A young girl finds the opportunity to wrest control of her fate from a world that would dictate a mundane future. But Fate is not fickle. There is a cost to venturing from the well worn path.
Can she survive a journey from naive youth to adult? And what compromises must be made, principles left behind along the way.
Lilly Silas is an illiterate peasant girl who has spent her whole life in the isolated community of Harmuph. When circumstances conspire to suddenly thrust her into a life of intrigue and spiraling dangers, she will have to fight with all she has, no certain victory in sight.
While Lilly worries over the safety of her family and if she has what it takes to hold onto what's dear, events are rapidly escalating beyond confinement elsewhere in the world.
Humanity needs a Hero, but when the hour of need comes, will Lilly be ready? Will she even want to help?
Hello reader. Your goal is to help a young 12 year old girl, Lilly, survive to the age of 18. The world she lives in is vast and mysterious, almost entirely unknown to her outside her small village. We find Lilly at a critical juncture in her life where she must make a choice that will send shockwaves through all possible futures that lie ahead of her. Still, sometime between now and her 16th birthday, the world itself will go through a tremendous change. Depending on how the dice fall, that could be far off or very soon indeed. Your secondary goal is to resolve the issue that will make surviving to 18 difficult in the first place, I fully expect you to fail this. If you can somehow do the impossible and give Lilly a fulfilling life along the way, props to you.
1.1: Beginnings
The forest is your favourite place.
In the day it is warm in the clearings and cool under the canopies. If you could you would wander for days just watching and feeling everything and nothing in particular. There is life here everywhere around you that you've always felt somewhat connected to. Trees do not have tasks they must perform. Bushes do not have roles they are expected to fulfill. They simply grow up toward the sun that gives them warmth and down toward the water that feeds their roots. A Tree spends its whole life moving freely toward its desires.
It is certainly more free than you.
The moon is full tonight making it possible to navigate even through the thicker parts of the forest now that your eyes have adjusted. The darkness gives your surroundings a somewhat baleful atmosphere, but you like the sense of mild danger that causes your heart to pump harder. It is perhaps the closest to an adventure you will ever come, so you savour it tonight.
Tonight you will choose your Ethos; the destiny that you will cleave your future too. Your family wished to conduct the ceremony in father's workshop, around his tools and symbols of his trade. A pity that you hate working on dead timber. The fact that you have the beginnings prodigious skill at the art of woodwork makes it worse, for making something beautiful out of what was already beautiful before it was cut down seems an ironic mockery to you. You would not dishonour your father or family by sharing such thoughts. You do not want to be seen as a childish silly girl who is overly sentimental about trees. What's worse is that your father might convince you he is right if you actually told him, you don't want to entertain the possibility that you are wrong about something so close to your heart.
You have been a good daughter for so long and you take no small pride in the fact that you have been able to swallow your own ambitions of a bolder life and play the part of the dutiful firstborn all these years. But tonight, you could not stomach the idea of the most important decision of your life being made in the presence of symbols that represent bondage and a chained future to you. You wanted to spend it here, feeling the dew of leaves and the cool biting night wind that makes you shiver through you like clothes. Here you are constricted by nothing, free to move on all sides.
Everyone chooses an Ethos. The conduit through which the magic of the world and life shall have its say upon you. You choose once, only once, and that is that. Sure, an Ethos can grow, can change. But only by small degrees and in subtle directions.
Still, if being here offers you an Ethos that would go against your families wishes, will you accept it? You feel guilty thinking of your brothers who even now must be being rallied to begin the search. They'll think you a runaway by this hour, it was not a short walk here from the village. Perhaps it is best you take one of the Lesser Ethos that almost always come as an option, something that will bind your future to village. A simple and contented life, boring, but secure.
You are sitting now in a clearing, it looks very different to your memories from the daytime. You've never come anywhere near this deep during the night. Everything in quiet and still, wrapped slightly in pale dim light. It is honestly quite foolish of you to come here alone in the night, but you've had bigger things on your mind than any hypothetical danger.
You honestly don't know what you'll do. You hope there is only one choice, so you need not carry any guilt or regret for opportunities lost.
The sensation has begun building, you know on a instinctual level the time has come. As an act of final betrayal to your families wishes but loyalty to your own desires, you cast your thoughts to the life you dream of. A mighty warrior Queen from the stories, powerful and beautiful in equal measure. Loved and respected by men. Free to set her own course through life while still bringing honour to those who raised you. You hope these thoughts bend the Ethos that come to you in that direction.
You are not a fool. You do understand only those with powerful legacies and substantial power have any real chance at unlocking some legendary Ethos, but a girl can dream. Even if it is a false hope, it is a pleasant one.
It will be any momen-[crunch]
Blood pours from your mouth, ears and eyes. Pain worse than any you have ever felt or even thought to consider wracks your body as bones break and reform to then simply break again. Fingers bend backwards in the wrong direction. You float in the air before slamming back into the ground. Your eyes pop and regrow a number of times. You do not scream, for your lungs are already empty of air and perforated with holes. Something reaches into you from a place that is nowhere, gorges out a part of you that you didn't know was there and replaces it with something similar but different in a way you have no words to describe.
The pain is gone as quick as it came, you lay surrounded by your own gore, unharmed. Breathing hard, unable to form anything more than ragged hacking coughs to clear the last of the blood leftover in your lungs. Whatever just happened was not supposed to occur. What was supposed to happen is actually finishing as you speak, the buildup almost entirely unnoticed in comparison.
But you know something innate about yourself already. Something Impossible. Unlike anything you have ever heard in any story. This will not be the only Ethos you ever choose. You shall be able to hold more than one.
It is not possible. But it is the truth. Before you have any more time to process this complete upending of what you considered an immutable law of reality, it is time to choose not your only but your first Ethos.
- - - - - - - -
Namesake (Lesser):
On the day you were born, your mother declared your name to be Lilly for reasons neither of your parents have chosen to share with you in the years since. It was a bit of scandal, a woman insisting on the right to name her child, but your father was a gracious man and allowed it. Besides, your mother never pushed her luck with the naming of the brothers that followed you. To pursue one's own name as an Ethos grants incredible freedom, but often little actual direction or aid. There is perhaps some promise to choosing this given the mysterious origins of your own name, but it is more likely something quite boring you think.
Service to Man (Lesser):
A choice available to any young woman who has not betrayed the expectations of her culture. As an unmarried virgin of good standing within your community, the path of the maiden is available to you as it is to all other such female youths. You honestly can't think of anything worse than to live and die a housewife, living vicariously through the achievements of your children. Still, such a choice would be the perfect option to deliberately cause others to ignore you and look no deeper. Service to Man is the choice women with no better option take, allowing others to assume it was the best you could attain could do wonders for the goal of being left alone. Unless of course your father decides to marry you off immediately, that could cause all kinds of problems.
Nihilist Roots (Lesser):
On your more melancholy days, simply giving up on worrying about the challenges of life has seemed quite appealing. To simply become as air, uncaring and aloof to the concerns of life. It is an answer to your life in a manner of speaking, though you wonder if you could ever actually be happy simply accepting contentment in apathy and meaninglessness.
Dream within the Forest (Common):
You have spent many an hour daydreaming within the idealic clearings and shadowy underbrush surrounding your family home. The thought of this place fills you with warmth and calm, an inner strength and peace rising, flowing inward from your surroundings. You have always felt a special connection to this place, perhaps that can become more than an abstract truth.
Brave Blood (Common):
You have always dreamed of being a noble fighter, wading into lines of horrible unspeakable terrors and being utterly unmoved. A knight of legend. It is only a wish of the heart though, you lack any experience or ancestry in such a thing, leaving you with a tenuous connection at best to such an Ethos. In fact, as a girl of no repute it is a mystery why this is even a common level choice; Perhaps your deep yearning for adventure was enough to raise it from a Lesser Ethos.
Deviant Wanderer (Common):
You have played the part of the good daughter whilst guarding the true feelings of your heart and desires for the future carefully. Though it was never your deliberate intention, you are in fact a well practiced and expert liar. Capable of convincing even yourself that every lie is a necessity and burying any guilt that might expose you. To embrace a life of deception in many forms big and small would be a tremendous departure both from what direction you expected your life to take and from what you consider an honourable path. It would however give you immediate and potent tools to become a free roaming woman beholden to no-one. This is an extreme option, could you even really return home with such an Ethos? Could you break your parents heart by having them behold a daughter holding such an ignoble future?
Duty of Wood (Rare):
Your father is a carpenter. His parents also plied the trade. The line stretches back an unknown number of generations. This is the path you would be expected to take. Your relationship with your ancestral family trade is a cold and distant one, you possess little natural affinity on an emotional level. You are actually quite surprised the choice is even an option, perhaps your deep sense of familial duty and raw technical skill has allowed you to just barely pass the necessary muster. To counter-balance your hesitance, the legacy of family is a powerful source of Ethos itself. You are perhaps one of a handful of children within the village capable of gaining a Rare Ethos through their families' trade. While it would give you little personal satisfaction, it would likely be a comparatively potent and prosperous path to follow. You also would feel far less shame for running off alone on your return home in the morn.
Foṟ̴͍̇m Fr̵̠̂̓ạ̷̾cture (̶̩̲͒͂A̷̡͆pō̵͕t̵̨̃heoti̶̦͛c):
Whatever has granted you your unique nature to choose additional Ethos in time has also linked you to something otherworldly. It calls and stirs at the edges of your mind. It is magnitude personified, limitless in scope, inhuman in nature. To do anything other than resist any further incursion would likely turn you into something perhaps not even recognizable to friends, family or even yourself. Even considering the option seems to minutely erode part of your self-identity. Still, such power, if only you give it just a little more…
Time to Choose an Ethos:
This will have a huge impact on what Lilly does immediately afterward. You haven't had the time to shape her personality yet, but the Ethos you choose will immediately provide or sever opportunities and courses of action she will consider and take. She won't take any irreversible decision before your next vote, but she will definitely be pushed in certain directions. Ethos
[ ] Nakesake
[ ] Service to Man
[ ] Nihilist Roots
[ ] Dream within the Forest
[ ] Brave Blood
[ ] Deviant Wanderer [ ] Duty of Wood
[ ] Form Fracture
There were a lot of rolls for the quest setup, so perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that a few unlikely things happened by sheer weight of number of chances.
- Sneaking away rather than doing the ceremony with your family was a 50/50 flip but I'm happy you went with the choice that improved your following rolls of Ethos that grant more personal autonomy instead of collaborative synergy (by choosing your more individual motivation over your sense of familial pressure). It did significantly lower the probability of an Ethos unlock chance which you then didn't meet the roll for that was a direct continuation of your family trade (essentially Carpenter+).
- Almost all of the Ethos you rolled high enough to unlock this first time (and meet the requirements for) had a more economic or craftsman trend rather than combat, by sheer chance. Which is the opposite of what I was expecting, as going off by yourself lowered the chances of most of them and raised the chances of most of the ones you didn't get.
- Case in point, Duty of Wood was made less likely to pop by going off alone, but you still made the roll so it's an option.
- You narrowly made the roll for Lilly to be compatible enough to be fully healed from whatever just happened to you by rolling an 87 on a DC85.
- Even with the boost to personal autonomy, You still had a less than 10% chance of getting the Apotheotic tier 'Form Fracture' that hints at the eldritch forces behind some of the events that are going to occur as an option. So now Lilly (and you readers) is aware of the perhaps not quite benevolent benefactor behind things much sooner than I originally planned. Oh well
Half the challenge of this quest is Lilly's ignorance. She is an illiterate lower-class girl in a fantasy historical setting that does not necessarily favour women who cannot enforce respect through strength of arms or association. There are numerous malignant threats growing that she is utterly unaware of. There are dangers to the practice of magic and the process of pursuing ones Ethos of which she has no knowledge.
Much like Lilly, you the reader don't actually know how important or trivial being able to choose more than one Ethos is. Or even what they are except in the broadest sense. You'll find out when she does.
Discover the lore that governs the course of this world. If you run away and try to hide, I guarantee you won't make it to 18. If you run straight toward danger rashly (and the dice are not in your favour), Lilly will die a lot sooner than 18. (Though I would post a sort of epilogue hinting at the potential futures that were not to be)
Can you give Lilly a happy life? Can you go even further and satisfy her desire for an important and memorable life? Can you even make it to 13? I guess we'll find out.
- - - - -
You will vote on Lilly's major decisions. She will make minor choices according to the major decisions that you have guided her into. Instil a caution in her that she currently lacks and that will be reflected in her minor actions. Embolden her already adventurous nature even further and she will gain a tendency to leap headlong into the unknown.
There are a lot of hard mechanics and systems running here that I will be keeping entirely behind the curtain. I'll be running not only what happens based on your decisions, but also developments elsewhere in the world. I don't actually know how hard or easy this quest will be (leaning toward the hard end) because there are numerous events that could pop off next month or in a decade and at varying levels of intensity. Almost every roll in my system is a d100 (or series of them each deciding certain dynamics such as intensity, time to occur, scope, etc). When I do share raw number bonus/malus information, this gives you an idea of the rough impact of said numbers.
Write-Ins are allowed as a default on all choices such that I won't ever bother mentioning it as one most of the time (If a Write-In is impossible or wildly OOC, I'll just go with the second most popular vote). In fact, I'll provide a minor bonus of up to 10% on particularly well written alternative choices (+10 on a d100), which for example would have been enough for a second Rare Ethos that was combat focused that you narrowly missed this time around to be available for unlock. (Although Write-Ins for Ethos doesn't really work mechanically so not the best of examples).
Other than in informational posts. Unless I explicitly state otherwise, any answers I give to any questions in this forum are subject to what Lilly believes and knows, and may be the misinformed assumptions of a girl that knows everything about the outside world from sources of varying reliability.
Misc Info:
Higher Tiers of Ethos are not necessarily more powerful. Some are stronger, some are weaker. They are more specific and unusual; which is sometimes a benefit and sometimes will make advancing in them very difficult. Lily is vaguely aware of this, there is a popular recently retired female hero who did some pretty epic feats with a Common Ethos.
12 Year Old Girls have a poor track record for retaining their sanity when exposed to the unmaking gibbering's of eternity *citation needed. Consider this if you actually vote for the 'Form Fracture' ethos. If at any point Lilly fully loses her mind, that is a Quest Failure Condition and will trigger an Epilogue.
Consider this info my gift to you to stop a horde of votes for Rare+ options on the assumption they are x10 better.
Lily doesn't actually remember the name of the kingdom she calls home. Harmuph is an agricultural village bordering on town with a population of a few thousand. It would have more trade, except that it is quite far from the economic base of the kingdom. As such it is more self-sufficient and has a wider variety of craftsman for the more mundane necessities of early industry.
Lilly's family lives outside the small built up centre of Harmuph, out on one of the numerous farmsteads that surround it sporadically. They are known as carpenters, but also have a small selection of cattle and crop they use mostly for self-subsistence but also occasionally sell the surplus of.
