You don't know anyone who's namedropped it. Captain Martin seemed unaware when doing his Ethea breakdown. So your first steps would need to be sussing out who even knows about it.
I think that one might actually be Legend sourced? Sounds appropriate to me at least since it seems about recalling the past deeds associated with someone with our name.
That might indeed present a bit of a problem, true!
I think that one might actually be Legend sourced? Sounds appropriate to me at least since it seems about recalling the past deeds associated with someone with our name.
You don't know anyone who's namedropped it. Captain Martin seemed unaware when doing his Ethea breakdown. So your first steps would need to be sussing out who even knows about it.
The main trick that at this point, even Lilly doesn't know about Legend. She may have seen an effect that turned out to be Legend (like when she saw a Flow effect in the dungeon), but right she has ZERO context for it being "a thing". Granted, once we do the Waking Meet-up with Petal, that may change...
...To be fair, there were at least two rather large brakes that Slyvena made abundantly clear we could use if we wanted.
Letting the small child with ONE level in a combat Ethos hunker down in the magically reinforced barn is a totally valid and SANE course of action.
You CAN double-dip to get both [Tower] and [Bedrock], but there will be consequences.
The thread chose not to use either of these, and so the train is chugging along well ahead of schedule in terms of raw power. Sure, now we have a period where we need to hit the train switches just right to keep from derailing, but once we clear that rough patch, everything will be just fine.
Well, the train needs to keep to schedule. Since it started a month late with the conductress taking a month long nap break. As lot of lost time to make our for.
Also note that the dream, greater dream, connection we found is legend. So Lilly after the next visit may be the sole expert on it within our circles.
The spooky kid's interference. Since he is all up in the Concordance, could it have been a bit of retroactive shenanigans? Perhaps in response to messing with his plans for Valerie.
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.
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
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.
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.
Remove "this long".
The middle of the sentence is kind of clunky but I have no specific suggestions.
"you're affinity for each other has grown" -> has caused your affinity to grow.
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.
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.
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.
I have literally never heard the word "magnality" before but spellcheck doesn't say it doesn't exist...
Ah. No, I think you do mean magnanimity here? Is she trying to imply generosity, or potence? b/c if it's option one, you want magnanimity.
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.
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.
"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,"
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.
...Is this still a thing Lilly thinks is true? Because, uh, wow, really not convincing me of the "not doing gaudy excess" thing here, Lore Warden Building.
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 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.
Suggest completely replacing these two with: Your yawns come from sheer boredom at retracing the same steps over and over, rather than thinking hard. You don't think you can actually get tired from thinking hard.
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.
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.
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.
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 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."
"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,
I really want to go through and take out every single "I have tacked a comma onto the end of a full sentence to lead into someone saying something" in this paragraph, but that is just too fiddly even for me.
As it is, though, you should still make this one sentence.
"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.
I'd totally rearrange this bit. ""Sullivan Lye has a son, Mathew." Your father's voice breaks you out of a half-remembered daydream not far from home, yellow and red now streaking along the sky."
Too clunky. Replace w/ "Unable to communicate the breadth and depth of your gratitude with words alone, you simply say "Thank you Father," and wrap him in a hug."
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.
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.
There is no rule against it. However, if you want, you don't have to make a new post, but simply edit a past one. Or just write your corrections outside of this thread.
[X] Plan: And with Swiftness--Swiftness Beyond Measure...
-[X] {Subversion} You understand, nobody wants to be a murderer, she clearly said "Stop Me" just now, you'll do just that. (Altering a command by a single syllable)
--[X] Emergency Backup: Hand Control to Petal if you're running out of time, have her execute the next step as your proxy using {Relations}
-[X] Enter full Domain Perception mode, the Ladder warned you before and you ignored it, not twice--invoke {Sample Space} to guide your approach--at your full speed, that should be considerably less than even a second at this distance, gag her and cover her eyes to the best of your ability--don't be afraid to knock out some teeth or bloody her if need be, you can't afford to be gentle and you can fix it later. Once her voice is bound and her eyes aren't looking at anything you care for, follow {The Ladder}'s earlier instructions--extrude your Domain into her Heart and sever the occupying Entity.
-[X] When her voice is bound (Or ideally, she knocked out in some fashion, the point is that she be neutralized), extend Essence Links to your family to help handle the stresses of what she did, while you work on a means to break the command. Once confident in their safety, utilize {Slipstream} to deposit Valerie into Petal's care--the Ladder said the {Attuned Locus} and not the Dreamspace--and you don't think you can force someone in there yet anyway.
-[X] Everything is on the table here. This is not the time or place to be holding back.
[◈] Plan: And with Swiftness--Swiftness Beyond Measure...
[X][BLU] At her lowest point, she found a hidden light.
[X][BBLU] Her blood burned hot and thick, the enemy knew to avoid its scalding spray.
[X][SES] Shine, my Gentle Heart
[X][ACG] I Accepted the Trial.
Chapter 2.5 - - - - Blood on the Floor, Bone in my Skin. 9th Day, 3rd Moon, LE 2302
(Morning)
As the potential Ethea swim within your soul, competing to be selected, you quickly thrust [Shine, my Gentle Heart] into the centre receptacle where it binds, banishing the others in the blink of eye.
At the cusp of [Brave Blood] and [My Resolution, Thy Bedrock] expanding, you realise that you don't have the time to waste. Reaching out with an aspect of yourself you did not realise you had until the time of need, you suspend the pending expansions and new Ethos in place with the {Meta-Ethotic Control} [Towering Edifice to Heaven] has always been capable of. They will not distract you at this critical moment.
Your sense of timing with Essence is impeccable, so you know exactly ten seconds remain until tragedy.
Valerie is not even looking at you, having utterly dismissed you as a threat and instead curtsying in front of your mother in some strange ritual that likely only she understands.
You have an idea. You don't know if it will work, but you have to try.
Evie I need you to-
-Six seconds remain and you have no idea why you've disobeyed Valerie's order until now. Every part of your body bolts into action, you are an instrument of perfectly focused Will outworking her command "Stop Me" with peerless dedication.
Your lunge shatters the floorboard behind you in a thunderclap of noise as the sudden {Pulse Surged} forward burst stresses your legs nearly to their breaking points, but not quite. Failing Valerie's order is completely unthinkable, so you pull out all the stops in the two tenths of a second it will take to reach her. With {Sample Space}, you summon a half-fist sized portion of the {Heartstaff} and propel it at the minimum speed necessary to hear the sound of breaking bone in the back of Valerie's skull upon impact without having the {Heartstaff} bullet actually embed itself any further while also using {Counterforce} to stop your throw from slowing down your own trajectory towards her. Hyper-compressing the {Pulse Surge} into your eardrums obliterates your ability to hear other than through your domain as you also close your eyes. By the time you reach Valerie you have already recalled the {Heartstaff} and resummoned it as a long pole in your hands pointed toward her head. As you reach melee range, the {Heartstaff} reforms (guided by your chosen future) down Valerie's throat to seamlessly gag her.
The plan is to then use {Cessation Rivet} to entirely lock down any chance at movement while you fix her head trauma and then feed Valerie oxygen via Essence (if you can confirm that is possible) or a Minor Relation Link of {Essence Metabolism} rather than unplug her throat, but first you must actually enact the perfect lunge forward that {Sample Space} has telegraphed for you.
…and events rapidly deviate from what {Sample Space} predicted.
Your {Heartstaff} bullet impacts the back of Valerie's head, but not before being buffeted and robbed of most of its momentum by a shield of viscous air clinging narrowly to space around her.
Blindsided and with literal fractions of a second to adapt, you don't reactivate {Sample Space} until you have flown within striking distance of Valerie. An infinite number of possible outcomes and futures unfolds before you.
…false futures it would seem.
The infinite Lilly's devise a gameplan. Within the predicted future of the {Sample Space}, you slam your {Heartstaff} into Valerie's back hard enough to have it rip her in twain and obliterate her lungs into pieces of gorey salsa. You almost don't go through with it, but if {Sample Space} cannot perceive her air-barrier then you must overcommit and hope the two cancel each other out. The extent to which you could keep a person alive even with horrifically grievous injuries is quite extreme given your aforementioned capacity to directly inject life into a person's being whilst also suspending the need for air and blood to their organs with a Linked {Essence Metabolism}. Anything short of instant death is probably recoverable if you can immediately apply first aid. At least, that's what you use to justify going all in on stopping Valerie within the {Sample Space}, before letting the predicted future play out.
