PSA: Azoth

First off, some minor news. 
We are secure in our limited holdings in Phoenix and are doing what we can to expand what is ours there without drawing unnecessary attention to ourselves. The place is still kind of a shit and is, for the most part, still suffering constant warfare from the other groups that are looking to control it.

I broke into Med's house. She makes it really easy to do actually.

And following shortly after Med's little raid on a local proxy lab with Noir, I got a windfall of equipment, lab notes, and other goodies. Coincidence? Not even a little! I pulled that shit out of the burning building. No sense in letting it all go to waiste after all.




And now for the main event.

I've been seeing a lot of experiments lately of a very specific nature. That is to say, people experimenting on or with Azoth. It has left me to wonder one very important question. 

"Do you think ants ever experiment on human spit in a fruitless effort of find a way to destroy us?"

I mean, I keep seeing everyone chasing and playing with this stuff in an effort to make an impact on Father with it and I have to wonder why everyone just assumes hes made entirely out of Azoth or that he'll react things the same way the Azoth does.

Am I the only one that sees a scientific flaw with treating Father as a biological entity and then handling the data like hes a giant single celled organism despite his obvious complexity? How do we even know that all Azoth is even the same. Sure it all looks black but is it not possible that Azoth taken from different parts of Father has different functions and different make ups. Is it not also possible that Azoth extracted directly from father is fundamentally different from Azoth we find developing in proxies and runners as a result of exposure to father due to the very nature of our own anatomy adapting the Azoth or the Azoth adapting to us.

For years now runners have looked at each other baffled at why this stuff seems to react differently across different accounts with no thought to the simple answer. What you're dealing with is different. All the fluids in my body are not created equal and serve many different functions and react to stimuli differently.

So why has it been so inconceivable that Father would be any different.

-The Lord Guardian Fracture.

I Swear to God this is Not an Act of War

So, the Phoenix branch has fallen. 

The City is still in a state of quiet chaos. Violence is on the rise. With the proxies out of the picture and no longer bullying local gangs and law enforcement into their perspective places, a huge power vacuum has opened. Every gang is making a grab to fill that gap including a few from neighboring towns and cities looking  to expand. While the Drug Cartel has always had a presence in Phoenix, they have shown up in force to expand their trade. Hell, ambitious cops are getting into it too, funny how quick a crusader turns to a raider isn't it?

And that's just the more obvious of the hell raining down on Phoenix. Its what you can't see that you should be worried about and I haven't seen anything from the other cults. I doubt they are just sitting back out of quiet respect for Truth.

In any event, I can no longer stand back and watch a once great holding get torn apart. 

We've begun buying up raided proxy safe houses under the guise of a legitimate business and are, more or less, renting it out to ourselves in an effort to disguise who we are. We have quietly been claiming undiscovered holding that were over looked for one reason or another and providing aid to any stranded proxies we've found hiding out in them and are making every effort to either absorb them into the Free Market or to transfer them to a new town and division to serve Father under a new oracle.

Since I have no idea if Truth is ever coming back, and if not how long it will take to get the area back under control so a new oracle can step in, I've been using everything we could recover from Truth's Tower to make some money to be saved and later put at said oracle's disposal should they ever arise. I've been setting aside the supplies we've been recovering for just the same reason. We will reclaim Phoenix, and if I have anything to say about it, the oracle that steps up to do it will have these funds and supplies at the ready to make sure the job gets done.

We've been trying to buy up shares to Truth's corporation but that's been proving difficult. While a fair few of the fallen did have stock, many of the bodies aren't turning up and those that are turning up aren't being identified. Could be as many as 7 years before their aliases are finally declared dead and anyone could stand to inherit those stocks.

As long as the Free Market is holding up in the area, we're gonna see if we can't lay low and sell off some goods to the warring gangs to make some money and keep on their good sides.

As a final note, I would like to reiterate that this is not the Free Market making a power grab. We are simply putting our foot in the door and keeping it open for the next Oracle.

--Sincerely, the Lord Guardian Fracture.