Lilly's family is in fact just within the lower-middle class of Harmuph, mostly due to constant demand for work by a respected carpenter people seek out all year round. The Ethos List Lilly unlocked is actually a much wider selection than is typical, and despite their name, Common Ethos themselves are not altogether that common. Most children would only gain access to one, perhaps two, in addition to a number of Lessers.
Harmuph is relatively near to a goblinoid kingdom to north-east through thicker forests, but there is a human buffer state that is more militarized in the way. Lilly is unsure of what is west or north other than more human kingdoms and she knows there is an ocean to south that apparently there is so little wind in that it is terrible for naval trade.
Lilly has three younger brothers aged 11, 9 and 8. Zachariah, Micah and Marus are a rather boisterous and inseparable trio and tend to exclude her from their cliché mostly by nature of lack of shared interest than any malice. Her mother Sarah and father Yolun are in their mid thirties. Her mother has the 'Service to Man' Ethos, her father has a Common Ethos geared toward long lasting wood constructs that are better than the materials used to construct them.
Overall, Lilly's impression of Harmuph is that is a safe, quiet and boring place she would rather not grow old and die in.
Many paths ahead of you, many futures too. Whatever force it is that binds person and Ethos together, it demands complete attention until a choice is made. Your mind drifts over a few of the unexpected options, who promise an unusual and unexpected life. But only one consistently shines above the others, as if forged and shaped to perfection by your own hand. Your favourite pastime embodied in an Ethos. [Dream Within the Forest], the simple wilds have always been a source of comfort to you and now they will provide so much more that you can barely contain your excitement to know what lays ahead.
The choice is made.
Then, you see with new eyes. Immediately you are aware that there is a natural energy that pervades all that lives. Bird, bug or bush matters not, all life shines. While your natural eyes see only the cool diminutive light of the moon where it is not obscured, surrounded by deep shadows that stretch through the underbrush, your new eyes are as if in the bright midday sun. Thick ribbons of golden light flow up and down trunks, into and out of roots and gently bleed off into and around the air itself.
All life is connected on a raw primal level, exchanging the beautiful rhythm of the fibers of life that dance as strands floating upon the air. You lie at the centre of this majestic maelstrom, pulsating deep golden hues like all else that is alive around you. It is breathtaking.
You cannot help but gawk as a child before a wonder she had not thought to even imagine. You are so small beside the great trees of this forest, their solid frames containing vast reservoirs of this natural energy. You lay your hand upon the bark of a nearby tree, from memory you know it has a slightly reddish tinge in the day. You have done this many times before, just to simply appreciate the sensation of the bark as it rubs against your skin. But this time you feel far more. You feel a connection to this tree that is concrete and tangible, a voice calling out to be heard.
Yes, a voice. Barely a whisper. Now that you realise it's there it becomes louder. Not just one voice, but an uncountable number. The voices are not words, not even thoughts, they are the forest itself. The whisper of the forest grows in a vast crescendo and you recoil back from the depth of formless memory and experience contained within. But the voices refuse to be unheard, you are completely surrounded by an ecosystem whose history reaches back century upon century. The threads of life connect everything in this forest and you cannot escape the enormity of that fact. For a time, whatever part of you is Lilly is lost within the greater collective. Bonelessly, you collapse into the Dream.
- - - - - - - - - -
You are a sprout breaking out of the earth, tasting the sunlight for the first time.
…
You are a leaf on the wind, you land and give of your life that what grows beneath you might have sustenance.
…
You are a deep root, pushing aside everything between you and the waters that will give the branches above you life.
…
You are great and old. The earth you first broke free from has all been pushed aside in the centuries since as your now substantial bulk claimed a wider and deeper demesne for itself. You are a canopy in and of yourself, sheltering some of your own kind and the animals of the forest. Some part of you is also the girl. Her form lends you strength to grow higher and greater, but it also calls to awake from the dream. In truth you have no power to keep her, for the only part of you that has any real thoughts is her to begin with. Your dream will continue without her, perhaps with just a touch more colour and vibrance from the short but complex experience with her small vessel that you saw glimpses of. Just as she drifted into you, slowly, she drifts back out.
- - - - - - - - - -
You awake underground. Thick roots grown and woven around your body from the nearby tree. Yet, as you begin to struggle, they move in a most 'not like a root' way, retracting and shuffling loose the earth around you such that with a gentle heave you push up revealing most of your body to the noonday sun. Clumps of dirt slough off you as you stand, still not quite fully awake from whatever it was that you just saw.
You are still in the clearing where you fell to the Dream, though you don't remember the tree closest to you being quite so large. It's added another fifth or so to its already impressive size. As you take in the sight you also realise that the travel clothes you came here in are tattered and indeed even partially eaten by worms. Mother is going to kill you.
Mother! It's noon! They'll have been searching for you all night. You are going to get such a hiding when you get home. This is more than being naughty, you have done something you can't even begin to think of any reason your parents would accept was okay.
After a moment as the panic subsides, you cannot help but laugh. It feels so strange to have had such a mystical experience and yet still be concerned about such normal things. You're not quite sure what being an adult means, but you had kind of assumed that you just wouldn't feel like a child after gaining an Ethos. In retrospect you are still entirely the same person. A totally normal person who just so happens to be able to see and feel the flow of natural energy between all living things and can have scary yet exciting dreams like you're some sort of smart tree. It makes you laugh again. It's going to be so weird seeing your friends and family again after you've had this deep and profound encounter in the woods. If they thought you queer before, this won't help that impression much at all.
Well, you have a punishment to receive and a strange new life to live, best get home quickly.
Unless…
Choice Time:
Rush Home: You are already in so much trouble. It really is in your best interest to avail yourself meekly before your parents as soon as possible. At a light jog it will take a couple hours to reach the homestead. If your youngest brother Marcus has been told your missing, he'll already have been bawling his eyes out.
In for a penny, in for a pound: Realistically, you can't actually get in any more trouble than you're already in. Take the scenic route home, have a great time enjoying the last chance you'll likely have to leave the house unchaperoned for the foreseeable future.
Mystical Concerns: You have only just begun to understand what has happened to you. You are staying here in this clearing and figuring out every last scrape of information you can. You're not actually sure how to figure anything out, but you'll be damned if you don't try! You will of course not risk passing out for another half-day, because you don't want to be bodily throttled when your mother finally gets her hands on you.
Chasing the Voices: Because touching the tree turned out so well already... But you can't help but be curious what this intimate connection with the living growths of the forest means for you. Is it just the trees? What about animals? You're pretty sure you won't get lost in the voices again…
Write In:
[ ] Rush Home
[ ] In for a penny, in for a pound
[ ] Mystical Concerns
[ ] Chasing the Voices
[ ] Write in
- Being overwhelmed by the voices was only supposed to disorientate you and be uncomfortable, but you failed the save so badly I had to come up with the worst possible reaction you could have besides a heart attack.
- You rolled pretty well on a lot of wisdom and perception themed tests, giving you benefits like understanding what the golden threads are and remembering the dream after you woke up. Altogether you have a far better idea of the nature and scope of your Ethos than most neophytes.
- Some worldbuilding rolls happening elsewhere went quite high, which is going to do things
While we wait on the vote, lets do a quick overview of the (very little) that you know about Ethos and Magic in general.
(I'm trying to space out world building as it becomes relevant, I doubt you want to know such riveting details as Lilly's favourite animal or her friend's hobbies until they are at least tangentially relevant to story)
Ethos and Magic: What you know
Ethos
For most of the people you know, their Ethos is basically synonymous with their job. Enhancing or adding versatility to varying scopes of its functions. This is somewhat expected, as most children fashion their aspirations around continuing their family's legacy. In terms of precise mechanisms, you know painfully little. Older friends have become uncharacteristically cagey about a chosen Ethos once they had one and have not been very forthcoming with extended explanations beyond the most fundamental basics.
Ethos grow stronger through some form of tempering. The speed of this growth slows and the restrictions required to advance further become more severe as an Ethos advances up the metaphorical ladder through some form of levels that you are not sure are a real thing or just a shorthand people refer to. Heroic actions apparently are way better than others for advancing an Ethos, maybe. Living up to the inspiration for an Ethos is also very good for growth, especially for an undeveloped one whose restrictions have not tightened much.
What are the limits on what an Ethos can grant? Basically nothing. You gather the impression there is a mechanism behind it, nobles and the upper class tend to be far more powerful so clearly there is some way to ensure at least middling success.
Magic
It lets you do stuff. You been openly laughed at for trying to convince some of the more learned adults to tell you about how it works. A particularly nasty one told you he didn't have time now but if you wrote it down he could write you a letter to answer your questions; which was just cruel, everyone knows girls can't read. It didn't take you long to give up on that approach.
You do know that there are numerous forms of lesser magic that can be done without the aid of an Ethos. You father has in fact taught you a bit of particularly tricky wood carving which he explained was a kind of 'runic' magic to make the wood better. Typical that the only magic you could actually get anyone to explain to you was drawing pictures on wood to make tougher wood… Gosh, carpentry is so boring it can even ruin magic.
There're some kinds of elementalism. You've seen workers and craftsmen plying such cantrips as part of their trade. You can only assume there is much more hidden below the surface. Perhaps even actively guarded to shield it from malevolent eyes. Although that's probably just your imagination at work. Harmuph is a bit too boring of a town for that to be true.
For most people, the only magic they will ever actually use is one they gain innate affinity with as part of their Ethos. Part of what made learning the simplest beginnings of runic from your father so tedious was how he seemed to constantly assume his woefully sparse explanations and demonstrations were apparently all that was needed for you to master the process. Most of his knowledge has arrived along the same mystical channels that gifted him his Ethos, either immediately, or as he advanced it.
Actually, technically, you probably know about a new type of magic now. Whatever 'Natural Energy' is, it was already here before you gained the ability to see it. So its probably some new category completely separate from what you've seen before. Or maybes it's what elementalists use to do their thing, you'll have to find out in time.
[X] In for a penny, in for a pound and [X] Rush Home are tied. So you will head directly home, but at a leisurely stroll so that you arrive shortly before the twilight hours.
- - - - Coming Home
At a leisurely pace, the path home will take the better part of the afternoon. You'll be well and truly home before darkness settles in for the night.
Part of you wants to sprint back to your family. Part of you wants to turn around and go the other way. It's a rather uncomfortable bundle of excitement and nerves. There are numerous reasons for this ambivalence, not the least of which is realising how worrying your unannounced dalliance into the woods would be for those who didn't necessarily know you were well, safe and intending on returning. Yes, in retrospect your act of rebellious individuality meant to assert your ability to chart the course of your own burgeoning womanhood, perhaps reflects precisely the opposite of that intended message. There's no need to focus on dour thoughts though. You have plenty of exciting things to consider. Your future. You don't know what [Dream within the Forest] can one day become, but a simple worker girl is not what you shall be. The temptation to stay in the forest and begin to uncover its mysteries is so tantalizing. But alas, you definitely do need to be getting home.
The density of Natural Energy in the air grows looser in proportion to the thinning trees as you head onward, it is not long before you'll come across the first parts of cleared grassland. You no longer need to actually climb under or around anything growing on the forest floor and what was a mostly consistent canopy is now various copse of trees scattered about.
You may not have much time to focus or experiment with your new sight and its accompanying sensations, but you have realised some things on your way home. Your sight extends in all directions and is not occluded by solid objects as best you can tell. It is also not just an image, but a sense of the purpose and drive behind things. You can feel the determined purpose behind nearby anthills. The craving hunger of worms churning beneath the ground. The far more potent yet too complex to really grasp current ambitions of the occasional bird that flies overhead. There's an exchange between each of these things and yourself along the golden magic strands, an instinctive acknowledgement and affinity. You're not sure how far that can be pushed, but it's unlikely that a dog will ever bark at you again.
The range and vividness of your sight has steadily decreased as the trees have become fewer in number, but still extends several dozen span in every direction. Which is why you notice the prowling wolf at the edge of your perception. For a moment fear seizes and stills your movement. You catch your breath and cling to a nearby trunk to offer a smaller profile from which to be seen. Its hunger and intent to hunt radiate out like a bright beacon. Wafting around and through the air. Yet as they drift to you, its desires rebound off your form like water slicks off a duck's back. It acknowledges you, but the notion that you are of any interest simply cannot enter its thoughts and it continues on its way paying you no mind. After a short time to rally your nerves, you resume your travels with perhaps a bit more haste in your step. Yeah, definitely no more dogs barking at you.
It is almost twilight when you clear the treeline that gives way to the open grassland that surrounds all of Harmuph and its tributary farms. Both your own homestead and the town proper are visible from here. Not much is visible of Harmuph from outside its palisade. Actually with the palisade's recent improvements and the addition of a large amount of stone it is reasonable to call it a proper wall. Roughly hewn and assembled from a combination of what was cheap for trade or nearby the town itself, but as formidable a bulwark as you are ever likely to require. Behind its walls a few thousand craftsmen, merchants and assorted individuals ply their trades. You are far from any major city here and as such are a self-reliant people. You can make out the tops of a few the buildings, the garrison, the mayor's home and of course the temple, Aurora be praised.
Your own home is a small collection of wooden constructs partway down a wide valley that stretches out easterly from Harmuph. Your father's workshop (the old home before your brothers were born), the barn and the family home itself. There are butterflies in your stomach as you stand under open sky and grassy field, nervous to face the well-earned wrath you have accrued being away for what is now nearly a full day. What is worse is that many are likely still out looking for you or rallying even more to aid in the search. The worst possibility is that your family immediately hired a diviner to give clues to your location. If money has been wasted looking for you, you might just die on the spot from embarrassing your father so.
But there is no use allowing yourself to wallow on such things, what will be will be. Though you do need to convince yourself of this at least twice more before passing by the fence of the few cattle your family tends. You are well and truly standing on your family's land now. You concentrate on putting one step in front of the other.
Passing by your father's workshop, you can hear sawing from inside. Your other sight has by this stage grown bleary and short as though seen through a fog, extending not much further than the workshop itself. You notice the walls and fences you've come across now are devoid and empty of energy, it seems dead things hold very little. There is a single human's natural energy pulsating from within the workshop from which you sense an innate familial link. Your fears that your father was out wasting time looking for you are immediately replaced by the dull hurt that he is in fact simply at work like nothing is amiss. Sure, some of the family may be out and about, but your nerves settle with a sour note in your stomach. You've never absconded before; you would have preferred him to be searching for you. You were not sure you'd have a chance, but by mild fortune it seems likely you can face your mother first.
The sun is just beginning to touch the tips of the horizon, casting scarlet tinged light out across the valley, shadows racing along the ground. The front door carved out of the logs that constitute the walls of your home is a rather gloomy sanguine in the dying light as you approach. Dark enough that you do see it until you are nearly close enough to touch it. The first unsettling surprise was your father's seeming apathy to your disappearance, now the second is the small black wreathe hung from above the doorframe. Where before you were upset, this time your heart skips a beat in your chest. The flower known as Night's Lily grows in abundance all throughout the region. In small doses it is useful to dull pain, in large it can become dangerous. Though its most distinctive feature is its matte black petals that drink in all the light that touches them and give nearly nothing back in return. It keeps well when plucked, but bears ill omen. A noble boy presents a freshly picked Nights Lily to a noble girl he no longer wishes to court, to break off an engagement. When it is woven into a wreathe, it is done so by the ladies of the town to commiserate the loss of life. Hung from the doorframe from dawn to dusk for a single cycle of the moon before the time of mourning is then left in the past.
