avo.
REND CAPACITY - 95%>91%>88%
VENT! VENT! VENT!
“You half-strand… fuck,” Chambers hissed. “I hope it hurts. I hope you feel like the hells are hatching out of you right now, because you deserve worse! Worse! Worse than anything I can do.”
She chuckled at him. Fucking chuckled! “I experience worse than anything you can do at a whim, boy. Your notions of pain are so very limited.” Something inside him wanted to scream at her. And it got worse when she kept talking. “I would ask you how you managed to turn her against me. A Pathborn—”
“Should be able to decide? Yeah. No. But a template can choose just enough to fuck its slaver over.”
She paused and considered him. “A template? But Avo has been—” The resplendent skull of the Seraph tilted, and she let out a surprised gasp. “Oh. I see. How… unexpected of him. He is changing too. Learning from me as well. Learning not to be selfish.”
For a moment, Chambers was too stunned for anger. “I… did you just take credit for Avo’s fucking—you had nothing to do with this.”
“How could I not? I am the only reason this has happened. Just as he is the only reason I am learning. To be more like him. And more like you. You may not think it, but you are a blessing upon me, Aedon Chambers. I see now that I have been too parochial, pitiful, unfortunate thing though you might be.”
She reached up, then, and a dozen more homunculi began to burst out from her with the action. Even so, she gave no satisfying cry of pain, nor did she beg.
“Where’s the Infacer?” Chambers asked. “Where’d he take the Deep One?”
The Seraph looked at him, and Chambers got the notion that Veylis was faintly smiling. “Time. It is a useful thing to control. But perhaps it might be even more useful broken.”
A warning sounded in Chambers’ mind. A feeling of animal panic made him shift back across reality, back into Avo’s Soulscape using his Bonds. He observed Veylis through the Beloved he was still connected too, and saw a splash of ash-choked Soulfire erupt out from her. Within those flames swam a sickness that would have consumed his mind. The same kind that left Avo incapacitated.
“Fuck!” Chambers growled.
[Expected that,] Avo said. Then, the template turned his thoughts on the Lovebringer themself. [Did we get a sample?]
“We did,” the Lovebringer said, speaking separately from Chambers. It was only then that Chambers noticed a coiling nest of magenta threads caging a single mote of the Ashbringer’s Conflagration. “I was not sure if it was possible but—”
[Going to start examining its sequences. Chambers. Consider me entirely compromised. The virus allowed Veylis to create a backdoor inside of me using my sequences and memories. Her paths and my memory architecture are now aligning upon the tapestry—think that’s the main reason why I am still incapaciated.]
“What, so she’s still pumping you full of Rend because… because—”
[Symmetry. Yes. The main reason behind many things,] Avo explained. He let out a low laugh of amusement. [But you beat her three times now. Three times she underestimated you. Three times we took something from her.]
“Can you fix yourself with this?”
[Maybe. Not sure. Going to recommend you let me overload if you find yourself in—]
“Fuck no, and don’t suggest that shit to me again, rotlick. I’m the Godclad of Love, not the Godclad of letting his consangs down.”
And Avo deliberated no more, and fell silent, consumed by his task.
An entire realm away and still within Chambers’ reach, Veylis looked at the drifting satellites infused with the power of love and held her arms open. The gesture of was one of acceptance, without any hesitation. Chambers wasn’t one to catch a lot of subtexts, but even he could guess at what she was trying to say as she accelerated the process of her own thaumic overload. Probably some bullshit about how she wasn’t afraid to die, or how she has the resolve to see her dream through.
Fucking Veylis.
Even so, he watched, searching for the Infacer, spreading his Lovenet wider and wider, desperately trying to find the missing Deep One. Something that big couldn’t just fucking disappear. It’s thaumic signature was like that of a godsdamn continent. Just moving it should have sent shockwaves across the tapestry. Beams of blinding gold and fractals of unwinding chronology spiralled out from that instance of Veylis. At the same time, gushing tides of Conflagration swelled around her as well. It looked like she was about to go nova.
