“The… entire mountain?” Kawathra repeated. "That seems excessively hopeful and probabilistically unlikely. A human, two Omnids and a few prads won't be able to hurt the Frontenachii fleet."

  “We're… not alone. I’ve been wobbling a lot of other prads in secret, wiggling their bonds ever so slightly with my ‘motivational’ speeches." Nexxali gave the Datamancer a poignant look. “I’ve been gradually pushing male prads towards rebellion, decaying their blood contract bonds. This is the place where it all happens, Kawthy. You can’t stop it. The pendulum is already in motion, set by me decades ago. You either swing with it or… get crushed by it.”

  Kawathra tilted her head again.

  "There are other Omnids digging their way towards the future Ashy represents. I don't know who they are yet," Shady mused, "But I'm certain that they too wish for a brighter future. Sillicia was a Wendigo Commander teetering on the edge, I only had to give her a little push of appreciation to get her on our side."

  “My songs don't just wobble my own future,” Nexxali said. “They can reach across the dimensional divide, influencing the paths of others ever so slightly.”

  I considered if Galateya was such an Omnid. The dragon girl certainly suffered a lot, being raised in a time bubble and then was forced into service by her great-grandmother. Maybe she was digging her own tunnel toward something better, and I just happened to be the convergence point her path ended or interacted with.

  I had to take her on a nice date tomorrow, make her look good in front of her great-grandmother. A plan coalesced in my mind.

  “Print a vampire girl tonight,” I told Kawathra. “Make her believe that her name is Count Chocula and that she’s got a whole bunch of thralls and…”

  I described everything I needed for tomorrow and Kawathra noted it all down, organizing the printer to produce the job overnight.

  “Make my second body organic and human,” I said. “But also wrapped in a gun-unit casing that can take over piloting the frame once my head explodes, for example. In case Nexxali is ordered to execute me by shooting me in the head. I must die and also not die.”

  “Can do,” Kawathra said.

  As the Datamancer worked, I stared at Shady's wrist, at the black hexagonal bracelet barely visible against her fur. The magitek device looked deceptively simple for something that could resurrect the dead.

  "Could Shady... resurrect herself multiple times... without dying?" I pointed at the bracelet. "Like, what if she just chewed off her Lazarus-bracelet-arm and threw it into the Incarnator Well? Would the bracelet create a second Shady? Could we create an army of a thousand Shadies to take over the capital ship?"

  Shady's tail stopped mid-swish. "No sane Omnid would consider doing that."

  "Why?" I asked.

  "As Kawathra mentioned earlier, duplication of an Omnid is a... big taboo." Shady sighed. "From what I was taught, it causes a soul split, which damages both bodies. It leads to madness, you killing yourself and the victor... devouring the other."

  "Is that a fact?" I asked.

  "It's a fact that if one Omnid body remains alive while another is created by the Incarnator, the soul rips between the two," Kawathra stated. "Which causes great pain and documented insanity as the Omnid Fractal Engine heart struggles to hold onto both bodies at the same time."

  "Ah sheet." Nexxali snapped her claws. "But what if the soul is already torn as fuck?"

  "What?" Kawathra blinked.

  "Scan the Princess' soul," Nexxali said.

  "That's... a highly invasive procedure. I'd need explicit permission from—" The magpie glanced at Shady.

  "Do it," Shady interrupted. "Might as well see how fucked I really am."

  The same robotic arm that had scanned my split mind descended from the Seeker's ceiling once again.

  "Deep Astral scan initiated," Kawathra stated. Shady's silver eyes fixed on the middle distance like she was bracing for impact.

  The sensors hummed, shifting from blue to violet and the arm projected an off-colored ray at Shady's head that hurt to look at directly. I felt rather than saw the Astral energy gathering around Shady, like atmospheric pressure dropping before a storm. The air tasted metallic.

  The holographic projections around Kawathra's head multiplied exponentially, cascading outward in fractals that reminded me of mathematical visualizations of infinity. Data streams poured through the air like digital waterfalls, each one branching into a dozen more sub-streams.

  "What in Slayer's name..." Kawathra breathed.

  "That bad?" Shady asked.

  "I..." The magpie's beak clicked shut. Opened. Closed again. Her feathers ruffled in waves, starting at the top of her head and rippling down her back. "Princess, what in the Abyss have you done to yourself?"

