Godclads

You might encounter some bitter cynics who tell you that dealing with the Syndicates is like dealing with the Guilds.

Frankly, this is outright ghoul-shit.

Guilds–for all the warring they do–provide structures of economic exchange, laws, and the foundations of security and infrastructure.

They are, effectively, nation-states. The only reason I’m reluctant to call them such is because most High-Guilders act like godsdamned cultists and would like to see the world collapse into another apocalypse if it would achieve their desired utopia.

I can’t even give the Syndicates that much. They’re just leeches. Stealing old licensing chips. Exploiting the FATELESS. Fighting their own little gutter wars for hedonism and profit.

They might tell you they provide security and stability for the Warrens in absence of greater powers. To this, I’d say that I could also tell you my piss contains the cure to wombrash, and you should buy it from me and drink it deep at 10,000 imps a cup.

-Quail Tavers, New Vultun Sunrise Interview

3-6

Crystal Cages

Avo felt the same self-inverting pressure peeling free from the reflection as he did when Mirrorhead tore him through the ceiling. This time, however, there were no unfathomable depths infested with an eldritch god. Instead, a small office greeted Avo.

It too, of course, was entirely made of glass. Avo sighed.

The walls were mirrors. The desk was cast in mirror polish. Even the chair was reflective. And being the self-satisfied, dominance-abusing half-strand that he was, Mirrorhead decided to emerge out from the glass of the chair, stretching themselves through a narrow tunnel of space. Avo’s skull spiked with pain as his natural mind failed to comprehend the transgressions inflicted upon geometry.

Materializing into his seat, Mirrorhead pulled another two glasses out from his face. He clicked them both down against the desk and, with a wave of his hand, manifested a small barrel shape stool across from the desk. A small barrel-shaped stool that he motioned for Avo sit on.

Avo shot Mirrorhead a naked glare. His legs would end up ascending past his chest if he sat in that. It would be like doing a squat.

“I don’t get many ghouls,’ Mirrorhead said, dryly.

Yes. The only other seat you own is from the toddler’s section so we don’t visit, was what Avo wanted to say.

Instead, he awkwardly doddered over and leaned down, staring at the seat. Reflective too. Probably in case Mirrorhead wanted to give him a prostate scan while they were talking or something. The Syndicate boss would probably end up going on about how staring up someone’s rear was more a dominance thing than something that might induce the rash.

Carefully planting himself down on the stool, Avo still found himself a head taller than Mirrorhead. He struggled not to grin. The Syndicate boss didn’t seem to care. A waifish six-feet though Mirrorhead might be, Avo supposed the Godclad had other, more important qualities he concerned himself with.

Like pulling a decanter from his skull.

This time, Avo watched carefully, attempting to better glean how his enemy’s Heaven functioned. Could Mirrorhead store things inside himself or was it just like pulling things through a doorway? What was the scope of the Syndicate boss’ miracles? And what if the mirror was smeared or shattered?

Mirrorhead dropped the decanter onto the table with a loud clack. He shoved it over to Avo. “Pour us a drink.”

Avo obeyed. The other option was likely death. Didn’t mean he liked it.

“So,” Mirrorhead said, waving for Avo to stop the glass filled halfway. Avo deliberately spilled some as he pulled his arm away too early, pretending to wince. Mirrorhead ignored him. “As I said earlier: I have a use for you. Being the survivor of a Crucible has qualified you for certain…circuits in the Warrens. There are other games I’d like to enter…” Mirrorhead trailed off into a sigh as he saw Avo raising his hand. “What?”

“Didn’t want to interrupt–”

“Raising your hand is interrupting, ghoul,” Mirrorhead said, his simmering annoyance made evident by the edged rumble in his voice.

Avo loved dealing with reasonable people. “You want me. To…participate in another Crucible? Do another snuff-stream? A circuit?” Avo asked, trying to understand. What kind of reward for winning was this? The boon for surviving a slaughterhouse like the Crucible should be no more Crucible and a ticket out of this den of misery.

Now Mirrorhead was trying to get him to do another?