As expected, the air-barrier materialises when you strike Valerie, ramming itself against your {Heartstaff} so hard it nearly completely stops it. But 'nearly' is relative when stopping something moving too fast for the eye to see, and the mass of super-hardened wood still impacts the girl in the side hard enough to bisect her left arm and gorge halfway through her torso before the imparted momentum sends her flying toward the sidewall trailing a gushing river of blood out of her ruined body (where the air barrier catches her preventing further damage from a second impact into the wall).
Unfortunately, something you did not consider was that the air barrier would also buffet you. Your body is thick, dense and travelling fast. In a moment of horror you are pushed slightly off course and instead of sailing narrowly past your mother like you planned in your initial lunge, you clip her side on the way past.
You are fine, but your domain and essence sight together give you a fair estimation that you have completely shattered your mother's right arm in a dozen places, mostly torn it from the shoulder socket, and broken half the ribs on her right side. The poor woman is bodily flung into the dining table, crashing in a heap that is still literally not allowed to cry or moan, though thankfully without any more significant injuries.
Horribly painful… but not immediately fatal. You hate that that is the considerations you need to be making right now, but the only thing that is actually important is that you Stop Valerie.
Until she is dead or completely restrained, the order is the only thing your thoughts can move toward.
Which is why you pull in your arms and twist to increase your rotational speed so that as you reach the opposing wall you strike it feet first, a {Pulse Surge} sending you flying back the other way like a bullet toward Valerie's crumpled form (and blowing apart a section of the wall behind you). Rocketing through the air in a near horizontal line, your plan is now to use {Cessation Rivet} at the maximum possible strength you can to try and lockdown Valerie's movements. If her vocal cords so much as twitch… you will do what needs to be done. If {Cessation Rivet} works, then you can spend the time necessary on properly restraining her in a more long-term and secure fashion.
This time you don't even have time to activate {Sample Space} halfway toward Valerie before things immediately diverge from your expectations because of an entirely new reason.
Something shoots straight out of the girl's crippled body toward you. A writhing rippling shroud of blacker than black depth that has no shape and yet hurts even your domain to look upon. In the same blink of an eye, Evie flies out of you at equal speed and the two massless impossible beings meet in a squirming extra-dimensional tangle that makes the space around them scream for mercy. In the next tiny fraction of a second, the two forms shoot up and out through the ceiling, blowing the entire roof-structure apart in a wave of debris that ignore gravity, phase partially through objects, and sometimes just evaporate like steam instead of the wood and tiles they are. It is only by sheer luck that no-one is struck by the omni-directional blast wave as the screams of contorted wailing reality alongside sharper screeching cracks that linger in their wake rapidly fade off.
As awesome and terrifying as the display is, it does not distract you from your purpose. {Cessation Revit} pours forth onto Valerie as you impact the space right next to her. The sheer mass of essence you are throwing at the power pushes the current limits of {Cessation Rivet} to its max even as it expands a mote larger within your soul, it would take superhuman strength to move under its saturating weight.
…and despite this, Valerie can still can.
Barely, you wouldn't even notice at first save for your essence sight showing her muscles still able to flex beneath her skin. Valerie looks directly into your eyes, seemingly completely unphased by what should be total shock from having her body torn in a way that will kill her in less than a minute without your help. But she is confident. Your eyes are closed, but her gaze still bores into yours.
You hiss in pain as that same familiar stabbing sensation prods at your soul, but weaker.
The Eyes!
She can issue her commands through her eyes. But, you are stronger.
It is more fickle than her spoken commands, unable to pierce through your strengthened and aware Domain. You raise your arms with a manifested {Heartstaff} over your head in warning. You are about to tell her not to dare try anything and drop her air-barrier so you can restrain her safely, when her eyes briefly flick away from you.
…?
…No!
Shaping the {Heartstaff} into a flat opaque square, you block her line of sight to your family in a fraction of a second.
With your 360 degree vision, you don't need to turn around or take your attention off of Valerie, you can watch everyone in the room. Your essence sight is what sees it first after two seconds. Whatever force was holding Micah in place momentarily weakens as he inches his head to look at you.
Like spilled ink flowing across paper, red-blue blotches rapidly spread across the surface of his skin. His essence becomes oily and slick, your link suddenly finding no purchase and detaching.
Your brother opens his mouth to speak, "…Lil-"
!!BOOM!!
Pieces of slagged flesh, splintered bone and blended insides spray out at incredible velocities. In but a moment, the space where Micah once stood holds nothing but the memory of him.
Splashed across the room, a warm balmy coloured coating quickly losing its heat, turning frigid as it cools.
The blood. Everywhere.
Bone. Embedded in Zachariah and Marcus' sides from the point-blank detonation. They are still alive, but in tremendous pain.
The blood… so much blood.
…
Somewhere in the distance the screaming echo of Evie and the other thing's conflict carries across the room, presumably wrecking the surrounding countryside much like the roof of your home. It is the only sound amongst the stretching silence.
…
… Valerie smirks at you, a look of triumph in her eyes.
… curiously, you reach toward Valerie's neck slowly, testing an idea. The air barrier does not activate due to your slow approach.
You rip her head off.
- - -
You kneel down in front of the space your brother last stood. The world is dim and hollow and empty, sound is mute and colour bleak. Air stale and the floor cold.
You can't. You just can't move on from this. You don't dare begin to feel, for the mountain of grief bubbling beneath the surface is something you'll drown in unable to swim.
You should be doing something. But you can't think, it's all muddled and twisted inside your head. There is no path forward, only pain.
You flee from the world, into the [Dream]. Hoping to perhaps see Micah's face one last time as sculpted mud and clay, pretend that everything is okay as you-
- - - - -
-stand in the clearing within the [Dream] once more. The world all but melted away.
Raising your eyes up, you find what you came hoping for, but must cup your hands to your mouth to stifle a scream at the sight.
In the centre of the clearing is but one statue, Micah.
The Vines leading to nowhere are thinner than you remember from the first time, every few seconds another seems to detach and be reeled away back into the unfathomable beyond that they are connected to.
Micah himself, is horrible to look at. Caught in the frozen moment of agony as his chest had begun to implode then explode outward, his face locked in the rictus of an airless squeal of pain; now immortalized in Mud and Clay that smells of Myth and Destiny.
You walk forward, dumbly staring. If you'd known that this was the image that would great you, you wouldn't have come here. But now you can't look away. Some part of you knows, this is the last time, the last part of Micah that there is. When you leave… he'll really be gone.
It's horrible. The detail of the sculpture catches every strain of tortured suffering in his muscles, the eyes bludging in their sockets, the way his clothes had already started to blend into his flesh during the momentary inward compression that preceded the outward expansion. Every moment you keep looking will only cement this as a firmer memory, but you still can't bring yourself to look away.
The impossible ocean of grief begins to roil and froth, rising up from your gut and sapping the energy from your limbs making you nearly buckle under frailty of mourning. The tears running freely from your eyes.
You gently cradle Micah's chin in your hand, and say the only thing you can think of, even though it will never ever be enough. You whisper, "I'm sorry."
And then you feel the Link.
There is no thought, no hesitation, only a mad dashing scramble as you reach out with manic desperation. Essence Links have always been simple affairs, natural and easily forged.
Not this time. This time there is what feels like a continent's worth of distance and a heavy weight upon the other end. You reach out, but cannot find purchase.
You don't care, you recklessly look at your own soul and pry at {Sympathetic Linkage}, making it grow against its protests and groans all the way to its threshold, stopping only because you know it would break to go any further. You ignore the large arching lines of stress rippling out from the unnatural expanded power through the rest of your soul.
With renewed strength, you pull at the faltering echo of a link again, using the newfound power from your complaining soul to reel the distance a little bit closer. Somewhere along the process you feel Petal borrow a minor Relational Link to rise up into the waking world and do something, you don't care.
It is slow going, at the very edge of your abilities. But eventually, your ceaseless straining attempts bear fruit. The Link solidifies, and in the blink of an eye the distance becomes zero and you are looking not at mud and clay, but flesh and blood.
Micah floats suspended and still, his eyes are open and unblinking… but he is unharmed. A soul without a body, no connection to Flow, just an entity unable to have experience or thought. No longer lost, but still dead. No body to return to, no life left to live. Even if somehow returned, perhaps still stripped of the identity and memory he had in life.
