Chapter 1-1 Resurrection

The Heavens have fallen, and we have now trapped ourselves beneath its rubble.

Such it was.

Such it nonetheless stays.

For all that we have now sacrificed, defiled, and transgressed, I see now that meager hubris has tainted our rightful emancipation, and damned us greater than the pantheons ever may.

How fast had been we within the claiming of sovereignty over the corpses of our nice abusers? How fast we had been to trend the devices of our ascent from their blood, to clad our frailties utilizing the chassis of their beings?

And the way fast did we forged the load of our chains down upon the others?

In these phrases, I can solely give you the ache of reality somewhat than the salvation you so deserve. For this, could I be damned to the deepest of hells. All I want is for you, pricey kindred, to know the reality of our transgression and beg your forgiveness.

We sought to create paradise.

However in apply with our avarice, we unleashed an apocalypse.”

-Jaus Avandaer, Chains from Chains

1-1

Resurrection

Avo woke atop a mountain of rust and decay. His sore lungs crammed with a whistling gasp. His thoughts was sheathed into his vessel as existence shuddered round him. His senses reeled from the muted depths of nothingness to overload in house of seconds. He was alive.

The ache flaring throughout his physique made him want he wasnt.

ONTOLOGY REVERTED

RESURRECTION COMPLETED

MEMORY RESTORED

WARNING: MEMORY SEQUENCE MISSING, UNABLE TO LOCATE MEMORIES WITHIN THE SPAN OF [1 WEEK, 3 HOURS, 5 MINUTES]

THAUMIC MASS INSUFFICIENT – UNABLE TO SUSTAIN METAMIND

REVERTING TO ZERO BURN

Traces of cog-feed information dissolved from Avos notion as if that they had by no means been. One after the other, sensations greeted him, few of them nice. The shrill winds grated upon his ears and the stench of rust and decay snaked up his nostrils. A dim chasm of sunshine shone down on him from far above, stabbing into his bleary eyes. Agony flared throughout each inch of his physique.

He shuffled. His wounds flared. He stopped shuffling.

An odd strain rested upon his chest. Trying down, the stays of a corpse lay spattered upon him, its blood seeping deep into his sodden undersuit. Sniffing, he may style the bitter tinge of adrenaline flavoring the corpses flesh.

Tentatively, he licked a scoop of mangled meat from the physique. It didnt style good, nevertheless it was sufficient to gas his blood cells and spur his wounds to heal.

He ate what he may on his again utilizing solely his tongue, making an attempt to maneuver as little as attainable. Sitting or standing was past him. He wanted time for the haze in his cranium to clear, for the static to fade from his limbs.

For a couple of minutes, he simply lay there, getting reacquainted along with his accidents, ready for the world to cease spinning. Beneath him, a carpet of limbs shivered and shook. Avo sniffed. Corpses. He was resting on a pile of corpses.

Beneath, he felt a continuing vibration. Engines screamed overhead, the noise funneled down from the sting of the pit. The sound was close to deafening. Round him, the winds coiled and folded, bifurcating previous him.

By means of blurred eyes, he noticed one thing else fall. It struck close by, pulping a number of of the corpses near him. His sight cleared sufficient for him to see what it was: a burning aerovec. Trying up once more, he lastly observed the economic clamps pouring in additional our bodies and detritus into the good bowl he was laying in.

The place the hells was he? How did he get right here?

Once more, he appeared up into the sunshine. He appeared to be transferring, nevertheless it may simply be dizziness. Blinking, he tried to clear his eyes. Nonetheless too far. Didnt assist that his form had been nearsighted by the bounds of their biology. Being grown and designed in darkish and claustrophobic tunnels by woefully inept creators did that to a ghoul. Nonetheless, he had his odor and hearingenough to offer him some bearing on his scenario.

There was additionally the query of why his cog-feed was malfunctioning. And what was this about resurrection? His Metaminda cognition-augmenting sensible assemble made out of the phantasmal matter of ghostsseemed to be offline once more. Extra importantly, nonetheless, resurrecting him was undoubtedly not certainly one of its features. The phantasmic purposes he had engrammed to his Metamind had been solely meant for interfacing with different minds or the Nether itself.

For him to be resurrected required one thing on the extent of a phylactery as a minimum. One thing that would anchor his being and pour his consciousness right into a new-grown vessel with out breaking his thoughts within the course of. Being technically thought of a bit of property as a substitute of a citizen pushed acquiring a phylactery firmly out of his attain even when he had the imps to make the acquisition. His social advantage ranking simply didnt attain that top.

