This omake's set in the Hunger-tier of my Nocturnal build for @vali's A Simple Transaction CYOA. Thanks again for making it!
Voice of the Tower
I pledge my loyalty to the Tower;
To live as a stone in its foundation,
And serve its Keeper with all my power,
Shall be my undying aspiration.
In its shadow I shall flourish eternal,
In day's waning my wisdom will grow,
And if my word should prove false,
Then may my bones burn forever.
- The Apprentice's Vow, taken on initiation into the Nocturnal School of Magi
The first fingers of sunlight had begun to steal over the horizon when the reconnaissance force finally tore free of the Circumscribed Regions. No spectacle or sonic boom marked their return to the Voyaging. One moment the sky was empty; the next a squadron of magi floated there, armored in robes of deep purple and blue, all the colors of evening represented. Raya hovered at their head, resplendent in emerald, her thoughts lingering on those who had not returned.
Time enough for that later, with the last leg of the journey still ahead of her. In another instant they were gone, cloaked by sheer speed as much as invisibility. The company blurred west, into the night and toward the Realm's heart, nocturnal specters fleeing morning's approach.
Raya's sensorium passively drank in the details of the worlds below. Collectively, the various territories and protectorates registered as a patchwork quilt of prosperity. A theocracy here, a congressional republic there, nations human and alien alike all in service to the same shadowy sovereign. The whole of the Voyaging Realm paid homage to the Tower through one proxy or another. Much of it was her work, and at another time she might have permitted herself a glimmer of pride.
She pulsed the Dominion Form in a gentle reminder of protocol instead. Some of the scouts were boys of a mere century, this excursion their first with true stakes. They rushed to obey, dispellation scouring away any magical trace of their passage. Elementalists adjusted air currents to erase their aerial footprint. Hidden ward-skeins yielded to her authority as an Apprentice and before long the violet of the reformatted Outer Halo loomed on the horizon.
Another pulse called a halt. With a mental turn of the keysilver interwoven with her marrow, the portal opened. Reality buckled inward, a concavity dilating into an archway inscribed with runes.
Paradise awaited on the far side. They passed through, alighting on a tree-lined boulevard with interlocked boughs forming a canopy overhead. The evening breeze carried a hint of laughter; an Azoth fountain burbled in the distance. It emanated an aura of tranquility, despite being broad enough for armies to be mustered on it. She turned to hers.
"Report to the Bureau of External Affairs for debriefing and mnemonic archiving. The fallen must not be forgotten." Relaxing her expression, Raya favored the soldiers with a smile as calculated as it was beatific. "Besides, the celebrations are scheduled to begin soon. Rolling out the red carpet for returning troops is something of a tradition! You've done well, and service to the Tower is always rewarded. Dismissed."
Raya listened to the chorus of acknowledgments, first in foresight and again in actuality, inwardly sighing at the rapture evident in some of them. Even after months abroad working under her, a few still had difficulty separating her from the myths. They dispersed, compelled by varying ratios of duty to desire.
She continued down the bower path, pausing to accept a peach of immortality offered by a prehensile branch. Perfectly ripe, sweetness paired with the invigorating chill of anagathic energy. She handed the pit back and walked on, until the shade parted to reveal the Tower itself.
Its outer face was alchemically perfected adamant, a miles-wide bulwark dwarfed by the immensity within that nevertheless erased the stars from a vast swathe of the horizon, the curvature of its girth imperceptible to a mortal eye. The heaven-piercing spire's ever-ascending summit was lost in the gloaming darkness far above, but auroras were pooled around its ankles like a long dress. The silhouettes of Astral magi were visible in the air and on garden-encrusted balconies, drinking deep of the bounty that illuminated the sprawling Isle at the Tower's base. An endless profusion of artfully arranged villas and forums sloped delicately down to the infinite fractal coastline, where children played with precious stones in the surf.
The Tower at dusk was worthy of every ode that had failed to capture its wonder. She extended her sensorium into it and felt full awareness of the Isle blossom in her mind's eye with the satisfaction of slipping her hand into an old, well-worn glove. The spells threaded throughout the Tower's bulk thrummed as if to say, Welcome home, Raya Ashmedai. Something deep inside her unclenched in response.
One more ritual to attend to, before she made her report. She appeared before the frozen statue of a man fallen to one knee, sword raised in desperate defiance. #8, a plaque on the plinth read, Rivalry Beyond Reason.
Raya remembered the pressure of his presence. Like a living daybreak, the long-delayed dawn come at last to their twilit sanctum, brushing aside Astral workings like so many cobwebs. That terrible swift sword cutting down one comrade after another, her seniors' lifeblood spent to delay his deadly advance. That had been before the Spiral, before the Vindicators, before the first of their victories against death.
Before she'd learned not to invest so much of herself in others.
So many befores. Sometimes it seemed her life was demarcated and defined by them. She'd protested the placement of this monument, thought it an insult to those that had died, to Helen, Isaiah, and all the others. Their tombs were within the Tower, cavernous mausoleums filled with memorials and holographic hagiographies. The plaza at the center of the approach was reserved for the enemy.
Per had thought it an important reminder, one that deserved a place of prominence. "I chose my Voice well," he'd said with a sad smile, "Your arguments are compelling. Yet if I can prevent even one further loss with this? It'll be worth it. This safe harbor we're building will inevitably render its residents complacent. But in the end, only strength brings security, and recent events prove we remain lamentably weak. Thus, a reminder not to rest on our laurels. We are never completely safe, not even here in this... splendid realm of evening's kiss."
So now she paused, out of respect for his wishes and their memories, and attempted to extract posthumous utility from their murderer. There were only a handful of other visitors. Eight's Effigy was a somber place, made so in part by magics she had put in place, far removed from the dimensions of delight found elsewhere. Raya did not wish them to see her, so they did not.
The allotted minute passed. With a thought, she was gone. To linger further would be complacent.
---
She stepped back into existence outside the doors of the Lower Throne, nodding recognition to the servitor spirits that abased themselves at her approach. The massive slabs of marble swung wide with a sepulchral boom. Fitting for its occupant, for at the end of the hall sat a corpse enthroned.
The flesh had been flensed away, leaving behind bones transmuted to mythril bedecked in dark robes. The skeleton was stained by smoke from some inner fire, the blackened rictus grin beneath hollow sockets offset only by the inlaid silver of the Master Key, which in days predating even her Apprenticeship had opened the Tower's doors for the first time. The Plenary Brand's trumpet blast of dread and awe washed over her, proclaiming that this was the Keeper of the Tower, the lich-lord who had taken the name Vesperikles, who bore nine Curses. Ringbearer, Realm-conquerer, before whose upraised staff Sovereigns of the Astral quailed in terror.
She withstood it with the ease of long practice and began attending to the administrative minutiae that'd piled up in her absence. The Tower's enchantments funneled reams of information into the Examine Form, where she catalogued concerns. An Augury track was spun up for each individual issue, meticulously researching them in counterfactual timelines: observatory rights, approval for the latest vampiric retrovirals, a feud between competing research groups sponsored by Chronicler and Sword...
Trivial, except for the last. A wave of Dominion carried her conclusions to the intended recipients. She turned to her right, where starlight would start taking human shape.
The image of the man that coalesced into being was fiercely handsome. Tall, the characteristic pallor of the Tower's citizens paired with blond hair and blue eyes. The golden third in his forehead was closed, sparing them the clash of foresight.
"Voice," he greeted her flatly.
His third ancillary battle-consciousness, judging from spiritual micro-expressions. No other member of their coterie had received so apt a title; to the Sword, all interaction was war, an eternal struggle against the world to shape and not be shaped by it in turn. Naturally he hated her, a feeling Raya intermittently reciprocated.
