Brent Stinebaker
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15-16 Threshold (I)
🕑 Added 2023-09-07 19:30:54 +0000 UTCYou have no idea the heights from which we fell.
We. Humans. Humanity. Us and the voiders at a time before time; before the gods and fissures bleeding over into the real. Before Idheim itself was ever a thing.
No idea.
They didn’t torture me when I was discovered. Not really. Not in the ways we imagine. Instead, they just… let me live in a simulation of a world that was, let me feel what was lost, and then dropped me back outside.
I lived a lifetime in a world of mundane miracles and quiet wonders. I… I strode the stars. The existence that belonged to our forebearers... There were no gods then–no ruptures or Heavens or Hells or twisted distortions in the tapestry of reality.
Everything was the foundational world perfected. They harnessed fundamental laws to achieve wonders that we squander with our impossible powers. I’ve seen them cradle stars in ships the size of our planet. I’ve seen them move systems into and out of place–lived on an Arm-Drifter during the reshuffling of Orion. I fought in a thousand worlds and burned a million worlds and destroyed a billion vessels yet took no life for the flesh and the self was parted.
I lived freer and truer and happier than I have ever–I have ever–
I want to go back. I don’t want this world, this nightmare, this poison! I don’t want to leave the dark! I don’t want to return to you! Oh, god, oh [PRE-PANTHEON DEITY REDACTED], they sent me away. They let me know and sent me away.
[Sobbing laughter]
Those… those half-strands. This… they didn’t even need to twist my mind. Just… knowledge of loss. This is enough. This is enough. I’m… I can’t take this… I can’t remember this.
Take the memories out of me! Take them out! I’ll kill myself if I remember! I kill myself!
-Former Sleeper Therese Therrin after her extradition back to Ori-Thaum at the hands of Voidwatch for crimes of espionage
15-16
Threshold (I)
True to Denton’s words, the second visual display manifested over his cog-feed in trailing strings of solid lettering. There was a naked clash of aesthetics between the vaporous glow of ghosts and the solid blocks shunted from a still growing coldtech extension of his mind.
{Detecting stack…
Unable to find expansive consciousness storage
Generating…
Generating…
Generating…
Error: Unable to generate ego (Problem: Abnormal scan results)
Please contact your local EGI for further instructions…
“Ego generation failed,” Avo muttered.
“That’s fine,” Denton replied, her own thoughstuffs a swirl of static constellations. Narrow funnels of mem-data threaded to and from her accretion at a staggering pace, and with the way her eyes were darting, he guessed she was interfacing with multiple messages at the same time. “It’s not an unexpected issue. The Conflagration is designed to eat and collapse EGIs themselves, so you’ll have to use your Sprites to link your cog-feed to your deck.”
She spoke, he willed, and his mind changed once more. As the flames of his ego roiled, stitch by churning stitch threaded into the nanomechanical mental amplifier spreading through his brain matter, the clash between his two HUDs flickered, snapped together. All of a sudden his awareness onboarded, and numbers began to surge through his mind.
Necrojack entailed some limited coding while one was delving through mem-data or filtering for specific sequences, but what he faced now left him drowned in ignorance. Complex strings shot out like accelerating trains along the curve of his mind's eye. New display windows opened across the stretch of his perception and he found scant few points of understanding.
Updating biometrics…
Warning: No heartbeat detected….
User’s oxygen circulation abnormal
User’s oxygen intake abnormal
Updating user morphological classification
Designation: Category-Plus Adaptive
“Plus Adaptive?” Avo asked.
“It’s trying to gauge your physiology to better optimize your biological functions,” Denton explained. “You’re getting a rating for your complexity and distance from natural human baseline. Plus means you are slightly more enhanced.”
“Slightly,” Avo grunted. If a baseline ghoul was glass, then a flat would be tissue. To consider himself something just slightly above the category of natural human seemed…
He reached a more likely conclusion: Voidwatch’s clades simply ran a far vaster spectrum than those contained on New Vultun. Augmentations were relative, and so too were the clades. The Scaarthians, Kosgans, Ori, Sang, and others all had their little traits. The voiders were probably even more diversified in that regard.
