Sister Xiong pushes a door open and gestures for you to go through it first. As you do, she states, "Your reward will be threefold. The first part will indeed be lessons from the Master himself. That will have to wait, however. He is… currently indisposed."
This was expected, although the other rewards suggest that the lessons might mean more than I thought they would. I was thinking it was pretty minor, since Siani was going to instruct us with how to use time anyway. It seems like his lessons will cover more than that, or go deeper.
Sister Xiong stops and fixes you with a firm look. "Kong Zhi, when Elder Siani believes you are prepared, you will be raised to the Seventh Circle."
Wow. That was... a lot faster than I was expecting. A lot. Though it sounds like this is as much a challenge as an honor. Also...
what in the blazing hells did we find?
The smile on Sister Xiong's face doesn't waver in the least. "Nothing intrusive or unwanted by my new friend, Kong Zhi," she states, reaching out and patting Songlu on the head. The pig preens and presses up against her palm, searching for more affection. "Songlu was a touch coarse and unrefined before, certainly. But it was nothing my anam could not fix."
...well. The implications of that statement are terrifying.
Perhaps you got off easily by only having to think about worshipping Sister Xiong for a few weeks.
Zhi is right. This is terrifying. We're either talking permanent personality alteration or enthrallment. It almost certainly works on humans as well, although I wouldn't be surprised if they have to be pretty weak... In any case, this makes it clear that Royalty is potent stuff. Not quite in the same league as Time, but enough to make our Treasure a
huge find. We seem to be doing a lot of those lately.
All you can do is nod. You turn away from the house and close the door, idly watching as the doorknob shifts and twists beneath your fingers until it is the ring once more. When you pull your hand away, it is as if the door to that peaceful place never existed. "This… this is a princely reward," you murmur.
Yes, it is a princely reward. Though the practical impact may be limited, beyond making our materials unsealable and always around. Actually, we might be able to do something with that. Buy useful equipment and use it to complete missions. There are likely people who have who base everything on spacial utility techs, so this is significant. I'm also wondering if there's some mechanical impact that we're not seeing. Mental stress, maybe? Healing on missions? I won't be surprised if it's a "try it and find out" quest, like Chui Dao was.
The Warren… the headquarters of the Caretakers… has mysteries and treasures locked away in it's lower levels… and you will only find them if you pass tests set by the Warren itself.
So... we're sitting on a dungeon containing ancient, powerful artifacts, and we have semi-exclusive access to it as Caretakers, which means there's probably a ton of good stuff that hasn't been grabbed yet. Hell yeah! It probably contains ancient charms, techniques, maybe even some Treasures or Wonders. How many actions can we spare a week? Do you think ten will do it, or do we need to find an eleventh somewhere?