A diviner could definitely inform your parents that you were not dead, something else has happened. Did one of brothers suffer an accident looking for you? Did some unrelated tragedy befall your family that you were not there to potentially witness or stop? You hurry inside. Your home is a simple affair, two bedrooms to split the adults from the children and a single large combined space for all other matters of domestic living that the front door takes you straight into.
Your mother is there, alive (one potential horror crossed off the checklist), facing away from you as she washes clothes with Well drawn water and soap. There is so much to say. For a brief moment you remember why you were nervous coming home and stall for a breath. But your have greater worries now, you must know what has happened.
"Mother…" and yet your breath catches again, ending in a squeak as your mother jolts where she stands at the fright you evidently just gave her. Concerningly, she remains still for a moment, before slowly turning where she stands to take in the sight of you. You must look a dreadful thing from her eyes. Your clothes are an unsalvageable ruin. Your hair an unkempt mess. You are covered in so much dirt your skin is more brown than clear. The deep bags under your mother's eyes and mournful expression confirm your fears that the Black Lily was an omen of truth, something terrible has happened.
Your mother looks almost dazed as she begins to speak "Lil-" before promptly fainting on the spot, collapsing as her strength leaves her. By a feat of dexterity and no small luck you dive forward and catch her head before it can land on the hard wood floor. You hold your mother's head in your lap as she stirs on the ground, half unconscious. You do not think her actually Ill, but are concerned she was feeble and drained enough for the (admittedly dishevelled) sight of you to evoke such a reaction.
Your attention is stolen by the door to you and your siblings' room opening. Your oldest brother Zachariah, evidently having heard the commotion, stands before you with a haunted vacant expression. He says nothing for long enough to make you uncomfortable, his face as blank as a man asleep, before eventually saying a single quiet "Lilly."
Silence stretches between you for a few seconds. You don't want to ask how the fortune of your family has turned for ill the past day, you guess he is not eager to launch into a retelling. The impasse is broken by your youngest Marcus poking his head around the same door. If Zach's reaction upon seeing you was a thin ember, then Marcus is the sun exploding.
"LILLY!" Marcus practically squeals with delight as he pushes Zachariah aside to bound the short distance between the two of you. He uses his short arms to just surround you in a tight hug, you consider with mirth that probably the only reason he didn't bodily tackle you is the mutual parent currently rousing back to consciousness in your lap. He is not done talking.
Kneeling beside you, "Lilly! I knew you were okay! Zach said that she couldn't be wrong but I never believed them. I knew you were coming back. I just knew it. She's a lier and I hate her. But you're okay! I, I never gave up Lilly. I prayed to Aurora over and over and over and I, I'm so glad!" Marcus is running over his own words as he struggles to get enough air in his lungs to spill out even more. As he does this, he alternates between hugging you some more and looking into your face like you might disappear if he stops holding or seeing you.
And you are thoroughly confused. Especially so as Micah your middle brother has joined Zach at the bedroom door, meaning all your family are accounted for and unharmed. As you lay there dumbfounded, Zach comes and joins the two of you kneeling aside mother. He too embraces you (and Marcus too since he is currently latched onto you) in a gentle hug, stretching on for some time as all of you say nothing. At some point Micah joins the family huddle on the floor, Marcus lightly weeping as you all sit there.
Eventually, Zach pulls away gently, placing an arm on your shoulder. You can tell as he schools his expression to ask a serious question. "Lilly…" there is a pregnant pause, "how are you here?" he says, his eyes questing deep into your own for answers.
Which you really wish you could provide, but you now more than ever have absolutely no inclination of what's going on. And who was Marcus saying lied about something? Nothing makes sense.
"My daughter", both you and Zach are distracted by your mothers' hand slightly cupping your chin, you look down to see her peering back up at you. The woman laying here is the complete opposite of the one who stood before you a mere minute ago, the hollow ache in her eyes replaced by transcendent joy and no small number of tears streaming out and down to patter upon the floorboards.
Having regained her composure, your mother shifts to kneel alongside the four of you, taking in your form as if she herself also somehow doubts you are real. "Boys, go get your father from the workshop," she says without taking her eyes off you.
Zach and Micah quickly depart, by unspoken agreement Marcus is left to remain a permanent fixture attached to your side. A slightly awkward transition to standing and you all simply regard one another. After a pause your mother begins to speak, seeming to want to ask a great deal but not knowing where to begin, settling for "Are you… well?" There is a lot of meaning behind the word 'well'. Are you thirsty? Are you injured? Are you okay? Are you safe? It is all of these questions and more.
Before any of you can say more you hear heavy steps cutting quickly through the short grass outside, led immediately by two thuds upon the front porch before the front door is slammed open so fast you briefly worry it might fly off. Your father stands before you, covered in caked on sawdust. Shock is plainly written upon his face.
Slowly he begins to approach you with an unreadable expression. With the immediate fear that one of your family has died removed, you are back to the original fear you had coming home. Encountering the first situation since stepping through the door that is going at least remotely like you expected, you launch into your planned damage control in the hope to alleviate the worst of the potential consequences running away for a day may have caused. "Father, I can explain, it's, if you give me a chance I can-"
The air is squeezed from your lungs as your father scoops you up and wraps his arms around you. He is a tall and well-muscled man, making the task an effortless one. You're not sure what to do as you sort of hang there, your father taking a large breath in and out. Where his whole body had seemed tight and stiff, he noticeably loosens and relaxes as he holds you before finally depositing you on the ground to kneel at head height in front of you. Your excuses are forgotten and you each look into the others face before your father speaks.
"I do not know what has brought you back to us. Whatever price it demands, whatever sacrifice is required, I do not care. I gladly pay it." Your father declares almost like a vow. You are gathering that for whatever reason your family has immediately assumed you were dead and again for some inexplicable reason not sought confirmation of that from a diviner in town. Which makes no sense at all.
Your brothers were not far behind father, already returned at some point during your exchange. Micah who has not yet spoken asks you the question you very much would like to ask right back, "Lilly, what happened?"
You address your response to the whole family as one. "I don't understand, I was gone for a night and a day, what has caused this" you say, motioning to everyone in the room to point out the unreasonableness of such a severe reaction even as they now crowd around you.
"Lilly," your father draws your attention back to him. His eyes are wet. "The last time I saw your face," he winches as he says it, brushing a strand of loose hair out of your eyes, "was twenty-three days ago."
- - - - - -
- Yeah, remember how I said you failed your save very badly to not get lost in the voices? You were indeed asleep beneath that tree for almost a month. I did three sets of world event progression rolls while you were out of it.
- Wolf could have been a big problem, but you passed the initial roll so well I didn't even bother with follow ups.
- Family rolls went pretty much as expected, they were just too worried to really be mad. Your middle brother Micah was on the fence of refusing to believe it was really you until everyone else's success rolls swept him up in the moment.
Choice Time: Some major actions are about to be taken that will largely be outside Lilly's control except for this moment. The way you frame the story of what happened to you and how much detail you give will affect your social opportunities and interactions with many characters.
This is important people. Every gossip is going to want to know about the girl of whom the rumours of her death were greatly exaggerated.
2 Votes Why I left:
[ ] Truth – Tell them you deliberately snuck away to try and gain an Ethos closer to your desires. Though not quite that bluntly.
[ ] Lie – Make up a tale about being drawn away that frames you as less responsible for the choice.
[ ] Write in
What happened to me:
[ ] The Basics – Got an Ethos in the Forest, I can see the energy of life now. I was unconscious for the three weeks.
[ ] Detailed – The trees spoke to me and took me into a vast dream, roots moved away to let me go when I awoke. I'm pretty sure I wasn't even breathing when I was underground.
[ ] Everything – An otherworldly force has irrevocably altered my being. I can choose more Ethos at some point; I'm basically the most important and special child in the region, if not the whole kingdom.
[ ] Lie – (You can probably fake some form of affinity with carpentry with your Ethos with time and practice). I got a lesser Carpentry Ethos. Then got lost and only just found my way home.
[ ] Write in
(You have earned enough experience to level up your Ethos from 0 to 1, but will have to wait until you Dream before that happens)
[X] Truth – Tell them you deliberately snuck away to try and gain an Ethos closer to your desires. Though not quite that bluntly.
[X] Detailed – The trees spoke to me and took me into a vast dream, roots moved away to let me go when I awoke. I'm pretty sure I wasn't even breathing when I was underground.
- - - - - Family Time
You speak. And they listen. At first you are worried you may be cut off and not have a chance to explain. But it appears you have a captive audience.
There is the temptation to lie, to cover your tracks and try to return things as close to what counts as normal as possible. But in truth, you don't think you can do that anymore. Your life is only going to get more strange in the years to come and any lie you tell tonight will eventually be shown to ring false.
You will protect them from the dangerous part of your story. You might not know much of the world beyond (something you should rectify very soon), but you understand what your unique nature means. The girl with more than one Ethos? Now that the possibility to be swept up in change and destiny is right before you, you'd rather not be whisked away from everything and everyone you know quite that quickly.
Gathered around the dining table, an hour passes easily during the recount. The sun is well and truly set as inky blackness reigns outside the windows. The small everlight candle illuminating everyone in your ordinary sight in bleak blue light. There are only a few times throughout your recount that anyone interrupts for more than simple clarification, the first by your father when explaining why you left.
"Were you really so unhappy?" he asks, looking at you intently. "Did we make you think running was your only recourse?" There is an undertone of worry and anger, neither enough to properly simmer to the surface.
You're not sure how to explain, you shrug and say "I… I didn't think it would go so far." Then, the look in your father's eye telling you that is a far from adequate response, you add "I suppose I did not actually think. I behaved as a child, not a young woman." It rankles your pride to so meekly admit it, but your courage is somewhat wilted under your father's gaze regardless of if that is his intention or not. A solemn nod from both him and mother says the answer is enough for now, but that that topic of conversation will be revisited.
You go on, leading the more fantastical parts of your story. To your relief no one questions or second guesses anything. You suppress a smile when your mother lightly gasps as the story comes to your encounter with the wolf. She accepted a tale of strange magic and mysterious Ethos readily, but responds with concern to what you consider the most mundane of events. Though you suppose it makes sense that the more familiar danger would strike closer to home than the mystical unknown.
Your story comes to a close. Somewhat unexpectedly you need to take a little time reassuring your everyone that you don't feel 'called' back to or enthralled by the forest. You guess your descriptions of your awakened other sight and its tremendous beauty may have left them with concerns you'd try to get back there as soon as possible. You artfully neglect to mention that you would like to go back there. Best not push the issue when by incredible fortune the topic of you running away has been mostly skipped over so far tonight.
Dinner is a strange affair. Small talk a bit awkward and stilted. It doesn't help that you are not at all hungry, realising that the sun and air itself can mostly sustain you now. Eating to conform and avoid another explanation and reminder of how different some things will be now. Thankfully Marcus continues to sever the tension with every question under the sun.
"How shiny are ants?"
"Can you tell which one is the queen?"
"Are trees friendly, are they mad that we cut them down?"
"Can we even play hide and seek anymore, or will you just cheat?
"You're not gonna leave again are you?"
Among many others, for the most part they are a welcome distraction. Except of course the last one, which signals a tense end to Dinner as each of you set about the necessary household chores inside. At some point Micah and Marcus must be put to bed, Zach electing to go with them to help them settle and ensure they do not simply stay up listening by the door. You had quickly changed clothes to eat, now mother sets about finishing your return to civilisation, sponging the thick layers of dirt off you so you don't sully anything you touch (such as your bed) with grime. Your misgivings of being covered in cold water this late in the evening turn out to be an unnecessary complaint. It is becoming apparent that Natural Energy is a panacea to numerous former inconveniences, in this instance providing a source of internal heat rising to match the cold while you are wet and ebbing away as you dry.
You father remains at the table illuminated in everlight, his face stern in deep thought. Not much progress is made on unknotting your hair (which your mother informs you is now nearly impossible to brush) before father calls you both back to the table.
"Tomorrow we will go into town. Madam Silva declared you dead, she will confirm her mistake at first light and return what we paid her," father says, the undertone of anger growing stronger at Madam Silva's mention. You are certainly not impressed with her and what her false report did to your family either. The mood may have lightened, but you have seen the weariness hanging onto each of your siblings and parents. The draining hollowness they have felt the past few weeks could not be instantly restored by your reappearance. Madam Silva owes you restitution.
"Before news can spread too far, we will visit the Lore Warden to have your Ethos recorded into the ledger. Then we will leave Harmuph and not return for a few days to allow this event to settle." You are reassured that your father seems to have refound his stride and given proper thought on the way forward from here. You wish it could always be like this; you and your fathers will's aligned to the same purpose rather than opposed. You hadn't thought on it a great deal yet, but the idea of living your life independent and separate from their covering seems quite daunting. Ironic since at the time that same covering can feel constricting.
The night grows late and Marcus keeps waking, needing to be reassured that you and your parents are still outside the bedroom. So further discussion is put off until tomorrow and everyone not yet retired for the night, does so.
Marcus leaves Zach and Micah's bed to the one you share as you arrive. You are worried he might continue to fret and stir as he has for some time tonight, but he drifts off to sleep soundlessly in scarcely any time at all. Normally his tendency to steal blankets would annoy you, but now your body simply draws the heat necessary to be comfortable from the Natural Energy that surrounds you.
You are restless in your bed. Natural Energy removes most need for sleep, beckoning you to remain a part of life's endless motion. But there is a calling from within, to sink down into the warm embrace of the Dream. So you lay there lightly torn between two desires, wondering what the events of tomorrow will bring.
"Lilly," Micah whispers across in the dark of the room. Though you of course can see your brothers clearly even with your other vision reduced this far away from the forest.
"Yes," you answer.
His tone is tempered, fragile. "Did you want to come back?"
Yesterday (or a month ago you suppose) you may have taken longer to answer that question. But now you realise that as much as your family can stifle and frustrate you, you do not want to be alone. No one will ever hear you admit that you now agree you are a bit too young to go galivanting about the world, but there is a definite truth there.
"Yes," you say easily.
"Okay," Micah replies. You wonder if he might say more before you hear him shuffling deeper under the covers. Why ask that question? Obviously, you wanted to return because you are in fact here. You put the mystery out of your mind for now. The distraction has calmed you and you now feel the Dream calling you to within yourself.
Your eyes close and wonderous sights rush to meet you. A familiar cold tendril of otherness also pierces you again as you fade to unconsciousness.
- - - - - -
Choice Time: 4 Votes
Some more important decisions to be made here. Then we are going on a lovely family outing tomorrow to let everyone know you're not actually dead 😊
[Dream Within the Forest] Level Up: Choose 1
[ ] Leaves die, and new ones grow anew.
[ ] The whispers hold wordless wisdom.
[ ] Ever upwards, climb toward the sunlight.