  "Brain spiders," Shady said with a casual shrug.

  "The… what now?" Kawathra blinked.

  "I think that it was an effed up… Soul-shearing weapon I found in my aunt's hoard," Shady sighed.

  Kawathra's charts spiraled faster, fragmenting and reassembling in patterns that made my eyes water. "A soul-shearing weapon. You ingested a soul-shearing weapon? Why?"

  Shady glanced at me with a wince. "To hide here from my family. A sheared soul can't be sniffed by Scruts."

  "Right, dumb decisions made by a love-struck Wendigo." Kawathra sighed. "Anyhow. My scan's done. Your soul isn't just damaged. It's..." She gestured helplessly at the holographic displays. "It's shattered."

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  "How shattered?" Nexxali asked.

  "I'm counting..." The Datamancer's eyes flashed over her charts. "One hundred and thirteen distinct fragments orbiting a damaged Fractal Engine heart core."

  "Sounds about right," the serval said, pawing at me. "That's the number of Shadies that murdered the fuck outta you last night, babe."

  I shuddered at the memory.

  Kawathra stared at us, confused at what we were talking about.

  "Does this mean that Shady can theoretically create one hundred and thirteen versions of herself using the Incarnator?" I asked her.

  "Theoretically?" The magpie’s voice pitched higher. "Theoretically yes, but... She would need to slice her arm off... one hundred and thirteen times. Are you willing to do that?" She looked at Shady. "The soul-shard copies wouldn't last very long either. The imbalance between the newly minted bodies and weak souls shards would... Absolutely create an... Astral fountain."

  "Which is what?" I asked.

  A new holographic screen appeared displaying a time-lapse sequence. An Omnid body getting stabbed, dying, lying still, then... blooming. Nothing like a mundane flower. Like something turning nearby reality inside-out in slow motion.

  "Omnid bodies without their Fractal Engine hearts managing them very rapidly accumulate entropy," she began. "Unlike harvested species where you can strip organs, blood, bone, everything useful, etc... Omnid physiology doesn't work that way. Everything in an Omnid body operates through connection to their Fractal Engine heart. Remove the Astral heart, remove the soul, and what's left behind is..." She paused, searching for words. "A core that's fundamentally incompatible with continued physical existence."

  Shady's tail curled tighter around my leg. "Yeah, we learned about this at Skyfall Academy. Corpse Seekers are a huge part of our culture because corpse disposal is super important. Having another dead you lying around is a major bad time for everyone."

  "Why?" I asked.

  "Because once the Fractal Engine heart leaves the Omnid body, the entropic decay of what remains is dangerously high," Kawathra continued. The holo-window showed the blooming effect accelerating. "The remains rapidly become gross 'otherness.' They sink into the Astral Ocean, but not like Arxkin turning into dungeons or Arcanomorphs blooming into giant mushrooms. There's no skill remnant, no useful magical residue... just a void in reality."

  "So what would happen if we make the Incarnator create 113 extra Shadies?" I asked.

  "The 113 Shady bodies would be created without Fractal Engine hearts in them, as such would remain held in her main body." The magpie gestured at Shady. "Then... they would begin to build up entropy. Normally, an Omnid corpse left to its own devices becomes... problematic. But 113 of them, filled with soul shards barely tethered to her heart?" She clicked her beak nervously. "That's... catastrophic."

  "How catastrophic?" I asked.

  "Think of it like this," Kawathra began. "A living Omnid body is a closed extra-syntropic system. The Fractal Engine heart maintains order, repairs damage, keeps entropy at bay. Remove that heart, and the body doesn't just die—it becomes a funnel of entropic nastiness."

  "Like rot?"

  "Much worse," Shady said, “an Omnid corpse inverts the physical, sinks into itself across… everywhere.”

  "Rot implies organic decay, bacterial breakdown, natural decomposition. This is different. Everything Syntropic leaves the body first—the magical energy, the Astral resonance, the carefully maintained order that keeps the flesh coherent and Phase-Shift functional. What's left behind is just...” Kawathra sighed. “Entropic bloom. A shawl of Death, a curse fountaining Astral Entropy in every direction."

  "Hrm. So what we'd have on our hands is one hundred and thirteen... Astral Fountain bombs." Nexxali's eyes ignited.

  Kawathra's beak opened as she stared at the serval.