It doesn't matter, you'll find a way. You'll find a way. You vow it. You're not sure you've ever meant a promise as much as you do right here in this moment. Micah will live, you do not accept that he is dead. You reject it. You deny it. It shall be untrue, you demand it.
A mental pang of alarm from Petal pulls you out your renumeration. You glance one last time at Micah's serene empty face.
"It's okay Micah," you whisper gently to the floating static vessel, "You'll be okay, I'll find a way, I promise."
And like that, you swap with Petal, rising up into the waking world and-
- - - - -
-hissing with rage as you see Valerie's decapitated body having closed the rend through her torso and half regenerated her head up to just above the lips.
Her chest rises and falls, breathing as if she were unharmed.
What will it take to stop you!?
The order that you thought fulfilled reasserts itself again, and your thoughts dedicate themselves to how to stop Valerie. Your mind recalls the advice {The Ladder} gave you about returning Valerie to her 'original mindstate'. You are not 100% certain that will stop her, but you literally have to try.
Scooping her body up over your shoulder, you once more push and force a power within the [Dream] to expand. {Slipstream} ekes and groans as you force it's spread through your soul, you feel the once strong anchor of the [Dream within the Forest] be stretched nearly as far as the [Cleaver] was when you forced {Rungs of Wisdom}'s growth. But it holds for now, and stopping Valerie is more important than whether or not it can recover anyway.
Essence begins to build into a thick swollen membrane around you, contracting denser and denser by the second. {Slipstream} can now take you to any Essence Link you possess; normally this would take quite some time, but your connection to Petal is far more intrinsic than any other, nine tenths of the usual work is done before you even start.
You look at your family, still frozen in agonizing rictus, unable to even wipe Micah's blood from their faces. It would be simple for you to use {Golden Rapture} and do that for them, but that would slow down your transport of Valerie by a tiny fraction of a second and is thus not possible.
If Evie survives her battle with the foul thing that spewed forth from Valerie, then she could use {Subversion} to help free them. Or perhaps {Hybrid Siphon} might work over a longer period of time, despite it not seeming to have not done much to free you.
Or maybe you'll be able to do nothing, and it is already irreversible.
You don't cry, there isn't time for tears, the spatial tunnel is nearly large enough to carry you and Valerie to the {Attuned Locus} in the woods.
By some small fortune, there are a few small gaps in Valerie's order, allowing you to at least speak before you leave even though that has a non-zero chance of slightly distracting you. You can't say much though, you are pushing things as it is, so you say the most important thing you think your family needs to hear.
"Micah is alive, trust me," you state, willing them to believe you. It's impossible for your family to move a muscle, but you think you see the flow of their essence calm ever so slightly.
And then it's time to go. Myah steps through the demolished door just as the spatial distortion is swallowing you. She is white as a ghost, looking around completely lost as to what to do. Your eyes are still closed, but through your Domain you see that she spots you the very moment that you disappear. She opens her mouth to speak, but you are gone.
Up and down and left and right, through and out and in and behind. And then you arrive, back at the clearing where it all began.
The scene around you is radically changed from what you remember.
Under different circumstances, you would be awed by what you see. The tree that was once just an ordinary thing before you slept beneath it and the two of you became one looks nothing like what you imagined it would.
Because how could you have imagined what you now see.
Towering sixty feet higher the canopy around her, and easily above 300 feet overall; Petal's physical body is a monolith towering over her surroundings. Her trunk is nearly as thick as your house is wide, a simply gargantuan mass of wood hardened beyond the natural limit. Her sheer weight has caused the ground beneath her to buckle and push downwards, the reason she is only sixty feet higher rather than something like ninety. Around her central pillar, hundreds of branches reach out to meld directly into the surrounding forest. Her roots pierce as deep as she is tall, growing through rock and granite when they are in the way. All of this, describes only her physical stature, but does not describe her Essence.
It is opaque. Firm. Inviolable. Pulled from the ground, from the air, from more distant places connected in more abstract ways, Petal is more solid with essence than she is with actual wood. To say that the shine is blinding does not give it justice, it is the embodiment of light itself, a swirling maelstrom of life and energy. If you are the reflection upon the surface of a river, then Petal is the full depth of the stream beneath.
You begin to walk up one of the man-sized roots that sit around her Petal's base, she has grown wider than the original clearing could have ever fit, pushing other trees aside in her wake. Dragging Valerie behind you, you perform the first necessary step.
Pushing your hand into her chest and seizing her heart in your hand, you will your Domain to push outward and encompass it. You've known vaguely of the capacity to do this since the beginning, but had not thought there much use to it before now. It is an unfamiliar process, possible only because of your slow movement and careful concentration, but it does slowly expand to occupy the full volume of her heart.
You feel some foreign hollow presence fray and shudder at your Domain's touch. It rips apart Valerie's heart as it detaches, but you can already see the telltale signs of regeneration on the micro-scale already kicking into effect. Whatever you removed did not take her extreme survivability with it as it left.
Reaching the edge of the main trunk, you place Valerie's body against it, her head is two-thirds reformed at this stage; brain, skull and flesh all slowly manifesting to fill in the still missing segments. Petal's bark flows like liquid, allowing Valerie to sink inside without resistance. Petal's flow of essence shifts, and you gain the distinct impression that Valerie is a rock being smoothed down by a constant current of water. If there is any place in the world where {Rest State} would be most powerful, it's in the centre of the {Attuned Locus}.
You've stopped Valerie, truly this time. You feel her order dissipate and release its hold on you.
You are free to think for yourself unrestrained for the first time since this horrid encounter began. Returning home is something you can do in ten minutes via {Slipstream} instead of the half hour that sprinting the distance would take. As long as you can ensure Evie wins her own contest, then you can begin to process everything that has happened and what it is going to take to one day restore Micah. Because you don't even have an idea of where to start on that last part and have never even heard of someone being able to-
No!
You refuse to go there. You will find a way, Micah will be alright. He. Is. Not.Dead. Just sleeping. Safe.
As you are about to start spooling up a {Slipstream} to return home, you notice Petal's trunk gently tug at your hand with {Golden Rapture}. She wants you to touch her.
An almost forgotten memory resurfaces. 'Meet me in the Waking World,' Petal once said, before you even knew her name.
Once upon a time, you did not care all that much for power. Take or leave it, you would not have minded. But Power is influence, the ability to help those you love, stop those who would hurt them. You understand now that there is never such a thing as too much power; you never know when a larger threat will show up at your doorstep. If you'd been faster, stronger, smarter… you might have stopped Valerie in time.
If you can help it, you will never be caught flat-footed again.
So you place your hand on Petal's bark, hoping hungrily for something to help Micah, but you'll settle for anything to stop this ever happening again.
- - - - -
You are two paired motes of light, orbiting each other in a blank empty expanse.
Streams of dimmer light flitter between you like joyful dancers, like birds singing their morning song, like cool rain on a hot Gaia's day.
As you look out with eyes that are not eyes, you see that nearby there are several more motes of light. Their sparks are not connected to each other, they are alone and isolated. There is a deep sadness to this picture, a tragedy of circumstance.
Your heart yearns for them to know the spark and the love and the care of the dancing connection, but they are ignorant and unable to reach out.
The true tragedy however, lies further out. For beyond this small number of motes, you now perceive a hundred trillion tiny points of similar light drifting alone through the expanse. A galaxy of uncountable shimmering specks stretching out into a vast sparklingly tapestry of all that can ever be.
It would be beautiful, were it not the saddest picture one could ever behold. Your connection is the exception and not the rule.
…this will not do.
The two of you press and sway off each other, moving in ways together that it would be impossible for others to do alone. You draw closer to the nearby Motes, soon they shall be added to the dance.
One by one, you will fix the greatest injustice of creation.
No more separation, there must only be Communion.
- - - - -
And you gasp as you withdraw your hand from Petal. It all clicks. [Dream within the Forest] has a purpose, amission. You and your Locus are the beginning of something that could one day stretch across continents, the Dreamspace growing to be the equal of the Waking World in scope and fullness; Altogether Essence acting as the bridge to further dissolve the barrier between the real and sleeping, a union transcending time and space.
This is what an Ethos is. A destination, an objective, an attempt at something greater. Despite its current strain, you feel a deep ease flow over [Dream within the Forest] inside your soul; its various powers and sub-powers all shifting into a more efficient pattern.