[ ] A solid seed in your centre, ready to sprout.
(You will in time gain a better understanding of what choices mean before you make them, at this stage you're too ignorant to have much idea)
(You will not be getting a new Ethos every couple updates. The rate will slow down rapidly even if you figure out the mechanism unlocking them. We did skip ahead three weeks of world time so this is coming sooner than initially expected.)
(The list of Potential Ethos you could unlock were far more numerous this time around, you had 3 mythic and 5 rare for example. But the magnitude of the events of your past month and what they foretell of your future are an event likely to never repeat again. Perhaps some choices might make a reappearance later on, but Ethos selection is always heavily moulded by your current momentum in life)
New Ethos:
[Diviner] (Lesser):
You are outraged that one could fail at their set purpose so profoundly. Your family was caused great pain by one meant be bring surety and comfort. You know that you could do so much better yourself. You have often been greatly hurt by those that refused to listen to your thoughts and ideas, dismissing them out of hand. As a Diviner, you would gain the respect of men and women alike to guide and assist them. You'd also be expected to learn to read, an idea that intrigues you. [Service to Man] (Lesser): same as before. [Keen Bow] (Common):
What [Brave Blood] was to a warrior, this is to an archer. [Truth in Name] (Common):
You know for a fact that this is a new form of the Lesser Ethos [Namesake]. Your new understanding of your own importance and future has raised the status of your own name. Providing you see enough years; the name Lilly shall one day be known by untold masses. What this Ethos actually is, you still don't know. [Seamless Call] (Rare):
Many when faced with the prospect that they will wield incredible influence, shy from the call and reject it. You barely even flinched at such a decision, accepting it as a simple truth to be dealt with when the time came. You are the woman they say that even dying as a child could not hold back her ambition. You will forever move toward your goals with inexorable momentum, pushing aside obstacles both physical and conceptual that are in your way. [Cleaver of Fortune] (Mythic):
To have had your fate so rapidly upended, your entire direction and path through life replaced; this is not an insignificant thing. Your life is one prone to powerful eddies of omen and destiny. Embrace the chaos; unmake promised futures and sunder prophecies that were certain. Unite events and lives that make no sense being intwined together. In your presence, no prediction will be ever a sure thing. There are many in this world that take much comfort in the wisdom of the future, simply possessing such an Ethos would earn you a great deal of hostile attention seeking to snip your troublesome life in the bud. But perhaps that won't be such a problem when luck and the future itself can be moulded as wet clay.
The Diviner: Choose 1
[ ] It is because of her error that you family were tortured with the lie of your death for weeks. Give Madam Silva a peace of your mind.
[ ] Honestly try to glean how such an error was made, to avoid any potential repeats in the future.
[ ] If she doesn't admit the mistake, don't bring it up.
[ ] Write in
The Lore Warden: Choose 1
[ ] Try to convince Father to put off the appointment. You have two Ethos now, do you want them possibly discovering that?
[ ] Admit the truth about this fact if you are discovered, but otherwise say nothing.
[ ] Be up front and state the situation when at your appointment. Immediate honesty could be a good thing.
[ ] Write in
- Good rolls all around on people believing the various details of your story and on assuming your intentions in leaving were good spirited, not spiteful.
- Zach's gone silent. Marcus is clingy. Micah is coming around to the idea you're actually back.
- There was another Apotheotic Ethos up for grabs that you didn't make the roll for (missed it by 12). It was just as ominous as the first.
- Got our first Crit 100 roll of the story so far. It was a background world building one though. Exciting stuff. Lowers Lilly's chances of living to 18 though
[X] The whispers hold wordless wisdom.
[X] [Cleaver of Fortune] (Mythic)
[X] Honestly try to glean how such an error was made, to avoid any potential repeats in the future.
[X] Admit the truth about this fact if you are discovered, but otherwise say nothing.
Lots of scene description and a whole lot of consequences from your previous choices, combined with a bunch of characters succeeding and failing their rolls at some very interesting points, gives you this mammoth of a thing.
Your Father made a Crit 100 for a self-introspection roll on a topic that's been troubling him. Of the three follow up rolls I did to see how far the implications of that Crit would go, he never rolled below 80. You'll know when you get to that part.
- - - - - Welcome to Harmuph
You are the great oak once more. But much less grand than you recall. You are a tiny sapling having just emerged, surrounded by the huge forms of your brethren. You count the passing of suns and moons. Animals trod overhead and around your diminutive form.
Time is strange, moving fast and slow. What feels like months and yet also a single moment passes. Now smaller animals sometimes take shelter in your shade. Time skips again and you are a giant thing. The girl that had left a small a part of her behind has returned. You have no eyes and yet you see all that is around you. The natural energy that permeates life leaves echoes within echoes of all that passes near you. An eternal record of all you seen. It's golden threads hiding their wisdom to but the scant few that can perceive it. That one is you. Or rather, the girl when she is a part of you. The whispers have always been an illusion, trees do not shout, speak nor whisper. The only one here who can speak is the girl herself. The whispers are the echoes of all that was and perhaps what could be, her own self alive and inhabiting the wood that surrounds her. But the connection grows tight and thin. There is too much distance between you two and so the sinuous thread frays open and breaks. She has left just a slightly deeper imprint of herself on you than the first time you dreamed together. You bid the girl, Lilly, farewell for now.
You have other dreams that night, but none so vivid and clear. It is in the peaceful space between two unremembered imaginings that the impossible yet you know still certain choice of a second Ethos comes to you. Your drifting mind surveys its choices and selects upon pure instinct. Many choices are alluring, but one stands out the most. All your life you have rallied against the unfairness of fate. It is not right that the future you knew to be so true in your heart appeared to be so false and predetermined to fail. Why were you born a girl? Why are you expected to live in such a way that is to deny your own self? No more. You look behind you through time and see that the course of your life has been a single line of causality, each action and reaction destined from the start, choice an illusion. You look in front of you, this is true no more. The line of your fate widens out in a stream, a river and eventually flows into an ocean of pure possibility. You are outside the context of prediction, beyond the machinations of schemers or planners. Your life, your future, will be your own. And no one else's.
You awake long before sunrise. Asleep for but a handful of hours. Although there is no light in the room, you can clearly see the three golden forms of your brothers. The flow of natural energy inside them is mellow and gentle, subdued as they sleep. There is another strange awareness there too, portents of future and possibility. But it is too dim and far off to make any sense of.
You lay awake in bed for a while. Staring up at the ceiling just being happy to be alive. There are alot of things you don't yet understand or feel all that capable of solving, but there is a promise in innumerable unknown and potent Ethos, just waiting to be found. It doesn't matter what the problem is, if you can just last long enough then the solution will literally be delivered to you. You are safe. Your father can't honestly expect you to be a carpenter after everything that's happened… though you're not actually sure what that means for you now, seems one problem has been replaced with another… oh well.
Ever so carefully, you shimmy your way out from the covers without disturbing Marcus. Your expert maneuver to avoid waking him is nearly ruined when your feet touch the wooden floor boards and you gasp at the sudden influx of information. Through your feet, the wood carries flashes of its memories. It's time as a whole tree. The chop and carving that sundered it so. You see your own father's hands shaping and laying it down. You see yourself and your brothers, but younger. The memory of some forgotten day where you quietly played whilst pretending to sleep. You see yourself last night as you walked upon this floor. The memories are different from the dream. Where the dream was crisp and complete, here the memories are irregular, hazy and incomplete. They also fade and grow less prominent over the course of the planks 'life' as it began to forget that it had ever been alive. Dead wood holds on to what it was for a time. But eventually it stops remembering.
You wipe away a tear as you sit on the floor. You really should stop being so sentimental about trees, it's embarrassing. You're not sure how long you stay there, torn between the present and the fractured pieces of the past. But as first light begins to creep in through the small window placed high on the wall behind you, you have gained enough control to be either here in the present or to delve into the past. Rising slowly, still a little unsure on your feet when it takes a part of your concentration to not remember through said feet. You begin walking, each floorboard a new invitation to plunge into images of what was. The light of day becomes clear as you pace in circles, until eventually politely denying the remembrance of any wood you touch becomes mostly easy.
Confident you are now not going to embarrass yourself by something as simple as accidently stepping on a stick, you exit out into the main room. Your father is awake and sitting at the table, an empty bowl of gruel in front of him. There is a strangeness to his expression as you regard each other. The simple joy of your return has faded into the ordinary worries of a father to a strong spirited girl. You regret that you can't give him the simple life of having an ordinary daughter. But that is no longer a future you are willing to consider. As you join him at the table with a cup of water, you decide you will simply make the best of what you have instead of fretting over what cannot be. There is a slight sensation there, an awareness that within you what now cannot be can in fact still be made to be. A force you can exert on circumstance itself. But you are a tiny delicate thing pushing against a mountain that is tremendous in scope and monolithic in form; there is much growing still to be done.
"Eat quickly," your father pulls you from your thoughts. "We will head in on Chariot as soon as you're done." Chariot, the family horse which you refuse to admit scares you slightly. Your father is clearly electing to tackle the complications of your return head on and as immediately as possible. Of course, the issue before you right now is that eating dinner already made you feel overfull and breakfast might just stretch you to bursting.
"Actually," you start. Compared to what you've already told them of spending an impossible amount of time beneath the earth where you should have suffocated, this isn't much. "Dinner was already almost too much; I don't really need to eat much of anything anymore."
You father simply stares at you for a moment. His lips crease up into a slight smile and he chuckles something about 'the next thing' that you don't really catch. "Very well, I suppose we'll leave now." He says with slight aplomb, promptly rising and moving the remains of breakfast to the nearby bench. "Bid your brothers and mother farewell, it will almost be noon before we reach the gates."
With a simple nod you do just that. Hugs are given to your stirring siblings still half caught in sleep's rapture, only Marcus wakes to follow you along your last passage through the house and out the door. "See you later" he says from the threshold as you and father, now dressed and prepared, step out into the light of early day.
When you were nine, Chariot was a younger and less well-trained horse. He kicked you one day when you and Zach were rounding him into the barn that doubles as the stable. Your arm (and you yourself) screamed in pain immediately. It's the only time you've ever broken a bone and you've been skittish around him ever since. But as is now the default state of your life, the unexpected happens. As you and your father approach Chariot, both you and the horse's nerves are settled by the flow of understanding and connection across the channels of natural energy. This is not the first time you've noticed a special interaction between you and an animal, perhaps that is something to investigate in time. The chestnut striped stallion is the picture of serenity as your father outfits him in riding wear. Not only do you not need to be afraid of getting kicked again, it seems likely horses everywhere are just going to love you now.
Best. Ethos. Ever!
- - - - -
The 'road' to Harmuph becomes a reality rather than mere subtle suggestion when you are an hour from the walls of the town. Your family lives on the wrong side to have much proper roads, the kingdom to the east is apparently not on overly friendly terms with your own. So there are no major trade roads east of Harmuph, only north and west. Chariot is a solidly built horse, your father often remarks fate smiled on him that day, for Chariot is far stronger in both will and body than what was expected when he was bought. If you were to trade the horse in, he's probably worth ten times the original price. If you hadn't been a little afraid of riding him alone (until now) then he'd probably have factored into your many daydreams of running off to adventure more heavily.
Riding him this long into town, even simply behind your father who has the reins as you take in the scenery of your approach, you're affinity for each other has grown with each hour of travel. The same internal engine that constantly renews your body now also slightly flows into Chariot himself keeping the horse as fresh as he was when you set out in the morn. If you didn't now implicitly know you can calm him at will, you'd be a little worried of his reaction to breaking the connection when you got off.
As you approach the walls of Harmuph, your other Sight grows in size and clarity slightly as so many sources of bright life draw nearer to you. Despite the city shining with more dense energy than the forests themselves, your sight is still only restored by a fraction. Your affinity to people clearly much less than the woods themselves. In fact, you have a feeling that the various pigs, cows and other cattle you gain a vague sense of within the city are contributing as much if not more to your improved Vision than the entire human population.
The eastern gates of Harmuph are always open, seldom closed even at night. They are thick wooden edifices towering above you, imposing as they are, you know that most consider these paltry defenses ill-suited to any serious raid let alone a true siege. The walls themselves are an odd mishmash of wood and stone construct. You have heard the walls were being upgraded, but whatever stage the works are at they have clearly not reached this side of the city. You honestly don't see the point, who would range a hundred or more miles to raid a town already so thin with resources?
You pass under the gates and into Harmuph proper. The sight (and stink) nearly floors you. The cobblestone road just within the eastern wall is a somewhat popular passage between assorted businesses north and south of the entrance. The throng of people, while not much by a larger city's standards, is about as busy as any street in Harmuph can be. Your other Sight pulses and gleams as dozens of varying humanoid novas of energy sublimate into and around each other. Threads overlay and twist on top of, between and through the melange in kaleidoscopic fractals. The sight is disorientating to the extreme and nearly brings up last night's dinner from the excessive maelstrom.
"Are you okay," father asks with a hint of worry, having noticed whatever sounds of disquiet you made while blanching at the overwhelming sensations.
"I'm…" you pull yourself together and push down the last inclinations of retching "…fine father. The people are just very bright and very, everywhere."
Your father eyes you over his shoulder for a moment longer, seemingly deciding whether to believe your insistence you are in good health over the immediate memory of you being nearly overwhelmed mere moments ago. It is easy to forget, but given recent events from their perspective, your whole family and not just your father are all likely to be especially attentive to any signs you are anything less than perfectly well.
The standoff between daughter and father is broken by the shouts of a young man perhaps a few years older than you a moderate distance away running toward you calling a familiar name. "Madam Silva, please Madam wait!"
You realise from atop Chariot that in front of the young man and much closer to you, a lady of advanced years is just coming to a stop to gawk at you. You have not had much to do with the silver haired and overly dressed woman before you, but Madam Silva is perhaps the best respected Diviner in the whole town. Of lower birth, she is adorned in numerous silks and leathers over a woollen ensemble aiming to look debonair but instead coming across as tacky. Perhaps you're being unfair, but the memory of your mother's haggard eyes when you first saw her and the only slightly restored complexion that bid you fair tidings in town as you left this morning has left you with very little good will to offer this woman.
The Madam herself closes the last gap between you and takes your hand in hers as you slip off Chariot to greet her as is expected. Her unblinking stare and uncomfortably tight grip on your hand is making a bit of a scene at this major crossroad of city traffic and quickly gaining you an audience. The whispers of nearby citizens are too low to hear, but it doesn't take much thought to know why they are finding this scene worthy of notice.
The Madam breaks the deadlock of silence as she regathers herself releasing your hand (which is a little sore now). "I did not think it possible, yet here you stand before me as flesh and blood. Not a spectre, nor a facsimile of what was, but the real girl full of breath around a beating heart."
How lovely and poetic sounding. If only her predictions were as accurate as her language is flowery.
"Aye, I am alive Madam. Quite concerned was I to find a Night's Lily upon the door of my home and a family more than half completed their month of mourning," you reply with growing heat in your voice. It is an overly aggressive and impolite reply from a child to an elder, but trying to squeeze an ounce of decorum into your voice is as easy as wringing blood from a stone.