“Adaptives are designed toward surviving and propagation. Not so common for humans to occupy such a variant, but bioforms designed to seed a newly discovered world often gain such genetic traits during their creation. There are over four thousand other variants of morphology and three adaptional categories of separation beyond plus classified under the terms ‘next,’ ‘hyper,’ and ‘ultimate.’” Denton took a breath as her thoughtstuff slowed substantially. “Don’t take these categories too seriously. They were primarily used by the Einherjar Leagues to separate their spheres of conflict for their seasonal war tournaments.”
Avo understood nothing about what she just said, and neither did his templates. “What?”
She blinked and noticed the confusion leaking from his mind. “It is a popular form of entertainment. Citizens scan their egos into various morphological sheathes and engage in combat across sections of the colonized galaxy bearing the “anarchic” designation. This is unimportant. Have you connected your Sprites?”
“Yes.”
“Alright,” Denton sighed. “At least Omnitech is good for something today.”
There was much to unpack behind her words, but Avo found himself more curious at the fact of her denigration. Denton had proven neutral and measured in dialogue for as long as he could remember, yet here was an openly negative remark. Curious.
“Don’t like Omnitech?” Avo asked.
She fixed him with an inscrutable stare. “Let’s get you beamed to Threshold. Think ‘command,’ to open up your deck’s system functions.”
Doing as she asked, his mind expanded into a splash of rushing informationdanced through his mind on currents guided by coldtech alone. No ghosts whispered their memories to him, nor was his deck as personable or responsive as his Metamind. There was still a layer of separation between him and this new augmentation–but it offered clarity and direct focus. He could command it much like one of his subminds, and it gave him directly stated choices instead of demanding that he decipher the next steps via his skill and experience.
Stack generated
Warning: Abnormal cognitive readings detected
Please consult your nearest EGI for a full scan to ensure your rights have not been intruded upon
Maladaptive nanites detected…
“Asking me to consult–”
“Think ‘ignore,’” Denton said.
He did so, and the menu vanished, leaving him alone with all the other functions once more.
“Now, you’re going think ‘pair nearest deck-frequency,’ and connect to me mentally,” Denton continued. “Don’t worry about burning my mind. If it happens, kill me and we’ll search for another solution. Your stack should be actively downloading stable snapshots of your ego every few seconds, however, so connecting to me should be a stable process.”
That inflicted a moment’s pause. “You’re saying I can cast into people again?” Avo asked. “Do it without burning them?”
“Only those with decks right now. Most features are still locked for your current deck and you will need several other suites to gain full interfacing capabilities.”
“What’s that going to take?” Avo asked, feeling his desires spike.
“That’s up to Aegis and the Consensus. Your acceptance will be determined by a vote between eligible admins.”
Avo offered a wordless grunt. Socialization and charm weren’t exactly what he was known for, but his templates could boost his paltry charisma.
[Use more of me,] Benhata said, casually coming forward. [I’m the best candidate you have for this.]
{+Bold+} Avo’s thought was carried by ghosts and signals both. Inside, he felt Glitch’s Heaven shake as something skipped over its primary domain. “Denton. Sprites. What are they?”
“Ghost are from dead people,” she began. “Sprites are from deleted sophonts.”
“Deleted.”
“The Charter of Citizenship extends past the borders of biology,” she said. “You’ll be able to draw inquires directly from the cloud after this conversation. If it goes well.”
He looked up at the ceiling as her words continued to befuddle him. Cloud. He looked forward to understanding what she meant by that.
Paring nearest Neurodeck frequency…
Frequency detected: {AGS (D)-12}
ATTENTION: You do not have the clearance to…
Pairing accepted
As felt himself dip over into Denton’s mind a frown crawled over his face as a familiar feeling slipped into place. The way their minds connected and their shared data loaded was symmetrical to how things went when he synced with another using his Meta.
Too similar.
