Chapter 1-3 FATELESS

FATELESS: An unregistered civilian; a person who has but to earn Guild sponsorship through benefit or lottery.

FATE: A metaphysical system within the NETHER utilized by the Guilds for monitoring and indexing residents.

-The New Vultun Customary Dictionary

1-3

FATELESS

Tumor Face tried her finest. Her finest wasnt sufficient. Avo empathized.

With a surplus of rage and a shortage of functionality, she got here at him, the majority of her rig hammering the bottom like she was heavy cavalry from a historic memory-sim. Blind with aggression, she thrust herself into the jaws of the beast. What little of him was able to emulating the human emotion of respect recommended her.

The majority of his thoughts, nonetheless using excessive on bloodlust, set itself upon the duty of her exsanguination. In his hand, a final gouged pap of flesh claimed from the stays of Inexperienced Eyes dribbled as she got here. Avo squeezed it. Blood ran via the crenulations of his claws. It could do.

With a psychological command, Avo tried partaking his trajectory calculator. A flashing null response behind his thoughts reminded him he had one ghost and no phantasmic engrams. He must do that manually.L1tLagoon witnessed the primary publication of this chapter on Ñøv€l–B1n.

The alloyed appendages of her rig reared as she approached. Simply in time to catch a splatter of gore throughout her projection ribs. Blood dotted her face and blurred her eyes. She swung, three limbs cleaving a mangled gorge via the metallic walkway above, severing it midway via. She would have hewn Avo shoulder to hip if he remained earlier than her. Carried by blindness, anguish, and momentum, her crab-like legs sparked alongside the metallic deck, inner equipment overworked, jamming and hissing. Behind, Avo stalked her just like the predator he was designed to be, the scratched grooves her skid marks left within the hull serving as good grips for his claws even because the barge immediately descended.

She got here to a violent halt after grinding a number of extra toes. They have been close to the sting now. The flaring engines emanated a corona of unnatural gentle, casting her in shadow. The rigs arms slashed out wildly. Avo dove low, between her legs. Tumor Face was nonetheless blind, nonetheless lacking when he tore into her, claws unfold, decrease jaws unhinging as he ready to feast.

Her pilots harness was a small cover, simply large enough to suit a flat of her dimension. The rig itself lacked the mass or functionality to seal her correctly beneath a layer of protecting. Low cost because it was, her life was probably even cheaper. There was loads of labor to go by in these depths and never a lot materials to help it with. Her life was price extra to town misplaced than it was preserved.

Avo tore up into the softness of her stomach, a waterfall of pink filling his eyes. The scent of intestinal fluid and the style of rust mingled. He chipped his incisor fangs on laced bones strengthened by low-cost titanium and labored on her sinews as an alternative. Via the near-thuds of her coronary heart, he may hear her screams, the sound muffled by the blood filling his ears. He reared again and tore out from her innards, sinew, and gristle between his fangs. He emerged baptized. Invigorated.

But, whilst a savaged spoil, Tumor Face gasped on, clinging to life as she grasped for him, eyes nonetheless burning with hate. Past the nest of the projection ribs, the rig was lurching, unable to discern indicators from a thoughts so embroiled by ache and hate. She determined she didnt want the machine. With a defiant squeal, shrill with outrage and ache, she slammed her cranium towards his. Avo felt the thud shudder via his bones. Spent, she sank towards him and spat strands of blood and disrespect throughout his cheek.

Fuckin…half-strand bastard. Mustering what little remained in her, she lifted her head and glared at him, staring him down whilst she died. She was extra a ghoul than he at this level; physique damaged, mangled, however nonetheless combating; spirit burning on with the embers of hate and loathing; actions purposeful, however futile. He took maintain of her by her head.

So shut, the phantasmal aura that his cog-feed painted her with had forged her in a holy sheen of sunshine. Finest you could possibly do, he mentioned. He didnt know if the consolation was for her, or spoken to his previous self, her physique an altar, a confessional. All he knew was that this was a torturous reality that certain the each of them. All you could possibly do.

She checked out him, hate unfading. Jaws clenched, she didnt see what he was making an attempt to convey. There was no shared understanding. Maybe at this second, the inverse was true: he was extra human than she by benefit of philosophical gnosis and life higher offered for by an adopted father.

