IX-47 Weight (Patreon)

There is a pattern of symmetrical crisis among philosophers when they realize that their perception does not hold the truth of things. This applies to the world outside their body, but also to the world that exists within their mind's eye. The dilution, then, is multifaceted and multitudinous in accuracy. Great misery thereby corresponds from this point, as one must recognize the cognitive matter residing within their skull as an impartial logic generator at best and a flawed mechanism of memory, even with evolutions and mana supporting it. We are all filtered and infected through information and culture. That is our greatest advantage and flaw as individuals who compose civilizations.

To resolve this matter, we seek to create a holistic understanding by generating a model, one that need not rely only on our perspective of things but that is also further augmented by the perspective of others. Many philosophers argue that where points overlap in understanding and logic, and that which is seen or felt or tasted, there resides a greater weight of truthfulness. But this is merely an assumption, and a reaching one at that, for can two people not share the same flaw? Can a thousand not share the same flaw? Can a trillion not share the same flaw? One cannot give a definite answer to this question—magnitude of symmetry is not a sufficient arbiter of truth beyond hinting at a similar aspect of signification amongst a data set.

Thereafter arrive the tabula rasa experiments: the creation of thinking but primitive entities, released into a contained environment to see if they replicate a certain set of behaviors, see if, over time, they achieve the very same beliefs as their questioning progenitors.

But this too demands great change, yet not so extreme that all variables in an environment are utterly alienated from the conditions from which the question sprung. Ultimately, to uncover the foundational truth of things requires the truth to be tested in multitudes upon multitudes and refined from more than merely overlapping perspectives, but rather through the crucible of logic, of question, and of practical situation, until more and more facets are revealed.

But even this invites a partial understanding, though greater than before. We understand little, we grasp little, and so the curse of enlightenment is upon you as a philosopher—for in your yearning to grasp the wholeness, you merely understand how much of the wholeness you cannot grasp, and so one must temper oneself in the aftermath of this crisis. For the great reward is no satisfying reward at all, but an understanding that even the basis of inquiries demands you strive, and perhaps strive without end.

Yet, one cannot entirely discount the great comfort and worth that come in agreement or conflict when your perspective and another intermingle. For though consistency born from dialectic does not stand as absolute veracity, it is veracity of a lesser, perhaps illusory measure. From that measure, however, is a stepping stone nonetheless to greater wisdom…

—Legend-Philosopher Melaia Kelhaus

IX-47

Weight

“Six? Six Avalons?” Shiv puffed out a rough breath and tried to ignore the hissing mockery cast his way via his Skills. “You know, it’s my turn to say it: You’re disgusting. That’s just monstrous. It’s bullshit. How did you break six of the bastard? Never mind that. How do you even break one?”

“Three hundred years is bullshit. Three hundred! And Caine! They used Caine Hauser against you!” Adam shook his head as he shuddered—then stopped. “Though, do tell me again about how badly he beat you. Special emphasis on the part where he drove you insane.”

Shiv reflexively grew an arm out from his flesh to flip Adam off for that request while obliging all the same—and without shame. “It was a very stupid time in my life. Admittedly, I’ve been very stupid most of my life. Still pretty stupid now, knowing what I don’t.”

“I was just about to say something in that vein.”

“I kind of figured. You’re getting predictable, kid.”

“Kid?”

“Yeah. Kid. You’re barely a baby, Adam. I gotta take care of you, seeing how I’m far older and wiser.”

“I’m going to use the palm on you.”

“See, very child-like response.” Shiv flexed his Biomancy and reconstructed the additional limb he grew out from the side of his skull. He didn’t even bother shaping a looping simulation for his impending organic reconstruction; he knew how human cells came together better than most now, and as such rebuilt the architecture of the arm from the ground up as he converted skin, muscle, and bone into a series of varied mammaries. He then extended these mammaries in an elongating branch toward Adam while making suckling noises. “Here, little baby, have some nippy.”

A half-sneer distorted Adam’s features as he dispatched one of his inverted arrows to nudge the offending tit-arm aside. “Get thee foul breasts away from me, bastard.”