Several powers under [Dream within the Forest]'s purview each take on new dimensions that have previously existed in more subdued forms. The air smells of Myth, Destiny and Legend. You've always had a slight inclination that something about the [Dream] ran deeper than essence, taking shortcuts that didn't seem to match the Source's general trends. Well now you know, [Dream within the Forest] is a hybrid Ethos. It will take time to fully explore the new vectors of freedom unveiled by this revelation, but it gives you a thin glimmer of hope that you may be able to jump over some hurdle or barrier that would normally keep Micah from being able to return one day. The statues in the clearing are obviously Legend, you will continue to pry open this mystery and discover its secrets.
Stepping away from Petal as the giant tree gently hums in satisfaction (sounding more like a minor quake through the ground due to her immense bulk), you turn away to look out into the woods facing north. Free from Valerie's control at last, you can now make your own choices. Delaying to gain this insight was worth the possible aid it may yield, but you are eager to return and help your family.
As the power of {Slipstream} begins to gather, you release the hold on your new Ethos [Shine, my Gentle Heart]. It is a Flow Ethos, although Valerie's words holding your family in place go deeper than just the mind, you hold hope that [Shine] will carry with it the tools necessary to set them free. Using {Subversion} on anyone but yourself is remarkably dangerous, you'd only consider it for your family as an absolute last resort, the chance of irreparable harm is otherwise too great.
So you let the packet unfold in your soul and reach out its feelers and tethering to various segments throughout. Watching it settle into place you almost miss-
-The Beam of pure white light stream out from Aurora down from the Heavens and bathe your everything in a glorious pure brilliance of manifest searing brightness personified. Sound, Sight and Feeling all vanish as you are whisked to a place mortals do not tread.
- - -
The girl is Lilly, but such distinctions are less important here.
Amongst the White, what is important is that She knows you.
The girl stands before Her, as much as anyone can stand in a place with no body.
Aurora. The Goddesses of Humanity, she who remained.
Aurora. Healer and Guide, asking no sacrifice and yet still forever giving.
Aurora. Bringer of Day, Banisher of Night.
By Her, fields grow.
By Her, the cold turns warm.
By Her, shelter is found.
By Her, all malady has an end.
By Her, man is strong.
Men paint murals in her honour, depict Her as a being of tremendous beauty and grace. But She has no need of form, for She simply Is. To be in Her presence is to be whole. Sickness and infirmity flee from Her.
What majestic providence, what sublime privilege, for a mortal to witness such a thing.
But the girl looks with teary eyes that are not eyes, yet accuse. 'Why?' The grey note of her heart sings. Why didn't you help me?
'Surrounded by such endless splendour and perfection, was there not enough to spare when Jeremy came to your temple? Was his sickness not worthy of your attention to revoke?'
She is not done, further injustices sally forth. 'Are my brothers beneath your benefaction; that you would leave Zachariah to lose himself and Micah to be stolen?'
'Why me?' The girl asks. 'Why now? I prayed and I prayed and I prayed, and you were silent. And now, when I have lost more than I can bear, you come to me? The hour when I would be grateful is long passed.'
"Child." Her voice shakes the Heavens. "You have lost faith in me. But I have not lost faith in you."
'Meaningless platitudes' the girls thinks without saying. 'The same as your clergy. Faces of compassion and mouths singing of mercy, but hands that either cannot or do not act. Do you even think of us as people, or are we just nameless resources that you save and spend at your leisure?'
"Fourteen Thousand, five hundred and twenty six." The Goddess' mourning tone reverberates with a depth one can only peer at the surface of. "That is the number of little boys who died the same day as Jeremy Uyle. Children who I could not save. I remember your names, all of them; your groaning pains, your whispered pleas, your prayers which I could not answer."
'BUT WHY!?' The girl rails against the heavens. 'You have brought me to you now! Why not then? You are helping me now! Why not them? You. are. a. God. What possible reason could there be?'
Silence fills the place that is nowhere but full of all things. The girl almost thinks she has been left to rot before the Goddess finally answers. "My reach is far, but… not infinite. My Will is uncompromising, but opposed. I never stop nor rest in my labours, but am constrained all the same. To yearn to help the world is to know my heart, to cry for those unsaved is to know my lament. To fight that injustice oneself, is to wield my sword."
The void shifts suddenly, and the Girl known as Lilly is now herself again. Somehow able to understand a slightly deeper reflection of this alien place. You stand in the formerly featureless zone, or float rather, a vast expanse of bright misty clouds stretching out in every direction from you amongst a light misty breeze. A song sounds out from an uncountable number of unseen singers, together filling the entire space in a rich ever evolving symphony. Before you can take in the sight, seemingly flying so high above the ground as to not see it beneath you, a single blink and you find the entire expanse now filled with strange creatures which can only be described as nothing less than Angels. Winged beings of every shape and size, their configurations are inhuman and sometimes not even comprehensible to understanding of being alive, yet somehow they all fill you with peace and security just being in their presence. Surrounded by what are unironically gorgeous and terrifying monsters, this is perhaps the safest place any mortal could ever find themselves.
Blinking again, an altar has appeared floating alongside you. It is a simple cast-iron block, its only adornment a wide steel bowl set directly into the centre of its topside.
"Child." The Goddess Aurora speaks from in front of you. You cannot truly perceive Her form despite knowing that She now resides directly inside your view, your mind simply refusing to retain it. You know what She looks like, but you do not. You can name and describe Her features, but also not recall them. "You may be our hope in this bleak hour. Take a part of me, and my Favour with it. Light up the world, push back the growing darkness standing at the Gates."
With that, Aurora reaches into Her chest and from a thousand and more beating hearts, rips one free in a shower of luminescent glittering blood. You have the sense that She feels the pain of such an act with no dilution or salve, simply bearing its weight with Will alone.
The Goddess places the pulsating mass taken from Her chest on the altar before you. Then just as quickly as She was there, She is gone. Only the heart remains.
It is a silver organ with a metallic sheen, someone more present and here than anything else around you. It shines so bright that it is perhaps more accurate to describe it as white though. Blood squirts from it continually with each beat, a seemingly endless supply held within the undying divine flesh, slowly filling up the dish-bowl it rests within.
Knowing on an instinct deeper than the body, but within your very soul, you step forward, the final necessary act is clear. You have until the heart would be completely submerged within its own blood to finish.
Taking the shining white organ in both your hands, you hold it up to your face. It blazes with a radiance that pierces through you. It is more than just colour, it is sensation and feeling and truth and love and all these things and more wrapped up together in one. The Goddess shall feel every bite, the heart still a part of Her, and yet it is offered freely.
And so you bite, deep and true.
It feels like molten mercury flowing down your throat, a weightiness and burden deeper than the physical being imparted with each new piece. Bite after bite, swallow after swallow, you consume the tiny piece of Aurora She left behind. It continues to squirt and spray silvery white blood in all directions as you continue, bathing both you and the altar in the same metallic subtly glowing sheen. The burning within your gut slowly seethes out into your veins, until it feels as if your whole body is alight. But through the pain and the trial, you endure. Finally, all that remains before you is an empty altar.
"It is done. The Twilight cries; for instead of night, there may yet be a new dawn."
- - -
And you are back where you stood in the woods. Only the slight wilting and mild char upon the blades of grass nearest to you are evidence of your partial departure. Essence tells you that no time at all passed here during your flight to that other place.
It feels half unreal, like something that happened and also didn't. You were yourself, but also not. The way you spoke to a God… you would never be that blunt and honest. The memory of what you thought and felt seems more like a caricature of you, a hyper-realisation. Thinking back on it, you could almost doubt that it was more than a flight of fancy or vivid imagining.
But you brought something back, there is no denying it. You are changed. You can feel it now… Flow.
Within you is a bubbling roiling ocean of thoughts ideas and emotions all budding from and incepting out of one another. An endless cycle that is nonsensical if viewed as a frozen moment, but given shape in its dynamic and evolving nature over time. You know yourself, better than you thought possible before, you truly know yourself.
From your mind which exists somewhere between the body and soul yet within neither, exudes your Wake. A constant outward pressure against the natural dissolvent exterior of reality, a bulwark pushing back the void of thoughtlessness and staking its claim. Your Wake is both physical and not, extending some distance from you but never in a way that can be exactly measured. To it, distance is not a metric to be recorded, but the idea of closeness itself. Your Wake touches that which it is 'near' to, and nothing else. That may take time to understand.
