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Brent Stinebaker

Brent Stinebaker

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Brent Stinebaker posts

16-9 On the Trail (I)

{Mayflower-3288-B}: So, I got an idea…

{Terror-3285}: Oh, god

{Mayflower-3288-B}: Hear me out…

{Terror-3285}: Oh, god

{Mayflower-3288-B}: What if…

{Terror-3285}: I’m not making you one of your walking atrocities

{Mayflower-3288-B}: …we combine…

{Terror-3285}: No. We’re not doing that.

{Mayf...

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16-8 Armor

I know you’re there. I know you’re giving me new memories in my dreams.

Come out. I want to talk. I’m ready to talk.

I want to know why.

Why are you helping me?

Why did you make me a Godclad?

I had a master once. He was a good master. He fed me. He asked for simple things. He spoke to me directly. He told me I was a good girl, and he whispered sweet things to me when I killed for him.

You say n...

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16-7 Choice of Skins (III)

The experiment that was Noloth was of a society supreme–a preservation and further compounding by securing the stock of esteemed individuals to create a “perpetual greatest generation.”

Such was the theory to what they sought to practice, but in practice, I can only describe their habits as enforced cultural and ideological inbreeding.

There is a horror to being human–to “thinking” human. We are simultaneously too conscious and capable of self-per...

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16-6 A Choice of Skins (II)

+Esteemed seniors,

We are getting fucked.

If I have your attention now, I need you all to understand that it is not an unruly “partner” we are dealing with. Whispers from the Bazaar tell of suspicious attacks on various organizations across the Warrens.

I trust that you all remember the Three-Fingers Syndicate? The one that Eldest Zhuo marked as an essential player for us to cooperate and convert to the “Black Truce” program toward redu...

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16-5 A Choice of Skins (I)

Glaive Benhata’s body remains missing, an entire node has been stolen after appraising the situation at the Trident. As of now, I am certain we face an enemy ace that has achieved a feat beyond skill.

It really smacks the words right out of your mouth.

Aside from myself, Not-Here, Signtaker, and perhaps a few other notable Godclads who have their ontologies rooted around clandestine miracles, few others can do what I suspect has been accomplished today. View Post

16-4 Meldskin

They’re watching us, you know?

The voiders. From all the way in the deep void. Using modified bugs that fly around our cities. Even using some of our implants–just read any Omnitech published reports on the tech infiltration being committed by our “benefactors.”

That’s not all though. You see, we’ve been keeping an eye on what the voiders have been doing–the movements of their ships and all the new deals they're striking with the Guilds, and som...

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16-3 Inventory (II)

Tatterskin: +Holy shit, she’s still alive. We set off the entire goddamn hanger and she’s still moving down there. Godsdamned…+

Rip-Nail: +Fucking Regs are hard targets. Hit ‘er again. We don’t need an intact body. Memories will serve as proof of death enough. Cycling another salvo of hammers. We’ll get a close-up of her death in no–wait. Mem-lock lost. Where the hells is she–she just–OH FU–+

[SESSION ...

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16-2 Inventory (I)

+...And this marks the thirteenth declaration of General Assembly for Highflame since its founding.

Details are still sparse at present, but we have reliable sources claiming that the High Seraph herself, Veylis Avadaer, is set to address the gathered host of her forces for the first time in over nineteen years.

Other notable figures summoned to attendance are Osjon Thousand, the famed first disciple of Zein Thousandhand; Uthred Greatling, patriarch to increa...

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16-1 The Path Ahead

[Voideater Proposal]

By Wu Three-Burdens and Golgo 9

Summary: As is known to the committee from the war-sims our alliance has run regarding the Dawnfall Contingency, our non-thaumaturgic assets will last less than a few seconds at most if Voidwatch decides to turn their wrath upon us.

Functionally, our technological base will suffer immense damage even with the redundancies that have been provided by joint efforts between the N...

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15-20 Bad History (II)

Free will is an untruth for all who aren’t Godclads.

Your will is not free. You are not free. Everything you do and think bears costs.

Perhaps each individual is capable of making a variety of decisions, but that doesn’t make your choices free. Only flexible. Only variable.

