Techno-Animism

1. A thumb-sized box containing potent words of abjuration against bad gods, written in the minuscule language of gold used by warlocks and spirit-talkers in the time before. It will cleanse haunted places and heal sick programs. Those who stand partway between the worlds will see burning ports into which keys such as this one may be driven and activated; those without sight may need to make pilgrimage to one of the still-standing access terminals left by the first humans in order to make use of it.
   
2.  A spirit-talker's wand, a tool used to find places where the border between phenomenon and noumenon is thin. It will flash and growl as you approach these places. Many who work with gods long enough learn to feel their signals without the use of such a wand.
3. A jar of magic fog, drawn up from deep protected places by ancient pumpjacks. The fog is loyal, and still loves humanity. Uncork the jar and it will flow outward, solidifying and taking the shape of anything you command - a tool, a key, a weapon, so long as it can be held in your hand - and is yours to mold as you require for a time, until hungry spirits take notice of the new unclaimed substrate and claim it for themselves.
4. A quest golem, a man-sized construct welded in place by your tribe's founders and consulted on matters of great importance. To complete the change from child to adult and be allowed to take a spouse, you must sit at its feet and ask it for a challenge, which it will dispense written on a scroll of clean white paper. 
5.  A slate of highly-visible orange resin inlaid with a peculiar pattern of perfect sky-blue squares.  Sighted gods, such as those hosted in the eyes and ears of the security matrix of the Amaranthine Palace, are struck dumb by the pattern as long as it is held in their gaze. Purely virtual entities (demons, worms, et cetera) with no presence in our world are unaffected.
6. A stick of incense, to be burnt at sacred places - towers, access shrines, the meeting places of many cables - during rituals or before prayer. The dizzying aroma places the propitiator closer in contact with the flow of the spirit world, such that their physical form slackens as their dataform communes with the gods.
7. A burning string of letters and numbers inscribed spiraling around a brazen rod, a code capable of opening a door through the Wall of Fire and allowing safe passage to any who can memorize and intone each of the 256 characters in perfect sequence.
8. A force-projector, an ensorcelled weapon host to an extremely temperamental spirit, stubbornly inert in the hands of all but those who most resemble the symmetrical phenotypes of the first humans. At their rare touch the device hums and warms, and at their command distant things are broken by unaccountable kinetics.

Jonathan Solter

One day, the god of the river grew angry. Heavy windstorms had liquefied the paths to its tall dam-house, had turned the ways into lethal flows of soil and uprooted the eldest trees, such that not even the ducal striding machines could have navigated them. None could visit the god of the river that year to pay homage, or to thank it for its clean water, and in response the river gates were one day found shut tight, the waters reduced to a filthy trickle. The land soon cracked open with thirst. Boys and girls were sent loaded with offerings up through the treacherous mountain passes; some were found, killed by a fall or by venom. The others returned with faces downcast, streaked with dirt, shaking like leaves. 

The village took up their tools and their good seeds and fled, hoping to be welcomed by the distant, unfamiliar gods of distant, unfamiliar rivers, more willing to take their chances than die in a land that had forsaken them. They left the dead unburied. But one man, determined to make peace with the place of his birth, remained and prepared. He sought the advice of many small gods of the air and stones, and paid homage at their houses. He had some knowledge of the weirding ways and the subtle arts, and placed useful magic in his mind, given to him by grand gods of the pillars and cables and dishes. He drank only a cupful of precious water a day, alone in the collapsing hull of his cabin, and each time intoned his thanks to the god of the river. 

When he was ready he went to the riverbed, dusty and dry, and left the old paths behind him. He came after some time to the first gate, a wall of interlocking chrome teeth, patterned with the symbols and serial numbers of the first humans. There was no wind. The man set his pack on the baking riverstones and knelt, and asked the god of the river for forgiveness, and then spoke the shining codes told to him by the grand gods of the pillars and cables and dishes and knocked once at the first gate, which groaned and trembled and parted before him. Swiftly he passed through.