The chain of arm-grown mammaries jiggled upon contact with the arrow—and both Deathless and Tyrant threw their heads back to indulge in juvenile snickering.

All this took place upon the Tyrant's floating temple, in the shadow of the pagoda. Adam and Shiv chatted on before a rapt but awkward audience. On Shiv's side were Maia, Veronica, and Gone, with the goblin unbothered by the topic and vulgar display at hand, while the former two covered their eyes while groaning. Adam's retinue was more substantial, with his Avatar-Repentant being Havel Van Stormhalt and, to his surprise, Whisper and Tequila also in attendance amongst a group of Supplicant-Representatives. The orcs brightened at the sight of Shiv, and he noted how they, unlike the rest of Adam's entourage, were not spared the torments of bearing a Crown of the Anti-Savior. It was a surprising but consistent mercy offered to the orcs and only to the orcs; all others who followed the Tyrant of heroism needed to give themselves over to punishment for deeds performed in the past and also bear the blessings of virtues made up for in the present.

Another manner of friction was written upon the faces of Adam's faithful as well. He recognized it as uncertainty and worry. The calm spawned when one's stern, usually stern father revealed themselves to be jovial and almost human amongst new company, long lost from your father's path. Lost, now regained, only to draw them closer to humanity and mortality, and with that came an existential discomfort.

For he was the Tyrant of Heroism, the great god that led them out of the grasp of false paradise, the breaker of swords, as they thought of him. To lose that in sudden devolution, because a shadow from their master's past arrived without their control, would be a terrible thing indeed. Shiv knew that he was to reassure them, all of them, especially Havel, who had actual memory of Shiv and knew the threat he might represent if left unattended. There was much to worry about indeed—and not only from Adam's end.

Ribald jibes and scathing retorts were exchanged between the two as if no time had passed between them. But elation and affection could only delay the inevitable for so long. There was a reckoning due for both of them, and a choice to make. Certain things were to be admitted or not, and in silence the other would notice as well, as Adam was beyond meticulous when it came to his Awareness, while Shiv peered into hearts and made prey of lies. And though neither wished to hide themselves from their brother, the trust between them was not nearly as intact as the love.

“It was a delight to rekindle our humanity, if only for a while,” the Harbinger mused.

Nihilist: Never mind rekindling our humanity, I'm just glad we can sit around for a while and not worry about being obliterated by some bullshit metaphysical threat we barely understand. That is, if we can ignore Adam also being one such a potential threat, because I don't know, guys, you peek over the edge. That's a lot of paradises pressed together. He didn't just break the damn Avalons; he turned them into a kind of bunch of inter-stacked puzzle pieces.

The Nihilist's words rang as an understatement. Shiv turned away from Adam to gaze upon the worlds his friend collected, for that was what they were: entire worlds. The smallest among them were cities, the largest continents, fragments still, but shrapnel only when measured on the scale of gods.

Upon those fragments were gleaming cities built of multiple, varied environments. Some were flowing realms of water with dense tubes and arteries allowing those who lived on land to traverse its expanse without suffering sudden drowning. A similar architectural consideration was appropriately built into surfacer territories: also tubes, but rather than being dry and pumped with non-aquatic oxygen, they were fluid and constantly pushed the sub-aquatic Pathbearers to and fro.

Additional measures were put in place past the threshold of specified height. Said thresholds were marked by Adam's incandescent arrows, and a membrane was forged of mana once someone passed that near-imperceptible barrier. Gravity was softer past a certain point, weaker and lessened in all measures, as creatures of the stratosphere and then post-atmosphere were granted their own spaces in the sky above. There was a unification of these territories across all the broken realms, and the broken realms themselves were meshed together like pieces of brick and mortar—with the debris of broken Avalon serving as the substance for the former, and Adam’s mist operating as a metaphysical means of adhesion and separation.