The second handed with the following beat of her coronary heart; the wafting pungence of her uncovered innards calling to Avo. He pulled her head again. She tried to achieve from the haptic controls projected from one of many ribs. The attain turned a spasm as her neck folded between his enamel. His fangs glided via her unaugmented softness with ease.

Flats made for simple feeding.

Her struggling didnt final. His jaws, vast as a serpents, had closed round her neck. Pores and skin and muscle parted. The chew discovered its halt towards her columns of backbone. Didnt matter. He pulled free, a mound of flesh coming with him. Succulent. Her head folded ahead. When he completed along with her trachea, he continued along with her eyes. The eyes have been all the time his favourite.

Within the periphery of his consciousness, he felt the echo he sensed inside her earlier. It poured into him because it did from Inexperienced Eyes. Inside, he felt a flash once more, like a radiant star bereft of warmth. Static interfaces shaped and light behind his thoughts. Within the nook of his cog-feed, two strains of data flashed and light.

ESSENCE CYCLER – 3 thaum/c

GHOSTS – [2]

MEMORY ARTIFACTS DETECTED – INITIATE AUTO-SEQUENCING?

Avo ignored that for now. Necrothurgy took time. Hours and days in any case to sift via all of the contents and traumas that would compose a helpful phantasmic. Finally, sequencing ghosts was each psychological artistry and metaphysical engineering; a apply often carried out whereas the physique was unconscious. Regardless of all his current psychological vulnerability, except existence was keen to mortgage him eight hours of time to make some wards, he wanted to push on with out.

He nonetheless didnt absolutely perceive what was occurring to him, however proper then, he didnt care. He basked within the pleasure of the kill, feeling his haemophagic cells breaking down the biomass he simply subsumed, changing all that was Tumor Face into materials for sustenance and restore.

His blood. The crowning achievement of the Low Masters thaumaturgy. A colony self-moving, pseudo-sapient organism unto itself. It ensured {that a} ghoul fed with most effectivity. It additionally allowed for the an infection and conversion of any dwelling creature with sufficient natural tissue and mind matter.

Ghoulification, folks referred to as it. It was how the numbers of his type swelled from mere dozens to billions within the span of years. It was how they have been capable of maintain themselves with out the necessity for meals or relaxation for prolonged intervals. Only a disgrace they have been created at a time when the flesh had lengthy since been usurped by alloy and expertise.

He completed with the remainder of Tumor Faces’ corpse in minutes. Whereas feeding, he willed his therapeutic to speed up as his starvation waned. The worst of the beast had been slaked. Rationality and thought remained.

And so got here the sensation of disgrace.

Trying on the our bodies of the 2 scavengers, it was like a veil lifted, fierce pleasure changed by dawning disgust at what he had carried out. Walton wouldn’t have condoned this mindless homicide, slavers although they have been. That was self-delusion. Their admission of immorality merely gave him justification for violence.

The reality was he simply needed to eat them.

To make issues worse, he had no concept the format of the barge, and now he was left with

A heartbeat pulled his consideration. Avo heard strained gasps wheezing out from a collapsed lung. Wiping the viscera dangling from his jaws, he discovered Hap-Tat crawling alongside the deck of the ship. Her legs have been bent at awkward angles, and a path of blood dripped from the rails she was forged towards earlier than she fell.

The reminiscence of tossing her into Inexperienced Eyes to knock him off steadiness returned to him. It appeared so pragmatic then. Now, the act had struck him as pointless. One thing merely to satiate his need to harm, to maul.

For the primary time in years, Avo was glad of his adopted fathers demise. Avo had chosen his give up, as Walton had taught him, however with out his Metamind adjusted to inject doses of disgrace, horror, or revulsion on the psychopathy, he felt like an addict surrendering to previous wishes

He adopted Hap-Tat, uncertain of what he was going to do. A collection of cracks shuddered via his legs. The mending of his decrease physique was nearly full. His gait was much less stagger and extra stride now, claws tinking towards the deck with every step.