"Sword," she replied genially, inflecting it like his birth name.
"Seems you've located the next Rival. Located, but not eliminated."
"Peering into the archives already?" She raised an eyebrow. "Protocol mandates we make the choice together, unless you'd rather I unilaterally dictate policy. But you're not actually disappointed, not when you might have the opportunity to put someone to the First Sword."
He snorted. "True, any opportunity to overtake your kill-count's to be treasured. But we can bicker later, he'll wake shortly."
The others began to appear as well. Automata and more Astral projections, Legion clones and familiars, some descending in flesh from their laboratories or pleasure gardens higher in the Tower. Vanguard, Chronicler, Shield, Investigator... gradually all the Apprentices gathered, a baker's dozen demigods arrayed before their Slumbering teacher.
With a rattling sigh, the lich woke. Twin violet flames blazed to life in the empty sockets.
"Good evening," Raya said with more genuine good humor. "Sleep well?"
"I had protracted and thoroughly useless dreams," Per replied. "So yes, all things considered. Your successful return's a sight for my sore and nonexistent eyes, but also heralds an end to our respite. It's as we suspected?"
"Yes, our latest challenge is incubating inside the Circumscribed Regions," Chronicler chimed in. "However! Analysis of the area's ontological gravity indicates it's possibly the domain of a greater entity. Mythopoeic tendencies in the residents corroborate this, trending toward the eldritch. I'll have more once I finish profiling the archived mind-states."
The lich cradled his jawbone pensively, metal clacking against metal. "One slumbering monster pitted against another, hm? Amusing... and concerning. What of the new candidates?"
"Seven thousand forty-five that exceeded the Ahamkara Threshold and met our immigration criteria who accepted. Another eighteen inconclusive outliers," Raya said.
Sword's projection didn't waver, but his ego gradient shifted. Raya's mental model supplied the unspoken words: No mention of any declining. But it's not like any choice can be considered freely made when conversing with that woman. Whatever freedom they had ended when they were promoted to her attention.
Such were the conceits that led the Sword to count both Names and Numbers in her favor. Ten incursions she had broken with words; another six had ended at her hands. A rivalry over Rivals. Could there be anything more asinine? But he was young, for all his power, and mistakenly conflated threats to his life with true desperation.
Per nodded. "Send in the first."
The Lower Throne's doors parted to admit a gangly girl barely past eighteen, desperately clinging to her composure. Her eyes roved from one titan to another before finding Per. Then the Plenary Brand struck the breath from her lungs, set her heart to beating like a rabbit's. Pupils dilated as adrenaline flooded her system, synapses fired frantically. Her body would've betrayed her thoughts in a thousand ways even if she hadn't been rendered abject before Raya's Examination.
The Voice of the Tower looked at the secret fears and dreams that were written on the girl, and wondered that she'd ever been so frail and flagrant a creature. There had been no throne room for her. Just a man with tired eyes leaning on his staff, who'd extended his hand to another starving slip of a girl. Per had lifted her up out of the muck and given her the stars. And now, she was the only one left who remembered his human face. What images existed had been burned away by the Brand of the Phoenix.
"Welcome to the Tower, Noelle Durante," he said. "These days I'm called Vesperikles, or the Keeper if you're feeling formal. Apologies if the dimensional storage caused you any undue discomfort, but I was wondering if you might do me a favor."
Predictably, there was bravado. "The fuck do you need my help for?"
The skull seemed to grin. "That has proven to be the trouble with this method. Nevertheless, assume that the following statement is true: I rarely leave my home, so I rely on others for news of worlds beyond the Tower's walls. Stories from new and interesting places are particularly valuable to me, and I'd like to hear a few from you. Could you do that? Offer me information freely, with no expectation of repayment?"
"I... sure. So, uh, I was born on Petronella? Rockhopper colony, part of an asteroid belt at the ass-end of the Regnancy. Don't remember much of that, 'cause my parents sold me for seedlings when I was like five, but-"
"No need for more. You've passed, grammatically incorrect abbreviation aside. You're not attached to your previous polity. How would you like to live here instead? Plenty of perks: immortality, magic, that sort of thing."
She squinted, torn between greed and suspicion. "Can I think about it?"
"A sensible response! Take a week to get to know the place; though there's no day here, you'll find you have an intuitive sense for the passage of time." Noelle vanished with a twitch of a beringed finger.
In came a man in his early twenties, who refused to part with knowledge except in exchange for the same. The violet light flared fractionally brighter and he collapsed gently to the floor, a puppet with severed strings.
"Wipe and return him with the next expedition. His family should be healed as well. That the son was unsuitable is no reason for the father to die. Next."
So it went. Men and women of every age, from farmhands to aristocrats. Fifteen of the potentials proved impervious to the Champion's Brand, a requirement for any long-term resident of the Tower. Hereditary immunity had been a coup of third-stage mitigation, the feat that marked the transition from a cabal to a true magocracy.
By the end, Per's mood had improved. He enjoyed this, the ritual and pageantry of bringing newcomers before the Lower Throne, the opportunity to indulge in charity. It was why they were convened here rather than on the upper floors where concentated magic would shatter mortal minds and bodies.
It was an inefficient use of his waking hours, but he'd regret it when Augury and scrying ironed out the final kinks and candidates could be located with perfect accuracy. It was one of what he'd dubbed their Perennial arguments. The Keeper was an individual of superficial rationality; ruthless indifference could give way to tempests of sentiment, bulwarks of argumentation raised in one moment to justify the impulse of the last. Her duty was to protect him, even from himself.
That she'd been one such impulse made it harder to argue against them.
The last candidate was deposited in the guest quarters to wallow in unimaginable luxury. Per clapped skeletal hands, Mordant Fire burning merrily in orbital cavities. "To business, then. Raya, if you would?"
"Of course. Three sidereal months ago, I assumed command of the Fifth Expeditionary Force to conduct a survey of the Circumscribed Regions." Dominion broadcast the starmap to her peers, but she conjured a hologram of an elliptical galaxy anyway, an assortment of stars and dimensional rifts draped like a necklace of pearls about a central quasar.
"The gist is that the Sognaric Regnancy claims sovereignty over the entire thing. The reality's naturally more complicated. A vanishingly small percentage of worlds are actually inhabited, and many of those sparsely, with entire systems left fallow. Postcognition's fuzzy further than several thousand years back, but pirated archaeological surveys confirm a mass die-off somewhere in the mists of their history. The Regnancy's ruled by House Ira, who maintain tenuous control over the whole mess through a combination of military force and their monopoly on the ability to make worlds habitable. Unauthorized settlement leads inexorably to madness or death; see the archives for my Examination of the process, though mind the infohazard.
"Also naturally, the Ira have a bastard problem, and not just an internal one. Redacted records reveal the existence of other bloodlines, with the current dynasty the result of a coup and some questionably-complete purges. Digging deeper, it turns out that Crown Princess Luciana's not only a prodigy of unprecedented purity, she's become convinced that the Regnancy's facing another extinction event. One that can only be averted if she slays some mysterious foe. Divination and logic led us to the palace-system of Peccant, which proved resistant to even my Augury. A squad of thanatonauts volunteered for infiltration."
The celestial panorama was replaced with a cavernous room sized to fit skyscrapers comfortably. Cables snaked across the floor between the feet of courtiers to a giant of a man slumped before a feast. His chest rose and fell with slow breaths, and the walls throbbed in time. Other images flickered past: oceans of acid, velvet sighs and flesh moving against flesh, a starship built of bones. Then there was blinding light and a face that could've been carved from marble, statuesque features thrown into sharp relief. The thunder of evocation, flashes as defensive sigils were invoked. Desperate retreats through corridors that came alive to swallow the invaders. One perspective after another went dead.
