Hinn Ch. 63-65

Referring Ray's attention to points in Hinn, Dhakira confirmed the second as Jann, and pointed out that the first was Timm, one of the beings whose focus was space and time. "The third one, the bush, reminds me of the intellect we are planning on visiting as we gather Ousha's compatriot in Micronesia. It seems very similar if not identical to the few memories we have of it in Hinn."

Sharing this information with the guardian brought a shocked reaction. "For longer than most mortals have walked this world, I have wondered about these binders. Having this much information? It is overwhelming."

"The potential knowledge goes well beyond that. We have good relations with one of the leaders of the Jann, and might be able to learn more from her. The Timm seem to have been mostly destroyed by Jinn skullduggery, so that one we might not be able to gain much more about. The third, the one that looks like a plant, we suspect still exists in Midgardr, or at least something similar to it exists. When we visit it, which we plan on doing fairly soon, we can ask for confirmation and further information, if you'd like?"

"If you're willing, Ray, I'd be happy with your asking those two for information and returning it to me as your two tasks."

"Are you certain? We'd be willing to ..."

The guardian interrupted Ray. "I am certain. Your kindness does you a disservice here. Please accept this offer."

"As you ask, then we will do so. We will return with whatever information we gather, within the bounds of our agreement, as soon as practical."

"You would find that the barrier you passed through would become significantly more aggressive in its resistance to your passage. Instead, may I offer you two links? They allow for your communicating with me from anywhere within the branches of the World Tree, and remain passive until you activate each individually. Once we conclude the conversation, they disappear as ash upon the wind."

Ray reached into Hinn, gathering Dhakira's attention and assistance to recover a technique that best fit his conceptualization. "Might I offer you a somewhat more permanent link that we - myself and my Hinn companions - might use to communicate with you at will? Both side may block it at will, and either side may cause its cancellation. Communication may be sent either persistently, which would become available once the other side unblocked it, or as gentle as a breeze."

"You would risk such a thing?"

"It is symmetrical. We would risk the same as yourself. I've rather enjoyed our conversation, Neda, and would like to continue it were you willing."

"I thank you for the opportunity, and would like to perceive such a link as you suggest, if that is within the realm of the possible?"

"I can certainly show you one end of the link, while we are here. Without a second party present, I do not think I can show you both ends simultaneously, however."

"Understood, and understandable. I am quite curious as to how you would accomplish this."

"As you likely know, I have several links to beings outside your boundaries. I can use one of those links to stretch the thread I propose, then extract it from said link. From there, I can demonstrate its use to you, if you wish."

"A reasonable plan. Please, do try. I rather hope this works."

Following the recorded memories of the technique, Ray warned Tauriz of the communication incoming. When she replied that she was ready, Ray gently seared a path for the thread through Hinn to her, both ends capped with paired techniques - one allowing the recipient to block, the other to cause the thread to dissipate. Once she'd received the far end, a shift of perception allowed the two of them to draw the thread outside Hinn, running beside it but independently of it. Warning her via Hinn of his plans, he carefully extracted his end of the thread.

"Interesting, Ray. Your magic has shattered a barrier that was keeping out some beings that believe themselves to be more than they are. I can defeat them, but to do so would unfortunately cause you significant damage as well. If you promise to not access the well without my approval, I shall let you move as you will within this realm to defend as you would."

"Of course, you have my word, Neda. I wouldn't have without your permission anyways."

"Thank you, Ray. They will appear momentarily. Please hurry to the well."

Nodding, Ray leapt to the hilltop. While in midair, Ray asked, "Are there any limits to what I may do here - anything I should refrain from doing?"

"Anything you can generate within this realm is acceptable, Ray - but do not affect the border or the well, please."

"Very well. I cannot say if some of the results of my techniques might not cause these other beings to run into your border, however."

"Acceptable. They arrive."

