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Brent Stinebaker

Brent Stinebaker

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Brent Stinebaker posts

14-21 Access

There comes a time when you look down at your gun, and realize it’s just not enough.

A flechette can kill someone from over the horizon if you got enough surge to your gun. But so what? So what? There will always be more half-strands tomorrow. And besides, with each death, you’re just feeding the beast some more.

New Vultun don’t care none for your little acts of vengeance. New Vultun just owns its maw and lets you kill and kill and kill as it grows lar...

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14-20 A Sudden End

+Dear mhet-ma,

I have come to a conclusion. I have seen too much. I have seen enough.

For years I have served the mechanisms of the city, seeking to produce for its highest echelons Heavens and miracles so they might better lives and raise us from the shadows of our past.

Not so. Not so.

Do you remember when you used to place me on your shoulders as we watched the grand processions of the Guilds during Salvation’s Day? How the ...

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14-19 Overestimation

Some of the primordial gods are… peculiar in their design. Oh! Let’s take Yoswanacht the Gum-Snatcher for instance. A very strange god made by the Scaarthians in worship of dentistry of all things. When we managed to stem its rupture and secure its Fallen Heaven, we found it only capable of manipulating enamel, regrowing teeth in specific types of flesh, and tearing said teeth back out using worm-like strings of floss.

Note: As with all things related to the Skuldvast, ...

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14-18 Easy Prey

+Lance-3, come in? Lance-4, respond? Lance-5? Lance-5? Raggen? Someone? Anyone? Hello–+

-Last transmission of an Ashthrone Witherguard

14-18

Easy Prey

Stalking snuffers can be likened to hunting wolves. One couldn’t approach them without due prudence, for where Syndicate muscle was sloppy and brutal, these were killers of a pedigree.

Avo traced their steps in his DeepNav and studied their paths. The way they moved and intersected with rife with tacti...

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14-17 How to Win Friends and Murder People (III)

It won’t take much for everything to come apart in battle.

This is why you cannot rely on the Nether when the fighting gets rough. Things get disrupted, and even Ori-Thaum’s Weavewrither Counter-Suppressive Intelligence Network can be suppressed by prolonged Thoughtwave Detonations.

As such, a Godclad cannot fixate on a single tool alone. You need to open additional options for yourself. You need to create openings and stay aware of the situation, or you...

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14-16 How to Win Friends and Murder People (II)

The city lies to itself.

I have traveled across the entirety of the New Vultun Special Administrative Suzerainty three times in total during my service. I have seen many things and encountered many obstacles of evident and unnatural categories.

A thing to note for all operatives is that you cannot view the city as a straight path. Going from one place to another is a determinant scenario. It’s determined by if any warheads are in play between the Guilds or ...

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14-15 How to Win Friends and Murder People (I)

Something’s happening in the Tiers.

The Silvers I know are seeing a lot of golem activity and multiple district-wide thoughtscans are ongoing right now.

They’re searching for something. And right after an Exorcist Oversec got hit too.

Something’s stinking in the water, and it’s got all the big ones looking for it.

There’s also been some interesting chatter on a slew of mass suicides in the Throat. Something about Omnite...

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14-14 The Devil That You Don’t

There is salvation in ruin.

There is permanence in entropy.

The other Guilds exist in delusion. They think the end can be surmounted or claimed or placed beneath their will.

This impossible.

We, the bears of the Skuldvast, the survivors eternal, know the one truth, the one end.

That all struggle ends in destruction and death.

Not even the stars may burn forever, and there will come a time where time ...

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14-13 The Hand That Feeds

Madness. Absolute madness.

Do the Guilds not see that they are courting ruination with what they ask me to build? Heavens aren’t just dead structures you can stack together. The work it takes to concept even the lowest of the Spheres requires a toll of death by the hundreds.

I understand that our erstwhile rulers believe they hold privilege over all life in this city, but each ego needs to be converted to the proper beliefs and then reviewed before they can...

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14-12 Facets of Truth (II)

The garden always outgrows the gardener, and the young will always surmount the old.

-Ancient Sang Proverb

14-12

Facets of Truth (II)

The rest of Walton’s memories expanded Avo’s portrait of his father.

The Famine of Defiance was long intended as a venom seeped into the bloodstream of the usurpers. His creation was of an offensive variety–to infiltrate and sabotage and discover. But most importantly, he was meant to understand.