Beyond this, though what remained of the Avalons were merely splinters and sparks of their former grandeur, the essence of paradise was retained. For what loomed beyond the reach of Shiv's ever-spreading awareness was an ecumenopolis of myriad paradises, all bound together, all in service of the Tyrant—as colossal chains of azure leaking mist and running from individuals to the Tyrant's star coursed and jingled in numbers beyond counting, and lights were hung along their lengths, pieces of illumination bestowing a soothing glow on those who existed below, allowing for patches of clarity amidst what should have been an all-consuming murk. Towers, then, were resculpted to bear the visage of the great Tyrant, standing atop the palm that was the Sage, while he bore his bow and drew shards from his wings to fire as arrows.

Such edifices cast everything around them in shadow—taller and grander in mass and design compared to everything that festered at their base. Countless pilgrims prostrated themselves before the visage of the Tyrant, giving unto him tithes of blood and admission of sin, and each of them wore the wreath upon their head. The wreath which burrowed and tormented them the same way it had them once. Each flinched and suffered, but held themselves to rigor and dignity that went beyond the fathoming of most to endure. The only ones unburdened below were consistent with those who were spared the same tortures above: orcs, steeped in Adam's glow, orcs he claimed and retained from the Challenger. They watched, they observed, and they stood the only ones armed in a land barren of arms and armor.

Through that, Shiv connected a series of chains, both literal, metaphysical, and subtextual. The people who gave themselves over to Adam as worshippers wore the crowns, and Shiv saw no such unfaithful. The orcs were then paradoxical enforcers, the only spots of violence in an otherwise untarnished plane, and all of them were bound to the great arrow, whose grand statues connected to him, as it also connected to all the ones below. With the Ungnostic, Shiv saw the cords running in Adam, the cords connecting him to his wondrous monuments, as each was a facet of his soul—divine anchors that allowed him to impart part of his weight upon reality, that fed and swelled from constant worship, that was stained red at its roots with the coursing of blood along in-built canals.

The scope of Adam's control was staggering, but the question of how many faithful existed upon his palm was likely another thing altogether. With so many willing to suffer in order to emulate their Lord, Shiv realized that Adam had carved a powerful, potent mythology upon his people.

As such, it was more than chains running from chains, but rather chains pulling upon chains. He pulled them, and they in turn pulled him, yet not in the inverse. They were effectively moving along the same axis, but they were the steeds connected to him by literal and cultural reins. The influence he imparted upon his conquered domain and all its subjects dwarfed anything the Republic could manage, and Shiv saw that in Veronica's eyes. She kept her muscles tempered, kept her face loose, but from the way her gaze lingered and jumped from place to place, desperately trying to drink everything in, it was clear that she was shaken, even without gazing upon the fires of near-despair spilling forth from her heart.

A crisis was upon her, one she could not shake. Even Shiv's spike in power during his time in Avalon's purgatory did not distress her so. And how could it? Few people could endure the sight of themselves shorn away of all grandeur and illusion. Veronica especially not, for everything she'd sacrificed and carved out from her humanity was in service of the Republic, or so she claimed. Everything she believed in was for the betterment of her political career, to assure her dominance, but before Adam, what dominance could she exude? Upon his palm, the totality of the Yellowstone Republic would be but a pimple.

What a terrible thing to endure, after all she must have given away with herself. Behold my works, ye who thought yourself mighty, and know you were never even an insect in the grand scheme, Shiv mused. 

Where the Harbinger found a measure of intellectual amusement in Veronica’s misery, Shiv himself noted a new angle of influence developing in concert. Deprived of her own Ascendant and a powerless witness to the child of Roland at such heights would leave her groping for security and whatever means of power she could reach. Yes. She would come to Shiv after the proceedings here concluded to strike a bargain with him in private. Not only him, but she would try to press Maia toward godhood again, with herself granted as an anchor. Maia would doubtlessly refuse, but Veronica was Legendary in her powers of persuasion.

“We cannot risk it; we must be her lifeline instead. Grandmother is no fool, but she is an empress without an empire who now faces a withdrawal of domination. Domination now possessed by the child of a former adversary—one who would undoubtedly do her ill, if not for his consideration of our feelings.”

And what was just the thing: Without Shiv present, Veronica would be dead. Shiv realized this as fact after he caught Adam looking upon the Councilwoman but once. There wasn’t much emotion on the Tyrant’s face then either, but absence with Adam was a tell: He closed his heart when he chose violence, and sealed himself especially tight to blunt himself from whatever cruelty he decided to impose upon her.

