This is the Burning Dreamer, speaking to all Guilds, to all Citizens, to all subjects.

These are the final days. These are the days of the great strife, of the great war. These will be your finest moments, or your last moments.

But understand, this could have been avoided. Understand that you could have been better. Guilds, citizens, Godclads, we are here because of hubris, because the most noble among you failed. Failed and fell. And then the strongest among you failed and fell. And then the rest of you naturally failed and fell.

The Sun, it is lost. The INfacer holds it.

I failed. But I do not fall. I continue. And now you will too.

This… this is the highest choice. You can continue to squabble. You can continue to war over things that no longer matter. Over a future you no longer can decide. You do not have the power. You do not have the capability. And you never held the dream.

But under me, under me, you can still strive to struggle. To slay. You can remain as Guilds, as cultures, as individuals. I will not take you as slaves, but I will have you as willing allies.

Ambition. It is a creature beyond power. It is a creature born, born of a long sin, born of a great mistake. But it is a beast that can be beaten, dismantled.

Look to the tears and understand. See the shadow of what is to come. The time for hesitation and weakness has passed. It is time to choose.

Choose and stand with the symmetry aligned with me. Or if you do not, I will make my choice. And I bid you good fortune, for the flames will come to claim you.

-Avo, The Burning Dreamer, The Hidden Flame, The Final Divine

36-14

Allied Takeover

The Tiers stood, but they stood in ruins. Entire Sovereignties were hewn through, shattered and ripped asunder by the moving limbs of unfettered entropy as Ambition faced the Strix.

Millions perished. Millions perished over but a few seconds of fighting. Even with all the miracles the gales had to bear, they couldn't face beings that reshaped the very tapestry itself. What worth was an absolute defense against something that struck at the very foundation of the miracle, at the very concept of defense using destruction? What matter was paradox to something that only grew and grew more twisted from the entropy?

In the aftermath, armies of golems and Godclads surged back home, aiding in the rescue effort as whatever shape the Fifth Guild War was about to take shattered into fragments. Chaos reigned and, though some of the Guilds tried to muster their forces and turn against each other, they were silenced—silenced by the falling of blackest wings and brightest fire, silenced as in the sky above the Strix glared down, its single baleful eye burning.

Behind it, a rippling chasm revealing another dimension above, revealing a woman bearing a scythe looking down upon them, revealing a palm poised to descend and crush any that dissented from his edict of peace. But among the ruins, a few districts stood relatively unscathed, protected mostly thanks to the security measures and also significant subterfuge.

The Trident was one such place. Its true structure hid within the surface of the lake, accessible only through reflection. And there, though Ori-Thaum's material resources and critical infrastructure remained mostly intact, their functional command was shattered. The Inner Council had gone silent, the cogni-softs no longer worked, and so the Ori were lost, confused. Mirrors awaited orders that didn't come, glaives were now abandoned and scattered across far-flung battlefields. Entire armies were headless, blind, and deaf.

What few ranking elders met within the Trident, a gathering of the Outer Council, convened in place of the Inner. They debated and argued, worked to maintain some amount of order to reach across the ruined megacity and at least hold what they could together.

Unfortunately, without the Majority present, things quickly devolved as each of the clans started having their own ideas about how to proceed.

"Why are the D'Rongos even here?" Elder Hujin Kusanade said. He eyed the D'Rongos with a sneer and they replied by folding their fingers, a gesture meant to indicate his cowardice and broken will. He simply snorted and looked away from them across the table. The elders of clan Kazahara nodded back at him.

"Enough," an elder of clan Kitzuhada called out. "We can delay our squabbles for later. Right now there is much we have to do. Our forces..."

"Our forces," Elder Maharaba Kuei of clan Kuei interrupted, "should stay in place until we can actively confirm what has happened. We should send out dedicated Godclads and..."

"And what?" Elder D'Rongo said. Lapita D'Rongo, also known as the younger D'Rongo due to her close relations with Mwaba D'Rongo, simply sneered at the other elders present. She knew that her clan was wounded in terms of favor, damaged in reputation, but that was the time she had to stay strong. If they saw how shaken she was at what happened at the trial, then Clan D'Rongo may not have a future at all. "We are being passive," she said. "We need to be active. We need to be aggressive. The other Guilds, they are also devastated. They are more devastated. They are more confused and—"

"And we are here because of what you have done," someone called out from the back of the room, not even an elder, just a bodyguard of Clan Kusanade. "You. You and your clan and your stupid cruelty! Against one of our own! Our gifted child in the Agnosi! You and your blind arrogance! If not for you, we would not be so shamed and broken.”

Behind Elder D'Rongo, her own glaive stood, drawing his weapon. "Without us you would have been lost during the second Guild war while all of you groveled blindly, pretending that you still wanted to fight, while you made up plans to issue an offer of truce with Highflame."

"Lies!"

The room erupted into chaos. More weapons flared, guns were drawn, implants clicked to life, but before any of the Godclads present could manifest, the door burst open and a man walked in.