Chapter 65

A whipcrack sharp horn fanfare heralded the formation of a creamy white gateway just inside the guardian's boundary. A humanoid stepped through, only to be turned into puddles and slivers as he moved into the razor-sharp grasses. As did the next, followed by a third, each just a step behind the previous.

Ray felt rwh bulging out of the gateway and into the area. It expanded, blossoming into a bubble a dozen feet across. Another body stepped out, only to be shredded yet again. The field seemed to draw on the dying being's rwh, pulling the last dregs of life out into it, as well as draining remnants out of the last gasps of the cells from the first few beings through the gateway.

Seeing no reason to allow this toehold to grow, Ray reached out and simply burned the field away with a quick flash of samum, taking the additional split second required to have it remove the shreds and fluids from the invaders' bodies as well. Another body stepped through, only to be shredded again. Shaking his head, Ray just kept alert, feeling for changes.

As he did, he congratulated himself. Another gateway was being formed, stealthily. It was being crafted amid the grass' roots, wrapping around each without disturbing them, but carefully isolating them from the soil that supported them. Another body fell into shreds as Ray torched the new field, scorching its effects from the face of this reality as he did, leaving Neda's grass unaffected.

From the feel of the rwh, the second invader immediately snapped open a gate quite conceptually similar to the milk-white one across the grassy field, albeit with a wildly different aesthetic. A brief 'pop' was heard as air was swiftly displaced to make way for the grey stone henge oozing a shower of blood drops to form.

The first gateway was sending sacrificial bodies through faster, now. Ray sighed and repeated his previous technique, erasing the body fragments and drippings. A quick thought automated that process, along with ensuring that he'd be notified of changes as they occurred.

The second gateway threw a spray of blood at Ray. It definitely bore some sort of jawhar carrying rwh, and it seemed likely it had been hardened somehow by the technique. Ray didn't feel too adventurous. As such, another simple flex of samum erased the blood spray from the realm along with its energetic payload, whatever it was intended to be.

"Would you have me destroy their portals, Neda? Send things back through to affect change on the other side? Or merely continue to defend?"

"As long as they do not reach the well, and the boundary workings remain unaffected, you have no limits to what you may do from my perspective, Ray."

"Very well, then let's see how they like uninvited guests," Ray muttered. Crafting a pair of golf ball sized spheres of the samum-friendly crystal that was the core of his ring, Ray embedded strong flows within them, making them all but indestructible until the energy drained away. Forging a connection to the core of the spheres using techniques older than Hinn itself, Ray injected a copy of his awareness, feeling himself holding both of his new selves through Hinn. Chuckling at the strange sensation, Ray waited for the next pulse of samum to wipe out the human remnants spilling across the grass at the foot of the milky gate before tossing the first sphere through.

The gateway opened into a large stone-skinned space, either a well-carved cave or seamlessly constructed building. It was mostly notable for being bigger than several football fields, yet being packed closely with large numbers of humanoids. Even as he watched, more were pouring into the room from several hallways as big as highways. The room was unlit, but the bodies were moving about in well-coordinated patterns. A field of rwh grasped at the sphere as it passed into the room, but was unable to affect the glowing crystal. A thought brought the sphere to the middle of the room, floating a dozen feet above the portal and another dozen below the arched peak of the room.

All the bodies were dressed alike, a simple short-sleeved tunic that ran almost down to their knees. None were shod, none had jewelry, and all wore their hair the same way, shorn almost military-short. Ray couldn't find any differences between the bodies, even as other rwh tried to batter at his sphere with the same exact lack of effect.

Ray spread a thought across all those in this huge room, "If you do not stop, I may have to destroy you all."

While waiting for a response, Ray sent the second sphere at the bloody gateway, rocketing through sprays of blood that hit about as hard as one of Skepsi's shotguns might, only targeted with inhuman precision. The pointed shards of blood shattered against or skittered off the smooth surface of the crystal, not even making it wiggle as it entered a spherical room. While it was smaller than the behemoth behind the milky gate, it was still at least a hundred feet across.