“Yes,” Mirrorhead said without a hint of shame. “It’s a good use for you. You are capable: a champion to one of the harshest Crucibles in the city. Someone the viewers can remember. Someone I can use to shape a narrative. Across the Nether, I could use someone who is… distant from my official dealings. Another angle of attack, so to speak.”

Great. Perfect. It was all Avo ever wanted. To get famous making snuff vicarities for a control freak. How could he ever thank Mirrorhead enough? “You asking me to keep doing these Crucibles?”

A trail of ghosts spilled past Mirrorhead’s face. Again, Avo never even saw them manifest. That was going to be a problem. Detecting incoming ghosts and not getting detected in return was part zero of surviving the Nether. Without a glance at the greater sequences Mirrorhead’s ghosts were anchored to or what phantasmics he was using, it wasn’t going to be easy to gauge how good of a Necro he was.

With a wave, the Syndicate manifested the metrics for the most recent Crucible stream produced under Conflux along with several highlight headlines. Avo blinked.

Ah. A Phantom phantasmic. Odd. Most people still used holograms for visual representations. Phantoms were, after all, solely perception-based phenomena; something that couldn’t be stored or itemized other than through remembrances.

The phantoms swirled into a variety of figures and graphs. Nine hundred million views; a few hundred billion imps in revenue; images of dead hunters, a broken golem, and Little Vicious’ brutalized remains.

“Are these not among your deeds?” Mirrorhead asked.

A highlights reel began playing, staring with Avo’s struggle with the first hunter–the one with the frequency blade–taking her with him down the rails. Then came the bodkins and his first death at the hands of Slaughterman. The recordings played on from there, showing Draus, him, and the father at times in various “triumphant” circumstances. Most of the footage was taken from the uploaded memories of the spectators.

Post-processed memories, Avo realized. He stared upon his own form amidst the dancing phantoms with annoyance. They had shortened his arms. Flattened out the gleam in his scleras. Even reduced the length of his fangs. In fact, aside from the pallid translucence of his skin, there was nothing the Syndicate didn’t touch up. And even there, Avo found his flesh shining like moonlit marble rather than the leathery ash that it truly was.

It all culminated in the hissing remains of Little Vicious’ cockpit as a final shot of the Crucible. A capitalized “THREE” marked the survivors. Him. Draus. The father. A triumphant flash framed the exterior of their presentations.

No hint or mention of the boy. In fact, it looked like the dead child was entirely edited out.

Had to sell it to the broader public somehow. There were levels to the snuff game, and enough of the city still recoiled at the deaths of children. Especially after the rash.

The phantasmal images faded to black. Avo stared at Mirrorhead, wordless, expression blank. Two could play at being obtuse.

“The viewers even came up with a title for you,” Mirrorhead said, unaffected. “Moonblood.”

Avo glared silently. Moonblood belonged to something from a children’s serial. He was a ghoul. Ghouls and children go together like a nu-cat and an aratnid nest.

“I’m glad you like it,” Mirrorhead said, his nod almost imperceptible. The worst part about that was Avo couldn’t tell if the man was serious or not. “I think it’s….fitting, for the purity you exemplify over your subspecies. A ghoul, unlike all the others, capable of thought. Capable of reason. Capable of emot–” Mirrorhead’s voice trailed off. “Ethics.”

“More accurate,” Avo concurred. He struggled not to grimace in annoyance. The man was going to use him as the “good” ghoul. Something of a token monster turned to the sensibilities of the city.

“You like it?”

“Does it matter?” Avo asked, already knowing the answer.

“No. I’ve decided to use that as your title. Marketing is seeding the lobbies as we speak.”

Avo grunted. He would take great pleasure in eating Mirrorhead’s tongue if he got the chance. If the half-strand even had a tongue.

“Have questions,” Avo said.

Mirrorhead motioned for him to speak.

“Draus. The father. What about them?”

The question slid off the Mirrorhead like water from a windshield. “What of them?”

“What are they going to get?” Avo asked.