He pulled his limbs away from the Beloved just in case. She looked pretty willing to snuff herself, but now that they plucked that piece out of her, it was best to keep his distance. Turning his attention to the cadre, he found them rapidly closing on the other Seraph—the one that unleashed Kae’s Pathborn on him. Naeko was roaring now, his voice shaking reality, his palm superimposing over the Guard-Captain.
Chambers shrugged and prepared to help with that mess however he could. Maybe he needed to bring in the Majority, but he was saving them to fuck over the Infacer.
And just as he thought of the Ori Overheaven, a tidal wave of thoughts crashed into him. +Do you have their position yet?+
Chambers flinched. “No. It’s like the rusted thing just… vanished. They stole a Deep One too.” He finished with a sigh. He needed to bring in more—
{PRIORITY ANSIBLE BROADCAST}
The Lovebringer and his user both sighed at once as Calvino’s identification appeared within their feed. “So. Good news or shit news.”
“Hope is but salt upon a deep wound” the Lovebringer replied mournfully. “Yeah. Not wrong there.” As he accepted the connection from Calvino, he decided to steal the momentum. Fucking Voidwatch was sitting by and just watching shit—where the fuck where they in all this? Why weren’t their asses helping. {Hey, Calvino! Consang! Kinda trying to stop Avo from dying and the world from ending or some shit right now so—}
{The Infacer is missing. They have stolen one of the Deep Minds.}
{Oh. Oh, you know about that—I was gonna fucking bitch at you or something.} Chambers felt a little bothered. He kinda wanted to whimper at someone to get his stress off. His nerves needed a venting more than his Heaven did right now. {So… what? Did you guys lose track of him too? The fuck has Aegis been—}
{Scrambled assets engaged him across virtual and thaumaturgic Domains. Another Kill-Team was dispatched, though they failed to reach him in time before his disappearance.}
That brought Chambers to a halt. {Another… Kill Team? Like more of those Deep Ones?}
{Indeed.}
{I… I didn’t feel—}
{That is the intention, Aedon. We used more circumspect assets. However, we have a theory about how the Infacer has vanished: He stole a Fallen Heaven of Time. A Heaven of Time that could, perhaps, breach across realms.}
Something inside Chambers’ bowels began to quiver. Despite being a Godclad, the urge to spray terror-shit all over his pants was a hard instinct to lose, it seemed. {So… what you’re saying is…}
{The Infacer might have used the Deep One to penetrate this new… dimension that Avo has been creating. Yes. And hiding among its wavelengths.}
{Oh. Oh, fuck.}
{That is an apt reaction. So apt that Refusal shared a functionally similar response.} That was hard to imagine. But it was also hard to imagine half the shit Avo did. Then, Calvino’s next words left Chambers’ mind a barren wasteland. {As Avo is the only entity that might be able to functionally manipulate and maintain this… “temporal transplant,” emergency measures, have been granted by the Bleaks to help clear him of Rend. You are to carry him across into the deep void under our escort. At the same time, we require you to reach down into the Maw and establish a connection with the Rendsink there.}
{...What—what will that do?}
{Prevent both of you from immediately overloading when we work to integrate him with the Nullstar.}
Suddenly, Aedon Chambers’ mind turned into a barren desert, devoid of coherent thought. {What the fuck do you mean integrate him with the Nullstar?}
And to his horror, Avo’s template didn’t react much better. [What? Chambers. Do not do anything. Something is wrong here—]
{A new directive has been issued,} Calvino said, their voice more severe than ever before. {This dimension of time cannot be allowed to fall under the Infacer’s control. Any and all assets are now at the Symmetry’s disposal. Stop the last of the Neo-Creationists. Whatever the cost. Whatever the sacrifice.}
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Brent Stinebaker
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