Outside yourself is something you never quite expected. Looking upon it though, it becomes clear why those who have gained awareness of Flow would call it the Construct.
For the exterior of reality and its dissolving nature are held at bay not only by your Wake, but the Construct itself. Far from the formless nothing or neutral medium you expected to exist between minds (or Wakes rather), the indefinable distances and space around you is instead comprised of a recursively infinite series of mechanisms, levers and gears. Within your soul, Flow moves as an unbound ocean. Outside it, Flow is channelled, diverted and pushs against this regimented systemized structure that pervades your entire surroundings stretching out farther than you can see. It is the 'Construct' because it is clearly constructed. The anti-thought of reality is worked into divots and hollows that can be easily avoided by working Flow through the Construct's many channels. An assistive mechanism of peerless craft. No matter how much you examine any single piece of its architecture, it is impossible to fully comprehend. For each piece is itself just an amalgam of many smaller pieces, who are each themselves comprised of many smaller parts on and on to infinity. This is the Construct. Were it not for {Tremendous Mechanist}, you'd likely be unable to even begin to make heads or tails of it. But your unparalleled insight into organized systems only leaves you more in awe at the level of impossible master craftsmanship on display around you.
But that is just your sense of your new Source, not your new Ethos.
[Shine, my Gentle Heart]. A gift from Aurora herself. You still have your misgivings concerning the Goddess, but you can accept a boon when it is freely offered. There was the sense in your vision of receiving far more than the usual 'allotment' for this Ethos; time will tell what that sense implies. For now, there is {Affective Radiance}.
Within yourself, within your Wake, emotion now bends to your Will. To be encouraged, redirected or quashed however you wish.
The first thing you do is banish sadness and stress from your mind. Much like {Subversion}, your control over yourself is orders of magnitude greater than learning to use it on another. The Power thrums with eager intent within your soul, drinking in your unwanted emotions and spewing forth that which you desire in their place. It is a sensation like butterflies in the tummy, likes bubbles running along the skin, a breeze just cold enough to tickle as it lightly brushes past.
The terrible weight that has been bearing down upon you, slowly grinding upon your resolve, is lifted. You may feel as motivated as you wish, remember the better times even in the midst of pitch black tragedy, never have to deal with-
-{Rest State} warns you that such severe use of {Affective Radiance} upon yourself is only non-harmful in short term doses. You risk becoming ungrounded and inhumanly insane if you modify your own thoughts so severely. Harder emotions serve their purpose and should be felt.
Such a thing wouldn't normally be a concern at all; your intrinsic insight into your soul gives you a far greater fidelity of self-manipulation than anyone else with [Shine, my Gentle Heart] would possess. There are no safeguards in place to prevent perpetual emotional replacement. You could choose to never be sad again… ignore {Rest State}'s advice just this once. It would be so easy…
…
You let the frothing churn of positive emotion subside slightly. You are not ready to go back to the bleak depression you realise was nearly consuming you before, but you can at least accept that {Rest State} does have a point. When this crises is over and your family is healthy and hale, then you will let yourself feel the full brunt of what has honestly been the worst thing to ever happen to you. Until things are resolved however, you will push off trauma and panic for as long as you need too; Consequences be damned.
You have nearly built up the necessary reserve of Essence to pry open a path back to your home. What you would give to be able to tend to your family immediately, but there is something you must do first when you arrive. Whatever it is that Evie now faces must take priority, lest your negligence cause a new tragedy all of its own. To that end, you need all the strength you can get, you allow [Brave Blood] to unfold its new power.
In a single titanic walloping beat, you feel {Pulse Surge} shift inside you. The taut strings of the Pithe Field itself warble in the background, but are drowned out by the resounding beat of your own heart thrumming against the inside of your chest. At the apex of what you feel your body could possibly bear, the power splits and grows. {The Heat} added to {Pulse Surge}'s full nature. The other side of the coin, strength on the downbeats, but now also release on the upbeats. Feeling the flow of Pithe through you due to your remarkable insight into your own body's and soul's structures, you can see the shift. The energy that was always lost on the upbeats of a {Pulse Surge} is now expressed in a new form. Potent visceral Heat. After just a couple of heartbeats, your skin would evaporate water; push it further and you can grow so hot as to have your natural balmy glow instead become a visible radiant red. The air sizzling and billowing away from the insane temperatures your body, your blood can now exude.
A week ago you would have been somewhat worried about gaining such a power, for the same heat that can char wood metres away from you could easily harm a bystander. But {The Heat} imparts a tremendous level of resistant to temperature itself, and you possess the ability to quickly extend aspects of your powers via minor relational links. You can thus exclude up to three people who would otherwise be too close to you from harm, if you so wish it. Beyond even that, {Meta-Ethotic Control} means you could selectively disable this aspect of the {Pulse Surge} to avoid collateral damage.
It is a valuable boon, and may well have made the difference if you'd had time to integrate it before facing Valerie, but somewhat frustratingly you don't think it will help you when you come to Evie's aid. Evie would have returned to you if she had already won, you know she still fights because [Effervescent Animus] is still active and thrumming along within your soul. Trying to get help from the Watch first may also take too long, it would seem the two of you will likely have to face the alien adversary alone.
With some time left before you will jump across the distance home, you release the hold on [My Resolution, Thy Bedrock] and allow it to expand. You feel {Rest State} balloon and surge as a new component is added to its nature. The {Hope-Shock}, an intuitive capacity to induce temporary hyper-stability or halt rapid decoherence in a system. This is doubly useful as it allows you to push the limits of essence channelled to obscene levels such as flooding a person with more Essence than they could safely contain but sustaining them temporarily with the {Hope-Shock}. You could thus now possibly purge a mana-curse that would ordinarily be so ingrained as to be impossible to remove. Or have one of your essence powers linger longer than they ordinarily could before fraying at the seams. Keep an essence-link to something even under more pressure than you could normally overcome. Its uses are many. In the immediate future, it's exactly what you may need to keep some of your family alive if you find Valerie's ministrations have hurt them less fleetingly than you hope. You pray it doesn't come to that, were it not for {Affective Radiance} you would likely be feeling despair at the not unlikely chance she did something exactly like what you dread. But instead, you choose to feel determination and confidence, emotions that will help you without getting in the way.
It is time to go, you are about tear a pathway back home when you feel her.
…ly ('Unintelligible')
Your breath hitches with relief, a familiar purple fractal geometry appearing on the horizon and flying your direction at hundreds of kilometers per hour.
Evie! You're okay!
…has… gic. ('Unintelligible')
…Something is wrong.
You notice the oddity as Evie draws closer. Many of her long branching tendrils are clipped, sparking violent fizzing motes of light into the air in a clearly unintentional fashion. You cannot move toward her with {Slipstream} momentarily about to activate, but your heart can't help but lurch at the clearly limping nature of Evie's flight. She bobs and weaves unsteadily, not fully in control of her path through the woods, occasionally just running into trees with a little 'pafff' sound before moving again. Parts of her flicker in and out as she stutters her way discordantly toward to you.
When she finally reaches you, you hold out your hands for her to land in. Her kite-shaped form collapses into your waiting arms. The many shapes that have floated freely within and beneath Evie since you first saw her seem almost motionless, some of them following erratic and disorganised patterns that interfere with those around them. There are streaks of grey and brown, shallow and dark textures that were never there before. Evie does not cry or wail, but it is clear that moving at all is immensely uncomfortable. Even as you hold her, another tendril disintegrates into violet smoke before evaporating to nothing. Evie's body shrinks just a little smaller in size with the loss.
Her form goes still, before fading away into nothing. You feel the distinct presence of Evie now sheltering within your soul, diminished and more fragile than she's ever seemed before.
With a deep sigh you find that, strangely enough, your rage at Valerie is diminished. If whatever was inside her could do something like this, you doubt she ever really had a choice herself. Gosh, {Affective Radiance} really does let you look at things more objectively.
It is a peculiar sensation, to be incredibly concerned that Evie may not last the hour, but have automatically pushed aside any distracting component of that emotion so seamlessly you barely noticed yourself feeling it. Something to watch out for.
The time has come. You know not what the next few minutes will hold, but no matter what, you will give it your all. Whatever happens, you will stand beside your family all the rest of your days, ready to banish their fears and heal their hurts.
One last look back at Petal, a rustle like 'good luck' whispers through her leaves and along the wind.