Then static, followed by silence. There was nothing whimsical about the fire in Per's eyes now.
"Their phylacteries were destroyed beyond the reach of Vindication, but their sacrifice yielded valuable intelligence," Raya concluded, focusing on an image of the woman. "I give you the Curse of the Rival's most recent pawn: Luciana Ira."
"Viability of intervention?" the Keeper asked.
"We caught this one early, leaving us with the luxury of choice. Not a threat on an individual scale yet, though her position's troublesome."
"Same's true of the Regions in general, I'd say," the Investigator spoke up. "That ontological gravity well, making it harder to exit than enter? Place reeks of a trap. Name too: Regnancy's not far from Regency. We know who the sleeper is?"
"The father," Chronicler replied, surfacing briefly from her integration trance. "His Imperial Majesty Vincente Ira, author of the aforementioned coup. Only occasionally cogent, if the rumors are true."
"Interesting trivia, but not the sleeper I was referring to. Sognare means 'to dream' in an old Terran language. Said it yourself, there's a greater entity in play. Look here," he said, calling up an analysis of the Regions' borders. "These readings are closer to an Armament's Shroud than our Outer Halo. Warped and continuously deployed, but there are commonalities. Simple geometry says the culprit's at the center. And hey, this quasar's radio-loud. Wonder if it's saying anything?" One corner of his clone's mouth quirked upward.
Per sighed. "A way will inevitably present itself for Ira to harness that power. She'll need that and more, to match me."
"We should strike soon before this one starts scaling in truth. Bring enough force to bear from enough angles and even the Curse can't protect her." That was the Sword, unsurprisingly.
"She wants the promised power to save her civilization," said the Shield. "I think the case can be made for Namehood. We have solid leads about the cataclysm they're supposedly facing already. Address that, and there's no reason for conflict."
The Investigator shrugged. "She will find reasons. If none exist, she'll invent them. Humans excel in this area, and she's close enough to one. "
Sometimes Raya regretted peering into the mind behind Aloysius' mild and patient eyes.
"Ira does appear to be another chip off the old utilitarian block," Per mused. "The Curse's heuristics rarely select those who can be dissuaded. Just enough to distort our policy, providing problems it's potentially within our power to solve. But I elected Rivalry, not Martyrdom. In any case, let's take a preliminary poll. Life or death? Name or Number?"
"Number," spoke the Sword, as was his habit.
"Name," answered the Shield, who valued life above all else, and then the battle lines were drawn.
She and Per abstained, and in the end it was tied six to six, just as Raya had anticipated.
"Enough." The Keeper gestured, cutting off the debate. "We'll reconvene later. For now, announce that we've located a Rival and make your own preparations. I'll adjust the acceleration factor. Put the wardens on alert, draft additional Astral levies, ration aurora access. A taste of austerity will do our citizens good, help unite them against an external threat."
The others teleported away or dispelled themselves, leaving the two of them alone in the hall. Mordant torches replaced the holographic display, though neither needed the light. More evidence of his inexplicable fondness for the Diagram.
"You wanted to speak with me?" Raya prompted him.
"Hah," he exhaled. "You'd think my resting lich face would be an impediment to your insight, but no."
"That's the hundred and fifty-third time you've made that joke... this century," she deadpanned.
"What a callous betrayal of your teacher! It took millennia, but I've finally met the fate of mentors everywhere. Anyway, there's enough ambient immortality here that my humor ought to be undying too."
Neither face nor spirit wavered, but Raya recalled the true traitors, who in their words had refused to accept a society structured around one man's Curses, calling Vesperikles a serpent at the Tower's heart. For those perfidious fucking ingrates, there were no memorials. The words of the Vow had been chosen well.
"Speaking of immortality," she said, "you've settled on a form for the next cycle?"
"A Form, yes. Wyrd's a staple of the rotation at this point. I think I'm close to a breakthrough, the ability to transpose its protection onto others."
Per stood and stretched, rotating his head three hundred and sixty degrees with a mechanical clicking sound. "Ah, that's better. Honestly, it shouldn't be possible, but the Afflictions are collaborating to give me cramps."
"Far be it from me to criticize Curse mitigation. Even if you do look like a metallic owl."
"I can take such drastic measures because I'm confident my trusted Apprentice wouldn't use the embarrassment against me." The Keeper's Staff appeared in his hand. Per leaned on it experimentally. "Let's take a walk. It is, after all, a good evening for it."
A moment later they were on the beach. Black sand speckled with emeralds. Her colors, likely created for this purpose. The Tower's silhouette blanketed the entire expanse, casting sand and sea into shadow. Per gestured, rotating it to darken a different part of the Isle's infinite coast. This portion was entirely empty, not a soul in sight, which suited them both. Despite being their technical ruler, few residents knew the Keeper as anything more than a shadowy figure rumored to stand above even the Nocturnal Council. His primacy in their minds was another casualty of the Brand of the Phoenix, an ironic reflection of the Tower's relationship to its tributary worlds.
Raya watched the celebrations from afar as they walked in comfortable silence. Finally, he broke the news. "I've attained a fourteenth Apprenticeship slot."
Which would change everything, adjust the balance of power in the Council and trigger a frenzied, Isle-wide academic competition as every aspirant with a glimmer of ambition competed to earn the ultimate prize: peerage. Per knew as much. Raya chose not to belabor the obvious.
"I've always wondered about the parallels. Whether it was an intentional choice on your part, from the very beginning when you received the Accursed's offer. To counteract the scaling threat of Rivalry by securing scaling support of your own. A Rival fails, the Curse replaces them. An Apprentice falls, and the slot survives."
"Is that what you...?" There was shock and hurt in his words. "I don't deny it. Can't and wouldn't, not to you. That was the glib, idiotic logic behind the decision, blind to the implications. But the boy who set out on this path died the instant he donned the Ring, the first of ten-thousand transformations to become who and what I am today. You're not just my Voice, Raya, you're my friend. Perhaps the only one I have left in this prison of incentives I've crafted for myself. And my friends are not replaceable. Know this: if you fall, I will come for you. No matter when, no matter where. Even if your soul languishes on the far side of hell's gates, I will batter them down. That is my promise to you."
The mercurial shell on Per's finger flowed aside to reveal an inset amethyst. Then it was no longer a band of mere metal but the Ring Gnosis, whose color was Violet, and whose Chief Dominion was Desire. The Jewel of All Desiring blazed like a star fallen to earth, and its light was true wisdom which laid all hearts that it touched bare.
Faintly but sincerely, she smiled. It wasn't such a bad thing, when the wind of sentiment blew in her direction. Even a heart as hardened as hers could be touched by such gestures.
"We'll get them all back," he said solemnly. "One day, we'll reclaim everything that time and tide have taken from us."
"I suppose the matter's not up for debate?" Raya replied. "In retrospect, I could do without some of Helen's jokes."
"Absolutely not," he laughed. "What kind of Tyrant would I be if I respected my best friend's wishes?"
And at that, she had to laugh as well.
The tide receded at Per's command. Lich and lady meandered for a time through the sunken detritus of microrealms that had been subsumed into the Isle. They talked equally of fallen friends and the future and inconsequential things, until in the ruins of a many-pillared city that remained nameless by the grace of Raya's forbearance Per looked up at the stars he'd set in the sky and proclaimed:
"Let there be night."