In this way the man passed through the second and third gates also, as his head baked in the light of the rising and setting suns and his breaths grew ragged and his heart tore at the sight of the leafless trees, verdant in his memory. 

Michael Whelan

At last, as the sun rose on the fourth day, he came upon the arcing smooth-sided vault of the god of the river, a sheer wall of pockmarked concrete, incalculably high, stained dark with ghost-moisture where blessed water had once spilled, vast and shadowed in the dawn. His knees shook. They shook with each step up the crumbling set of stairs, sedimentary with thigh-high strata of flaking algal mats like stacked nori. He gripped the handrail and it collapsed in a plume of oxide. By the time he reached the top the sun was high.

Through the unassuming doorway. Through carefully marked halls, lightless, progress made by feel alone. There, the notch carved by his elders to show the way. And in the central chamber, lit by gentle  diodelight, was a beaten copper basin filled with perfect water before the sleeping face of a god.

He drank not of the basin-water, though his throat ached and his lips were split, and instead with great care washed his hands, and removing his boots he washed his feet, until they were pure and unmarked, and then he flung the dirtied water behind him in an arc, without looking. And he bowed before the darkly glowing face of the god of the river, hair lifting from his arms and neck, careful to avoid offence, the sheetmetal floor cool against his forehead; and he spoke.

"O great god of the river, noble dataform, ally of my people and of this once-green land - I have come to beg for your forgiveness and for your sound judgement."

And from its throbbing voiceboxes the god of the river answered, its smooth visage flaring to life, sickening blue-white light spilling, the chamber flooding awful ultramarine.

"ENTER CREDENTIALS."

"I am called Ghotike, son of Oyuun, brother of Yesenem and Yesana. I was born by your banks and grew strong in your rapids. I made pilgrimage to your junction boxes, danced in the autumn festivals, and I sought your permission first when men of another village wished to build a bridge over your waters. I have known you my whole life."

"SYNTAX RECOGNIZED. USER RECOGNIZED. SLUICE GATES(1,2,3) OPEN. CONFIRM."

"The mountain paths were unmade by wind. My people could not reach you, though we tried. I took magic words from other gods and with them gained your audience. I am-"

"UNNACCEPTABLE RESPONSE. REGULAR USER PRESENCE REQUIRED FOR CONTINUED THROUGHPUT. REGULAR MAINTENANCE REQUIRED FOR CONTINUED THROUGHPUT. GATE OVERRIDE FUNCTION RESERVED FOR ADMINISTRATORS ONLY."

"True, your grace; I am not your chosen shaman. But she and the others have gone. They have left their families' bones and they have gone. They seek new waters. I ask not for forgiveness for myself, or for my fellows, for we have already chosen our fates. I ask for forgiveness for the spirits of the wind which barred us from you. I ask for mercy on the spirits of the earth and trees, which suffer blamelessly at your feet. Like them, my life is in your hands, and should your punishment be steadfast I will soon die of thirst. I have no way back."

"ARROGANCE," spoke the god of the river, and the man sagged with defeat, knowing it was true; but then the shredding light slowly softened, and the sounds of vast, far-off movement reached the sacral chamber, and for the first time Ghotike raised his head, and saw flowing across the face of the god of the river its otherworldly functions, its quantum processes visualized as linking switching plasmic nodes, and watched a new node appear like a forming star.

"ADMINISTRATOR REQUIRED FOR CONTINUED THROUGHPUT," it said, in gentle announcement, and in the invisible overlay-world of spirits the god of the river placed its hand on the crown of its supplicant's head and conveyed to him a packet most wholesome. And with sight beyond sight Ghotike saw floodgates open deep beneath him, felt the swelling of titanic pressures, and with the relief of a pulled tooth he felt the eager waters blast into empty air, volcanic, sublime, coronal.

And the god of the river bid its newest shaman drink.