  "You're proposing..." The magpie's voice came out strangled. "You're proposing we weaponize Princess Aquillianne's corpses?!"

  "Damn right I am." Nexxali nodded.

  "W-where?" Kawathra breathed out. "You can't do this on the planet, the contamination would create a permanent tear in reality that..."

  "How much damage do you think over a hundred death-fountains would do to a Frontenachii warship?" Nexxali asked.

  Kawathra let out a dying bird choke. Probability matrices spun around her head.

  "Total," she breathed. "Complete. Absolute."

  "Elaborate," I prompted.

  The magpie's feathers ruffled in waves. "A single Astral Fountain would somewhat compromise hull integrity, but the ship Wards and Seekers would be able to quickly evacuate nearby personnel and contain, clean up the inversion."

  "And if over a hundred of them bloomed at the same time across a warship?" Nexxali pressed.

  "T-the entropic bloom would overwhelm the wards, cascade through magical systems first—shear ley lines, destabilize memetic containment folds, corrupt dimensional anchors. Then it would reach the crew." Her voice dropped. "Wendigos and other Omnids would survive for a while. Their Fractal Engine hearts would resist the corruption. Pradavarians?" She gestured at herself. "If we don't run to evacuation gates, we’d be the first to melt into Otherness. Our crystalline hearts depend on stable Astral fields."

  "And if we leave ten dead Shady-blooms in the temple?" Nexxali purred.

  Kawathra's eyes went wide as she read the information on the charts. "The fountains would contaminate the Incarnation temple, corrupt the Leviathan blood and turn the entire resurrection infrastructure into a deathtrap. The entire ship would have to be evacuated…"

  I nodded.

  “If it’s not stopped…” She swallowed nervously. "The Astral contamination would spread through every deck, every compartment, every sealed section. The warship's own magical infrastructure would accelerate the process. And if say… Someone were to sabotage the Weapon-Net ever so slightly from within in just the right way at the same time, then the carefully maintained ward networks, all the power conduits drawing from the dragonheart reactor cores would become highways for entropic corruption. Then the entire ship would fold into the abyss, or maybe… get turned into a dungeon. Leviathan's tits! This is... you..."

  "Kawthy. Where are the Wendigo Entertainment decks?" I asked.

  "On the central level of our C-capital ship… T-the Slayer's Sword," Kawathra said.

  “What about the other ships?”

  “The other ships don't have the room for such.”

  "Great. Is one hundred and thirteen Astral Fountains enough to bring down the capital ship with all of its fucked-up torture labyrinths?" I pressed on.

  "Y-yes, if you damage the ship shell enough, sabotage the wards and also disable and slow down all of the Gun Units and Corpse Seekers that would usually contain such," Kawathra mewled as new charts ignited in front of her horrified face. She stared at our trio, gasping for air. "No, no, no... you... can't... this isn't just light treason... This... this is total war! The loss of the Capital Ship would... Destabilize the entire Third Fleet! Deprive the High Command of all their favorite toys! Fuck!"

  "Sounds like we have a plan then." I said.

  “You can’t be serious! The Admiral would…” Kawathra fluttered.

  “Would what?” I asked.

  The Datamancer drowned in charts for a split second and then stared at me. “She would… lose rank.”

  “Clarify,” I said.

  “She’d have to answer to the Legates and Empress for the loss of the capital ship,” Kawathra said.

  “Would she retaliate by dropping the moon on us, is what I’m asking.” I stated.

  “Not if she fucks up this badly,” Kawathra said. “The loss of Slayer’s Sword would immediately downrank her, giving control of the Third Fleet to the Legates. Then Legate Ixthia’s proposal will most likely roll through via votes. That is to say, Ixthia's party wouldn't nuke a garden planet where they want to build casinos, love hotels, palaces, prad retirement villas and GLM server megastructures. Legate Ixthia and her ‘Pleasure Planet’ gang would absolutely use this as an opportunity to reinforce their ideology and power. This world is excessively safe. Ixthia is already making big marketing plans to sell gate access to refugees and immigrants from doomed worlds.”

  “Great.” I smiled. “Then we better get everything ready for tomorrow.”

  “Yess,” Shady purred. “Tomorrow, we die and then decapitate the Third Fleet. Ke ke ke ke.”

  She and Nexxali high-fived each other.