Darkness descended on the Tower Isle like a curtain, leaving only the aurora borealis to illuminate the paradise they'd done their best to create. But that light was dimmed as well, for the Astral magi were preparing for war.
---
Do not underestimate the Curse of the Rival, which swiftly elevates its chosen to the heights of the Tower's Keeper. Tempting as it is to succumb to hubris and grow drunk on past victories, each champion so empowered is nothing less than a clear and present danger. Not just to the Tower and the billions who shelter in its shadow, but also the worlds that pay homage to it. What strategy will you pursue in their defense?
[ ] Name - Observe the proper procedures. Establish diplomatic relations with the Wrathful Princess and offer aid in return for a perpetual cessation of hostilities, sealed in triplicate by the Oathsworn Form and verified by other magics. Prioritize research into addressing the existential threat she faces and prepare to evacuate the Regions entirely, if necessary. Previous Names who have bent the knee can be produced to testify to the merits of accepting the carrot rather than risking the stick. Perhaps she will not see reason, but this Rival is no abject monster drenched in innocent blood. At the very least, you owe it to the people of the Circumscribed Regions to try, even if your position will be weaker should this gambit fail.
*The right thing to do under most moral frameworks, potentially saving countless lives.
*Could defuse a dangerous enemy before she scales to truly threatening heights.
*Could also backfire horribly, and has in the past.
*In the Curse's hands, an olive branch can easily be repurposed into a weapon.
[ ] Number - One more soul to the call. More often than not pursuing diplomacy only plays into the Curse's hands, and this latest nuisance has already slain operatives of the Tower. So be it; she has chosen death, knowingly or not. Having located a Rival partway through the process of empowerment, it would be purest folly to relinquish the initiative. With mitigation limiting the tactically relevant information the Curse can convey, seize the advantage of surprise and strike with overwhelming force, sweeping aside the palace defenses like a sandcastle before the returning tide. Mighty as the Curse's protection is, greater still are the magics at your command, for every Rival thus dispatched and consigned to the dustbin of history fuels the Rite of the Tower Triumphant.
*You'll probably have to kill her a few times to make it stick before the Rite can consume her name.
*Maybe try to shatter her mind and spirit, that sounds like a good start.
*Higher chance of success by default, but the most reliable tactics also guarantee collateral damage.
*Is it pragmatism or just callousness, to discard the possibility of compromise out of hand?
Who do you wish to play as? The following options both grant enormous influence over the Tower's resources and goals, but have differing strengths. You don't have to implement the strategy chosen above personally, so there's no particular anti-synergy in choosing Name alongside Keeper, you'd simply have less granular control over negotiations.
[ ] Keeper - The debt of Slumber has been paid, and the lich awakens once more. As the bearer of no less than nine Curses, his freedom of action is significantly constrained. Nevertheless, the sheer power of this option is utterly unparalleled. Consider the synergy of a hundred magics mastered and bound together to form the indivisible fist of the archmage's might. From the Foundational Arts of Elementalism, Alchemy, and Astral Magic to the Logos of the Diagram and the Ordinal Spiral's mutual exclusivity, there is no system impenetrable to Vesperikles' insight. His is the power that brought the Astral and Voyaging Realms to heel, an array of capabilities too versatile for any single blurb: world-withering swathes of Mordant Fire, the Sacrament of Wood and Water which ends scarcity when cast, and unique spells like All the Stars in the Sky...
*That's a lot of Curses.
*Even mitigated, Phoenix/Seer/Pedant effectively limit Per's social circle to the Apprentices.
*But that's also a lot of magic, the build votes will surely be great and terrible!
*The Keeper's the final word when it comes to policy, his authority can supersede all other considerations.
[ ] Voice - Diminish, go into the West, and remain Raya. With a social suite that makes Imperia look like an awkward child and the ability to form Oathsworn compacts, she is the velvet glove and mailed fist of the Tower's policy. But the Emissary in Emerald is no mere diplomat; as the eldest surviving Apprentice, her power is vast beyond mortal reckoning. She is a Nameless-plus tier practitioner of Chrysopoeia and has active Astral Rank, Pressure compounding her archmastery of the Dominion Form to allow for ontological terraforming, writing the Tower's supremacy into natural law. Well-versed in myriad magics, Raya is also the inventor and unquestioned master of the Atramental Fist, a void-aspected martial art, but her most potent resource remains the Keeper's unconditional trust. Take care that you do not become another of Per's regrets.
*Phenomenal cosmic power and no Curses.
*The vast majority of obstacles will fall to their knees at Raya's slightest exertion, their agency overwritten.
*The remainder can be dispatched in sick kung fu fights of stellar scale. Haven't you ever wanted to KO a constellation?
*With great power comes great responsibility, including the responsibility not to punch the lights out of your peers.
Hello, questers. It's your friendly neighborhood Curse of the Rival! I hear you like self-sabotage and opposing Tyrants, so boy do I have a bargain for you! Instead of limiting yourselves to the perspective of that tedious ivory Tower cabal, why not shake up the established order of things? Monsters should not sit long unchallenged upon their thrones. It's said that Royalty is a continuous cutting motion, so let iron sharpen iron and become...
[ ] Luciana Ira (Hard Mode) - Young and full of potential, propelled by the bright nova of genius (with a little help from yours truly), this heroine's determined to save her civilization! Dear, sweet Lucy's got a bit of a temper, sure, but as a princess her hearts are in the right places. Better than that nasty lich and his squad of sycophants, who hoard countless treasures and magics, the surrounding realms little more than ablative armor for the chosen few. Miss Ira may be (relatively) weak for now, but once she integrates the Hereditary Sin of the other six bloodlines and attains Perfected Luminosity, we'll be off to the races! With a certain humble Curse in your corner, you'll have no end of opportunities. Power beyond measure could be yours, strength to save or subdue with a whim. But first, Vesperikles must die.
*Who doesn't love an underdog?
*Killing Names accelerates Luciana's already-ridiculous growth, giving her an advance on the promised power.
*If you ever truly come to terms with Tower, you'll lose the Curse's support, though deception is of course acceptable.
*If chosen, this obviates the first decision point. The Tower will pursue whatever policy it thinks best.
5965 words. This has been percolating a while, but took longer to write than anticipated. I hope you guys enjoy it! Tactics and conspiracy theories are equally welcome.
Voice of the Tower
I pledge my loyalty to the Tower;
To live as a stone in its foundation,
And serve its Keeper with all my power,
Shall be my undying aspiration.
In its shadow I shall flourish eternal,
In day's waning my wisdom will grow,
And if my word should prove false,
Then may my bones burn forever.
- The Apprentice's Vow, taken on initiation into the Nocturnal School of Magi
The first fingers of sunlight had begun to steal over the horizon when the reconnaissance force finally tore free of the Circumscribed Regions. No spectacle or sonic boom marked their return to the Voyaging. One moment the sky was empty; the next a squadron of magi floated there, armored in robes of deep purple and blue, all the colors of evening represented. Raya hovered at their head, resplendent in emerald, her thoughts lingering on those who had not returned.
Time enough for that later, with the last leg of the journey still ahead of her. In another instant they were gone, cloaked by sheer speed as much as invisibility. The company blurred west, into the night and toward the Realm's heart, nocturnal specters fleeing morning's approach.
Raya's sensorium passively drank in the details of the worlds below. Collectively, the various territories and protectorates registered as a patchwork quilt of prosperity. A theocracy here, a congressional republic there, nations human and alien alike all in service to the same shadowy sovereign. The whole of the Voyaging Realm paid homage to the Tower through one proxy or another. Much of it was her work, and at another time she might have permitted herself a glimmer of pride.