From all the memories he devoured, he knew that the Ori had their own supply of raw, uncut, unrefined vivianite on the island, and Noloth possessed their own supply as well. However, it was only with the arrival of Voidwatch along with the caging of the Hungers that the Nether and Necrotheurgy began to develop as rapidly as they did.
Most assumed this was another of Jaus’ great deeds and genius miracles. The more he regarded the merger, however, the more his suspicions rose.
Sheathes. Egos. Constructs. Idelheim's technology. The core of their modern knowledge seemed to have aped much of their cousins from beyond the shattered black. Who was to say that Necrotheurgy itself didn’t possess aspects derivative of an older practice?
A more developed one, perhaps.
“You noticed,” Denton said, her voice scarcely more than a whisper. For the first time, he gained direct access to the inner confines of her mind and could only regard her cognition with building fascination.
Denton didn’t have one stream of thought–she had over a dozen. She was thinking and interfacing with multiple jackpoints across the city–across her sessions. Wait, were they sessions? Information flowed into and out of her like she was simply on conduit in a great series, and stranger still she communicated with raw code alone. There was nothing of the phantasmal about the process. Nothing of the interpersonal. The data was supreme.
Compared to Necrotheurgy, the deck was a hard science by far.
Yet, as she continued moving variables and sending packets at a rapid pace, he felt a choking lurch run through both their minds followed by a spike of muted surprise from her. It was like her thinking was stuttering with him layered over her.
WARNING: Ego backup exceeding maximum data storage capacity
Please reduce your memory load and upgrade processing hardware to match your current cognitive capabilities
“Avo, please reduce your templates to a minimum,” Denton said. She paused. “Just… how many minds do you…” She gazed into the untold thousands that simmered inside him, and for the first time, he felt her guts tighten with dread.
He could not deny the pleasure he felt at causing such a response, nor his admirationwhen she immediately choked the emotion away to nothing.
The interfusion between his Conflagration and the warmind of Ignorance allowed him to alter his own ego on the go, but it seemed like the supposed Glaive possessed a lesser twin to his ability from the sheer will alone.
Respectable. Extremely respectable. And to think he thought her bland.
“A low profile is the point,” she said, giving him a polite smile. A few lines of data ran through their link.
Preparating Ansible for hyperwave transmission…
Connecting to Threshold (55%)
The connectivity between their minds stuttered again. New warnings appeared about how his current deck wasn’t able to download a full imprint of his consciousness this time, and how he needed to make reductions. He willed his flames to swallow all templates and memories aside from him and Benhata. A final slur was hurled from Abrel toward the Silver, but if the fallen Glaive cared, it was less than it took for him to feel. {+Just you and me now.+}
[Yeah,] Benhata said, swallowing back a pit of anxiety opening in his nonexistent stomach. [Just me, the man-eating monster dreaming me into existence, the voider plant, and the void gods themselves.]
Unnerved by how total a consciousness Benhata’s template seemed, Denton pressed her lips together. “Let him go too. He’s not a self-aware entity. Not truly since he’s tied to you but… holding a fork of someone else’s mind after killing them in enforced servitude is definitely against the charters.”
Avo blinked. “Voidwatch cares about that?”
The look of quiet despair behind her eyes told him all he needed to know.
Benhata sighed. [Thanks plant. Here I was glad to exist a while longer. Back to the Big Nothing again.]
The faintness of Denton’s wince as Benhata vanished was almost imperceptible.
Connecting to Threshold (88%)
“Going to be much harder now that I can only draw on memories,” Avo said, grimly. “They want this? My diminishment? Baseline? Show they can have the upper hand?”
“Voidwatch is uninterested in posturing,” she said. “We are, however, very keen about our ethics. It has taken me substantial effort to have Aegis overlook some of your previous actions. If you remember one thing, remember this: Voidwatch cares about human life. All human life. We prefer to preserve above all else. There are so few of us left after all.”
Connected to Threshold (100%)
A building sphere of concentrated static and electric impulses began to collapse inward at the core of her mind. On the precipice of a departure, Avo swallowed a taste of melancholy from the Columner as she took a breath.