Strip...

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14-11 Facets of Truth (I)

We have no idea where Concave-Shadow is, only that he appears to have shit all over his office floor before disappearing.

Why?

I don’t know why. Don’t ask me why. If I knew why, I wouldn’t have said ‘We have no idea where Concave-Shadow’ is.

The strike cell is missing too for that matter. Unfortunately, they didn’t even leave us shit as a clue.

Just nothing.

Something smells–I don’t mean the literal...

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14-10 Dialogue

A void once said to me that war is the continuation of policy with other means.

Perhaps from the existence of which they knew–the world that was and exists in their drifting sanctuaries out in the black, but my experiences have educated me differently.

Death is beneficial here. A net positive for the world, but also a catastrophe in the realm of the personal.

For all the might our cousins possess, there is a gentleness to them that I envy and...

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14-9 Drawbacks

Let me tell you a story about my favorite gun.

Spoiler: It’s a piece of shit. Situationally.

Now, you might be wondering, “Tavers, you old sow, why is your favorite gun a piece of shit? Did you survive all those years in the Warrens off raw luck alone?”

The answer is yes, by the way. You have to be lucky to make it out down here. Any squire that says otherwise is bullshitting you.

Anyway, favorite gun. Omnitech piece they c...

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14-8 Home (II)

Are you tired of all the ads and invasive miracles licking at your skin every time you walk the streets?

Are you seeking a community of like-minded people who strive to make their lives better while also elevating the prosperity of their Guild?

Or maybe you just earned your FATE and are looking for some affordable shelter while you acclimate yourself to the wonders of the Tiers?

Whatever it is you want, block-15 at Pendross’ Ravine has you co...

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14-7 Home (I)

Home is a fickle thing, Avo. You should know that.

Just because you spend imps to buy and place and move things that belong to you inside doesn’t make it permanent. I know you already understand because… uh… the war, but I just need you to do something for me.

That sense of security when you’re inside these walls?

Do your best to stop feeling it.

That’s the thing that gets homes burned down and destroyed. It’s like a ...

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14-6 Flavors

We do not live just one life, Veylis. There are also lives unlived. Paths untread. Blows unstruck.

Possibly is like a phantom existence. A parallel place that could have been, but wasn’t. But “could have been” holds its own power should one seize time by the throat.

All of a sudden, the blow you failed to strike, the words you didn’t say, the moments you didn’t capture are all granted back to you.

All it takes is a step sideways....

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14-5 Ignorance

Sometimes, shit goes wrong and it’s not your fault. You did everything right. You did everything you could. Got all the kit; shaped the situation; snuffed all the half-strands that needed snuffing.

And then, in a fraction of a second, you go from gleaming to rusted and everything’s fucked.

Just fucked.

When you get here–and you will find yourself here if you’re going to be a squire for any amount of time at all–take a breath, and acce...

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14-4 Know Your Enemy (II)

Necrotheurgy is a disgusting art and I despise everyone who practices it, including myself.

There is cheap little we have left in the world. I can’t use the word precious because nothing in this world is precious. I’ve seen miracles and emerged all the poorer for it. I’ve been Ensouled and all I learned was to despise myself. But even among all these benefits, my time with Necrotheurgy was the worst of them all.

You learn that it feeds the tyrant inside...

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14-3 Know Your Enemy (I)

+You taste that in the rain, tonight, listeners?

That’s the taste of shit.

Shit. Shit, and nothing but shit.

That’s the taste of quiet war spiraling out of control.

First, there was what went down at Nu-Scarrowbur and Mazza’s Junction. A real full-on throwdown between some Highflame and Stormtree cadres. We’re probably going to be seeing the mem-rips of that mess edited together and sold as an immersive experience within ...

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14-2 In the Skin of My Victims

Honestly, sir, I’m struggling to describe the sheer amount of damage we sustained.

Let’s begin with the worst of it. Oversec-C1 is finished. The lobby’s dead. No point in ducking around that. A good percentage of superstructure one is completely hollow–sequences, memories, phantasmics just missing – all of it! I can’t even begin to put the damage into words.

Traumas break things by fragmenting ghosts. There are still pieces and artifacts thrown fr...

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14-1 Dichotomy

Aegis,

The situation has changed.

Asset Stillborn has changed.