She pulsed the Dominion Form in a gentle reminder of protocol instead. Some of the scouts were boys of a mere century, this excursion their first with true stakes. They rushed to obey, dispellation scouring away any magical trace of their passage. Elementalists adjusted air currents to erase their aerial footprint. Hidden ward-skeins yielded to her authority as an Apprentice and before long the violet of the reformatted Outer Halo loomed on the horizon.
Another pulse called a halt. With a mental turn of the keysilver interwoven with her marrow, the portal opened. Reality buckled inward, a concavity dilating into an archway inscribed with runes.
Paradise awaited on the far side. They passed through, alighting on a tree-lined boulevard with interlocked boughs forming a canopy overhead. The evening breeze carried a hint of laughter; an Azoth fountain burbled in the distance. It emanated an aura of tranquility, despite being broad enough for armies to be mustered on it. She turned to hers.
"Report to the Bureau of External Affairs for debriefing and mnemonic archiving. The fallen must not be forgotten." Relaxing her expression, Raya favored the soldiers with a smile as calculated as it was beatific. "Besides, the celebrations are scheduled to begin soon. Rolling out the red carpet for returning troops is something of a tradition! You've done well, and service to the Tower is always rewarded. Dismissed."
Raya listened to the chorus of acknowledgments, first in foresight and again in actuality, inwardly sighing at the rapture evident in some of them. Even after months abroad working under her, a few still had difficulty separating her from the myths. They dispersed, compelled by varying ratios of duty to desire.
She continued down the bower path, pausing to accept a peach of immortality offered by a prehensile branch. Perfectly ripe, sweetness paired with the invigorating chill of anagathic energy. She handed the pit back and walked on, until the shade parted to reveal the Tower itself.
Its outer face was alchemically perfected adamant, a miles-wide bulwark dwarfed by the immensity within that nevertheless erased the stars from a vast swathe of the horizon, the curvature of its girth imperceptible to a mortal eye. The heaven-piercing spire's ever-ascending summit was lost in the gloaming darkness far above, but auroras were pooled around its ankles like a long dress. The silhouettes of Astral magi were visible in the air and on garden-encrusted balconies, drinking deep of the bounty that illuminated the sprawling Isle at the Tower's base. An endless profusion of artfully arranged villas and forums sloped delicately down to the infinite fractal coastline, where children played with precious stones in the surf.
The Tower at dusk was worthy of every ode that had failed to capture its wonder. She extended her sensorium into it and felt full awareness of the Isle blossom in her mind's eye with the satisfaction of slipping her hand into an old, well-worn glove. The spells threaded throughout the Tower's bulk thrummed as if to say, Welcome home, Raya Ashmedai. Something deep inside her unclenched in response.
One more ritual to attend to, before she made her report. She appeared before the frozen statue of a man fallen to one knee, sword raised in desperate defiance. #8, a plaque on the plinth read, Rivalry Beyond Reason.
Raya remembered the pressure of his presence. Like a living daybreak, the long-delayed dawn come at last to their twilit sanctum, brushing aside Astral workings like so many cobwebs. That terrible swift sword cutting down one comrade after another, her seniors' lifeblood spent to delay his deadly advance. That had been before the Spiral, before the Vindicators, before the first of their victories against death.
Before she'd learned not to invest so much of herself in others.
So many befores. Sometimes it seemed her life was demarcated and defined by them. She'd protested the placement of this monument, thought it an insult to those that had died, to Helen, Isaiah, and all the others. Their tombs were within the Tower, cavernous mausoleums filled with memorials and holographic hagiographies. The plaza at the center of the approach was reserved for the enemy.
Per had thought it an important reminder, one that deserved a place of prominence. "I chose my Voice well," he'd said with a sad smile, "Your arguments are compelling. Yet if I can prevent even one further loss with this? It'll be worth it. This safe harbor we're building will inevitably render its residents complacent. But in the end, only strength brings security, and recent events prove we remain lamentably weak. Thus, a reminder not to rest on our laurels. We are never completely safe, not even here in this... splendid realm of evening's kiss."
So now she paused, out of respect for his wishes and their memories, and attempted to extract posthumous utility from their murderer. There were only a handful of other visitors. Eight's Effigy was a somber place, made so in part by magics she had put in place, far removed from the dimensions of delight found elsewhere. Raya did not wish them to see her, so they did not.
The allotted minute passed. With a thought, she was gone. To linger further would be complacent.
---
She stepped back into existence outside the doors of the Lower Throne, nodding recognition to the servitor spirits that abased themselves at her approach. The massive slabs of marble swung wide with a sepulchral boom. Fitting for its occupant, for at the end of the hall sat a corpse enthroned.
The flesh had been flensed away, leaving behind bones transmuted to mythril bedecked in dark robes. The skeleton was stained by smoke from some inner fire, the blackened rictus grin beneath hollow sockets offset only by the inlaid silver of the Master Key, which in days predating even her Apprenticeship had opened the Tower's doors for the first time. The Plenary Brand's trumpet blast of dread and awe washed over her, proclaiming that this was the Keeper of the Tower, the lich-lord who had taken the name Vesperikles, who bore nine Curses. Ringbearer, Realm-conquerer, before whose upraised staff Sovereigns of the Astral quailed in terror.
She withstood it with the ease of long practice and began attending to the administrative minutiae that'd piled up in her absence. The Tower's enchantments funneled reams of information into the Examine Form, where she catalogued concerns. An Augury track was spun up for each individual issue, meticulously researching them in counterfactual timelines: observatory rights, approval for the latest vampiric retrovirals, a feud between competing research groups sponsored by Chronicler and Sword...
Trivial, except for the last. A wave of Dominion carried her conclusions to the intended recipients. She turned to her right, where starlight would start taking human shape.
The image of the man that coalesced into being was fiercely handsome. Tall, the characteristic pallor of the Tower's citizens paired with blond hair and blue eyes. The golden third in his forehead was closed, sparing them the clash of foresight.
"Voice," he greeted her flatly.
His third ancillary battle-consciousness, judging from spiritual micro-expressions. No other member of their coterie had received so apt a title; to the Sword, all interaction was war, an eternal struggle against the world to shape and not be shaped by it in turn. Naturally he hated her, a feeling Raya intermittently reciprocated.
"Sword," she replied genially, inflecting it like his birth name.
"Seems you've located the next Rival. Located, but not eliminated."
"Peering into the archives already?" She raised an eyebrow. "Protocol mandates we make the choice together, unless you'd rather I unilaterally dictate policy. But you're not actually disappointed, not when you might have the opportunity to put someone to the First Sword."
He snorted. "True, any opportunity to overtake your kill-count's to be treasured. But we can bicker later, he'll wake shortly."
The others began to appear as well. Automata and more Astral projections, Legion clones and familiars, some descending in flesh from their laboratories or pleasure gardens higher in the Tower. Vanguard, Chronicler, Shield, Investigator... gradually all the Apprentices gathered, a baker's dozen demigods arrayed before their Slumbering teacher.
With a rattling sigh, the lich woke. Twin violet flames blazed to life in the empty sockets.
"Good evening," Raya said with more genuine good humor. "Sleep well?"
"I had protracted and thoroughly useless dreams," Per replied. "So yes, all things considered. Your successful return's a sight for my sore and nonexistent eyes, but also heralds an end to our respite. It's as we suspected?"
"Yes, our latest challenge is incubating inside the Circumscribed Regions," Chronicler chimed in. "However! Analysis of the area's ontological gravity indicates it's possibly the domain of a greater entity. Mythopoeic tendencies in the residents corroborate this, trending toward the eldritch. I'll have more once I finish profiling the archived mind-states."