“And Havel noticed as well. He has been studying her from the corner of his eye. Her and Maia. He is vastly changed from the man we knew. And the orcs are working closely with him—Whisper has been trying to hide his telepathic messages via pulses of out-facing Dimensionality. There are already politics taking place around us. How pleasing that the only place where politics remains barren is at the font of power—and that such a thing is caused by our presence.”

How pleasing, indeed, Shiv thought as he drank in every detail and began scheming toward his own benefit.

“What are you sneering about?” Adam asked, folding his arms as he noted the look on Shiv’s face.

“Lots of stuff,” Shiv answered in casual earnest. “I like what you did with all the paradises, but Great God Arrow, you impress me most with your ego, because godsdamn are those some big statues.”

Adam scoffed. “Ugly slabs of marble, aren’t they?”

“I’ve seen much worse. At least it’s you there instead of just the palm. Speaking of, what did happen to that miserable prick?”

“He’s still here,” Adam said with a soft smile gracing his lips. “He’s currently saying a number of very unkind things about you between a few brutally begrudging half-compliments. But he sees no purpose in surfacing—and neither do I see a point in granting his ascent.”

Shiv didn’t know which point to start from. “He’s complimenting me?”

“Barely. And no, I will not describe the compliments, as I fear for your final death. Your head will over-inflate and then explode a final time, and I fear mourning you so soon after so long.”

“I’m touched. But you know, I can’t tell which of us is more at risk of exploding from arrogance, because if I didn’t misunderstand the subtext in your words, I think you just insinuated that you have control over the Sage.”

“The Heaven only takes power when the user is unwilling to bear the weight of their lore. But judging from your partial ascent beyond Legendary-Tier, I think you understand my implication better than most.”

And Adam’s words were laced with more than a single implication.

“He has insight into our soul. A suspicion at the least, and likely something comparable to our Ungnostic,” the Harbinger theorized.

Nihilist: Of course he does; he’s Adam fucking Arrow. He could deduce a murderer from a lineup of thousands by the point of the sun in the sky and when a droplet of sweat rolled off a gnat’s ass at a certain point in time.

“Gnats do not sweat,” the Oroborous grumbled. 

Nihilist: It’s a metaphor.

“A lie,” the leviathan seethed. “Hate that I can’t eat you.”

Nihilist: I hate that you exist at all, you creepy motherfucker. Can't believe I ever had anything good to say about you. 

“I also see that your Skills are noisier than ever,” Adam said, rubbing his ears.

That made Shiv snort with surprised laughter—while also silencing all his Skills. “You can hear them?”

“With how incessant their chattering and how loud their complaining, I’m surprised not everyone can.”

“Then, he hears me now,” the Harbinger intoned. “He can hear all of us… almost like Produveral.”

“Hello, Harbinger,” Adam said, nodding at—and into—Shiv. “You’ve done me much honor in keeping my unfortunate idiot hound alive despite himself, I assume.”

“The credit is only mine in part; the distance between him and me has shortened considerably.”

“Truly? Well. You’re not one to lie, but… pardon the unmeant harshness, I would assume your disappearance with your lessening need at some point.”

“But there is still a need for him,” Shiv admitted. “I would have been lonely with myself. It was just me for a lot of that time. Just me alone. No you. No Uva. Just me, until… Well. He’s not Valor anymore. I wish he was. I wish I could have stopped him.”

Adam wore his heartbreak on his sleeve. “As do I. I… confess that I refused to consider much of the interloper beyond keeping him apart from my domain in fear of the danger he might possess, but I have laid my Awareness upon him more than once. And so I knew, even if I forced my mind to silence every time. It was easier to pretend that it was an act of psychological war on Avalon’s part to shake me of resolve.” Both disciples of Valor Thann succumbed to a shared pause before Adam continued. “Is there a chance of his… resurrection?”

“Maybe,” Shiv said. “Theoretically possible, even, based on what I currently know. I just don’t know how to reach that point. The Thief is metaphysically complicated. I can’t call him outright powerful because he isn’t a god, but what he is is vastly beyond my understanding. And I’ve been under his tutelage for almost three hundred years.”