“Are you ready?” Denton asked.
“Yeah,” Avo said, unsure if he was lying. “I’ll keep what you said in mind. I will… consider life to have inherent value when I speak.”
The corner of her lip twitched. “Looks like we’ll make a saint out of you yet.”
Uploading stacks to Threshold
Entering virtuality
Avo’s perception of the world shrank as the walls rushed through him after collapsing into needle-sized tunnels. A sightless horizon was accelerating toward him and his mind’s new amplifier was singing with an onrush of data that he just couldn’t read.
Moments passed, but his consciousness never faded. There was no lurch between being awake and unconscious as there was in a deep dive, and he felt the building strain in his Sprites more than ever as details flowed from his Meta into his deck in a constant stream.
He wondered if he could reach past the blockade of coldtech with his fires and burn Denton regardless. He wondered if he could set the entirety of the voider’s lobby ablaze…
Pillars of light and color twitched into existence and hammered down across his perception as his awareness snapped together in full. Avo loaded into his new environment with a twitch in a manner not so unlike how he returned to reality post-resurrection. This lobby–no, too limited a description–this virtual plane buried its teeth into his senses and rooted him in place immediately.
There was no period of adjustment. There was no confusion or active sequencing via ghosts.
He simply was, and Threshold followed in perfect wholeness.
Welcome to Threshold
Setting stack-identifier to private
Spawn-point: Avalon
Water ran beneath his talons, but he did not sink into the deep. Instead, he took a step back and watched the crystalline currents ripple. The volume of birdsong struck his senses like a shiv and each inhale made him choke from how fragrant the very air was. The horizon fell in drops of twilit reverie as mists lifted around to reveal a pale palace rising into the clouds from atop a nearby island.
From below, the waters began to rumble as a marble bridge rose into being, forming something between a columned pathway toward the fortifications and aqueduct from all the water it still cupped.
Letting the scene settle, Avo looked around and found no shortage of detail no matter where he swept his gaze. Perhaps he or someone of White-Rab’s caliber could sequence something like this into a mind by merit of power or skill, but even then there would be inconsistencies. Glitches incurred by clashes of understanding. Small hairline fractures in the mem-data.
What his deck fed him was beyond comprehension, and what he perceived was beyond fault.
This place was perfect. Pristine. Scenic.
Avo had to slice away his growing envy as he wondered if voiders were taunting him with this work of art.
From behind, a series of pitched creaks pulled at his attention. The waters peeled to announce the approach of Denton seated at the prow of a small angular boat made from wood, and on the other end sat a stranger in dark blue robes.
The curved vessel came to a halt next to Avo, and finally did he notice the dark feathered birds perched upon the newcomer’s shoulders and the two wolves that lay snoring by his feet.
Wordless heartbeats passed as Avo swept his gaze between Denton and the stranger–who Avo noted to be missing an eye from the empty dark in his right eye. Yet, as he drank in the visage of the stranger, he too felt himself judged on a level he couldn’t describe.
“Do you wish to tread water or sail with us,” the stranger asked. His voice was quiet, clear, and absolutely inhuman. An impossible weight existed behind every syllable, as if the stranger could call upon this world to strike Avo down, and all of it would listen and obey.
“Would like to know the benefits,” Avo stated plainly. “More than two options. Could try stealing the ship from you. Could turn and walk away. Could run. Could see if I can make my own. Why do you want me to board? Who are you? Aegis?”
Light struck the stranger’s face from the side, and in a moment more befitting cinema than reality, the brightness lit the stranger’s aged, grizzled features. “I am to Aegis what a ghost is to you. Come aboard. Save us the time. Let us talk as an older myth greeting one younger. Then as the heart of man, to the heart of that which follows. I wish to see your true nature.”
Avo offered a quiet laugh and spread his fangs. “Won’t take long.”
Comments
Brent Stinebaker
Chapter 50% done. Will be up in a while.
Arcane
Thanks for the chapter! I'm excited for the next chapter!