Mirrorhead hummed at the question. “Captain Draus will likely fetch me a neat sum should I sell her back to one of her former employers at a ransom. I could attempt to subjugate her to my will. The thought of having a Regular in my service is…pleasing. But not worth the trouble. She was more threat than the benefit she offers–worse, she has a mind of her own.”

And there it was. Despite all Avo had accomplished, all he displayed surviving the Crucible, it still wasn’t enough to make him a person. The bitter bemusement he felt at knowing that Mirrorhead had miscalculated.

Between him and Draus, the latter was indeed the far superior fighter. But Mirrorhead wasn’t a problem to be settled in a typical combat engagement. No. Mirrorhead had the reach of his Heaven and his organization. It would take a certain level of strategy and leverage to pry it all apart.

Unfortunately for the Syndicate boss, he just invited a Necrojack with a grudge into the inner confines of his court. A miscalculation of overconfidence. That’s fine. Avo would do for Mirrorhead what Walton did for him: be direct in the correction of that mistake. See hubris rewarded with just violence.

"The father?” Avo asked.

"Of little use,” Mirrorhead said. “By all rights, he should be dead.”

"By fact he isn’t,” Avo replied.

A beat slid into their conversation. Mirrorhead considered Avo’s words. “True. But truth is unimportant. I will find a use for him. Or release him if I cannot.”

“Release where?”

“Outside,” Mirrorhead said simply, non-specifically. “It is a vast city. There are plenty of corners.”

“Plenty of harvesters,” Avo said. “Even flat-organs give imps.”

“If such is to be his fate.”

This was an affront. An arrangement so easily broken was no arrangement at all. Walton would have been disgusted at this. Avo knew he would. “He survived your game. Deserves better–”

“He deserves whatever I deign to provide him," Mirrorhead said. Fissures spread across the glass, opening like spiderwebs around Avo. A reminder of where he was. Of who held the power. And with a single tap of the table, the cracks disappeared. “Hm. I may have a use for him yet.”

Somehow, Avo doubted Mirrorhead was going to offer the father work.

“Enough distractions,” Mirrorhead continued. “Let me speak of your initiation. And reward.”

Avo tilted his head. Dead gods, it actually was like he was getting a full-time wager contract.

With a thought, the phantoms returned to the moment where Avo found himself engaged against Slaughterman.

“You have…potential. But you’re clearly rough. Untrained. Sloppy.” Mirrorhead deliberately cycled through moments of Avo getting brutalized by the oversized hunter. “Yet, your resourcefulness and surprising…comprehension of Necrothurgy are evident. What you managed with the drones was a fine feat. I commend you.” Mirorhead’s approval was as blunt and stilted as he was. “But aside from skill, your biggest deficiency is within your attributes. Your sluggishness. A pitiful failure on the part of the Low Master in your design. Modifications will be necessary.”

“Implants don’t work,” Avo said. “Ghoul. Blood rejection. Don’t think you have nano-surgeons here. Ones good enough to tune my blood.”

“There are other means of enhancement than just chrome,” Mirrorhead said. “The No-Dragons have achieved interesting medical breakthroughs experimenting with your kind. Do you know that your blood has very effective qualities? More than being an infection vector. The synaptic nodules each cell possesses presented new opportunities for research. And products.”

That piqued Avo’s interest. “Bioware?”

Mirrorhead nodded. “A prototype. Procured from a raid on one of the No-Dragon’s subsidiaries. Something that will solve your…lack of pace.”

“Grafting them to me?” Avo asked, incredulous. No one gave something for free. There was a catch. There was always a catch.

“Yes,” Mirrorhead said. “I can’t have my newest nu-steed lacking in acceleration now, can I? Besides. You have already made me far more imps than the cost of the graft. Consider it more reward than gift.”

“Investing a lot in me,” Avo said.

Mirrorhead scoffed. “I’m investing far less than what you have earned me. Giving you a tool I was originally going to have to sell, to begin with. Most among my ranks lack the…biology necessary to sustain the implant, anyhow. There is also the matter of your Necrojacking experience.”