Your father having dismounted himself steps in front of you before you can say more, a hand gently upon your shoulder as he does so dismissing you from the conversation. "Lilly speaks rashly, but true." He admonishes your conduct, without excusing Madam Silva as its cause. "I paid you good money for my daughter's location, you told me she was already dead and buried." The last half is nearly whispered by your father such that only Madam Silva and her assistant who has now caught up may actually hear it. The assistant's eyes bulge as he connects the dots together. Diviner's stake their reputation on an accurate forbearing of the future (among other things). To openly accuse one of falsehood would be an event almost as notable as your return from the grave.
Not that your father doesn't have the necessary proof. The news of your demise at Madam Silva's proclamation is a well-known and undeniable truth in the town, your very presence is a black mark on her record. You are a smart girl, but watching the looks exchanged between the old woman and your father you realise that a significant portion of your wits are inherited from the man before you. If your family does not publicly demand satisfaction (and the Madam herself would hardly choose to confirm her own failure unaccused), then gossip will spread but find no firm root to twist to solid action. This is a private negotiation between two parties, each wishing the conflict to be settled with as little fanfare paraded before the town as possible.
Madam Silva is a woman of considerable bulk. Not the kind gained through excess of consumption, but simply from a natural-born frame more suited to a woodcutter than lady fortune teller. It is hidden most of the time, save for now as she stands straight, uncompromising in stature. "I stand by my word sir," your father is not a sir, this is an act of deference hidden within outward confidence. "On my firstborn son I swear, I saw your daughter beneath the earth and still as the grave. Worms chewing through the rags that remained of her clothes." Oh. That sounds eerily accurate to the truth.
The Madam continues, passersby for the most part bleeding off back to their errands when they realise both parties intend to keep things too quiet for stray ears to easily listen in, "I rushed here from a shocking omen to ensure the taint of undeath had not invaded our city." She eyes you significantly at the mention of the more frightful way for a child to return once lost. There is an implicit threat there. She is well respected and can twist an explanation to cause trouble for your family should you make it your mission to trouble her. Madam Silva's eyes turn more genial as she returns her gaze to your father, still too quiet for others to overhear, "Yet I see that by incredible unknown fortune, it is not the curse of the restless dead but a pure inexplicable return to true life that has touched your family so." You are not impressed by the lady's roundabout insistence that she was never in fact wrong despite your presence here. The dream in the forest was a deep slumber perhaps in some ways like, but in no way close to true death. She overstated the confidence of her reading to your father during the original contract.
Your father's face is hard as she speaks. An equal obstacle to her own insistence. Either out of true sincerity, or merely because your father is not so easily cowed, she leans in to finish, "A favour I owe your family for my accurate, yet in the fullness of time misleading wisdom," she offers this with a tone implying her own magnality.
And your family of course will graciously forgive and not make quarrel over the 'misleading' part of said wisdom, are the unspoken terms.
Somehow, you school your ill temper into an acceptable comportment and reply, your father flinching as your reenter the conversation unbidden "A, significant, favour."
Tension hangs in the air as significant looks are exchanged. The Madam looks to your father to determine whether he backs your interjection. He nods toward you, signalling that yes, you stand united in this. The Madam considers… and relents. Despite her bravado, your family holds the advantage to press terms here.
"It is settled then friends," she now speaks loudly and with open cheer for any hangers on to hear. Lest someone think they witnessed the beginning of a feud. "Let it be said Madam Silva's word was, is and is forever more, her bond." Your fathers lack of rejection to such a proclamation is tacit acceptance that an agreement has been reached. "Jeremy," Madam Silver turns to her assistant, "take Mr Silas' horse to the stablemaster for him, I'm sure he has more important things to do than worry over such trifles."
You are no expert on all the rules of social exchange, but to immediately offer your own servant unasked after an agreement has been reached is a confirmation of good will and intention to honour a pledge between two people. Likewise, your father's acceptance as he hands off Chariot to the assistant to lead away is his own signal of good faith to not renegotiate at a later time. Perhaps your father's boring lessons on the ins and outs of talking to wealthier clientele have not gone entirely to waste.
Pleasantries and partings are exchanged and you and father depart to the next hurdle of coming here.
- - - - -
"She'll inform the mayor's staff and vouch for your return. I gave young Jeremy a petal of the Night's Lily as a token of your return for Madam Silva to inscribe her verification upon," father states coolly. He is clearly annoyed at the brashness of your interactions with the Madam, though electing not to openly chastise you as you walk the streets to the Office of Lore.
"You barely spoke a word to her." You manage to keep your tone even and devoid of any temper as you reply. You are happy to have extracted some form of concession despite being caught so off foot by the Madam's sudden arrival, but are annoyed that your father was so passive despite his firmness in some aspects of the interaction.
"The criminal ties the knot for his own rope," your father says putting on a somewhat sagely aspect. "We had every advantage and no need to commit to any action either way except on our own timing," he explains. You nearly bump into him as he stops rather suddenly and turns to face you fully, street traffic parting around you both as the occasional passerby mumbles in annoyance stepping off the paved side onto the dirt that constitutes most streets within Harmuph.
Conflict plays across your father's face as he considers some important question, you feel the tiny force within yourself subtly tilt the critical balance a way. Your father steels himself before he speaks. There is a foreboding glint flaking off your Father's natural energy as he says, "my sister was like you Lilly." There is a weight behind that statement that you do not understand. You cannot tell whether he means this as a compliment or warning. "Precocious, witty, driven." You've never heard much about your aunt; she was gone before you were born and such things are not spoken of between parents and their children. Until now it seems. "I see so much of her in you," your father continues with a wistful expression. Memories from a younger time play across his face as he steels himself to continue. You stand enraptured, being invited into a private part of your father's life that has remained behind lock and key; that which you'd never thought would be opened. You breath slow, the hustle and bustle of the surrounding street fades away as your father continues. "My father was too liberal a man, indulging to a fault. Your aunt grew unruly and…", there is a pause and you a worried that the spell is broken, before your father goes on, "…and she chose a path that led to ruin, for herself and nearly for the family."
Your father stands over you at twice your young height, looking down not in condescension but certainly as an authority. "Gosh, even the hair 's the same," he says idly as he runs his hand through one of the blonder locks on your head, putting off what he has decided he must say next. "I thought to fashion your path to less destructive ends. I knew you would never accept the life of a simple maiden…", there is hurt in his voice, whether due to some failing as a father or your own failings as a daughter you cannot be sure. "I thought that teaching you our trade as my firstborn, despite the fact that legacy should fall to Zachariah instead…" and yet another pause, one you are unable to fill due to being utterly flabbergasted.
Oh. That has never occurred to you before. So focused on the claustrophobic feeling of your father insisting his mentorship upon you that you never considered the irregularity of a daughter with younger brothers being the one trained in her father's craft.
"Father, I did not mean to shame you or make you-"
"-Please," your father cuts you off. "Let me finish." His face is locked in the same thoughts you found him pondering alone this morning. Whatever they were, it's coming to a head now. "You come back to me when I think you lost. Alive, but different. Speaking of and demonstrating strange magics. For a time I thought only half my daughter returned, the rest replaced by some fey fakery." You almost interject to claim you are still yourself, but you needn't bother after what your father says next. "But now I realise it is the other way, always was. It was the girl before you left that was half the fake. The girl that returned, my daughter now made true."
Is this a dream? Has some power bewitched your father to speak every honeyed word you have ever wished of him? You are speechless, dumbfounded, mute. Acceptance in place of expected rejection leaving you so far from known shores that you are now lost at sea. Your father either does not notice or does not care as he continues to uproot the core assumptions that you thought framed your entire relationship and place in the family.
"Your mind has always been a formidable thing. Every day you find some obscure word I scarcely hear the loremen use." You begin to collect yourself, shock slowly giving way to understanding. "You still lie. For all the strangeness that was spoke of last night, of which I've continued to see even today…", another pause, "I know you hid more from us."
Does he know? You did decide you would admit the truth to the Lore Warden if he found you out, but if your father has already-
"Don't fret child." Your father places his hand on your shoulder in affection. "Your secrets are yours to keep until you are ready. I understand now that our home and in time our town shall be too small for you. But until then, allow me to do my duty. Let me guide you, keep you safe."
"Uh." That's about as eloquent as you're gonna get right now.
You father smiles deeply, you emotions written plainly on your face as you are unmasked before him, "We will have to figure out what your future holds together, Lilly."
The sounds of the street return, or at least seem to for they never truly left. Something significant has passed between the two of you here. Something with portents of destiny and the shaping of future days.
"I love you Father," you say as simple truth.
"Aye, And I have always loved you, daughter." At some point he has ended up kneeling to head height in front of you. The moment has passed and your father actually looks awkward and unsure of where to go from here before schooling his face back into its typical cold calm. You smile at the mirthful thought that despite other unlikely events, your father showing hesitation in action is perhaps the most impossible thing that has happened today.
Afterward, there is not much more to say. Small talk seems somehow wrong after so deep a foray into the matters of the heart, so you walk in comfortable silence. You both make your way to the Office of Lore. A simple structure of polished stone which somehow lends its grey exterior a bleak rather than glossed sheen. Two pillars of fake marble frame the ostentatiously decorated front entrance. It is a reminder of the entire Ministry of Lore's wealth whilst also asserting their diligent abstinence from gaudy excess.
The clerk at the stone bench within looks up with mild surprise at your entrance, though it seems you are expected. "Lilly, young Jeremy brought word of your, well, situation from Madam Silva. The Lore Warden has made time for you," she states somewhat stilted. It seems Madam Silva has given her young aid quite the runaround. It costs her nothing to put the boy to a day of unusually fast pace, though he'll certainly curse her name tending his sore legs tonight.
You thought you would have to wait for some time to be admitted without a proper appointment, but the Madam's aid to smooth things over ironically leaves you feeling flustered and with no time to prepare as the clerk leads you away from your father and through multiple winding corridors that each look identical. Clerks and clients move back and forth throughout the building, carrying all manner of books and unknown apparatus. You did not realise the Office of Lore extended so far back from its front entrance, assuming that in a small town like Harmuph it would have a much more basic investment of staff from the Ministry. Not for the first time in your life you bury the silent resentment that your ignorance stems from the fact that people are so reluctant to entertain the curiosities of a child.
As an act of hidden rebellion, you fake a stumble on a loose stone in the floor, righting yourself against a wooden support that decorates the otherwise painfully mundane and hereby so dubbed 'corridor 5'. The memories from the wood tell you nothing that interesting save for some insight into the order that stones and wood were placed into this building. This 'support' is in fact purely decorative, having been installed when all save the last sections of roof were in place. You wonder why a group so clearly unconcerned with aesthetic would bother with such an addition. Impossible to know. Still, the fact that you have stolen a random piece of trivia the adults around you would not consider sharing gives you some subtle satisfaction.
What people refer to as 'the' Lore Warden is in fact a selection of multiple gentlemen each filling the same role who rotate through the various towns and cities of the region and wider kingdom. There are usually up to three in any one place, though Harmuph barely qualifies for two. Lore Wardens are the guides to the lower class, helping you fulfill your duty and best contribute to the kingdom. What you would give to pick the brain of such a learned man for a few hours, to know the lay of the land and greater world beyond. If there was ever a man in Harmuph who could reliably separate fact from fiction, it is a Lore Warden. But to waste such an important official's time on that kind of flight of fancy? Ha. You are a brave girl, but you would also like to reliably see tomorrow's light.
You are led through a substantial looking stone arched doorway into what is a surprisingly cozy study. The transition from the cold indifferent stone to the warm amber light of a crackling fire and a plethora of assorted paraphernalia adorning several shelves against the walls of the large room is like stepping from night into day. You can almost imagine that you are inside a log cabin somewhere in the middle of the forest if not for the occasional bit of rock not occluded by the array of furniture, couches and tables tightly packed throughout the space (the solid polished roof is also a bit of a give-away).
What also stands out to you is the strange way natural energy flows in parts of the room, avoiding some spaces entirely, flowing quicker through others and in one notable case seemingly evaporated into nonexistence by a black opal upon a high shelf. You can't help but feel excited being this close to what you can only assume are a variety of true magical enchantments.
A slight cough draws your attention to a man advanced in years sitting at a desk covered in what looks like papers and cotton of differing colour and size. The Lore Warden is clearly an elder of great experience, making his thick and dark auburn hair with not a hint of grey all the more striking. He rises and steps around his desk, none of the frailty or caution of movement you typically associate with age showing.
"Yours is a most unusual case child," he begins. The Lore Warden leans against his desk while he looks at you, somehow formal in composure despite his relaxed position. "You are in fact the second child returned after a scried confirmation of departure I have come across in my tenure, or rather, the second that didn't need to be forcibly persuaded back into the next life." Right, straight to it then. You suppose you should get used to that being the first topic of conversation everywhere you go for the foreseeable future, strangers and friends alike. You wilt a little under his oddly piercing gaze. Can he see the secrets in people with a simple glance? If there were such an Ethos, you imagine a Lore Warden may be just the kind of profession that would make use of it. When you don't audibly respond the Warden seemly mildly disappointed. "Well then, let's begin shall we. You will tell me all that you know of your Ethos, in exact and thorough detail by your own accounting. Then I shall have questions." He motions you over into a couch that probably costs more than your entire families assets where you sit opposite one another. When he says nothing more but simply stare, you begin your recounting.
- - - - -
You find it unexpectedly easy to repeat the precise tale you shared with your parents the night just passed. There is a very clear separation between the [Dream with the Forest] and the… well the other thing that you felt. You know that if the rather imposing figure of the Warden asked you directly if you had a second Ethos, your will would melt under his presence. But the question never comes. The Warden's attention is unwavering, somewhere between a glare and perfect neutrality, his expression not shifting even once between the more mundane to the exceedingly fantastic parts of what happened to you in the Forest and your 'immediate' return to the surface to trek home. Over time you become confident that whatever esoteric power he holds to have earned such an important position, ferreting out what you do not wish known is not among them.
It actually helps a lot that you are genuinely excited for the feedback and advice of one who must have counselled hundreds of people over regions near and far, in the most important of matters. Hiding nerves is easy when the mask of excitement and anticipation shielding them is real.
You feel very grown up being worthy of hours of his time. And hours it indeed is. For when you finish you own recount, the questions begin. Every small piece of minutia is examined, questioned from multiple angles and then recounted again. The Warden takes note in a small leatherbound notebook using fine paper. Though what he considers worthy or small or large amounts of writing doesn't really match what you consider the most interesting parts. You are rather embarrassed that you start yawning some time in. You don't think you can actually get tired from thinking hard, rather this comes from sheer boredom at retracing the same steps over and over. It's a bit shameful of you really, to be so familiar around a stranger of higher prestige than your own family.