On the sound of his coming, her heartbeat quickened. She shot a glance of terror over her shoulder and whimpered. No, she sobbed, No, Jaus–fuck, please no! She wiggled her means throughout the bottom, limbs ineffective, physique quivering. A pool of waste spilled out from her. She appeared a mocking mirror to how he had woken within the pit.

He handed her with ease and got here to a cease beside her. Her open wounds nonetheless smelled delightfully bitter with adrenaline, however he pulled his focus away from that. Flicking his thoughts via his cog-feed, he tried to scan her for accidents, however nothing got here up. The reminiscences he had weren’t usable but; they wanted sequencing. For now, all he had was a perception-enhancing overlay and two ghosts of unrefined rawness.

That was going to be an issue. He couldnt bear in mind a time when his thoughts didnt have a metaphysical fortress shielding it from incursions. Not since Walton determined to take him up the primary Tier.

Avo seemed up on the chasm above him once more. The sunshine was mocking him. The skein of the Nether itself was mocking him, far past the attain of his two ghosts. This Metamind wasnt his. Didnt matter if it was constructed from a duplicate of his thoughts or not. His Metamind was created as an echo of Walton. The very last thing he had of Walton. And now it was lacking, misplaced someplace within the continent-wide expanse of New Vultun.

Making an attempt to hunt a metaphysical assemble down can be like choosing out a person air present in a hurricane. Didnt matter. He would discover it, regardless of the prices. However first, he needed to climb out of the Maw.

A comfortable sputter got here from Hap-Tat once more. Proper. He was making an attempt to evaluate her wounds. No engram for it. He needed to depend on his paltry guesswork and expertise, however from how her organs have been filling up with fluid, he doubted she had lengthy.

Didnt imply it, he had needed to say. He determined towards it. He did imply it. Would imply it once more when the throes of starvation returned. Biting again a hiss of frustration, he remembered what Walton had advised him about utilizing the reality, embracing it even when it harm.

Iregret, Avo mentioned, straining from the trouble of this farce. It felt absurd. That this occurred. It wasnt an apology. Even now, he wasnt sorry that he had mortally wounded her, and butchered the opposite two scavengers. All he was actually sorry about was the truth that Walton wouldnt have accredited. That he had didn’t grasp himself; surrendered to the beast on the first likelihood.

Throughout the stretch of the barges deck, the withering winds of the Maw whistled. Alone, the ghoul confronted the lady he was going to kill and continued. Didnt wish to do that. Starvation he trailed off. Starvation was simply an impulse. He made the selection. Everybody chooses. Everybody lies to themselves. Reality is ugly. Reality is I wish to harm you. Reality is I wish to eat you. Tried to battle it. I did. I misplaced.

Once more, he wasnt positive if this was for him or her. It was all the time simpler for him to talk to the useless. To type and sequence reminiscences from ghosts, flip them into vessels for him to make use of. Maybe it was a factor of energy. That he may solely categorical the reality when he couldnt be harm.

He noticed a tear spill free from her left eye. Alongside her brow, the error codes of the implanted adverts continued pulsing. I dont wish to die right here

He sniffed. He may odor her encroaching demise. It was evident within the blood loss. She didnt have any regenerative implants, biostasis mods, and he or she undoubtedly didnt make close to sufficient imps to afford a phylactery to deal with her consciousness. She was poor. She was weak. She was going to die. And New Vultun would develop all of the stronger for it.

You’ll, Avo mentioned. She cried softly at his phrases. Imsorry. He thought-about make issues higher for them. At the very least a bit. Debt slaves: the FATELESS. The place are they?

Shadows lengthened across the nook. The steps drew nearer. A whistling tune got here with it. A stout, bald man sauntered down the walkway, an orb-shaped drone hovering behind him. In a burst of violence, Avo dashed the drone towards the wall with a vicious backhand earlier than snatching the person off his toes and dragging him into the room.

Throwing the person towards one of many beds, Avo leaned and whispered: Scream. In poor health open your throat. Blink if you happen to perceive. This proved to be arduous as the person had what appeared to be cheap-chrome blinkers for eyes. They flashed between pink, yellow, and inexperienced. Avo sighed. The idiot had visitors lights implanted. Nod if you happen to perceive.

The person nodded.

Avo considered his plan. What number of on the ship.