The lich cradled his jawbone pensively, metal clacking against metal. "One slumbering monster pitted against another, hm? Amusing... and concerning. What of the new candidates?"
"Seven thousand forty-five that exceeded the Ahamkara Threshold and met our immigration criteria who accepted. Another eighteen inconclusive outliers," Raya said.
Sword's projection didn't waver, but his ego gradient shifted. Raya's mental model supplied the unspoken words: No mention of any declining. But it's not like any choice can be considered freely made when conversing with that woman. Whatever freedom they had ended when they were promoted to her attention.
Such were the conceits that led the Sword to count both Names and Numbers in her favor. Ten incursions she had broken with words; another six had ended at her hands. A rivalry over Rivals. Could there be anything more asinine? But he was young, for all his power, and mistakenly conflated threats to his life with true desperation.
Per nodded. "Send in the first."
The Lower Throne's doors parted to admit a gangly girl barely past eighteen, desperately clinging to her composure. Her eyes roved from one titan to another before finding Per. Then the Plenary Brand struck the breath from her lungs, set her heart to beating like a rabbit's. Pupils dilated as adrenaline flooded her system, synapses fired frantically. Her body would've betrayed her thoughts in a thousand ways even if she hadn't been rendered abject before Raya's Examination.
The Voice of the Tower looked at the secret fears and dreams that were written on the girl, and wondered that she'd ever been so frail and flagrant a creature. There had been no throne room for her. Just a man with tired eyes leaning on his staff, who'd extended his hand to another starving slip of a girl. Per had lifted her up out of the muck and given her the stars. And now, she was the only one left who remembered his human face. What images existed had been burned away by the Brand of the Phoenix.
"Welcome to the Tower, Noelle Durante," he said. "These days I'm called Vesperikles, or the Keeper if you're feeling formal. Apologies if the dimensional storage caused you any undue discomfort, but I was wondering if you might do me a favor."
Predictably, there was bravado. "The fuck do you need my help for?"
The skull seemed to grin. "That has proven to be the trouble with this method. Nevertheless, assume that the following statement is true: I rarely leave my home, so I rely on others for news of worlds beyond the Tower's walls. Stories from new and interesting places are particularly valuable to me, and I'd like to hear a few from you. Could you do that? Offer me information freely, with no expectation of repayment?"
"I... sure. So, uh, I was born on Petronella? Rockhopper colony, part of an asteroid belt at the ass-end of the Regnancy. Don't remember much of that, 'cause my parents sold me for seedlings when I was like five, but-"
"No need for more. You've passed, grammatically incorrect abbreviation aside. You're not attached to your previous polity. How would you like to live here instead? Plenty of perks: immortality, magic, that sort of thing."
She squinted, torn between greed and suspicion. "Can I think about it?"
"A sensible response! Take a week to get to know the place; though there's no day here, you'll find you have an intuitive sense for the passage of time." Noelle vanished with a twitch of a beringed finger.
In came a man in his early twenties, who refused to part with knowledge except in exchange for the same. The violet light flared fractionally brighter and he collapsed gently to the floor, a puppet with severed strings.
"Wipe and return him with the next expedition. His family should be healed as well. That the son was unsuitable is no reason for the father to die. Next."
So it went. Men and women of every age, from farmhands to aristocrats. Fifteen of the potentials proved impervious to the Champion's Brand, a requirement for any long-term resident of the Tower. Hereditary immunity had been a coup of third-stage mitigation, the feat that marked the transition from a cabal to a true magocracy.
By the end, Per's mood had improved. He enjoyed this, the ritual and pageantry of bringing newcomers before the Lower Throne, the opportunity to indulge in charity. It was why they were convened here rather than on the upper floors where concentated magic would shatter mortal minds and bodies.
It was an inefficient use of his waking hours, but he'd regret it when Augury and scrying ironed out the final kinks and candidates could be located with perfect accuracy. It was one of what he'd dubbed their Perennial arguments. The Keeper was an individual of superficial rationality; ruthless indifference could give way to tempests of sentiment, bulwarks of argumentation raised in one moment to justify the impulse of the last. Her duty was to protect him, even from himself.
That she'd been one such impulse made it harder to argue against them.
The last candidate was deposited in the guest quarters to wallow in unimaginable luxury. Per clapped skeletal hands, Mordant Fire burning merrily in orbital cavities. "To business, then. Raya, if you would?"
"Of course. Three sidereal months ago, I assumed command of the Fifth Expeditionary Force to conduct a survey of the Circumscribed Regions." Dominion broadcast the starmap to her peers, but she conjured a hologram of an elliptical galaxy anyway, an assortment of stars and dimensional rifts draped like a necklace of pearls about a central quasar.
"The gist is that the Sognaric Regnancy claims sovereignty over the entire thing. The reality's naturally more complicated. A vanishingly small percentage of worlds are actually inhabited, and many of those sparsely, with entire systems left fallow. Postcognition's fuzzy further than several thousand years back, but pirated archaeological surveys confirm a mass die-off somewhere in the mists of their history. The Regnancy's ruled by House Ira, who maintain tenuous control over the whole mess through a combination of military force and their monopoly on the ability to make worlds habitable. Unauthorized settlement leads inexorably to madness or death; see the archives for my Examination of the process, though mind the infohazard.
"Also naturally, the Ira have a bastard problem, and not just an internal one. Redacted records reveal the existence of other bloodlines, with the current dynasty the result of a coup and some questionably-complete purges. Digging deeper, it turns out that Crown Princess Luciana's not only a prodigy of unprecedented purity, she's become convinced that the Regnancy's facing another extinction event. One that can only be averted if she slays some mysterious foe. Divination and logic led us to the palace-system of Peccant, which proved resistant to even my Augury. A squad of thanatonauts volunteered for infiltration."
The celestial panorama was replaced with a cavernous room sized to fit skyscrapers comfortably. Cables snaked across the floor between the feet of courtiers to a giant of a man slumped before a feast. His chest rose and fell with slow breaths, and the walls throbbed in time. Other images flickered past: oceans of acid, velvet sighs and flesh moving against flesh, a starship built of bones. Then there was blinding light and a face that could've been carved from marble, statuesque features thrown into sharp relief. The thunder of evocation, flashes as defensive sigils were invoked. Desperate retreats through corridors that came alive to swallow the invaders. One perspective after another went dead.
Then static, followed by silence. There was nothing whimsical about the fire in Per's eyes now.
"Their phylacteries were destroyed beyond the reach of Vindication, but their sacrifice yielded valuable intelligence," Raya concluded, focusing on an image of the woman. "I give you the Curse of the Rival's most recent pawn: Luciana Ira."
"Viability of intervention?" the Keeper asked.
"We caught this one early, leaving us with the luxury of choice. Not a threat on an individual scale yet, though her position's troublesome."
"Same's true of the Regions in general, I'd say," the Investigator spoke up. "That ontological gravity well, making it harder to exit than enter? Place reeks of a trap. Name too: Regnancy's not far from Regency. We know who the sleeper is?"
"The father," Chronicler replied, surfacing briefly from her integration trance. "His Imperial Majesty Vincente Ira, author of the aforementioned coup. Only occasionally cogent, if the rumors are true."
"Interesting trivia, but not the sleeper I was referring to. Sognare means 'to dream' in an old Terran language. Said it yourself, there's a greater entity in play. Look here," he said, calling up an analysis of the Regions' borders. "These readings are closer to an Armament's Shroud than our Outer Halo. Warped and continuously deployed, but there are commonalities. Simple geometry says the culprit's at the center. And hey, this quasar's radio-loud. Wonder if it's saying anything?" One corner of his clone's mouth quirked upward.