A man of muscular but average build with dirty blonde hair, bluish eyes, and a lackadaisical expression on his face. "Sorry, I'm late. It took a while to find this place. Avo had to tell me that I needed to do a little bit of a dive into the water before I got in. Cute idea, by the way," he looked at all of them, offering a boyish smile. "Hiding your building in a reflection. What a miracle." He shook his disturbingly designed jacket and water spilled all over the ground. "Fuck me sideways. Do any of you have some like towels or something? I'm wet all over."

And just then another man walked in, another man that looked exactly like the first.

A second Aedon Chambers had entered the Trident.

"Hey, damn shit," the first Aedon turned. He glared at the other Chambers. "Why..." "Oh shit." He saw the towel the other man was holding. "How'd you find those?"

"I ambushed the showers first," he said. "I asked around and eventually someone told me. You know, it's called using your powers of conversation."

"Hey, fuck you. I'm using my powers of conversation right now."

"Don't tell me to go fuck myself, you half-strands motherfucker."

"I'll tell you to do whatever I want. I am you."

"No, fuck you, I am me."

And then the third chambers entered the room. "Bullshit. You're both half-strands. I'm the only one that matters here."

And now the entire Outer Council was stupefied. Silence. They looked on as several more versions of Chambers entered the room, and they began to pull out chairs, sitting beside the Ori present, casually usurping the agenda while loudly arguing about their positions in the Chambers hierarchy.

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"Fuck, listen, listen, it's already been settled. All right? Original chambers is number one," one of the Chambers held out his hand and then he made a gesture of seemingly distance measured using his two fingers. "He has the biggest cock and we all agreed that the man with the biggest cock is prime. I'm not saying the best-looking," several Chamberses nodded. "I'm not saying the one with the best, you know, most well-groomed pubes," another Chambers grunted his approval. "...but the man with the biggest cock is the original chambers and therefore Chambers Prime."

"Right," another one of the Chambers said. "It's just like how they discovered which Danis was the true in Cucked by my Evil Twin."

"Uh, yeah that and the fact that he busts weird, like at an angle." All the Chamberses began to nod in approval. "None of us bust weird, so we don't need to worry about that," some more murmurs of approval followed.

"I... what is happening?" one of the Ori said.

A cChambers looked at him. "Oh shit. Sorry." The Chamberses all got up and as one they addressed the Ori. "We are Aedon Chambers," they said as one, and then immediately all cohesion broke. They started talking in different ways and saying different things.

"Fuck shit fuck!" one of the Chambers shouted.

"All right. Look, I thought we rehearsed this."

"Yeah, and I thought we agreed that we're gonna do it my way."

"No, I thought we were gonna do it my way."

"I think what basically happened," another of the Chamberses said, "is that we all thought we were gonna do it our own way and we all agreed that we were going to do it the Chambers way and because we just described everything as the Chambers way it all broke down and so we all got this messed up."

The Chamberses all looked at each other and paused. One of them held up a hand. "How about now? I'm not saying I'm chambers two after chambers one, but how about I talk to all of them first and then we can argue about it afterward?"

The other Chamberses muttered general agreements and the nominated chambers proceeded. "All right, you guys are The Ori Outer Council or whatever that is. I am Aedon Chambers. These are all Aedon Chambers, but we're not the original Aedon Chambers. We're nodes implanted in bodies and then are sculpted to be Aedon Chambers."

The Ori all stared at the Chamberses, more lost than ever.

"Anyway, we're here to give you our help. In fact, we're here to help your Guild get back on its feet while the majority is missing and my original self is trapped within. Don't worry, though. Chambers Prime is definitely on the case. He'll bone and make whoever he needs to bust to save your people from entrapment."

The elder council members continued to look on, some in utter disbelief, most in confused silence. "I am lost," an elder from clan Kusanade said.

"Don't worry, we're pretty lost too, but we've gotten this far," one of the Chamberses patted the man on the shoulder, an overly affectionate gesture from a stranger to the Ori. "But anyway, we are the Council of Fuck, and on this day, you are fuckers too.”

The younger Elder D'Rongo did a double take. "You're the what?"

"The Council of Fuck," all the Chamberses repeated as one. It was very synchronized. "We used to run the criminal underworld or a good part of it while we were planning to go to war against all of you fuckers, but now that that's changed, we've changed, too. We're gonna be part of the unified Symmetry rebuilding effort."

"So like, think of this as a cock," one of the Chambers began.

Once more the younger D'Rongo blinked. "What?"

"Just follow me, right. Previously, we were cock hiding in the dark about to punch into your wounds or your ass."

"Or maybe like their mouth," another Chamber said.

“Yeah, or the mouth. Come on. Anyway, now, now we're like the people who sell those injections, the kind that gets you like super hard for days on end or makes you grow a pair when you don't have a pair."

"Easy Rooster," one of the Chamberses said. "That's what it was called."

"'Easy Rooster'," all the Chamberses repeated the advertisement. "'Rise as you will'."