I caught the first glimpse of my inhumanity in the twilight of my infancy when my mother gifted me with my first blade and honored me with a duel. That was the day I was...

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15-19 Bad History (I)

It would have taken approximately eighteen thousand and twenty-two deaths to light the miracles of my lightest Heaven if I was without a cycler. Let us not account for the others: I despise playing with numbers when the question posed to me is philosophical.

Some “enlightened” viewers have sent me missives before, asking if I ever felt bad for all those slotted for death each time I scheduled an improvement or adjustment for my Frame before a match. I suspect their thou...

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15-18 Justify

With clenched fists and battered hearts,

With our pain inflamed, the journey starts.

Find out where it all went so wrong,

Find out to whom your sins belong…

-Cas eld'Canduir, “Testify”

15-18

Justify

There was a particular wretchedness that afflicted a person consumed by grief. Both father and mother froze upon beholding the towering monster standing just beyond the doorway, eyes unfocused and misted w...

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15-17 Threshold (II)

My first encounter with our erstwhile kin was of pure chance. Born to worship the Seraphs and bred from the genetic stock of the Proselytizes, mine was the duty of ensuring compliance and accord among all members of the faith, and it is with great sourness that I look back upon the conduct of my youngest days.

I have always sought mountains to climb and giants to chain. It was never a thing of triumph for me, but exploration. I seek limits–borders. Such was what led me to...

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15-16 Threshold (I)

You 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.

<...

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15-15 Watchers On High (II)

Look, if you’re running a Neurodeck, you’re going to want to turn your Meta off. It’s as simple as that. I’ve seen people try to run both at the same time, but if you’re not using one of those Omnitech Thresholder-patterns, the deck flips shit when ghosts swim through it.

Okay. Very basic lesson in Necrotheurgy: When a ghost is extracted from a person, that’s like a major facet of their post-mortem cognition. All the thinking they were capable of and all their m...

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15-14 Watchers On High (I)

Syndicates.

Deniable Guilder assets. Cancers of the city. Eaters of the FATELESS… Hells, call ‘em whatever you want, just know that unless the war ends, they’re here to stay.

Now, if you’ve been living here for any amount of time, you might have heard something about the “Accords.” Now, I won’t get into the boring poli-shit aspects of the whole thing, but what you mainly need to understand is that once upon a time, when Jaus was still kicking an...

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15-13 After Action

The Elders are trying to cause an outbreak. I’m sure of it now.

I mean, what do you see what the hells they have us digging through?

The Soft Master Collection? Nu-Dog in the Wrong Ass? Nu-Dog: Re-erected? Operation: Storm my Step Sister’s “Nether” Plane? This–this is absolute–Listen–look, there’s a title in here that’s literally “I Blast My Goosh-Goosh into the Eyes of People Driving Aeros so We Crash and Die: A ‘Sexual’ Prank Series!...

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15-12 The Lapse

Anyone can be a Godclad. Any self-aware creature.

When someone asks me who deserves the mantle of apotheosis, silence is my answer. There is nothing to say to such a false question; Godclads are imbued with the immensity of influence, but none of this is truly decided by virtue.

Think of the gods from the Age of the Everwars, and know that Heavens are a function of power and control rather than ethicality and mastery. An addict with the requisite implants and...

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15-11 Portrait

POTENTIAL OPERATIVE “AVO” HAS BEEN CLEARED FOR INTERVIEW.

RECRUITMENT EVALUATION FOR OPERATION REVISIONIST NOW PENDING.

-Aegis

15-11

Portrait

COG-CAP: 99%

SESSION LOST

SESSION LOST

SESSION LOS–

SESSION LOST

WARNING: HEAVEN DETECTED

WARNING: HEAVEN DETECTED View Post

15-10 Grounding

CRITICAL TERMS: MISSING; NECROTHEURGY; THANATECH; THREE FINGERS; CRUCIBLE; EMPTY GOLEMS

GENERATING REPORT SUMMARY…

SUMMARY:  At an undetermined time during the last day, the Three-Fingers Syndicate (an unofficial subsidiary of Sanctus) vanished along with all associated assets across the real and the Nether.

Their last known operation was a Crucible scheduled to conclude with th...