The 'floor' was a swirling mass of blood. It was hard to tell at first, but it seemed the room was truly spherical. A curious subset of his awareness shared that would mean the golfball was floating over millions of gallons of blood. The pool slowly circled below an inverted version of the henge dangling from the ceiling. Dozens of bubbles popped across the surface of the pool every second, their spray hurling continuous streams of the hard blood drops at the sphere with no real effect. Ray could detect large flows of rwh in the thick fluid, some of which felt almost as old as Tauriz. The mix of flows was seemingly random at first glance, with no central point for all of them to be gathered into a single being's control, but on reconsideration it appeared as if the blood pool itself might be the center of all the flows.

Checking, Ray felt there were perceptions covering the whole of this sphere. "If you are intelligent, I would prefer to talk with you. If not, or if you choose not to stop your assault, I may have to destroy you."

The bodies behind the milky gate came to a stop over a minute. Interestingly, they managed it in a wave of inaction affecting the bodies arriving from the broad tunnels and spreading across all those in the room. Eerily, each body the sphere could see spoke in synchronization. "While we would prefer not to die, we wonder at your motivation. You do not appear to be the guardian of the well. What is your business preventing others from accessing the well?" From the echoes the sphere was picking up, even those outside its line of sight had also spoken simultaneously.

A quiet footfall drew Ray's attention back in the guardian's realm. A humanoid statue crudely carved from a jagged-edged, shiny black rock - obsidian, perhaps? - began to walk forward. The grass seemed to be ineffective against the material. At the same time, the sharp edges of the statue didn't affect the grass. Shaking his head, Ray waited for it to take another step forward before burning away its ties to the gravity it clearly required. As its hind foot pushed it forward, it floated up, losing contact with the ground. Ray generated a brief, stiff breeze in its face to counter its momentum, leaving it dangling in mid-air. "You are the third to try to approach the well without addressing its guardian. Not very neighborly. I would suggest you return from whence you came. If you continue to struggle to approach, I may be forced to destroy you."

Ray's sphere replied to the flood of bodies, "You are correct, I am not the guardian. I have my own reasons for doing this that would probably not make sense to you. I would suggest you send one body forward and politely discuss matters with the guardian. I will not be pleased if you attempt to be anything other than a good guest, including leaving if the host - the guardian of the well, in this case - requests it.

"Your life force manipulation techniques thus far are inadequate to bypass my defenses, as you have noticed, nor are your physical actions capable of deterring me. However, in a spirit of sharing, please note that the guardian of the well has their own defenses, which they may choose to utilize."

A churning whirlpool of blood formed behind the second gate as this went on, spreading a dozen feet across the surface of the pool before vomiting forth a humanoid head and torso made of congealed blood. "Who is your master, genie? Why do they risk a battle they cannot win?"

The stone figure faded away. Watching the rwh behind the activity, Ray saw it retreat, withdrawn through a now-obvious gap in the workings surrounding the well. Thinking back to his squirming into this realm, Ray realized what he'd accidentally broken, and what it had looked like. With a little help from Dhakira and Ousha, Ray found similar patterns. "I see what I appear to have broken, Neda. Should I repair the gap? And if so, would you prefer I do so using rwh, or samum?"

Replying to the clotted blood golem, Ray's sphere said "This battle could be ended within moments, should I so desire. You are no threat to myself, nor to the guardian of the well. However, for reasons I will not share, I am allowed to act as an additional layer of defense for the well at this time. As such, malicious intent and violent responses will be overwhelmed in kind. I would not prevent you from speaking to the guardian of the well, but only as a thoughtful guest. Do not start aggression, and obey your host's directions. To be clear, the guardian of the well would be your host, not I."