Per sighed. "A way will inevitably present itself for Ira to harness that power. She'll need that and more, to match me."
"We should strike soon before this one starts scaling in truth. Bring enough force to bear from enough angles and even the Curse can't protect her." That was the Sword, unsurprisingly.
"She wants the promised power to save her civilization," said the Shield. "I think the case can be made for Namehood. We have solid leads about the cataclysm they're supposedly facing already. Address that, and there's no reason for conflict."
The Investigator shrugged. "She will find reasons. If none exist, she'll invent them. Humans excel in this area, and she's close enough to one. "
Sometimes Raya regretted peering into the mind behind Aloysius' mild and patient eyes.
"Ira does appear to be another chip off the old utilitarian block," Per mused. "The Curse's heuristics rarely select those who can be dissuaded. Just enough to distort our policy, providing problems it's potentially within our power to solve. But I elected Rivalry, not Martyrdom. In any case, let's take a preliminary poll. Life or death? Name or Number?"
"Number," spoke the Sword, as was his habit.
"Name," answered the Shield, who valued life above all else, and then the battle lines were drawn.
She and Per abstained, and in the end it was tied six to six, just as Raya had anticipated.
"Enough." The Keeper gestured, cutting off the debate. "We'll reconvene later. For now, announce that we've located a Rival and make your own preparations. I'll adjust the acceleration factor. Put the wardens on alert, draft additional Astral levies, ration aurora access. A taste of austerity will do our citizens good, help unite them against an external threat."
The others teleported away or dispelled themselves, leaving the two of them alone in the hall. Mordant torches replaced the holographic display, though neither needed the light. More evidence of his inexplicable fondness for the Diagram.
"You wanted to speak with me?" Raya prompted him.
"Hah," he exhaled. "You'd think my resting lich face would be an impediment to your insight, but no."
"That's the hundred and fifty-third time you've made that joke... this century," she deadpanned.
"What a callous betrayal of your teacher! It took millennia, but I've finally met the fate of mentors everywhere. Anyway, there's enough ambient immortality here that my humor ought to be undying too."
Neither face nor spirit wavered, but Raya recalled the true traitors, who in their words had refused to accept a society structured around one man's Curses, calling Vesperikles a serpent at the Tower's heart. For those perfidious fucking ingrates, there were no memorials. The words of the Vow had been chosen well.
"Speaking of immortality," she said, "you've settled on a form for the next cycle?"
"A Form, yes. Wyrd's a staple of the rotation at this point. I think I'm close to a breakthrough, the ability to transpose its protection onto others."
Per stood and stretched, rotating his head three hundred and sixty degrees with a mechanical clicking sound. "Ah, that's better. Honestly, it shouldn't be possible, but the Afflictions are collaborating to give me cramps."
"Far be it from me to criticize Curse mitigation. Even if you do look like a metallic owl."
"I can take such drastic measures because I'm confident my trusted Apprentice wouldn't use the embarrassment against me." The Keeper's Staff appeared in his hand. Per leaned on it experimentally. "Let's take a walk. It is, after all, a good evening for it."
A moment later they were on the beach. Black sand speckled with emeralds. Her colors, likely created for this purpose. The Tower's silhouette blanketed the entire expanse, casting sand and sea into shadow. Per gestured, rotating it to darken a different part of the Isle's infinite coast. This portion was entirely empty, not a soul in sight, which suited them both. Despite being their technical ruler, few residents knew the Keeper as anything more than a shadowy figure rumored to stand above even the Nocturnal Council. His primacy in their minds was another casualty of the Brand of the Phoenix, an ironic reflection of the Tower's relationship to its tributary worlds.
Raya watched the celebrations from afar as they walked in comfortable silence. Finally, he broke the news. "I've attained a fourteenth Apprenticeship slot."
Which would change everything, adjust the balance of power in the Council and trigger a frenzied, Isle-wide academic competition as every aspirant with a glimmer of ambition competed to earn the ultimate prize: peerage. Per knew as much. Raya chose not to belabor the obvious.
"I've always wondered about the parallels. Whether it was an intentional choice on your part, from the very beginning when you received the Accursed's offer. To counteract the scaling threat of Rivalry by securing scaling support of your own. A Rival fails, the Curse replaces them. An Apprentice falls, and the slot survives."
"Is that what you...?" There was shock and hurt in his words. "I don't deny it. Can't and wouldn't, not to you. That was the glib, idiotic logic behind the decision, blind to the implications. But the boy who set out on this path died the instant he donned the Ring, the first of ten-thousand transformations to become who and what I am today. You're not just my Voice, Raya, you're my friend. Perhaps the only one I have left in this prison of incentives I've crafted for myself. And my friends are not replaceable. Know this: if you fall, I will come for you. No matter when, no matter where. Even if your soul languishes on the far side of hell's gates, I will batter them down. That is my promise to you."
The mercurial shell on Per's finger flowed aside to reveal an inset amethyst. Then it was no longer a band of mere metal but the Ring Gnosis, whose color was Violet, and whose Chief Dominion was Desire. The Jewel of All Desiring blazed like a star fallen to earth, and its light was true wisdom which laid all hearts that it touched bare.
Faintly but sincerely, she smiled. It wasn't such a bad thing, when the wind of sentiment blew in her direction. Even a heart as hardened as hers could be touched by such gestures.
"We'll get them all back," he said solemnly. "One day, we'll reclaim everything that time and tide have taken from us."
"I suppose the matter's not up for debate?" Raya replied. "In retrospect, I could do without some of Helen's jokes."
"Absolutely not," he laughed. "What kind of Tyrant would I be if I respected my best friend's wishes?"
And at that, she had to laugh as well.
The tide receded at Per's command. Lich and lady meandered for a time through the sunken detritus of microrealms that had been subsumed into the Isle. They talked equally of fallen friends and the future and inconsequential things, until in the ruins of a many-pillared city that remained nameless by the grace of Raya's forbearance Per looked up at the stars he'd set in the sky and proclaimed:
"Let there be night."
Darkness descended on the Tower Isle like a curtain, leaving only the aurora borealis to illuminate the paradise they'd done their best to create. But that light was dimmed as well, for the Astral magi were preparing for war.
---
Do not underestimate the Curse of the Rival, which swiftly elevates its chosen to the heights of the Tower's Keeper. Tempting as it is to succumb to hubris and grow drunk on past victories, each champion so empowered is nothing less than a clear and present danger. Not just to the Tower and the billions who shelter in its shadow, but also the worlds that pay homage to it. What strategy will you pursue in their defense?
[ ] Name - Observe the proper procedures. Establish diplomatic relations with the Wrathful Princess and offer aid in return for a perpetual cessation of hostilities, sealed in triplicate by the Oathsworn Form and verified by other magics. Prioritize research into addressing the existential threat she faces and prepare to evacuate the Regions entirely, if necessary. Previous Names who have bent the knee can be produced to testify to the merits of accepting the carrot rather than risking the stick. Perhaps she will not see reason, but this Rival is no abject monster drenched in innocent blood. At the very least, you owe it to the people of the Circumscribed Regions to try, even if your position will be weaker should this gambit fail.
*The right thing to do under most moral frameworks, potentially saving countless lives.
*Could defuse a dangerous enemy before she scales to truly threatening heights.
*Could also backfire horribly, and has in the past.
*In the Curse's hands, an olive branch can easily be repurposed into a weapon.
