Azoth:The Alchemical Jihad

Elder_Godspawn:You're being reactivated, old son.

NinetySixand2: I was never *deactivated*

Elder_Godspawn: Your name is on the books. Red File to Black.

NinetySixand2: Hold on there, I was just a bloody consultant. You can't simply just flip me like a switch.

Elder_Godspawn: We can, and we have. You're an asset now. What you do with it is up to you, but you're back in the game, #693.

NinetySixand2: Seriously?

Elder_Godspawn: Deadly. Go looking for MHB. It's of interest. And lose the implants.

NinetySixand2:...shit.

Elder_Godspawn: Indeed. BCNU.

Elder_Godspawn has signed off at 03:33

NinetySixand2: ...Be seeing you too...dick.

- Chat logs recovered from a laptop found in a burned out car, Liverpool, England - 17^th May.

“We find ourselves often wondering where things start, when the truth is, they never do.” Thus spoke Richard Latimer, back when I was someone else entirely. We were in an anonymous Starbucks, somewhere in Manchester. It was September 12^th, 2001.

“I mean, people are asking whether this'll be the start of World War III. But the fact is, we've been at war ever since the Industrial Revolution. What they call the Great War, y'know '14-18? That was just the emergence point for mechanized warfare. The transition from flesh to metal.”

He looked at me with eyes made hollow from the chemotherapy, scalp bald and head wobbling almost comically on a wasted neck.

“But nothing ever starts. The metal's been in the flesh forever. The quintessence, the Azoth. Salt, sulphur and mercury, all flowing to create the Universal Medicine. It's hidden but it's there. The harder we push, the more we try to create it outside ourselves – so we can use it – the more we just create bad copies.

The time's coming though, when the metal's going to flow. Look at the way we're going virtual. Watch how war shifts, look at how it changes – because war is the engine that harnesses the collective, the masses.” He coughed wetly. “More war, more metal - more sex, more metal.”

“So what do we do?” I asked him, half innocently, half in mockery.

“Do? Do? You go to war, but do it inside. Me? I just fucking die. You go on jihad.” he hissed.

“Not so fucking loud!” I could see the couple at the next table looking at us nervously.

“Fuck it.” Latimer grinned, and the skin seemed to tighten up, revealing the skull beneath the flesh and blood. “I had to be at death's door to see it. You get it as a freebie. My last gift to you, man.”

@combatphilos Did you ever wonder why humans prize metal? Solid, yet fluid, mouldable yet strong - wet yet dry.

@combatphilos Metals mirror the soul - they too come from the stars. A man once wrote "Every man and woman is a star." He was a magician.

@combatphilos Lust for coin, for metal's shine? Misplaced desire for the sheen of your own soul

@combatphilos Why is the Black Iron Prison made of Black Iron? Simple - it is crafted by those disassociated from their own psyche.