If any offence is taken, it is not shown. Your interest is piqued once more when the Warden unceremoniously indicates the questioning has ended by rising from his seat. He takes from the nearby shelves a rose red ribbon so thick it could almost be called a scarf, wrapping it around you left arm. At the same time, he retrieves the black opal that seems to somehow remove natural energy like a sinkhole and places it into the palm of your right hand. You sort of just stand there. The Opal is rather straightforward. Unexplained but simple in the way natural energy steadily wafts down into its never sated hunger. There is an ever so gentle pull upon the energy within your own body, but you have to concentrate to feel it. The ribbon is more perplexing, natural energy just doesn't flow through it right. Flow isn't even the right word really. What is normally a fuzzy current becomes instead a sharp series of precise shapes and angles within. Natural energy is forced along unnatural and artificial pathways before exiting as a disjointed and twisted mess which slowly returns to the normal as it spreads back out into its surrounds. Perplexing. How long would you have to work to earn something like this? Hard to tell when you don't really know what it's for, but you still want one. You realise that while you've been watching the items in your hands, the Warden has been watching you.
"Hmm, Pithe resonance almost non-existent. Mana capacity and exchange are below base. But you are a flawless Auron, in the 99th percentile," the Warden states, examining a black marble slate in his hands that to your eyes is as blank as a rock. You pride yourself on knowing lots of long words picked up from conversation and context, but you have no idea what that all means. "Your Concordance Integration also has zero fractures; most unusual, a pity that its useless since your Tension is also equally blank." He's not even looking at you. Despite the reference to you, he is clearly talking to himself. Done with examining the Slate, the Warden retrieves the items on your person and lays them to rest on the shelves once more. One day you'll do more than just borrow magic items.
Returning, he extends his hand signalling you to give him yours. As you obey, a sharp pinprick on your finger makes you recoil. "Ow!" you yelp, as you realise the Warden has made a tiny cut on your right index finger (without anything in his hands). Surprised more than hurt, hours of questioning followed by sudden excitement put you on the back foot. You shoot the Warden a tentatively accusing look.
"Now, direct essence to flow into the cut, as thick as you can manage," he commands, brooking no argument.
Essence. Funny name for natural energy, but oh well. You did not think you would say this coming in here, but you are going to be glad when this meeting is over. It's becoming a bit more clear to you that the Warden's interest in you is more as a craftsman to a new tool than as a teacher to a student.
Examining your pricked finger, a single tiny bud of blood is gathered at the unwelcome opening. Natural energy flows out of it and trembles slightly like a new pup thrown out into the winters cold, slowly withering down to the slightly less bright pastel yellow shine that matches the air around you. You try as hard as you can to push the surrounding energy in both the air and your body toward the point, denser than it wants to go.
You push and the natural energy pushes back, your finger is bathed in golden light twice as bright as anything or anyone else in the room. You begin to sweat, yet feel you are able to push harder. Laying a clamp down on the air immediately around you with your mind, you forcefully break through the resistance and compress the whole space onto your finger as it flares into a golden glory that would blind your eyes if the light were real. The effervescent luminance trembles tightly as you hold it in place. Dizziness begins to swell from the back of your head, blooming outward until your hold slips and in a single moment everything snaps back as it was leaving no sound nor afterglow behind. You are tired, falling back onto the couch you did not realise you'd stood up from with a large exhale. Upon your finger, is a small inflamed red mark, what you would have expected the cut to look like tomorrow.
Giddy excitement at the idea that you just knit back together broken flesh fills you, buoying you over your self-imposed exhaustion as you look at the Warden in triumph. "Nearest to perfect perceptory faculty I've ever witnessed, but pathetic shaping control," he assesses you in cold calculation. "How typical of this backwater that I should come so close to a worthy find, only for it to fall short of exemplary at the most essential step."
What. An absolute. Asshole.
You should be hurt by those words. You expect to be. But you're not. The recent memory of someone whose opinion truly matters comes back to you; your father's acknowledgment of who you really are. More than that, the look of dismissal in the Warden's eye makes you aware of the spark of something within yourself that was not there before today. When you went to sleep in that forest, you were a girl who reached for ambition and hoped you were special. Now, you stand on the threshold between girl and woman, inside yourself you find conviction and belief that you are worthy of your own dreams. Your buoyancy of spirit is not for men to crush or steal, it is yours and yours alone. Your excitement is still cooled, but your opinion of the Warden turns not to offence nor hurt, but to that of apathy.
You go through the necessary motions from that point, the last significant test is reading the memory of various bits of wood, some dead, some alive in a pot. You find your mind drifting to thoughts of being able to rest your now weary head, of a calm night surrounded by those who love you, of perhaps some gentle experimentation with your new senses relaxing on the grass out the front of the homestead.
Eventually the Warden gives you leave and you rise to exit the study. Looking around at the assorted items of mundane and magic nature, you decide that one day you're going to have a room just like this one. But far more welcoming, you add to yourself as you exit back out into the bare stone corridors. A different clerk is already waiting and leads you back through the twisting passages, your father waiting at the front where you left him.
The last unwelcome surprise within the Ministry of Lore is that you in fact get to wait a bit longer, sitting in a small wooden chair while your Father is led back by the same clerk to discuss options. It seems the Office is of the opinion that your future will be decided amongst the adults. After the understanding and acceptance you and your father have reached today (you're still a bit blindsided by that), you are tentatively confident you could persuade him away from an undesirable choice. You bury the silent fear you misunderstood the content or intention behind what you two shared and choose to believe it was truth. A subtle force within you reassures that it has made it so.
You don't have long to ruminate in the unknown though, it has only been a few minutes at most when your father can be seen making his own exit from the corridors. He is physically seething, red around the face and neck as he collects you. "We're leaving," he barks at the clerk that first received you both behind the bench, leading you out past the pillars and once more into the bustle of Harmuph's streets.
Taking a moment to readjust to the bright glow of so many people, your curiosity of what has transpired is practically burning you up inside. Still, you haven't seen father this angry since one of Zach and Micah's games nearly wound up making Chariot break his leg in a ditch a few years back; best to wait for your father's temper to settle slightly if you want a coherent reply. There are a few more errands for him to run and its not like you aren't going back to the same home anyway.
A familiar sight pulls you from your revelry, but a sad one. Across the street you see Myah. You share the same birthday aside her being a year older, but she has been growing distant for months. Before the Forest you had essentially accepted that for whatever reason, you were no longer friends. What catches your eye though as you take in her form, is a familiar pattern in the natural energy ebbing off her. A wilting shiver reminiscent of the small sickly trickle that flowed from your pricked finger. The girl looks fine, but her every move releases these tiny moaning fragments before they dissolve back into the ambient background. Concerning.
Your day in town is coming to a close soon, what will you do now?
Choice Time:
An Angry Man: Choose 1
[ ] Press your father on what he discussed with the Lore Warden, why did things end so quickly and heated?
[ ] Let it be, if he thought it relevant to tell you then he would have already.
Father's Errands: Choose 1
[ ] Catch up to Myah. You're kind of short on friends and don't want to lose another, try to reconnect and figure out what's up with her natural energy.
[ ] Shadow your father around town. Keep a low profile as the news of your return begins to pick up and surge through town.
[ ] Madam Silva says she owes you a favour. Secure her commitment to tutor you in lesser magic (or 'write in') when she has the time.
[ ] What a day its been! Go for a peaceful stroll through the streets and meet your father at the Gates later. (Will remove Exhaustion if successful)
[ ] Write In
A Brothers Concern: Choose 1
[ ] Zach has been oddly silent in almost any interaction since your return. Get him alone and ply his thoughts.
[ ] Zach has always been a sombre thinker. Whatever is going on, he will share when he feels ready.
Lily will prioritize the winning votes for Day's End. But depending on how the rolls go might find enough time to explore other options as well. If you pick a family option, she is more likely to also spend any free time on another family option and vice versa for Power options.
Day's End: Choose 1
[ ] (Power) Cleaver of Fortune talked a big talk, but doesn't seem to do much. Experiment and try to suss out how to actively put it use.
[ ] (Power) Seeing the 'memory' in wood is actually a lot of fun. Keep working on the scope of your new ability.
[ ] (Power) The idea of being a healer does somewhat appeal to you. Maybe you could practice trying to get it to work without feeling like you've run from home to Harmuph and back.
[ ] (Power) See if there's a possibly of being allowed to return to the woods. There is so much more you could learn there.
[ ] (Family) It might seem like yesterday to you, but your brothers (Micah and Marcus especially) are probably hoping for some quality time together.
[ ] (Family) A new chapter has opened between you and your father. Emotions are raw and hearts open. Yet what did you father mean when he asked to guide you? It felt more significant than an allusion to his typical paternal role.
[ ] (Family) "Mum, I am a woman now. Its time. There is power in the name you gave me. What is my namesake?"
[ ] Write In
Level Up [Cleaver of Fortune] from 0 to 1: Choose 1
[ ] In failure, hides success.
[ ] All paths trace back to you.
[ ] Each rung is the foundation for the next.
[ ] There is only dissipation.
[Cleaver of Fortune] is now sitting at 125/300 exp after your level up.
[Dream within the Forest] is at 282/300.
Ho boy.
- You precisely made the DC to remind your father of your aunt with your tone; inclusive of the +1 bonus [Cleaver of Fate] is currently giving you to beneficial rolls. That barely passed roll then spiralled into the Crit 100 'dream come true' redefinition of your entire relationship with your father that I alluded to at the start of this chapter. All that EXP went straight to [Cleaver of Fate] because it's what tipped the balance for that monumental event to happen, getting you a level up in less than a day when it took you just over three weeks the first time. All my plans for a slow rebuilding and rekindling of your father-daughter relationship fraught with peril and potential misunderstandings as I wrongly hinted he was just an obstinate misogynist crushing your free spirit blew up in the nuclear detonation that was Yolun Silas deciding that it was time to be completely open and honest with his daughter Lilly about the fears that have plagued him right since he first noticed her precocious personality. I'm still figuring out what this means for upcoming chapters, plans need to change.
- [Dream within the Forest] shot ahead this chapter! You passed the check to gain a proper understanding of the whispers rather than only a stronger link. You passed the following check to gain proper control of your wood post-cognition. You passed the hard check to heal your finger. You came so close to a double advancement but then failed the roll that would have tipped you over into level 2 during the Warden's wood memory test due to an exhaustion malice of -15. That malice to anything requiring concentration or dedicated attention is sticking around until you rest by the way.
- DC to heal your finger was 85 (84 thanks to [Cleaver of Fortune]), because you didn't choose the level up option that would have given that capacity and more for free. You just made the roll anyway because Lilly is a legend.
* There were so many others, but that's probably the most significant of them.
[X] {Press your Father} and {Let it be} tied. Compromise Result
[X] Catch up to Myah. You're kind of short on friends and don't want to lose another, try to reconnect and figure out what's up with her natural energy.
[X] Zach has been oddly silent in almost any interaction since your return. Get him alone and ply his thoughts.
[X] (Family) A new chapter has opened between you and your father. Emotions are raw and hearts open. Yet what did you father mean when he asked to guide you? It felt more significant than an allusion to his typical paternal role.
[X] Each rung is the foundation for the next.
- - - - Consequences 4th Day, 3rd Moon, LE 2302
As you stand considering what to do. A different kind pressure you did not realise was building inside you, [Cleaver of Fortune], breaks past some important threshold.
You are no longer standing in Harmuph's streets. Rather, you are again before the strand of Fate that is your life. That half-remembered dream from this night just past. Behind you all possibilities have once again collapsed to a single immutable line. In front of you, the strand continues to widen, stretching onto an ocean that crosses the horizon. Yet something is different. The first time you saw this vision, the future was opaque, unknowable. Now however, thin tendrils extend from your present, piercing the veil to a shallow depth in some parts of the waters. Before the enormity of the ocean they are tiny things. But they are as ropes to grasp, if you walk the line they lay down then the future they breach is rendered certain.
Before you can examine the strand of Fate any further, the vision fades as steam in the wind. You are once more surrounded by sound and light, Harmuph's citizens moving around you unaware of anything amiss.
'This is how my life works now,' you chuckle to yourself, blinking a few times to adjust to people's glow again. A quick glance at your Father shows him still silently fuming to himself, though a bit more composed. Myah is further off now; you'll lose her any second if you don't go after her. But you do really want to ask your father what just happened in there. The Lore Warden is an ass, that's an indisputable fact. But what set dad off?
He'll tell you everything if you ask later as you exit under Harmuph's gates.
You are incredibly proud of yourself for not screaming in the middle of the street as knowledge just appears in your head. You can feel something now, there is some kind of 'reach' inside you that wasn't there before. 'The tendrils into the future', you realise. Calming down, you try to get a handle on them. But they are slick like slime, flowing out of your hands in your mind when you try to seize them. The part of you that controls them is a deeper more instinctive place, ungrasped for now. This really is what your life is going to be like now.
Fine. A problem for later. So you can see the future… kind of… file that away under the ever growing list of 'huh, I guess that's a thing now'. You know your father will tell you what happened if you ask later under Harmuph's gates. It is a certainty so true that it feels more like a memory than a prediction. Since that's settled, Myah.
"Father, there's Myah," you tug on his sleeve while pointing.
You're happy to your see his expression lighten slightly as he turns his face to you, saying "Go on then, be at the East Gate by fourth bell."
You quickly step off into the street proper to catch the girl now disappearing around a corner. The Office of Lore is in a busy thoroughfare of Harmuph, meaning the streets are fairly packed here. Most people don't pay much mind to a girl going against the main flow of traffic, meaning you need to artfully manoeuvre around a few close calls of people oblivious to you being in their way. You wonder if there is an Ethos to make you taller and more noticeable, probably. Rounding the corner, the street now breaks off from the main way and pedestrians are fewer in number. Myah is just a ways up ahead, a woven basket laden with some kind of produce carried in her arms.
You make your way closer, hoping things go better than the last few times you spoke. Myah was inconsolable after Jeremy passed. You both cried together, rallying against the injustice that is the Black Lung. When the disease took her mother too, only Myah and her father were left. You expected more tears, you certainly cried and shed plenty for her. But Myah didn't. A coolness and distance began to grow that soon tainted your time together. You hope time can heal those wounds; it has been months even before your disappearance.
She paints quite the distinctive picture, tittering the balance between herself and her heavy load, careful not to step on the wrong parts of the rough road that would break her tenuous balance and send her sprawling. Myah's hair is a deep maroon that flows in rivulets down and off her shoulders nearly to her waist. That detail is less than a year old. Her hair brown before her awakening, some consequence of her Ethos. All this aside you couldn't really fail to spot her anyway, what with the sparser throng of people and the still strikingly odd quiver of her Natural Energy as it lifts off her lithe frame.
That oddity only becomes more apparent the closer you draw, calling "Myah!" a suitable distance behind.
Myah for her part, spins in place so quickly she starts to fall. Surprise and fear playing across her freckled face in equal measure as a loose stone slips out from under her. Making it just in time, you catch both her arm and her basket (of veggies you now see) in hand. You note in small surprise how easy it is to pull her up and steady her despite your lesser weight. Myah may be a lithe girl, but your diminutive physique still makes you obviously the smaller of the pair.
It is at this point where you take in the wide-open eyes and 'O' shaped mouth of Myah, her features agape and locked onto you.