[ ] Number - One more soul to the call. More often than not pursuing diplomacy only plays into the Curse's hands, and this latest nuisance has already slain operatives of the Tower. So be it; she has chosen death, knowingly or not. Having located a Rival partway through the process of empowerment, it would be purest folly to relinquish the initiative. With mitigation limiting the tactically relevant information the Curse can convey, seize the advantage of surprise and strike with overwhelming force, sweeping aside the palace defenses like a sandcastle before the returning tide. Mighty as the Curse's protection is, greater still are the magics at your command, for every Rival thus dispatched and consigned to the dustbin of history fuels the Rite of the Tower Triumphant.
*You'll probably have to kill her a few times to make it stick before the Rite can consume her name.
*Maybe try to shatter her mind and spirit, that sounds like a good start.
*Higher chance of success by default, but the most reliable tactics also guarantee collateral damage.
*Is it pragmatism or just callousness, to discard the possibility of compromise out of hand?
Who do you wish to play as? The following options both grant enormous influence over the Tower's resources and goals, but have differing strengths. You don't have to implement the strategy chosen above personally, so there's no particular anti-synergy in choosing Name alongside Keeper, you'd simply have less granular control over negotiations.
[ ] Keeper - The debt of Slumber has been paid, and the lich awakens once more. As the bearer of no less than nine Curses, his freedom of action is significantly constrained. Nevertheless, the sheer power of this option is utterly unparalleled. Consider the synergy of a hundred magics mastered and bound together to form the indivisible fist of the archmage's might. From the Foundational Arts of Elementalism, Alchemy, and Astral Magic to the Logos of the Diagram and the Ordinal Spiral's mutual exclusivity, there is no system impenetrable to Vesperikles' insight. His is the power that brought the Astral and Voyaging Realms to heel, an array of capabilities too versatile for any single blurb: world-withering swathes of Mordant Fire, the Sacrament of Wood and Water which ends scarcity when cast, and unique spells like All the Stars in the Sky...
*That's a lot of Curses.
*Even mitigated, Phoenix/Seer/Pedant effectively limit Per's social circle to the Apprentices.
*But that's also a lot of magic, the build votes will surely be great and terrible!
*The Keeper's the final word when it comes to policy, his authority can supersede all other considerations.
[ ] Voice - Diminish, go into the West, and remain Raya. With a social suite that makes Imperia look like an awkward child and the ability to form Oathsworn compacts, she is the velvet glove and mailed fist of the Tower's policy. But the Emissary in Emerald is no mere diplomat; as the eldest surviving Apprentice, her power is vast beyond mortal reckoning. She is a Nameless-plus tier practitioner of Chrysopoeia and has active Astral Rank, Pressure compounding her archmastery of the Dominion Form to allow for ontological terraforming, writing the Tower's supremacy into natural law. Well-versed in myriad magics, Raya is also the inventor and unquestioned master of the Atramental Fist, a void-aspected martial art, but her most potent resource remains the Keeper's unconditional trust. Take care that you do not become another of Per's regrets.
*Phenomenal cosmic power and no Curses.
*The vast majority of obstacles will fall to their knees at Raya's slightest exertion, their agency overwritten.
*The remainder can be dispatched in sick kung fu fights of stellar scale. Haven't you ever wanted to KO a constellation?
*With great power comes great responsibility, including the responsibility not to punch the lights out of your peers.
Vesperikles' Forms:
Shield
Conjure
Elements (Metal)
Elements (Earth)
Elements (Water)
Elements (Wood)
Terrascape
1st Attainment: (Metamagic) By compounding mastery of nature through integration of other systems (primarily Elementalism), symbolic or metaphorical uses of the elements are enabled.
Elements (Fire)
Terrascape
Conjure
Wyrd
Terrascape
Wyrd
Terrascape
2nd Attainment: (Metamagic) Terrascape Specialist Forms also elevate the Elements Form.
15+ Alternating Terrascape & Wyrd
His Terrascape is the Tower Isle itself, the archetypal sorceror's sanctum; his magic is present in every stone and surrounding wave. Hyperspecialization of Conjure allows the Keeper to treat his realm as a 'pocket', ensuring lord and land are as one and that the Keeper retains full access to its myriad workings even when sortying beyond it.
Raya's (non-kung fu) Forms:
Shield
Conjure
Examine
Dominion
Augur
Examine
Dominion
1st Attainment: (Social) Knowledge gained through Examination or Augury increases the effectiveness of Dominion.
Oathsworn
Augur
Examine
Dominion
Oathsworn
Augur
Examine
2nd Attainment: (Metamagic) Oathsworn pacts increase rather than depleting one's well of Ordinal power.
15+ Rotating Examine/Dominion/Augur
Shield
Conjure
Elements (Metal)
Elements (Earth)
Elements (Water)
Elements (Wood)
Terrascape
1st Attainment: (Metamagic) By compounding mastery of nature through integration of other systems (primarily Elementalism), symbolic or metaphorical uses of the elements are enabled.
Elements (Fire)
Terrascape
Conjure
Wyrd
Terrascape
Wyrd
Terrascape
2nd Attainment: (Metamagic) Terrascape Specialist Forms also elevate the Elements Form.
15+ Alternating Terrascape & Wyrd
His Terrascape is the Tower Isle itself, the archetypal sorceror's sanctum; his magic is present in every stone and surrounding wave. Hyperspecialization of Conjure allows the Keeper to treat his realm as a 'pocket', ensuring lord and land are as one and that the Keeper retains full access to its myriad workings even when sortying beyond it.
Raya's (non-kung fu) Forms:
Shield
Conjure
Examine
Dominion
Augur
Examine
Dominion
1st Attainment: (Social) Knowledge gained through Examination or Augury increases the effectiveness of Dominion.
Oathsworn
Augur
Examine
Dominion
Oathsworn
Augur
Examine
2nd Attainment: (Metamagic) Oathsworn pacts increase rather than depleting one's well of Ordinal power.
15+ Rotating Examine/Dominion/Augur
Doom of the Tyrant, Pedant's Doom, Plenary Brand, Brand of the Champion, Brand of the Phoenix, Brand of the Seer, Affliction of Slumber, the Mortal Affliction, and the Curse of the Rival. Since the last follows the 'Curse of X' naming scheme rather than being a Brand/Doom/Geas/Affliction I'm modeling it as a Crowning Curse, similar to Apocryphal & Hubris. No extra points were granted, though you could consider it a diegetic justification for the +1 from Chronicler's Reward. Speaking of which, here's a word from our sponsors!
[ ] Luciana Ira (Hard Mode) - Young and full of potential, propelled by the bright nova of genius (with a little help from yours truly), this heroine's determined to save her civilization! Dear, sweet Lucy's got a bit of a temper, sure, but as a princess her hearts are in the right places. Better than that nasty lich and his squad of sycophants, who hoard countless treasures and magics, the surrounding realms little more than ablative armor for the chosen few. Miss Ira may be (relatively) weak for now, but once she integrates the Hereditary Sin of the other six bloodlines and attains Perfected Luminosity, we'll be off to the races! With a certain humble Curse in your corner, you'll have no end of opportunities. Power beyond measure could be yours, strength to save or subdue with a whim. But first, Vesperikles must die.
*Who doesn't love an underdog?
*Killing Names accelerates Luciana's already-ridiculous growth, giving her an advance on the promised power.
*If you ever truly come to terms with Tower, you'll lose the Curse's support, though deception is of course acceptable.
*If chosen, this obviates the first decision point. The Tower will pursue whatever policy it thinks best.
5965 words. This has been percolating a while, but took longer to write than anticipated. I hope you guys enjoy it! Tactics and conspiracy theories are equally welcome.
"Consider the implications" is a bad omen up there with "Are you sure?"