Several of the Ori looked to each other, trying to figure out just what was happening. "I remember that ad," an elder from clan Kazahara said. "I think our Shotin actually starred in and was sponsored by one of those ads."

"He was sponsored?" a Chambers asked.

"Yes, he eventually got fired due to a misunderstanding with the producer's daughter.”

“Classic Shotin,” a Chambers laughed. "Anyway, we're here to give you a hand. And then some.”

"I'm sorry," the elder of D'Rongo said, looking between them. "I... how did you get in here?"

"Well, we all just jumped in the water after Avo plucked us across the place, speaking of which..."

And then something entered the room, something decidedly not Chambers. A tall, thin creature of white fungal armor, black exoskeletal bone, eight lashing Echoheads, and a burning halo entered.

All the elders shot to their feet. Several people tried to manifest their Heavens, but then a cognitive flame roared and a telepathic cry slammed into their minds, sending most down to their knees. It was a detonation more than it was a command and briefly, briefly it was like an unmaking, an absence of thought and memory.

When they all came to, the ghoul was standing at the forefront of the room. An entire stretch of their memories was vacant.

"What I struck you with," Avo began, "was a warmind of the Forgotten." He stared at them with his black-white eyes, with his jagged teeth, with his halo burning bright and with those echo heads behind him lashing out at the air as if conducting to an unseen orchestra. "That is what I want you to be making now. I will show you how. I will give you advisors, but while the majority is away you will be useful and you will be manufacturing things for me, things Old Noloth kept from you that you never could delve deep enough to get.”

“And now," Avo said. He gestured towards the Chamberses and from their minds flared flickers of flame as well, flickers of the conflagration. "I have dispatched my most trusted associate, most reliable consang, Chambers, to give you perspective and to keep you all from…" Avo paused, "More destructive impulses. I know how much you like to feud and fight, so I'm going to keep you intact until your Inner Council actually returns. Think of this as an… allied takeover.”

"What makes you think that we will submit to this?" one of the elders asked.

Avo paused, and then he looked at one of the Chambers before hissing a laugh.

"You're going to agree," Chambers said, "because original me is gonna hear about it and original me is going to impress upon the Majority and your Inner Council about how terrible you guys were and how," he gestured towards himself, "we had to reassert our authority not through violence, but through love."

"Love?" the elder said, looking at Chambers like he was a simple fool.

"Yeah," Chambers said, "love in the form of the rash. Have you ever gotten the rash before?" Suddenly most of the outer council seemed uncomfortable. "I... it's not very pleasant, but I've gotten the rash a bunch. I've done it to myself and I've done it to other people and let me tell you, there's nothing that brings people together closer than the rash going off inside a close proximity. You shit yourself, you watch other people birth their homunculi through their pores, you birth your homunculi through your pores. You're all screaming on the ground. I guess what I'm trying to say is, you know, I think we can do this without suffering something like that, without suffering a massive outbreak so to speak."

"But the rash is... is supposedly gone, isn't it?" another elder asked.

"It's gone for now," another chamber said, leaning in close, his voice falling ominously low, "but who knows what the future might bring? Who knows?"

"Are you... are you threatening us?" Elder D'Rongo said, blinking rapidly. "Have you come to our own home just to threaten us?"

"Oh, it's not a threat," Chambers said. "It's more of an... implication. Yeah, that's the word, implication. Listen, you guys are assholes. But right now I need you to be good hard-working dicks like me, right? Because out there, out there is the real asshole. That’s the fucker we need to fuck. Oh, and by the way, before you think about doing some stuff like subverting my mind like that guy's doing over there," he pointed at one of the bodyguards beside D'Rongo.

The man froze. "Yeah, you currently have an Avo in your head because you reached too deep. If you annoy me anymore, Avo is going to eat you from the inside." The man paled. "And there's a bunch of us already so, to keep with our campaign of peace and love, we're all going to be embedding ourselves into your clans, spreading across your districts and making sure that you guys stop shooting at each other. Or else, or else you're gonna remember the cost of offending love."

And suddenly the atmosphere in the room took on a very different turn. No longer did the Chambers seem like happy, vulgar fools. They were here to be wardens.

"Anyway," one of the Chambers leaned back in his chair, "let's start with the first item on our agenda: getting communications back in order. Avo?"

The Avo grunted. "The Nether is currently down," he said. "Lovebringer is temporarily absent. So I'm going to try to create a communications network of my own, a second layer of long distance contact using Ignorance."

"Ignorance?" one of the Ori asked.

Avo smiled at her. "Yes. It will be one of the warminds you will help make very soon. I think we can do great things together. I think that your glaives and your Incubi can be dedicated to a finer, more noble service than the pointless infighting you have planned.”

A Chambers wrapped an arm around an Ori. “Them self-fucking, rat-fucking, clan warfare days are done, consangs. We’re all a big happy clan now. At least, until the High Cuntess is dead and done, and old Avo is free and back. Oh, and we’re also going on a treasure hunt, so get your best agents together—there are some Soul Shards we need to find.”