Three-hundred and thirty crew, the person croaked, terror staining his voice. Plus the captain.

Fewer now, however the man didnt have to know that. Part-pens?

Purple eyes checked out him confused. Two ranges beneath. Why

Avo barred his fangs. The person remembered who was asking the questions. Take me down. No. Management heart first. He wanted to take the ship. If he may seize the ship he may seal the doorways. Take management of its locus and channel its retailer of ghosts to null the minds of the crew with no battle.

The person led Avo out quietly, his tempo gripped with pressure. Other than the mans eyes, he was virtually a flat. In all probability not that far faraway from being a refugee or a newcomer to town himself. Most natives in New Vultun had one thing in them that wasnt pure. Most snuffers have been largely inorganic attributable to their career. The Guilders had no want for chrome. With their bioware and nanoware, they have been already postmortals strolling amongst apes. The truth that they held the monopolies on Souls and had many of the Godclads below their make use of meant that they didnt simply have favor with the metaphorical deck, they primarily owned it.

Nonetheless, this boded properly for Avo. A shipful of flats and lesser-chromers meant he was unlikely to run into somebody with military-grade Titanskin or an Accelero. If he bumped into somebody like that, it wasnt a query if he may win, however how a lot of his corpse theyd go away behind.

A lot of the crew have been of their rooms or gathered in different chambers to keep away from the worst of the Maws radiative entropy. Avo had no concept how a lot the titanium shielding of the ship would assist them, however one thing advised him they wouldnt be sufficient. Scavenging was unhealthy for longevity.

In his periphery, he seen a dim flame burning, piercing into his consideration via the partitions. Avo frowned. Shutting off his cog-feed for a second, he watched because it light. He activated his cog-feed once more and caught Visitors-Sight by his scruff.

Avo pointed within the imprecise course of the sparkle. Whats that means?

Reactor room, the person mentioned. I can

No. Hold going. He would research the reactor later when he had the time. One thing about it referred to as to him. Referred to as to his starvation. Inexplicably, he needed to know its style. Proper now, he wanted management.

It took just a few extra turns earlier than he discovered himself lastly descending down an incline. The door resulting in the bridge was a layer of rusted metal. It seemed dissonant beneath the inexperienced tarp and insulating foil that appeared to plaster the partitions of the inside. Nonetheless, as Visitors-Sight approached, the door hissed open.

On the opposite facet, a mountain of a girl in a coat manufactured from melted slats was evident down at a bloodied man on his knees. His face was mangled and swollen. His decrease lip was clenched in her left hand, gloved in gleaming scale. He reeked of ache and torture. She stood over him, a tower of indifference radiating rank annoyance.

Unnoticed, Avo gripped his hostage in warning and watched.

Her face was a patchwork of cyberware and scars. Her jaw was a factor of chrome working far up the proper facet of her face. Acid burns marred what little flesh there was on the opposite facet. Each her eyes glinted like coals at midnight. As her coat drew again, Avo seen that her legs seemed akin to industrial pistons.

The captain definitely made an impression. Even unintentionally.

Within the background of the slender chamber, quite a few holo-feeds have been projected on a concave display, lighting the dimness of the room in a glower of blue. The biggest feed confirmed just a few of the crew holding knives to the necks of two girls. Twins. They shared options with the person at present kneeling earlier than the captain.

The captain sighed. Her lungs bellowed air in gales of breath. Once more, Mr. Streklov, the eldest or the youngest? We signed a debt contract for 2. I at present depend three folks in your loved ones. I is likely to be a no-good ineffective drunk piece of shit gone her heyday, however I can nonetheless do arithme She paused as a wind blew in via the hatch main into the bridge. Frowning, she seen Avo and Visitors-Sight and tilted her head.

Engineer Yully, she mentioned, are you conscious that theres a ghoul standing behind you.

Hostage, Avo defined.

The girl nodded. Like this was an on a regular basis incidence to her. She had most likely seen weirder. This was New Vultun in spite of everything. Proper. Ghouls discuss. They’ll try this. Simply dont bear in mind any of them taking hostages She frowned. Sighing, she casually pointed her palm on the manStreklovsface. A flash of sunshine speared out. A clear beam cored an open wound into the mans head. His daughters screamed. The captain lower the feed with a wave of her hand.