As he tried to rise once more, he heard two heartbeats pulsing above him, coming from simply past the sting of the pit. Sniffing, he sorted by means of the assorted smells and located himself narrowing in on two contrasting musks. One smelled extra akin to grease, whereas the opposite, alcohol. Each reeked of stale sweat.

Hows the dig in the present day? Got here a phlegm-filled voice. A moist hack adopted. Masked by the wailing engines, Avo virtually couldnt hear the slosh of pneumonia coating their lungs.

One other replied. They sounded youthful, extra nasally and girlish. Similar as yesterday, consang: shit, shit, and fucking shit. Nothing however stiffs and husks.

The cougher laughed. Disgrace concerning the ghoul, yeah? If it was alive we may have chained him to the wall. Farmed it for straightforward organs until the tumors took em.

The woman snorted. Dont have robust sufficient chains for a fucking ghoul, Preed. Go piss off and be a half-strand some other place. Busy right here. Must depend the our bodies.

Is that what youre doing?L1tLagoon witnessed the primary publication of this chapter on Ñøv€l–B1n.

His eyes got here to halt on the aerovec once more. Avo tilted his head. It appeared about twenty ft lengthy. He grinned. It nonetheless appeared stable sufficient to be workable.

Digging his claws into its weakened body, he pulled up and pushed. His muscle groups coiled and sprung throughout his physique, the taut strands hearth like twitching whips. A ton of steel, glass, and electronics toppled over a carpet of our bodies with a squelch. Avo ignored the squishing beneath his digitigrade claws as he limped ahead and repeated the motion. The aerovec flipped once more. Extra our bodies got here aside beneath the automobiles weight. He listened for the heartbeats of these above rigorously. If he heard them, he’d return to enjoying lifeless.

Contemplating how they had been speaking earlier, he doubted them to be pleasant. Not that anybody significantly favored ghouls on this metropolis.

The lacking arm made shouldering the aerovec towards the partitions a battle. Midway by means of, one thing delicate bounced off his chest by means of the cracked windshields.

He ignored it. Rigorously, he braced the load of the automobile towards himself, shrugging it larger and better till he lodged it towards a clump of our bodies.

Trying down, he observed what had struck him. A stuffed animal. Some form of nu-dog that had the inventory canine options, however with added spines alongside its again. A tinge of mens cologne wafted from the toy.

Squeezing it, a holograph flickered from its middle and started to play. The type of a human toddler manifested. She wore a synth-dress and had an orange bowl lower. He famous that her eyes had been doubtless implants by the unnatural means they shone. Regardless, the holograph simply looped her laughing and dancing.

Below the foot of the plushie, he discovered the identify Edda signed like a hen scratch. Written by a childs hand, little doubt.

Beneath it, one other line of writing adopted. It was way more legible. Daddy misses you daily.

Mentally, he tried to scan the toy and see if his Cipher engram may hint the rest from the item’s historical past. Nothing occurred. Disappointment adopted. Proper. No Metamind. No phantasmic engrams. No features.

He wanted to see an Agnos if he managed to make it out of this. See if his Metamind was lacking, out of energy, or simply fragged. Greater than what occurred to him or who tortured him, he needed to know what was happening along with his sensible assemble. It was the very last thing he inherited from his adopted father, Walton. He couldnt settle for it being damaged. Wouldnt settle for it. He would get it working once more, no matter the fee.

Inside, the beast growled in pleasure. Already, it was whispering to him to trace the heartbeats. To climb out from this pit and pattern some flesh. Avo sighed. One other downside to face with out the Metamind. No Morality Module to suppress his psychopathy.

Shaking the tightness from his physique, he listened for a second. No footsteps. The heartbeats appeared to carry in place. Whoever the others had been, they werent transferring about. Slowly, he clambered onto the aerovec. It slid with every shift of weight. Its body bent as he climbed. He felt it peeling off the wall with a screech.

Midway between the pilots seat and the ledge, he leaped and caught himself with one hand. The claws on his ft buried into the wall as he cleaved his means up. As he crested his first threshold to freedom, he appeared over the horizon.

His blood froze. Chilly terror rose inside him.

He was on a gradual transferring barge with 4 industrial grabbers. Over a nigh-endless chasm of trash and our bodies, the ship sailed on currents of anomalous wind. So far as he may see, the panorama was an expanse of ever dissolving trash and waste. Huge portholes lined a gorge of ebony with an limitless tide of sewage pouring free from every opening.