You step through the {Slipstream}.
Choice Time:
*** Make sure you copy paste exactly from the options, the only change is adding 'X's.
*** Approval/Multi-Voting Allowed. (Do it all in one post or tally won't count it properly)
*** Write ins are encouraged. In fact, creative and intelligent ideas receive bonuses on rolls.
The Lion and the Snake: If the girl Valerie that had come into and ripped my life apart had chosen to take this path willingly… then I would likely not stop the Captain from administering justice. But I strongly suspected she was merely a vessel, another victim in a long line of tragedies. If that were the case, how hard was I willing to advocate for her? She had killed men of the Watch, I would make enemies by arguing for anything less than death. If Captain Martin didn't already know something was wrong, he'd know soon, and likely was already on his way. I may have to plead a case sooner rather than later.
[ ] [TLatS] Write in.
Constraints and Thought: It may not be a concern immediately, but the day would soon come where I had to decide the limits of what I was willing to do with {Affective Radiance}. I didn't have a firm grasp on how quickly and permanently I could sway others, but the fact remained that given enough time I would eventually have to choose where my line that I would not cross lay.
[ ] [CaT] For the greater good, all is permissible. I would use it liberally and freely.
[ ] [CaT] Those who do evil, forfeit their right to autonomy. Against adversaries, it would simply be another weapon in my hand.
[ ] [CaT] A subtle hand. Steering but never overriding. I would use it frequently, but to encourage, not control.
[ ] [CaT] Cautious and restrained. To deny others their own Will strayed to close to being a hypocrite, I would be careful and measured.
[ ] [CaT] Write in.
Wilting and Loss: Evie is hurt, badly. I could feel that the next few hours would be touch and go, the outcome uncertain. Despite all this, I could still feel Evie doing her best to sustain the {Hybrid Siphon}, its power still gently pervading through me. When she should be doing everything she could to rest, she still thought of me. I should tell her to sleep, to stop helping entirely, give herself a better chance of lasting the day. But… my family. I was not confident anything other than Evie's power could help them right now, I needed her. But the longer she stayed awake, the worse her own chances became…
[ ] [WaL] I said nothing. I would need her powers to help my family.
[ ] [WaL] I told Evie to sleep. I wouldn't let her kill herself for me.
[ ] [WaL] Write in.
The one who Cries Alone: Kaymie needs help. I may be the only person in all the world that knows this and is willing to help. Do I dare open an Essence Link to a Wielder more experienced than myself under the close supervision of extremely dangerous people? Will it put me in danger? Put her in danger? But, to have a chance to help her, and still do nothing….
[ ] [TowCA] Open an Essence Link.
[ ] [TowCA] Leave the door closed, for now.
The Necessary Acts: There is no time to waste. Where there was Valerie, there could be more. It's time to do what needs to be done in Harmuph, then get what is left of my family out of harm's way.
[ ] [TNA] Valerie called me 'Bloomling', like it meant something. The hillock out west, the secret of my name. I have already put it off too long.
[ ] [TNA] Captain Martin had something he wanted me to do that he felt was important even after discovering the truth about me. I should follow up on that.
[ ] [TNA] I'm going to stay home with my family. Perhaps I should be doing something more important, but I just can't right now.
[ ] [TNA] Power experimentation. There are literally dozens of things I need to learn. (Write in if you want specific powers/subpowers/features to be the focus.)
[ ] [TNA] Tell Zach he is going to awaken to an Ethos in eleven days. Try to spend time averting him from tragedy.
[ ] [TNA] Write in.
The Madam's offer: Madam Silva surprised me, offering to throw her lot in with what I am starting to recognise as my 'following'. Her requests seem reasonable, but do I trust a woman who I suspect would jump ship to a better deal the moment one came along?
[ ] [TMo] I decided I would take a risk with the Madam. It didn't feel right to turn her away.
[ ] [TMo] Now was not the time to bring more into the fold, I needed to protect what I already had.
[ ] [TMo] Write in.
Myah and Me: She wasn't going home, that much was non-negotiable. But was I going to try and hide Myah away? Simply demand that she stay with me? Seek the Captain's support? I hadn't even really asked Myah what she thought yet.
[ ] [MnM] Write In
Major Relation Slot: Unused Power is worth nothing. I had the potential to do incredible things with {Relations}, all I had to do was choose. Permanent Merger:
Combine up to six full powers (sub-powers must be included). Will become a single combined power and sub-powers inspired by its constituent parts and having a Tier equal to the sum of everything used to create it. Deactivates powers during combination process. (Example in 2.4 Spreadsheet below formulas.) Can produce powers that exceed typical limitations or constraints. Combines Max-Levels too. 4 Powers with a Max of 10 would combine into something with a Max of 40. Timeframe is generally a couple weeks, desired concepts or focuses can be specified. Soul-Bond:
Mimic a form of the connection you and Petal share with another person. Your two lives become entwined and incapable of ceasing for more than a couple days so long as the other yet lives. Your powers can be lent to them at a moment's notice and used as effectively as if it were your own body. If they possess power, it is possible with their cooperation to learn to share theirs with you too. Timeframe to establish, 1 day. Requires close proximity.
Alternatively, you could redouble the connection between you and Petal, vastly expanding the scope of your link. Among other benefits, Petal would gain a form of your domain and the ability to directly assist you in the waking world. Distribute {Primordial Chassis}:
Expand the {Primordial Chassis} with a new feature. You can transfer its effects to anyone within your direct line of sight or essence-sight instantaneously at the speed of thought (and back to yourself just as fast). Those who you have an active Essence-Link with count as within your sight. Timeframe, 1 day. Perfect Seedling:
Bud off a perfect replication of one of your own powers into another individual. This will effectively function as a mini-Ethos, able to grow and develop in its own direction after implantation. Functions better if implanted into someone with a matching Source, but can grow to work with anyone including those without an Ethos. Timeframe, 1 week. Support Tower Aspect Limit:
Allow the Tower to reach into a third Aspect without having to grow either {Relations} or {Artefacts} first. This slot would be mandatorily locked in until the natural conditions were met. Timeframe, ???. Support Artefact Limit:
Expand your maximum Artefact limit by one. Does not provide the Gravitas to create said artefact, only provides the support to allow it. Timeframe, 3 hours. Expand a Power's Limits:
Choose one of your Powers, Sub-Powers or another feature and remove some of its inherent limits. Cannot increase direct potency, but can expand the scope of what a power can effect or reach. (I.e. Triple the size of your essence sight, cause {Sample Space} to be less draining on Concordance, allow {Pulse Surge} to directly push you in any direction rather than just increasing your momentum, allow Slipstream to connect to any place you've ever been your whole life, double the size of your extended Domain and future size gains, etc) Can specify a link between two powers, allowing them to function together far more effectively than before. Timeframe, variable. Adaptive Interface:
Split off your Major Link into an additional three minor relational links (new total of 6). Wait:
Make the decision on where you spend your first Major Relation later. Write In: Try for something special.
The only limits are your imagination, aim for something you have not considered. Timeframe, ???.
[ ] [MRL] Permanent Merger (List up to 6)
[ ] [MRL] Soul-Bond (Specify who. I.e Petal, Myah, Zach, Chariot, etc)
[ ] [MRL] Distribute {Primordial Chassis}
[ ] [MRL] Perfect Seedling (What and Who)
[ ] [MRL] Support Artefact Limit
[ ] [MRL] Support Tower Aspect Limit
[ ] [MRL] Expand a Power's Limits (Specify Power.)
[ ] [MRL] Adaptive Interface
[ ] [MRL] Wait.
[ ] [MRL] Write In
(Major Relation Slots can be recalled and used for other things. It would take longer to do this than it takes to use them thought. Quick relocation is the realm of minor Relation slots.)
(You will gain more Relation Slots as you gain levels in Relations, same goes for minor relation slots.)
Additional Considerations: If there is an idea you want Lilly to keep in mind or some action not related to any voting option you think she should do, 'Additional Considerations' is the place to put it.
For example, dropping/adding Relation Slots even when it doesn't come up in any specified vote.
[ ] [AC] Write in.
- - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - -
Current XP: [Dream within the Forest] Lvl 5: 969/2100 (+112) [Brave Blood] Lvl 4: 1047/1500 (+47) [Cleaver of Fortune] Lvl 3: 989/1000 (+188) [Effervescent Animus] Lvl 2: 5999/6000 (+7591) (-5431) [My Resolution, Thy Bedrock] Lvl 1: 219/300 (+32) [Shine, my Gentle Heart] Lvl 0: 19/100 (+19)
- - [Towering Edifice to Heaven] Lvl 0: 277.29/10000 (+107.30)
Character Sheet, Maps, Photos: Public - It's a Girl's World
"Child." The Goddess Aurora speaks from in front of you. You cannot truly perceive Her form despite knowing that She now resides directly inside your view, your mind simply refusing to retain it. You know what She looks like, but you do not. You can name and describe Her features, but also not recall them. "You may be our hope in this bleak hour. Take a part of me, and my Favour with it. Light up the world, push back the growing darkness standing at the Gates."
It's kind of hard for a God to visit a mortal in the same sense as it would be hard for the Moon to visit my house. This was one of many sublet consciousnesses of the greater Being known as Aurora. (Many of the creatures you saw around you were also Aurora)
But technically yes, visited personally.
Alright, that went better than the worst-case scenario and worse than the best-case scenario!
So let me offer some proposals:
[ ] [TLatS] Valerie is neutralised for now and there is no threat from her while she resides in Petal, argue that any decision on her life or death should be deferred until her original mindstate has been recovered and her culpability can be determined more clearly.
[ ] [CaT] A subtle hand. Steering but never overriding. I would use it frequently, but to encourage, not control.
[ ] [CaT] Cautious and restrained. To deny others their own Will strayed to close to being a hypocrite, I would be careful and measured.
I think we should definitely come down on the more cautious side here, both because of the ethical implications and because going too hard on it means that the connected world that [Dream Within The Forest] is meant to build would only be Lilly in the end if she uses her powers liberally on everybody.
[ ] [WaL] Use a Minor Relations link to borrow use of {Hybrid Siphon} while Evie otherwise rests
In 2.4 using a Minor Relations slot to connect Evie and Petal let them interact with each other, see if we can use that to have Petal assist Evie in recovery while borrowing the use of the {Hybrid Siphon}, thus minimising the strain on Evie herself.
[ ] [TowCA] Open an Essence Link.
[ ] [TowCA] Keeping an Essence Link open 24/7 is clearly too dangerous for both of us, even though most people in Water's retinue who use Essence aren't Aurons on our level, this would eventually be discovered. However opening an Essence Link in the middle of the night, just long enough to use {Slipstream} to skip through a pebble with the strongest application of {Applied Current} we can manage, to pass her use of {Rest State} should be a manageable risk while still helping her out.
[ ] [TNA] Valerie called me 'Bloomling', like it meant something. The hillock out west, the secret of my name. I have already put it off too long.
[ ] [TNA] Tell Zach he is going to awaken to an Ethos in eleven days. Try to spend time averting him from tragedy.
[ ] [TNA] Captain Martin had something he wanted me to do that he felt was important even after discovering the truth about me. I should follow up on that.
These are the three things I think we definitely need to do, in order of priority. Idk if we want to stick around to suppress the dungeon, that seems like something the Watch should be able to handle on their own, but it's also gonna be good Gravitas, so we should at the very least hear him out on what his plan is.
The Madam's offer:
I'm unsure on this one, though I'm trending towards taking her along rather than not.
[ ] [MnM] Myah is part of the family now
It seemed pretty clear Myah was desperate to escape with us, so talk with her to see if she wants to brave the danger we'll undoubtedly face and if so she can be part of the family.
[ ] [MRL] Soul-Bond
Soul-Bonding Micah should let us regrow a new body for him via the {Attuned Locus}'s ability to bring back each other. We seem to have caught his entire sould in the Dreamspace after all.
[ ] [AC] Start the exodus
We should get our family on the road ASAP. Thanks to {Slipstream} we can skip back and forth between Harmuph and our family as we want, for example to help out Martin with the suppression of the dungeon, but our family home is in ruins and more hostile attention is very likely to follow, so getting the others moving should happen as soon as possible.
[ ] [AC] Try to recall what Petal did here:
I'm getting the feeling we have been overloaded with so much power, so much extra sensoral abilities, and so much multi dimensional bullshit that it's getting tough to actually follow all the stuff going on.
[X] [CaT] A subtle hand. Steering but never overriding. I would use it frequently, but to encourage, not control.
[X] [CaT] Cautious and restrained. To deny others their own Will strayed to close to being a hypocrite, I would be careful and measured.
[X] [WaL] I told Evie to sleep. I wouldn't let her kill herself for me.
[ ] [TowCA] Open an Essence Link.
[ ] [TowCA] Leave the door closed, for now.
waiting for 2.5 Character Sheet to see what {Sympathetic Linkage} can do now/how it changed
[X] [TNA] Valerie called me 'Bloomling', like it meant something. The hillock out west, the secret of my name. I have already put it off too long.
[X] [TNA] Captain Martin had something he wanted me to do that he felt was important even after discovering the truth about me. I should follow up on that.
[X] [TNA] I'm going to stay home with my family. Perhaps I should be doing something more important, but I just can't right now.
[X] [TMo] I decided I would take a risk with the Madam. It didn't feel right to turn her away.
[X] [MRL] Soul-Bond (Evie)
increase survival chance
[X] [MRL] Soul-Bond (Petal)
Petal would gain a form of your domain and the ability to directly assist you in the waking world
[X] [MRL] Distribute {Primordial Chassis}
good protection transferable at the speed of thought
[X] [MRL] Adaptive Interface
we need 5 minor links to protect family + Myah from divination
[X] [MRL] Expand a Power's Limits ( Sample Space )
we use it often and often to its limit
[X] [MRL] Wait.
we may need to give a perfect seedling to someone later
[x] [TLatS] Argue that you have dealt with Valerie and that she has stopped being a problem.
[x] [TLatS] She is going to make up for her actions. You'll make sure of it, that is one of the things you newest ethos is made for. And to a lesser extent swaying your followers into giving her a chance at redemption.
[x] [TLatS] Form as soul bond link with Valarie so you could bring her Offer her as a sacrifice to be executed to appease those who want revenge.
[X] [TLatS] You ran down the one responsible, suppressed her and sealed her away within your {Locus}, since actually slaying her seemed beyond the abilities of anyone you know--what with the whole 'Regenerating from a torn off head' thing she had going on. You've determined by now that she was operating under heavy mental influence--you're not certain yet if it was Flow, Oath, or something you've not heard of before, but in the process of sealing her, you've cut her off from the source of the effect, and the power you used to restore your Father to health appears to be working on correcting the damage. Blaming a victim for being subject to an attack is not something you want to get into the habit of doing--that isn't justice but just wild vengeance. Make use of {Affective Radiance} as required to help grease the wheels as you provide this story. If you can get Martin into confidence, go into more detail--she was possessed by some kind of evil Spirit that lunged out when you got the advantage on her, and severed her link to it with one of your less understood abilities.
I'd go full out on [Shine, my Gentle Heart], the train's not gonna stop anytime soon. Using it freely means removing potential friction points for the future. Lilly is going to be their leader, and depending on how the Valerie vote goes people are going to need to be convinced. I'd say that it will be the first among many situations as these.
There's also that using the power freely levels it up and makes it more likely to help's Micah's mind be recovered or reconstructed when the time comes.
[x] [CaT] For the greater good, all is permissible. I would use it liberally and freely.
[x] [CaT] Those who do evil, forfeit their right to autonomy. Against adversaries, it would simply be another weapon in my hand.
I think trying to put a load on [Ply the Line] and [Imposition of Will] for protecting Lilly's family can be a good stopgap measure.
[ ] [WaL] Use a Minor Relations link to borrow use of {Hybrid Siphon} while Evie otherwise rests
In 2.4 using a Minor Relations slot to connect Evie and Petal let them interact with each other, see if we can use that to have Petal assist Evie in recovery while borrowing the use of the {Hybrid Siphon}, thus minimising the strain on Evie herself.
[X] [WaL] No, Evie should turn off Hybrid Siphon and Rest. In fact, there must be something you can do to help her recover--you refuse to believe she's entirely disconnected from everything when she's still connected to you. Consult with Petal, make use of your Relations Links as the two of you work out a solution to help stabilize your weird jellyfish-kite friend. {Hope-Shock} seems like it might have some effect when those links are made, and while you still don't know how {Thread Compression} works as well as some of your other base powers it still helps make you better, maybe it'll help stabilize her own wounds? You still have work to do in the real world, so once you can feel something having an effect, you can leave the monitoring to Petal while you see what you can do for your family. Remember you have {Meta-Ethotic Control}, maybe see if that can help you gain insight on how to maximize Evie's chances along with {Tremendous Mechanist}?