Nonetheless, the echo and the ghost spilled over into Avo, sinking into him like earlier than.

ESSENCE CYCLER: 6 THAUM/c

GHOSTS – [5]

METAMIND ADJUSTMENTS RECOMMENDED – FOUNDATIONAL STRUCTURE REACHING CAPACITY

There, the captain mentioned. Debt contract absolved. On to the following situation. She seemed Avo up and down. You’ll be able to perceive Customary, sure?

Avo grunted. Completely. As if she didnt hear him talking it earlier.

Proper, she mentioned. Simply had to ensure. I had a bit an excessive amount of to drink earlier. Was afraid I hallucinated you into existence.

Avo needed to tear into her. No. Wanted a greater technique of attacking her. He didnt know the depth of her implants and her capabilities. The shortage of correctly constructed ghosts meant he could not scry her both. As a substitute, he repeated one among his previous methods. With a sudden thrust, he launched Visitors-Sight at her and darted at an angle. The person collided along with her and bounced off. The captain sighed, unaffected. Avo closed in, claws open

He made it two steps earlier than a twin-layered halo rippled over out from her thoughts. Avos eyes widened. Over the crown of her halo, a phantasmal sigil ignited into a logo of a sword. Like a constellation, the reminiscences of her ghosts erupted from the middle of her halo, flooding over his senses. This, then, was the distinction between a poorly sequenced assortment of ghosts and a factory-setting Metamind.

A tidal wave of trauma swept into him unimpeded. With out correctly made wards, he had no counter. No protection. On the whims of her will, ache exploded throughout his nerve facilities as her ghosts usurped his psychological features. Avo gasped, toppling as her ghosts burrowed deeper, tearing via his floor ideas, and rendering his thoughts porous. Exhausting to cling to.

WARN-

His cog-feed sputtered out. A flood of insanity poured into his thoughts. He descended right into a maelstrom of goals, of chaos. Reminiscences of being crushed and tortured overwhelmed his senses. It remained for some time till his thoughts was dulled sufficient to recede like waves returning to the ocean. A curtain of darkness remained over his eyes; a miasma of static parted him from his senses.

Via a slender pinprick of consciousness, he felt his physique spasming towards the bottom. He tried to face. His physique wasnt listening. The captain was actively intercepting snatching his ideas earlier than they may journey throughout his physique.

Is it useless? he heard Visitors-Sight ask via the darkness.

No, the captain mentioned. That might be a waste. Its a speaking ghoul. Dont see that shit on daily basis.

Frantic footsteps rattled down the corridor from whence Avo got here. Captaincaptain!

“Sure, sure, I do know. Ghoul on the ship.

Kald, Tagma, and Jessa are all useless. Li-yings lacking.

A beat adopted. The captain sighed. I feel I can deduce why. Yully. Get the crew on excessive alert. See if hesinfected anybody. Ms. Katha, take him all the way down to the pens. Put him throughout the product and hyperlink him to the locus. Dose him with nightmares. He wont keep out in any other case. Fucking rotlicks.

The pens? the unfamiliar voice requested.

Sure, the pens. So we are able to promote it later. The captain scoffed. Its already killed three of mine. Would possibly as properly spin a revenue from it by some means.

I simply thought

Chuck it within the Maw? the captain laughed. Why? So its demise could be good and painless. No. Once we get again to Mazzas Junction properly offload it with the FATELESS. On the sound of that, the beast inside him exploded. It raged towards the ghosts latched to his thoughts. It raged uselessly.

A curtain of discord descended over his ideas. His thoughts was drowned in a whirlwind of confusion, his senses flaking away from his consciousness. He thought he was being pulled upward by one thing earlier than he dreamed of a screaming noticed slicing into the facet of his stomach. Subsequent, he noticed butterflies spill out from his wounds earlier than the intestines he shouldnt have had was serpents and sank their fangs into his eyes.

Then, got here the ultimate reminiscence. He was falling right into a burning home as he choked on smoke. The haze grew thick. So thick that they have been all that remained of his ideas. A rising fog ate away at him, drowning him in darkness.