Ah yes, the whole 'being dead' thing.
"Lilly?" Myah whispers, like she barely believes the sight. "You're… not…"
You both just sort of stand there, neither really knowing what to do. What is the social protocol for 'Hi, you thought I was partially decomposed but turns out I'm not'?
"Hey… Myah," you start, to break the silence at least. "You've probably heard, I mean, that is of course you heard, but… well, turns out-"
"-You ran." Myah states, cutting you off. There is a strange sort of confidence passing over her now, an excitement that you can't place. "But how did you trick the Diviner? How did you make sure they couldn't find you," her expression changes to one of confusion as she continues, which incidentally is exactly how you're feeling. "But… then why did you come back? Did it stop working?" she questions.
Okay. This doesn't make much sense. "What, no Myah I didn't run awa- or rather, I… I just got lost for a while is all," which is not technically a lie, you're not exactly prepared to filter the myriad of questions even beginning to explain what happened to you would prompt. You watch Myah as she takes in your posture sceptically, clearly not buying it. She always could see right through you like that.
"Yeah, okay Lilly. Sure." You can practically feel the sarcasm dripping off her. Which makes Myah's next shift all the more jarring when she steps close to you to whisper conspiratorially "But could you do it again? Make it stick this time? I know we haven't hung out for a while-" that last part is said with something you think is sadness "-but this is important Lilly. Is it your Ethos? What would it take? Please?" Her voice grows more tight and strained the longer she speaks.
Myah's asking for something you don't have and can't give. You reach out and touch her shoulder to say "I'm sorry Myah, but I can't- oh" you pause as you watch your own natural energy begin to billow and slough off yourself in thick currents, a stream flows out and onto Myah. As this happens the odd pallor around her is saturated and scoured, coming to resemble what you would consider an ordinary appearance.
Myah for her part is equally distracted, breathing a sign of deep relief as your natural energy blankets her. You pull back your hand and the flow quickly peters out. You muse that you are in fact doing a terrible job at 'not make people ask questions' as you notice Myah's energy slowly start to pale once more. Whatever the strange effect, it was temporary. Myah's relief turns to some sort of hard expression that you can't read.
"Myah, it's to do with my Ethos. Couldn't work on you," you honestly explain, "why would you even want to? You love Harmuph." You very much hope she does not draw attention to what happened.
All kinds of emotions play across your estranged friend's face. A sadness as you say you can't do anything, then that same unreadable expression again.
Myah is afraid you'll find out the truth that no one is allowed to know. Will become angry as an attempt to deflect your suspicion unless you punch her in the face right now.
What? No! You're not punching her. What the hell is going on?
Myah unceremoniously yanks up her basket that had been set to rest on the ground and aggressively resumes her trek home, hissing over her shoulder at you "Well whatever then freak. I… I was joking anyway. Just, leave me alone!" She fails to hide a flash of worry before the back of her head blocks your view and she makes a hurried retreat as fast as she is able. Just as her scarlet framed figure disappears around another corner and out of sight, you note that her natural energy has finished its return to the same off-putting state as before. You are left confused and concerned and just all around not happy with how that went.
Well Myah. Suspicion officially not deflected. What have you gotten yourself into?
You realise just how effective her attempt might have been if not for recent events emboldening you. You've been self-conscious about being abnormal for a long time and 'freak' would have been just the ticket for you to declare the whole friendship a lost cause.
You ball your hands into fists in frustration as the patrons of a local business step out past you. You know just enough of what's going on to know nothing at all. For all its supernatural wonder, your new power seems content to drip feed you scraps when what you need is the full picture.
Yeah that's right mystical future-sight tendrils, you are not nearly mystical or future-y enough!
Your quip to yourself does help you calm down and think a little. You don't need foresight to know that going after Myah again right now would be a terrible idea, but you decide to yourself that this is not over.
- - - - - -
You don't accomplish much of anything before 4th bell nears. Sally and Tunia are out of town along with their parents. Tarry is likely in town, but you don't really like hanging out with him much anymore. He's a big show-off and brash and loud and… he's just been acting like such a boy around you lately. (You're not even going to get started on that stupid cocky smile of his).
Even your random wandering through Harmuph (less fun but not uninteresting when alone) turns sour near the end. A sickly beggar camped at an intersection of roads, not really that noteworthy. That is if his natural energy wasn't a morbid reminder and grimmer reflection of Myah's. You recognise the likeness in how the languid flows churn like sludge, straining to circulate as if they may seize up and go still at any time. After that you quickly make your way to the East Gate, what was left of your earlier good cheer thoroughly ruined.
Not thinking about or really paying attention to much as you sit out of the way near the eastern wall, you are quite happy when a familiar shadow blocks the sun over your head, whinnying as he carries another friendly face. "Have you been waiting long," your father asks, extending out a hand to haul you up onto Chariot in one motion.
"Not at all," you reply, settling into place behind him. As the gates approach to take you back out toward home, you swallow a lump in your throat as the moment nears. The timing likely does not need to be this precise, but you don't take any chances, beginning exactly as your head goes beneath the covering arch, "So…" you start.
You examine your father saddled in front of you as the two of you trot out past the walls. "So," he replies. Both of you know exactly what you are talking about.
"I suspect it did concern my future, father," you intone, making the topic abundantly clear.
Your father lets out a long sigh as the two of you clear the small huddle surrounding the exterior of the gates, the countryside opening up into the rolling plains that dominate the region, beginning the journey to home proper.
"I was honestly dreading that you'd bring it up immediately, Myah was a welcome distraction in that regard," he continues to stall. Then after another sigh seems to settle the matter in his head. "More than anything, this conversation right now makes it all real. Not just fantastic stories. Not just promises or inconsequential musings, but actual plans."
Go on. Hit me with it dad, I'm ready.
"You remember Jeremy of course," he states, a seeming nonsequiter.
'Of course I remember Jeremy.' You think as your father goes on.
"You might think the tragedy that has befallen the Uyle family before the Temple of Virtue intervened is the worst the Black Lung and other misfortune's ilk can do." At this he stops Chariot for a moment, patting and calming the horse which was beginning to pick up on its rider's raising worry. "But you haven't seen what the larger cities can be like. Giant towers of gleaming white stone and shinning towers, rising above and out of sight of the ocean of filth and death."
'I don't think its that bad, and what does this have to do with the Lore Warden anyway' you wisely choose not to interject.
As you make your way down the road that lasts at least some of the way to home, your father continues his tale. "A child is perfectly safe when protected in such a place, until of course one day suddenly they are not," there is a deeper pain beneath his words as he speaks, "My father was a great man. Skilled, generous, trusting to a fault… What I would give to know those bastards' names, sometimes I wonder if I'd chosen that other Ethos when it came…" Your father seems to remember who he is telling this story too, skipping forward, "But family comes first, three daughters and one son with no husband left to provide for us. We all did what was necessary to survive." The way your father says 'survive'; you doubt the City Guard approved of such necessary measures. "But there was never enough food…" Your father's natural energy seems to dim somewhat, vibrating in a long groaning echo. He steels himself, then goes on, a strange hollowness rings through his voice, "Clarrisa, Penelope and little Cherish. These were my sisters three. Oh my, its been so long since I've said their names." You've never seen your father cry, it's poetically fitting that you don't see his face as a wipes something from his eye. After a long pregnant pause, he recites to you a list of the most morbid sort. A list that carries the weight of decades old grief, "Clarissa was the first, ran through by a noble in the street for speaking back. Cherish second. The infection took her after she lost her hands. Penelope was last, I don't even know where, she simply didn't come home one night. Then finally Mother, she drank a full cup of crushed Night's Lily. I knew then that if I didn't leave Erisdale, it would be my grave too."
Do you comfort him? You don't even know how. Your heart feels like it might break in half imagining the strong stoic man you look up to as a broken boy surrounded only by the memories of family.
"Father, I don't understand."
"I'm telling you that you can't always trust honeyed words or promises girl! You've been sheltered here in Harmuph, away from the all that. People here are good, but the rest of the world is a far crueller place." There is nearly venom in your fathers voice as he continues, "Plenty of people claimed to consider my father a brother, us children their own blood. But when he was gone, the only company left were the vultures looking for scraps. Strangers are going to appear and offer you opportunities Lilly, but always remember that they are not looking out for you, they are looking out for themselves. Tsk, I think Chariot has a rock caught." Your father slides off Chariot leaving you with your thoughts.
If dad is trying to convince you that the world is a big scary place and you should be afraid of ever going anywhere then he is sorely mistaken… Although if you're honest with yourself he has actually given you a bit of wariness at least of the big cities.
Also. It's not like I'm going anywhere soon. This is all years away.
There is almost no one around now that you have made some distance from Harmuph, a few occasional travellers, mostly fellow homesteaders. You watch your father is silence as he works. After fixing Chariots gait, your father does not immediately remount him. Instead he stands beside you, slightly below your height thanks to Chariots boost. Placing his hand in your lap to squeeze your hand, he says, "It was the healing Lilly. That's what did it. Very rare sort. If you dedicate your Ethos to it, if you're trained by those with great affinity in the field, there's all sorts of uses for it."
You're not sure why having a rare sort of healing is so big of an issue. The Lore Warden didn't exactly jump over himself to congratulate you. 'Pathetic Shaping' was his remark if you recall, which you do because it sort of stings a little. "But Father, what's the problem with that? If I can learn to do it better, then we'd never have to worry about any sickness in the family again."
Your father shakes his head sadly. "You misunderstand. When I say focus, I mean focus. You'd be taught ways to narrow your Ethos, concentrate it to coax your subtle talent into something larger. A healer is all you'd ever be. Locked away somewhere safe."
Oh. You're not sure you like the sound of that. Either stripping away [Dream within the Forest] of its other qualities or being kept under tight lock and key by minders. Of course, you have more than one Ethos, but you're not sure you could put that to much use or even if you could keep that hidden.
You couldn't.
Thanks.
"And if I don't want to be locked away in a tower like a princess, what will we do father? What can you do?" You ask. Harmuph doesn't exactly have a suitable tower, but you need to know where your father stands. They'll probably want you to spend all day at the Temple of Virtue taking care of people. Blerk. You've gained the wrong sort of attention sooner than you thought would happen, too soon to do anything without help.
Your father looks at you carefully, he asks his question slowly. "So, if the Lore Warden did in fact want you to travel to Arrone to commence training as a healer, you would be against this notion?" His look is searching, as if trying to discern your very thoughts.
Arrone! But that's ages from here.
Understanding starts to dawn. Not training in Harumph, but abroad, away from literally everyone you know.
Chariot grows restless from standing still. "I do want to travel some day Father, but not yet, not so soon." You can't help but look down as you finish, feeling quite small despite currently being the taller of the pair. There is a large tight lump forming in the back of your throat that you cannot swallow. If the Lore Warden has convinced your father to send you away and that is what this conversation has been leading up to, there is not a lot you could do about that.
Your hesitance seems to be the answer your father was looking for. You don't know why, but you instinctively know what he is about to say will be incredibly important. "Then listen closely. In 7 months time when you turn thirteen, you will reach the age of majority. At that time, the residing Lore Warden in Harmuph will surely command you to render yourself as a citizen to Arrone and begin your training. I can shield you until then, help you prepare. But come that day, you need to have decided what you will do." Having said his piece, your father remounts Chariot without another word and your journey resumes.
You swallow away some of your nerves. Your life is not upended yet, but a definite end to the certain and the known has come to unfurl around you.
Your father knows you understand some of the implications of what he has just shared. Your childhood is over, or at least it will be before the year is out. You find yourself lost in thought as scenery passes you by. The future where you would venture out and do great and noble deeds has always seemed so distant. Most of all an unachievable dream, then atop that, uncertain years away wherein some mystical transformation would occur as another degree of separation.
'7 months,' You think of your brothers, your family, your friends… 'It doesn't seem like much time.'
It makes you feel smaller still. The wider world has always been this ethereal thing, not entirely real until you decided to set out, discover and make it so. But now it seems the wider world has decided time is up, its coming to you. So concerned with proving yourself in any tests, you didn't even consider that perhaps you should hold back in the Lore Warden's interview. You rest your head against your father's back as Chariot trots along, somehow missing them both already even though they are still with you now.
Is there a way you could stay in Harmuph past that time? You don't think that likely. The kingdom might be a nebulous far off thing, but there is real power behind the fancy names and titles that float about. And obedience can be compelled through force of arms.
Your father likely knows the content of your thoughts, thinking it right to leave you to your own ministrations.
The sun slowly sinks toward the horizon as Chariot plods on.
- - - - - -
"Sullivan Lye has a son, Mathew," your father breaks you out of a half-remembered day dream, yellow and red has began streaking along the sky and you are not far from home. "Mathew has an Ethos of rare quality which he calls '[Blessed Armsman]'. He just had his 19th birthday and has spent the years since his awakening focusing [Blessed Armsman] on aspects of mentorship and training, in service to his fellow citizens," there is a good deal of respect in your fathers voice as he speaks. You can guess why, not many boys would choose to develop an Ethos to make others stronger when instead they could be that much more potent themselves.
"I'm sure those he teaches are grateful," you respond, wondering if you've seen him running drills with the Watch in the past few years since his awakening.
"Aye, you will be. He'll be here at first light tomorrow," your father adds with wry amusement.
"What!" you squeak in surprise. Chariot whinnying with a similar jolt.
You father chuckles at your break in tone. "You are hereby excused from all your chores tomorrow. Though I'm not sure you'll be thankful for that by the time Mathew is through with you," he intones humorously as you both enter the barn to store Chariot for the night. You idly note Zach outside chopping wood by the house despite the late hour, but your conversation is front and centre in your mind.
Did I die and go to the heavens? Dad arranged a trainer for me… a trainer.
"This can't be happening," you say as much to yourself as in reply, slipping off Chariot as father does likewise to lead him into his pen.
"If my daughter is going out into the wider world alone, then I will see to it that she is prevailed in the proper use of a weapon," your father responds, like this is the most normal thing in the world.
But how? "How did you even convince them to do this."
"Something I learned as a child when the greater portion of ours was stolen, money left unspent has limits to the security it can provide. Instead, I have supported those that needed a helping hand, currying debts of gratitude and influence in addition to the gold under the floorboards-"
!!!
"-No, there is not actually any gold under the floorboards," your father laughs, "Our money is with the Ministry of Finance. The Lye family fell on hard times a number of years back and I gave them a loan where the Ministry would not, I have called in that favour today."
"Thank you Father," you say simply, unable to communicate the breadth and depth of your gratitude and you wrap him in a hug.
Your father pats you on the head as you hold him. "Yes, well, see to it that you do not waste his time. I imagine Sullivan will have had to do quite a bit of convincing to get his son to come."
The two of you speak about inconsequential things following this awesome revelation. As you exit the barn, your father asks that you drop by the workshop before turning in for the night.
You acknowledge him, already making your way over to Zach. You've been a little worried about how he's been acting around you. All weird and stilted and giving you complicated looks after the euphoric rush of your return had faded.