A sudden excitement rose within Avo, greater than even potentially getting a workable implant for his reflexes.

“I will speak plainly. It offends me. A creature like yourself should not be capable of the art. And it stands as a threat to me. A threat that I can’t accept. You will need to be…leashed.”

Avo felt his excitement plummet into near-fury. The beast snarled beneath Avo’s skin. He shivered, trying to keep it bottled in. Attacking Mirrorhead now would see him killed. Nothing came of that. Staying alive allowed him to survive longer. Study. Wait. Find an opening.

Here he was again, going from one cage to the next. A nice, more opulent cage, but still a cage. Avo had enough of those. He had enough of being owned after a lifetime of unconditioned kindness from a father he never deserved. At that moment, Avo hated Mirrorhead. Hated him with more vehemence than he ever felt. The emotion could only manifest itself in one way: hunger.

Avo wanted to know how Mirrorhead tasted, wanted to tear the Heaven from the man and subsume the fires of his Soul.

The Syndicates wanted to play as minor Guilds to the FATELESS and downtrodden. Mirrorhead likely wanted to carve a small fiefdom out here with his powers and influence. Except he still lacked the weight of Guild support and was just a trout in a cod pond.

Sure, when you bring in a few auged-up hitters in old rigs you can clear out an area and take part of a block, but throw a few chromers against a Paladin and the only outcome you’ll get is a mass casualty event floating by midnight news as an infographic. Possible also a bump in Guild stocks if enough people die to fuel a new Heaven.

Avo swallowed his bloodlust. Time to bide his time. By this point, Mirrorhead was just staring at him, wordlessly.

“Yes,” Avo said, forcing the word out. “I understand. Injection?”

Silence became Mirrorhead. “Good. You know. In honesty, I’m impressed. Your impulse control is remarkable for your kind. And your intellect is…” Mirrorhead trailed off.

“A threat?” Avo provided.

“Interesting,” Mirrorhead said, sounding almost disgusted in himself. “I find myself fascinated with you, despite our stations. I see now why Little Vicious was so driven to kill you, despite her incompetence. You are an aberration, Avo. An abomination.” Mirrorhead chuckled.”The city is going to love you.”

Practice made things remarkable. Focus and clear objectives allowed for improvement. That was what Avo knew. The beast could be contained; directed.

"Still. I must ask, as my curiosity demands it: how do you know about the injection.”

"Worked for clubs. Joy parlors. Lots of sudden aneurysms on certain days. Lots of interesting information leaking from their ghosts after.”

Reaching under the table, Mirrorhead produced a thin–mirror-coated of course–needle. “Well. Suppose that saves me the need for getting to the hard part then.” Avo looked at the little coldtech bomb swirling inside the needle. Funny how you could kill just anyone with a little damage in the right place. Like a cortex bomb. Fried synapses were hard to come back from.

That was ultimately the greatest advantage coldtech had over thaumaturgy: low upkeep for consistent effectiveness. A ghost made to traumatize someone into compliance needs to be made specifically in opposition to an individual’s mind. Bombs worked all the same on almost everyone.

He gave Mirrorhead his best shrug. If he couldn’t avoid this, he might as well seize the choice first. “Let me do it. Straight in the veins. Yes?”

Again, Mirrorhead was taken aback. “Fine.”

Slowly, he offered the syringe. The diamond tip of the needle could pierce augmented skin without issue. With a slow press, Avo injected the contents into himself. He felt nothing, which told him the machines were too small or complex for his blood to notice without aid.

But were they too small for him to eject with his Heaven? And would they still be inside him after a post-death reversion?

“This concludes…negotiations?”

The syndicate boss huffed a laugh, wagging a finger at Avo, as if a child had said something amusing. “Negotiations,” he chuckled, downing another glass of ambrosia. “I’d like to meet this Walton. Man must’ve been cut from the cloth of Jaus Avandaer himself to do what he did with something like you.”

Avo grinned to hide his snarl. “I ever get the chance, I’ll acquaint you with him.”

In ignorance, Mirrorhead drank to the threat as a toast.

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