-[X] [TowCA] Leave the door closed, for now.
[X] [TowCA] Leave the door closed, for now. Wait just a little longer, until {The Ladder} and {Juncture Sense} are less stressed. You've learned to take their advice carefully, but they do give good information a lot of the time... and something like Kaymie's situation might be a lot like with Valerie, where one critical piece of information might be a matter of life and death.
[x] [TNA] Valerie called me 'Bloomling', like it meant something. The hillock out west, the secret of my name. I have already put it off too long.
[x] [TNA] Captain Martin had something he wanted me to do that he felt was important even after discovering the truth about me. I should follow up on that.
Where Ply the line and Imposition of Intent can be used by Lilly to further secure the family's safety and the future where they are healed.
[X] [TNA] Power experimentation. There are literally dozens of things I need to learn. (Ply the Line, Critical Pivot, and Imposition of Intent)
[x] [TNA] Zach and father need to make up and restore their relationship without them being aware that it's your doing. Use Imposition of Will and Ply the Line with that goal. Get your mother to help out, she can act in your stead.
[x] [TNA] Train with Mathew.
[X] [TNA] Power experimentation. There are literally dozens of things I need to learn. (Try using {Ply the Line} to shift your fate toward one where you successfully save Micah.)
The madam is disloyal, she's likely to jump ship at one point unless helped along with and reassured by Shine, my Gentle Heart. Or alternatively, Lilly proving herself too powerful in comparison to all other options.
[x] [TMo] I decided I would take a risk with the Madam. It didn't feel right to turn her away.
-[x][TMo] Be careful, though, in not giving away your secrets to her where it is feasible to keep them unless you're more confident in her conviction to your cause.
[X] [MnM] Myah's going to be your assistant, you're kind of a big deal at the moment--if only locally--and you just have too many things to do and so little time to do it with. A friend you can trust, who also has powers you know how to work with, and can work well with you is priceless.
The soul bound would help her heal, right? But forming the connection takes time... Hmm...
[X] [MRL] Soul-Bond (Evie)
A step closer to being an urban druid.
[x] [MRL] Expand a Power's Limits (Wild Affinity. Expand the definition of wild to include sapience as well, people, humans.)
[X] [MRL] Your senses are more limited than they should be. All the sources exist and the tower can interact with them. Use relations to link your perception to all ethos sources.
[x] [AC] You should be mindful of the fact that you're going to be their leader sooner or later if you aren't already. Your power assures it, they huddle to the light and warmth your existence provides.
[x] [AC] Reach out with {Sympethetic linkage} to connect to the wildlife that surrounds you and be always listening with {Wild Affinity}, you've proven to be exceptional at integrating new senses. There is one you've been neglecting as of late.
[x] [AC] Visit Kaymie in her dreams through your forest.
[x] [AC] Lilly commits to using {Imposition of Will} and {Ply the Line} as supporting actions to her decisions, especially for those for which she knows what outcomes she desires.
[x] [AC] Expand and use your domain alongside your use of powers. Get used to incorporating it into everything you do and trying to enhance your actions with it.
[x] [AC] Can you give Micah a minor link to {Attuned Locus (Petal)} to have a new body made for him?
[x] [AC] Can you find shreds of Micah's essence and flow at the point of incident and reform his body from what lingers?
[x] [AC] Set Evie's XP Allocation to 0 while she's recovering, until we're both confident she can handle it.
[x] [AC] Make yourself pretty for the visit with Bloom.
[x] [AC] Use the Tower to scoop up the lost Gravitas and aid it by {Ply the Line}.
[X] [AC] {Melded Carapace} requires you to be wearing armor. Try using {Constructs} to make some armor.
[X] [AC] {Entities} is probably your best bet for creating a new body to put Micah's soul in. But you don't really know how to use it right now. Try testing creating something small and harmless with {Entities} as an experiment.
[X] [AC] Talk to our mother about the Stuff With Zach. Because we can't fix this, and she has an Ethos that should lend itself to teaching our father the lessons he needs to learn about how to parent.
[x] [AC] Remember that weird name that came up when the Juncture mentioned your mom. Liatris? Like the flowers mom likes to grow? Like how your own name is from Night Lillies and whatever power is behind your maternal line?
[x] [AC] Maybe broach the subject of divination with Myah and why she wants protection from it cause if it's just worries about her father finding her you think that is easily a non-issue and you could maybe use the Relations slot for something else. But only if Myah is okay with it and try and not to pressure her.
[x] [AC] Use a Minor Relations slot to gift Zach access to Rest State. It won't solve the issue by itself but you hope it will help even just a little.
[x] [AC] Extend your domain and ask if Petal can get the gravitas in the air.
[x] [AC] Use a lesser relations to pair up {Critical Pivot} and {Affective Radiance}.
[X] Plan: Helping out Kaymie
[X][AC] As sad as it seems, we are part of the problem with Zach. We can't fix this directly... But between all of our other skills, we... might be able to nudge things a bit. When our Weight allows for it, interrogate [The Ladder] regarding a route to help address his concerns, ideally without needing to break anyone's will. You've literally just gotten feel good mind powers, there has to be some way you can slightly nudge things to help him be in a better position to cope when the Ethos comes in, because you just had to deal with one child turned into a monster by eldritch powers beyond your ken and she didn't need to die either. If you can't match that with Zach--then what was the point of all of this? Maybe see if we can help get mom involved to nudge dad? Would that hide our hand in it?
[X] [AC] Experiment with the possibility of using the Dreamspace as a meeting place with your allies, an absolutely secure place to communicate is priceless
[X] [AC] Going to Kaymie at this point is reckless, not when we needed Evie's help to avoid... Something awful the last time we tried to trace back something related to Senus, but once we have settled things... Well, that's another thing entirely.
[X] [AC] Mom is a frightfully high level Flow user, just ask her if she has any insight on how it works whe nyou can.
[X] [AC] FAMILY TRIAGE: {Rest State} Is apparently effective against Valerie in the long run, but she's the source of the fuckery. Maybe see if {Rest State} combined with the {Hope-Shock} is enough to jar the Command loose before you do anything more experimental? Observe to see if you can identify how Valerie did it with your current suite of sensors. If you can identify the anchor of the effect, can you sever it like you did the evil spirit? Hopefully without hurting them? Keep talking while you're going on, as long as you can be assured there's no eavesdroppers around anyway--they kind of saw everything by this point, and... Uh, yeah. Additionally, maybe you can see if {Ply The Line} could be of any help nudging the odds of a successful treatment? If we still haven't found a solution by the time the Watch gets in, maybe see if that Yola lady can help if you can link with her?
[X] [AC] Do some testing of powers while you go about other tasks. Can you invoke a {Juncture Sense} or {Conflict Prognosticator} assessment intentionally? Try and ping Kaymie with {Juncture Sense} to see if you can, and if it works get an idea of how long you have to help her.
[X] [AC] You have this Dreamspace, but you don't really think you've ever brought anything into it with that being the intent rather than a side effect. Think about ways to add things to the Dreamspace without having to Soul-Bond them (you pulled Dad at least partly into the Dream just with essence-link; maybe {Hope-Shock} can help reach the necessary link intensity?). If you need a test target and think your experiment will be reasonably safe, Chariot probably wouldn't mind being in the Dream, and some horse-like speed could do you good in all the running around you're going to be doing.
Delegating the predicament between father and son to mother seems like a good idea. Telling her of the rift between them, of how they shouldn't be able to attribute their reconciliation to Lilly, and Zach's upcoming ethos.
But should it be an AC instead of a TNA?
If anyone is still interested in my insights this is the sum total of mistakes we have made with Valerie:
We did not determine the nature of her abilities accurately.
We have seen it when she first appeared - we thought her power was mind control, mind domination, but instead it was more like removal of ability to do anything but what she commands you to do.
And this is the exact same mis-interpretation we have made with how she asserts her power over the world.
We were told to close our eyes and destroy our ears. We thought, or at least I thought, that her power was manifested thusly:
You can hear her, so she can affect you. You can see her, so she can affect you.
But instead it turned out to be:
She talks to you, therefore you are affected. She looks at you, therefore you are affected.