Simultaneously, Neda indicated that she would be very pleased were he to repair the gap he'd caused. She'd prefer it to be done via rwh, as she had no ability to handle samum. Ray agreed to her preferences and began to reimplement the boundary as it had been emplaced. The horde of bodies replied to Ray's sphere, "We will send one through to address the guardian, then."

Ray had a sudden insight - he was doing this wrong. He immediately split off copies of himself, sharing their results and experiences. One was set up to work with the humanoid swarm, another the blood-thing, a third to track back the obsidian sculpture, and a fourth to reweave the defensive jawhar he'd accidentally severed. As they did their jobs, Ray set up yet another copy to help him maintain situational awareness, emphasizing his curiousity about the surroundings, especially those parts which other aspects of his self weren't directly focusing in on.

Realizing these fragments didn't have a specific end-state like those he'd set up previously, he quickly sorted through Hinn for ways to link them together so they wouldn't work against each other. For the fragments which were given specific tasks, he had them persistently share a gestalt of their experience, discoveries and decisions back with himself, only to echo a combined gestalt back with them containing a deconflicted amalgamation of all the others' experiences. For the awareness fragment, it ended up more like a coworker who would tap at his shoulder or text him when something was up, even as it got the same gestalt the other new fragments received.

Things instantly got a lot easier to handle as he delegated to himself, to the point he was able to notice his Hinns' shocked reactions. They'd each had their own version of this, but had not expected him to come up with it so quickly on his own. Sharing a memory of a hug with them, he promised them that they'd revisit this later, but reconsidered.

The more he thought about it, the more he realized he could further ... distribute his awareness, for lack of a better term. Set up coordination and oversight, then create workers for specific tasks, which in turn might make additional workers, until eventually answers were found. Then the workers - no, call them thinkers, perhaps? - would roll back up. To make it even more interesting, his new thinkers were aware of each other, and could communicate findings and commonalities back and forth as they pursued their own goals. Realizing how easily this could go wrong, Ray dug into his computer lore. Distributed systems, hacking fundamentals, basic networking, as well as all the other raw knowledge he'd managed to ingest into Hinn were coopted to form a deeper linkage with Hinn. Logistics, corporate structure, and military theory each helped shape a rough initial structure. Topology helped him expand beyond the limits of simple one-to-one and one-to-many relationships, with mathematically defined multidimensional surfaces' interceptions describing and protecting the meaningful information sharing while discouraging raw noise. After many long experiments over a split fraction of an instant, he allowed some noise to be passed around. It became apparent that that was how new crosslinks, new interrelationships could be found between unexpected bodies of knowledge.

Even so, he quickly realized that as broad and expanded as his comprehension could become, he was still limited by that ratio of information to noise. Too much noise and the information suffered. Too much rigor and new links would get lost. Adding in the relatively limited amount of information he could accept and send through his body, he found a third critical factor to balance against. A few richly detailed simulations later, he found a couple sweet spots which allowed tremendous growth and richness of experiencing reality while maintaining a single core self, just spread and braided and shaped across many disparate dimensions of meaning.

With care, Ray took the time to consider his new methods of existence. He spent a couple subjective him/months - two months' worth of work for one of his thinkers, split across many different copies and fragments and sections of his original self - building a description of it, polishing it for ease of consumption. Once it was as complete as he could reasonably make it, he shared it with his Hinn.

All three accepted it, only a small fraction of a second being shocked at his sudden growth and receiving his mental hug. All three froze as they attempted to understand it. Ousha's puzzlement was the first reaction, as she was unable to comprehend what she'd been given, and warned that it was some form of attack.

Dakhira's acceptance and agreement was cautious, but they were able to parse the structure. Moments later, a few of their aspects reached out through Hinn to some of his new thinkers, offering them specific sections of knowledge and capabilities they'd already built up, each set of choices directly relevant to the individual thinkers' tasks and goals.

Tauriz mentally gasped, and her perception flared brilliantly, briefly, before burning out.