“Never mind you. He's beyond Avalon's ability to contain. He inflicted far more harm upon the swords than I by far. Watching his spreading corrosion is humbling. Watching Avalon be unable to contain him, meanwhile, has been utterly humiliating.” A beat followed as Adam let out a growl of annoyance. “It seems like Valor or not, he is set upon reminding us young upstarts of our place.”

“Me more than you,” Shiv said. “That being said, he isn't perfect. He's got vulnerabilities and flaws, things he doesn't know, and things he's wrong about.”

Adam leaned in. “Is that so?”

“Oh yeah.” Shiv showed his teeth for emphasis. “Especially about you. Now, I always had faith, but he kept asking how much of you must have been left after all these decades, for the Sage must have eaten a lot of you away.”

“That's not such an unreasonable doubt, and for a time, my personhood did hang on the brink, but those days are behind me. As you've grown to be worthy of your Harbinger yourself, I've grown into my mantle and all the penalties and burdens it dictates I bear.”

“I can see that,” Shiv said. “Mean that literally. I see people’s… mortality now.”

“Can you?” Adam's surprise and following curiosity were both genuine. “A part of your burgeoning myth, then. And I assume that the magic flowing out from you is a sign that you've formed your first Demesne.”

“I'm kind of glad I don't need to explain a lot of things to you.”

“I've only ever wished to be insightful,” Adam replied dryly. “I can't quite fully read your attunement, but there's a measure of time and vitality there. I expect that, but the rest perplexes me, and I both adore and loathe the feeling in equal measure.”

“I’ve only ever wished to be entertaining,” Shiv answered with glib glee. “On a serious note: There’s a hells of a lot to explain there. I’ve basically been teaching a full-blown academy course to everyone I’ve brought with me to help them understand the mechanics of Chronomancy and the Endless better.”

“Endless? That is what your attunement is called? Hm. Fitting.” Adam tilted his head in consideration. “And you say that you can break through the Avalons with this lore?”

“Yeah. When the conditions are right, the resources are in place, and using the Avalons’ ignorance, I can crack the walls open and let you spill out again and again. But—not to tell you how to run your war or anything since you’ve broken more swords than I—I would wait until you’ve finished your current conquests. It’ll give me more time to set things up as well; and make it harder for Avalon to figure things out.”

“Splendid,” Adam exhaled. “Absolutely splendid. Having you back was more than enough, but as always, you exceed expectations. And I lament that you were not here a decade sooner.” Shiv saw the humanity in Adam recede as the glow of his godhood intensified by a few lumens. “If we were together from the start, we would have brought this to an end. You, I, and Uva. We could have. I know we could have.” 

There came a gout of purest rage from Adam’s core—anger so pure that it didn’t so much burn as it sliced as light across the void. Anger so deep and fathomless that it shone like a black star beyond the entrance of a well. “Even after so much time, even though I cannot ask anything more of my repentant faithful for that which they give and continue to give, you and she were irreplaceable. Everyone broke when I needed them to hold and stand! Everyone! Everyone!” Adam didn’t rise to a shout, but there was more than a shade of the Sage when his voice rumbled.

Reality trembled in aftershock—and from that alone, Shiv tasted the faintest measure of Adam’s power, and knew him to be greater than a thousand Ascendants and then some. Every bit of mana in the air ceased its motion; even time ground to a screaming halt as the Tyrant imparted his weight.

And his weight was a total force. A force that went beyond anything Shiv could describe. To his amazement—and horror—it also was utterly bereft of mana, as no such essence was expressed in the form of incandescence. Instead, an unseen aura expanded out from Adam and overwrote the architecture of reality for a scant microsecond as his control slipped. And Shiv caught sight of it with his Ungnostic of the Highest House, though he was completely lost to what Skill Adam wielded to inflict such a vulgar and absolute alteration without mana.

“It might not be a Skill at all,” the Harbinger mused.