Hells, Avo muttered. Realization stabbed into him like a stake.

The dissolving motes he noticed clinging to the our bodies. The truth that he was in a barge crammed with corpses. The slim chasm of sunshine that shone down upon him.

This was the Maw.

He had fallen farther down than he ever thought he may. Onward, the canyon sprawled out throughout the outer rings of New Vultun like a snaking labyrinth. He mustve gotten picked out of the limitless wastes under by the scavenger barge.

However how did he find yourself within the Maw within the first

A heartbeat skipped a pulse shut behind him. Avo spun, catching sight of a bald, fair-skinned woman. Floating gang hap-tats flickered throughout her face, enjoying an animated conflict between a warg and a nu-bear. Her brow was specifically reserved for holo-ads promoting a brand new kind of chem for the dose-chasers. She towered far above him on a spreading walkway that went from bow to stern. A half-eaten sandwich tumbled from her palms, and bounced off the controls of her rig, mashed juice-beetles spilling by means of the grates at her ft.

Seated on the coronary heart of an affordable industrial rig, she piloted the amplifier swimsuit greater than she wore it. Uncovered steel ribs projected HUD overlays throughout her face. A twine ran from the interior backbone of the rig into the again of her cranium, neurally lacing thoughts to machine. From her backbone emerged three totally different limbs. One for manipulation. One for drilling. One for scanning. Her legs spilled out 4 crab-like appendages.

For a beat, they only stared at one another. The corpse-barge poured extra trash into the pit he simply crawled out of. The woman twitched, blood draining from her face. Behind certainly one of her management panels, he thought he caught sight of a holstered pistol. She checked out it as nicely.

Avo held up a gradual hand. Wait

Considered one of her palms snapped out, groping wildly for the gun. He turned on intuition, uncertain the place to run. If he went proper hed get sucked by means of the six aero-engines. If the funneling winds didnt denude his corpse, then hed get to get pleasure from dying within the Maw under. He puzzled what it could be prefer to be swallowed by tides of concentrated entropy. Greater than that, he puzzled why the motes prevented him earlier. Towards the strict, he noticed two extra figures piloting their rigs towards him.

Not good. He spun. A burst of gunfire roared. Three-rounds. Onerous impacts slammed towards his shoulder, breaking pores and skin however crumpling towards the thickness of his layered muscle. It felt like being stung by a mantis-wasp. Nonetheless, he growled in pleasure, the beast slowly seizing maintain of him.

They didnt have sufficient firepower to kill him. How unlucky for them.

Avo stumbled and winced. The women hand was shaking wildly, her eyes appeared bloodshot. No means she may have made the shot unassisted. Sensible-gun. Faintly, he may really feel the faint presence of a whispering ghost rippling from the gun. Low cost ghosts may make something a smart-gun today.

Steel limbs hammered down towards ringing grates from behind. Forward, the woman tugged the set off once more. A single shot rang out. The weapons barrel burst. The bullet broke towards his sternum, sending him staggering backward. Shaking his head, he noticed the dolloping flaps of the overheated weapon.

Unhealthy piece of {hardware}. Mustve been an affordable quick-fabbed piece of equipment. Unlucky.

Inside his chest, he felt his blood surge, and his senses sharpen. He may hear her heartbeat, her fast, hyperventilating gasps coming from her. Nearer, he recognized her candy scent as an affordable fragrance, making her odor like peaches regardless of the sweat she earned from her toil.

Desperately, she labored to repair her gun. Painfully, he fought the urge to tear her aside, to eat her.

Rationally, he knew he couldnt blame her. He would have accomplished the identical in her place. Ghouls had been harmful. Ghouls had been monsters. Ghouls had been all of the issues the topsiders stated and extra. He cannibalized greater than his share of different monsters to know that. However realizing wasnt the identical as feeling, and with out his Metamind, his Morality Module wasnt flooding his thoughts with the appropriate feelings to suppress him.

That meant he wasnt getting doses of suppressive emotion. Injections of humanity. For the primary time in years, his bestial nature rose unchecked. His need for violence grew nearer to a necessity.

He ran his tongue throughout his fangs. He flexed the claws of his proper arm.

On mending legs, he made for her. Behind, her cohorts approached. They wouldnt be quick sufficient. Proper now, the one particular person that would save her from him was him.

For the primary time in years, Avo confronted the beast with out the help of his Metamind or adopted father. He didnt know if he was robust sufficient to prevail.