It's odd that Zach would even be outside chopping this late. The night air can easily turn sweaty skin into a nasty chill. He notices but does not acknowledge you as you approach. Now that you don't tire so easy, you could probably do the job much faster for him?
Do not offer to help cut the wood.
Or not. You stand watching him for a time as neither of you speaks, the occasional sound from inside your home making its way to your ear. It sounds like the cleanup after dinner, rhythmically timed against the slow steady chop, chop, chop of Zach's swings.
"Hey," you say.
Zach pauses to you look at you between swings before returning to the task at hand, replying "Hey," shortly.
You really wish there was a power to make this easier. "You've been weird since yesterday, what's up?"
Zach for his part still refuses to look at you, answering between swings, "Why would I… be feeling… weird… everything's… fine."
You can't help but let your temper flare a little. You know he's lying. He knows you know, but won't say it. "Look. I know something is going on with you Zach. Can you just say it?"
Zach, suddenly rather angry, bites back at you, "I know everything's going so fantastic for you right now. But how about you just leave me the hell alone, can you do that sis?" He is actually looking at you now, the axe in his hand forgotten for the moment.
Zachariah will become angrier and obstinate if you push harder. He will feel hurt and alone if you don't.
I don't want either of those things to happen.
You'd rather Zach be angry than hurt, closing the distance to him you say "I just want to know why you're upset. I haven't even done anything-"
"-oh you haven't have you!" Zach now shouts in your face. "Learn to take no for an answer Lilly. Oh I know, I'm sure dad will be happy to spend all of tomorrow hanging out and teaching you, not that you were ever grateful!" At tense moment as you both stand staring, before Zach breaks the deadlock, "I'm going inside." At that he drops the axe and pushes past you. Or at least he tries, trying to shoulder check you on his way past surprises both of you when you barely move, nearly knocking Zach on his ass. For his part, Zach powers forward pretending that didn't just happen, you hear him slamming the front door as he goes inside.
You stand there dumbly, thinking about how that just happened and wondering if you made the right choice pushing Zach like that. There's a few pieces of loose wood left, you decide to finish the abandoned job to the background of mother scolding Zach for mistreating the door. The axe handle wants to share its memories with you, but you're not exactly in the mood.
So Zach thinks I'm spending too much time with father? No that doesn't make any sense, I've been back home a day and Zach was acting strange even before that could have become the issue.
You firmly plant the axe's blade into the grain of a piece with your swing, splitting it in two.
Something else is going on here. Any answers for me future-tendrils… …? Figures.
Another few swings, some more split wood. You finish the task easily, noting that not only was it not tiring, but your swings themselves seemed much more substantial than the last time you attempted this chore. All that remains is for you to stack the loose cuts along with the main pile against the house, a similarly simple effort.
Job done; you don't exactly wish to follow Zach inside yet. You remember your dad wanted to see you in the workshop. Memories of being forced to spend hours practicing the same repetitive tasks over and over haven't exactly made you fond of the place, but you doubt that's what you'll be doing.
The sun is mostly set as you make your way over to the old home turned workshop. The reds and yellows in the sky slowly creeping back at the advance of the deep blue behind it. Some of dad's workmanship is propped against the outer wall, you note at this distance that a couple of them subtly divert the flow of natural energy through them just like in the Lore Warden's office. It does occur to you that your father's more high-quality pieces are in fact technically magic items, you just never really liked to use the term to describe things you felt so negatively predisposed towards.
Inside you find your father working on a small lumpy piece of stonebark about the size of a heart. Carefully etching subtle lines along part of its flank. It's somewhat rare for him to be at work on something not related to typical craft or construction, his natural talent, but he does have a few side specialties the occasional patron desires.
The room is quite spacious, the equal of the main room in your house now that the dividing wall that used to split it has long since been removed. The rectangular table your father is leaning over right now dominates the aesthetic of the room, thrumming with subtle power. You'd like to see anyone try to move or damage the seemingly simple but far from mundane item of furniture. The walls surrounding the workshop are a chaotically hung mishmash of self-crafted and bought tools of varying make and purpose. There is ample space in the back of the room where the walls and floor have been left unoccupied, where finished projects rest before collection or transport.
"Ah, Lilly," your father says as he raises his eyes to meet you. "Come stand over here, I need to measure you," he says, indicating an empty space next to the table.
Measure me?
You know your father is capable of making personal items for some for a quite exorbitant price, which requires certain measurements, but it is hardly his usual tack. You'd be a fool to refuse though, so you quickly scurry into place.
"I'd began part of this work before your awakening, but adjustments will need to be made to the original plan. I think you'll be quite pleased with the result." Your father says this as he selects a number of small tools from a nearby wall. A small carving bone, a perfectly spherical piece of grainless wood and a wad of limesap.
You rein in your excitement as he begins to work. Starting with the carving bone, he begins to run it up and down the flanks of your shoulders, almost hard enough to be painful. You see nothing in your natural sight, natural energy occasionally follows the length of his strokes as he makes them and sometimes does not. You know that your father can see and feel entirely different facets as he sets rune aspects into place.
As he continues, your father revisits a previous topic you were not expecting, "I know I said your secrets are yours to keep Lilly. And I still mean that after a fact." He hesitates for a beat, considering how to go on. "But this whole business with the Office of Lore troubles me. I want to protect you Lilly, but I can't do that if you hold your secrets so close to your chest." He continues to run the bone along your shoulders, now occasionally moving into long wide arcs that cross the length of your arms and upper back. "I would ask that even if you have your doubts, that you choose to trust me. So, daughter, is there something you wish to say?"
It would appear you are not quite as convincing a liar as you thought.
What are you going to do now?
Choice Time:
Family and Trust: Your father is convinced you are still hiding something important, likely assuming that you don't trust him with the truth. [ ] Deny it.The truth is dangerous to know even if unspoken. Your father can never be accused of hiding something he did not know.
[ ] Acknowledge there is more. Try to persuade Father that you have very good reasons for not sharing them.
[ ] Vague explanation. Hint at powerful and mysterious forces being at work. That your Ethos is unique from others in ways that would be trouble if it was revealed.
[ ] The whole truth. Both of your Ethos and of what reached out to you in the Forest that night. Swear your father to silence.
The Early Morn: Tomorrow you'll be training from first light (Yay!). But knowing yourself, you'll probably still be up and about long before the sun crests the horizon. What to do with your extra time? [ ] (Family) You'll get an earful from mother, but Marcus will definitely rise early to play with you if you wake him.
[ ] (Family) Chariot can be put out to graze, feedstock for the pigs can be replaced and bails can be moved. Unlike anyone else, you'll still be fresh and ready when you're done.
[ ] (Power) [Cleaver of Fortune] has gained a new feature. But you still don't really understand what it could do before that. Experiment and try to suss out how to actively put it use.
[ ] (Power) The words of wisdom are fickle and seemingly random. Try to get a handle on how to control or at least steer them.
[ ] (Power) Seeing the 'memory' in wood is actually a lot of fun. How else could such an ability be put to use?
[ ] (Power) The idea of healing does somewhat appeal to you. (Despite how its come to bite you). Try to improve your 'Pathetic Shaping'.
[ ] (Power) You're physically stronger now. What are you limits? How far can you push things?
The [Blessed Armsman]: Because apparently the universe has read your mind, you have a full day of being mentored in real life actual not-playing around fighting. What's your attitude going in? [ ] Gushing. You are incredibly grateful and will make sure both your father and Mathew know it.
[ ] Reserved. You don't know this man, but you'll see how things go.
[ ] Confident. You're going to do great, now that someone is finally willing to give you a chance.
[ ] Hesitant. This is just making the fact you'll have to leave one day feel all the more real.
Risks and Gambles: There has already been unintended consequences from being unwary with strangers and pushing your powers to their limits around others. Will you try to expand and feel out new uses for your power while being trained? [ ] The best possible time to expand the scope of your abilities is during training. Once in a life-time opportunity. You can trust Mathew, he can probably even give you novel advice you wouldn't think of yourself.
[ ] Keep things in reserve. Use what you have but don't push the limits. You just don't know what could go wrong otherwise.
It's nearly bed time, so this will happen early next chapter. Level Up [Dream Within the Forest] from 1 to 2:
[ ] They came to hang from her branches, to rest beneath her canopy.
[ ] The roots sank deep, searching, yearning, until finally, water.
[ ] He grew taller each day, until the sun came to rest in his embrace.
[ ] Claw scratched and tail lashed, but the bark remained unmarred.
New Ethos:
[Service to Man] (Lesser):
You sense that your connection to this Ethos is growing tenuous. You have been acting less and less maidenly of late. It is likely you will never see it again after this. [Keeper] (Lesser):
The Keepers record and document the knowledge of civilisation. They study the applications of various magics and how they might be best synergized with others. Made heavy use of by the Office of Lore, they form the backbone of the bureaucratic apparatus of the kingdom. Assistants and apprentices to the Lore Wardens and you're sure numerous other organisations all around. [Lamenter] (Lesser):
The Lamenters comfort and council those around them. Able to take on grief or pain from another and diminish it within themselves, granting closure and acceptance to those unable to move on. The Lamenters are caretakers of graveyards and conductors of minor funeral rites. When the restless dead refuse to pass on, the Lamenters can help weaken their attachment to the mortal plane. It is considered incredibly poor form to interfere with a Lamenters work. [Heartsworn] (Common):
"The promises we make ourselves, they bind us to our own future. Give us the push to reach higher than our own span." It is not only the fortunate intervention of an outside influence that has made your future possible, it has also been the grit and passion of your own heart committed to that end.
Draw upon the force of your ambition and dreams and render the conceptual into something manifestly physical. You word shall be your bond, and others their bindings. Weave armour from hope, and a weapon from courage. [Brave Blood] (Common):
Be the vaunted knight standing in the gap against the endless waves of unspeakable horror seeking to destroy the lands of men. Awaken the call of adventure that sings forth from your own blood and propel your body to impossible heights. This Ethos feels different to the first time it was offered, your tenuous connection has strengthened and solidified. There is also the consideration that this is exactly the kind of thing the [Blessed Armsman] could work well with. [Engraver] (Common)
The basic runecraft your father has drilled into you can already make lumber that is twice its usual strength. Dive headfirst into the realm of runic inscriptions and the symbols that draw upon the primal energies of reality to remake the mundane into the exceptional. This feels different to what your father can do however, somehow looser and more malleable. [Intuitor] (Common)
A thousand years and every tutor under the sun, still you could not begin to scratch the surface of the sum total of possible knowledge. You accept this fact, but nevertheless will never stop your upward climb. A knack for learning and mastery of diverse or tricky talents. The Jack of All trades empowered by a dedicated Ethos. "I may not be the best juggler, dancer or singer, but I can do all three at the same time better than most." Your already sharp mind shall be honed and polished to a truly deadly point. From this starting point, your Ethos could develop into a truly strange and unique thing.
New Ethos Selection:
[ ] Service to Man (Lesser)
[ ] Keeper (Lesser)
[ ] Lamenter (Lesser)
[ ] Heartsworn (Common)
[ ] Brave Blood (Common)
[ ] Engraver (Common)
[ ] Intuitor (Common)
Current exp:
[Dream within the Forest] = Lvl 2: 311/600
[Cleaver of Fortune] = Lvl 1: 132/300
Character Sheet: Public - It's a Girl's World
It is not necessary to view this sheet to follow the story, but I know some people love this stuff. I've scrubbed any obvious spoilers, but a general warning applies.
- How funny would it have been if you collapsed lost in the vision from [Cleaver of Fortune] right in the centre of Harmuph? You came uncomfortably close.
- Congrats on passing the check to grasp the basics of how the power works though. That means you actually have a better understanding of your Lvl 1 [Cleaver of Fortune] power than you do of your Lvl 0.
- Your power nearly made its roll to tell you what was happening with Myah, not quite though.
- So managing to win over your father to the point he would start actively assisting your preparations for later arcs was always on the cards. It's come up much sooner than expected. There were multiple situations where you would need to leave Harmuph having not received any martial education at all. (I mean, there are paths to securing support through personal influence too, but those are far less likely.) You can actually thank the Lore Warden's poor rolls failing to reassure dad that Arrone is what's best for finally tipping him over the edge into outright support.
- You actually rolled quite well in your conversation with Zach. Don't let the tempers fool you, the idea that you love and care for him got across. Siblings gonna Sibling, despite whatever else is going on.
- Yeah, you totally botched your bluff roll a few chapters back when choosing not to share the more crazy details from the forest. Mum and dad both know something bigs up.
- Was happy to see a bunch of as-yet unseen Ethos make the selection cut this time.
Just a quick interlude today, vote is still open for a couple more hours.
- - - - - Words of Encouragement Elsewhere at a similar time
It was looking like it was going to be a good day today.
Life was looking up for Valerie. No more governess saying she had poor manners and she should watch her tongue. No more parents who always said no and that she should know better. Just open country and the freedom to go any direction she wished… eventually.
'Not quite the course I would have chosen myself,' Valerie thought as her foot stepped in something slimy on the mushy 'barely a path' way into the low counties. Refusing to find out what that had been, she pressed on in her by now quite well-torn dress. The tailor that had first measured her would cry tears of blood to see it trounced through the backwaters of the Loilsvan countryside like this.
That thought made Valerie giggle, life was just so funny now! Would people cry blood if she asked hard enough? Not yet, but maybe eventually.
She needed her day dreams to distract herself from the otherwise boring trek southward. Why Aboleath wanted to go to the Silent Sea was anyone's guess, but what Abby wants, Abby gets.
"Hey Abby," Valerie spoke out loud to her secret passenger as she continued onward, enjoying the occasional shade as she passed various denser patches of trees. "Remind me again why it has to be south, there's nothing interesting this way at all."
You know for a fact that is not true. Also, you asked me to never try explaining Deific fragment consummation again after last time.
Valerie's reply was cut short by the appearance of two men from another nearby copse of trees as she made her way along. Hiding off to the side of the road and out of sight like that meant they were likely of the naughty sort.
"A girl travelling alone," the first of the men said, the only description Valerie could think of for either was unwashed, "there is bravery and then there is foolishness," the plebian chuckled whilst eyeing her up and down in a way most ungentlemanly.
The second and older of the pair placed his hand on his belt hitched scabbard, "Now how about you-"
"-Plǘ̸̡ck out ë̴͎́ach oṱ̴̈h̵͎͝er's ey̵̩͐es and ea̸͓̓t them," Valerie stated.
She walked between the two men to continue on her merry way. Honestly, no one had any manners anymore. Oh Lord, now she was sounding exactly like her Governess. Stupid bitch.
The muted sobs behind her turned to shrieking and finally garbled choking moans as the thralls carried out her orders. Valerie felt a little bad for saying 'eyes' when 'eye' was probably enough of a punishment for bothering her.
Oh well, no use crying over spilt milk.
"You promise you can make me stronger Abby," she whined to her companion with all the righteous entitlement someone of her birth felt themselves owed.
Yes. Before the moon is out, you shan't need to speak for them to obey.
Hmm, good.
The sky was clear, the sun was warm. Valerie decided it really was a good day today.