As of present, he is… in the wind, but I expect his return in the near future. I have reason to believe that he has somehow integrated the Eaters into his cognition and altered his metaphysical structure on a level previously unanticipated–even by Thousandhand.

Despite the escalation of threat he poses to the polities we serve, I strongly advise against any option...

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13-23 Infection

[Exorcist Vero Kelkanan]: At 4:54 in the morning today, an unknown party launched a Nether-based attack on Exorcist lobby designation “Oversec-C1.” So far, we are compiling and verifying all memories from the attack to generate a proper simulation of events. Presently, the Ad-Necs have been repelled thanks to the efforts our active personnel, though the extent of damages and casualties remains delayed due to the destabilization experienced by the lobby and necessary. deep-memory mem-d...

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13-22 Become (III)

You want to know why they call it a Metamind? It’s not because it’s metaphysical–though it is also that. The main reason is that it’s self-referential. It’s a non-material cognitive construct of your mind burned into an overreality above our own.

Don’t really know how the Agnosi do it, but that’s never stopped your typical gutter-jacks from trying. Now, I won’t lie: They found some success burning heavily modified secondhand Metas into new minds after tearin...

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13-21 Become (II)

“I am going to try something. I wish to see if I can change her mind.”

Such were Avo’s first words as he withdrew himself from Abrel’s corpse. Surging fire collapsed backward across the vastness of the Nether, and everywhere he was felt indelibly marked. His presence was no longer quiet, like termites eating through the wood.

He was now a traveling forest fire. A conflagration, a fitting alignment to the spreading flames that constituted the new sinews of his cognition. H...

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13-20 Become (I)

+What the fuck do you mean you gave it the memories of Noloth? The creature–+

+Is our enemy. But it is no ally to the Guilds. It can yet be turned to purpose, and from what I perceived of its new design, the touch of subtly is lost to it. We will have time to study it. Learn from it. Perhaps even become it–+

+Become… like that thing? To have no self? To burn and hear the fires crackle in the voices of our victims? The cruelty is too much, Emotion–too much!+

<...

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13-19 Lost Testament

Reality might be divine, but the mind is sacrosanct, Jaus Avandaer.

You can change the world. You can make fire sing for you and weave golden threads from the light itself.

You can hide a city in a pond and summon mountains with the merest whisper.

You can have a blade deemed ever-piercing and watch as the fabric of totality shreds when its shed greets a shield made impregnable upon the anvil of lore.

To be a god is to be the rul...

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13-18 Parley

+Concave,

Allow me to elaborate on the current situation as clearly as I can.

I have no idea what the fuck is happening.

I say again, idea-no-the-fuck-what.

Strike Cell Flameater is decimated. Their bodies are mind-dead through their proxies, and honestly, there’s nothing left of them. I can’t even classify them as nulled because there’s nothing left of their cognition. No fragments, no drifting artifacts, or leaking emotio...

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13-17 The Flames Awakened (II)

+Osjed, do… do you feel like you just… forgot a bunch of stuff all a sudden?+

+What you mean, Venven? Like, do I have brain fog, or do I think someone’s snatching the thoughts out of my mind?+

+Yeah. The second.+

+Well, seein’ that we’re Exorcists and we’re operating within the system’s confines, no. It would take someone making a Heaven of the Nether to get past us.+

+I mean–+

+Listen. You need stop thinking this way, alr...

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13-16 The Flames Awakened (I)

+So you want me to do what?+

+I’m trying to make someone. I want you to be a part of them.+

+...Someone? Jaus fucking Avandaer, Strix, I… look, I’m thankful for all that you’ve done for me and all that you taught me. Hells, you’ve been more of a dad to me than the actual half-strand that pulled a pump and dump on mom but… I don’t think I’m ready for our relationship to go here. I mean, for fuck’s sake, consang, I don’t even know you in the real. I...

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13-15 The Deeper Waters

+Convex. We just got Shard-2 stabilized. She’s still gonna be with us. It looked pretty bad for a while but… part of her labyrinth collapsed just right and preserved enough of her deeper memories. Everything else is a smear of thoughtstuff and half-fragged ghosts.+

+Shit. So we got nothing about who ambushed her and Shard-1. Just glimpses and flickers.+

+Well… me and the other Menders managed to piece together a glimpse of the moment they got hit. A lot...

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