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15-9 Bonding IV: First Massacre

I don’t remember the first person I killed. Or the second. Or, well, most of them really. Look, I snuff lots of people and I’m old, so you can’t blame me. The ultimate point to this conversation remains the same, however: somewhere, sometime, some unlucky fucker’s gonna get it at your hands, and they’re going to be the ones that do it to you.

“Oh, shit. That person was alive. That person had a life. I have a life. Oh, Jaus. Oh, gods.”

Yeah, all you nova...

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15-8 Bonding (III): The Will in the Flame

I don’t know what happened to them.

I don’t know.

They just started… killing themselves. Killing each other. They did… these terrible things and the laughing... They… they started taking their blades to their own flesh and… oh, gods–they started eating themselves! And the corpses of their dead comrades! I–I don’t–

I don’t know why. It just happened. It was like they were compelled or controlled.

Or forced by...

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15-7 Bonding (II): This Time With Murder

+Holy shit… what the hells happened here…+

-Exorcist coming upon the remains of the Three-Fingers Syndicate

15-7

Bonding (II): This Time With Murder

Chambers hated being a Necrojack.

Don’t get him wrong, being able to pierce into minds using his newly imbued skills was a delight at first and certain to be useful in a pinch, but drinking all those secondhand emotions in? Taking in all those memories and seeing someone else’s innermost moments?

...

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15-6 Bonding (I)

+An assembly will be called.

Tell no one where you heard this from. You need to get your allegiances in order. Divorce your husband. Disown your children. Disown your father.

The High Seraph is returning from the Paths, and she comes bearing a reckoning.

The Greatling incident and the missing Frame might be connected–because when the Thanatech went down into the Warrens to collect our death tax and seal Jhred Greatling’s rupture, they found...

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15-5 The Cult of the Unborn

She was in your custody. It is your duty to–

An attack. When. How severe was the breach? Was it Ori-Thaum? Where is Elder D’Rongo. I wish to have words with her–Then I wish to have words with Naeko–

“He will be on a ‘Stormjumpers’ marathon for the weekend, so he won’t answer.”

You… Enough! Listen. Hear my words.

I need you to release my daughter into my custody. Your shambolic attempts in pr...

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Update and Near-Term Schedule Changes

Good Evening,

As some of you in the Discord group might already know, I will potentially shift my free update schedule to a staggered release next week.

What this means here is that I will continue trying to deliver daily updates on Patreon but will update on RR and Spacebattles one day on and one day off.

This is due to a spike in my official workload and to combat sleep deprivation.

As of right now, I wish to give everyone more value for what they are paying for. The...

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15-4 Group Meeting

Look at that Nether traffic. Those Silver fucks are up to something…

-Highflame Monitoring Station

15-4

Group Meeting

“So let me get this straight,” Cas began. “You crossed over into Abrel’s mind, subsumed it, restructured her consciousness, took a template of her consciousness that you now have as an advisor, let her resurrect with altered consciousness, used her memories to ambush and ate the Incubi trying to jack into her, used them as a stepping ...

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15-3 Overlap

Cults in this city are nasty godsdamned rat nests.

Considering what they’re up against, they kind of have to be.

First, there are the Guilds and the Exorcists and the Paladins and the Syndicates and all the usual problems. Let's name the obvious half-strands first to get them out of the way. Most cults get snuffed out here. The idiots get noticed, and then they get dead real quick; the enterprise gets crushed before it even rises.

But then th...

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15-2 Ignite

We are being hunted.

I’m sure of it now. First, the travesty in the Oversec that saw our Incubi slaughtered so, then the sudden theft and murder within our own walls! A Mirror went missing! A Mirror and his entire cell along with him. But that’s not all–one of our administrative nodes just… vanished. Gone. Like it was never there.

Kin by blood and clan, kin near and far, we… are being hunted.

Two hours ago, I received a report from th...

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15-1 The Gift

+Rab?

Long time no cast, how the hells are you?

Oh, not a social call is this? What’s the run? Don’t make it boring. I’m too old for boring.

[TRANSFERING MEM-DATA]

Alright. You hooked me already. This one’s a real–

[IMPS TRANSFERRED]

Damn, Rab, paying fast today. This thing must have yo all kinds of worried for you to be throwing imps at me already. Don’t worry: I’ll kee...

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