“No. Not a Skill. Something far older. Far truer. Something I will use to bend the System until it breaks when the real war begins.” Adam gathered himself, and the man he was asserted himself over the god that slipped free in an expression of awesome authority. “You say there is much to explain toward understanding your myth? Likewise, I have learned much about holding a Heaven. Much, and not nearly enough. I suspect it is a sentiment you share—and one Uva suffers as well. Wherever she might be.”

“You never caught sight of her either?” Shiv asked, wilting inside.

“Not even a glimpse. But she is out there. I feel this. I held hope for you—and you return to me. So why not she as well?” He reached out and clutched Shiv’s shoulder tight. “And she will be with you too. And the light will shine upon us again. We will be alright again. We will.”

“He only believes himself because you are here,” the Oroborous hissed with frustration. “Could have been a lie. If you were not here, it could have. So close. So hungry…”

“I know,” Shiv agreed. But now they were in darker territory, for despite all the touching words and glorious heartache, there was something miserable in the backdrop that Adam alluded to but refused to face. Unfortunately, Shiv was no coward, and he had to know. “Adam. You know I want to ask you something else, right?”

Adam stilled, then nodded. “Yes. Yes. I think you might have an idea already. You see his arrow. You recognized it the moment you laid eyes on me.”

“I did. What happened? To him? And…”

“To my sister that never was?” Adam finished. “My sister, incubated in the womb of the void? Born only because you endured for so long and thought of her so much?”

“Yeah,” Shiv said, the warmth inside him breaking before a tide of forthcoming dread. “I thought she left me to protect you? How could he hurt you?”

A weariness came over Adam—alongside his nova-hot rage. But he ruled himself this time, refusing to let even a sliver of the Sage cross over. “I told you before. I wish you were here a decade ago, even. I wish it was us together. I was an absolute fool in my youth, Shiv. A stupid, idiot child. I never realized what I had until I lost the two of you. I would have been lost if not for the fortitude you both imparted upon me. And you never failed me. Never. Never in victory, not even in defeat. My father and sister—” He laughed, his voice venomous with contempt. “What worth was their power and skill when it was trapped in feeble, fallible vessels? What worth were they if they were so brittle? They weren’t you, Shiv. They were not Uva. They broke. They broke, and they betrayed me. They betrayed everyone.”

“How?” Shiv swallowed a stone in his throat. “What did they do?”

Adam looked on the verge of tears, yet he closed himself like a fan. “They got tired.” He let out a note of anguished laughter. “They couldn’t endure it. They wished for things to end—for the fighting to stop and for us to ‘save and spare’ who we could.” 

He shook his head, as if in disbelief even now. “Just because they caught sight of her. Just because Avalon offered them a promise beneath my eyes—my deliberately blinded eyes, because I was too weak to assume my mantle, too soft and stupid and foolish to accept the Sage’s truths.”

Once more, Adam reached out and grasped Shiv, seizing his battle brother by the shoulders—clinging with might and mist alike as if afraid Shiv would slip away. “Almost three hundred years. And all it did was make you stronger. All it did was make you purer. Your shadow kept me from succumbing, Shiv. Yours and hers. Neither of you would ever crumble. And I knew I could not—would not allow it. How could I! And so how could they…” Shiv gently wrapped his hands around Adam’s wrists to soothe the heartbroken god. “Shiv… they didn’t just betray me in the end. They led a rebellion. They tried to break me. They tried to carve the Sage out of me—to strip me of my power and cast us into oblivion, toward the jaws of surrender! To Avalon! And they killed my flesh, Shiv. They achieved my death in their folly in trying to ruin me.” 

Adam pulled a shaking hand away from Shiv and brushed the blazing arrow jutting from his eye. “But some of my faithful still know the worth of sacrifice and what we must give to win this war.” 

Thus did Adam look to Havel, and vague scenes of a desperate, terrible tragedy played within Shiv’s mind. “And though my mortality was lost, my immortality endured. Anchored by my Avatar-Repentant in my time of greatest need. Even when all my temples were scoured. Even when my sanctuary was betrayed from within.” He nearly sobbed then. “Our great enemy. The murderer of my home. Now that which granted me salvation against my own blood.”

“Truth,” the Oroborous whispered, as Shiv began to shake as well. “I’m sorry. Truth.”