It's a Girl's World -- And Lilly wants Adventure

Simon_Jester · Apr 8, 2021

Edifier said:
Will Wonnower isn't the name of her ethos. It's a name made up by Silverking.

You're totally right but I have no better name to call the thing by, so I'll use it until something better comes along as a convenient name for "that extremely versatile and terrifying thing Valerie does with giving things orders."

PurposefulZephyr said:
I wonder if any of them are alive.
I mean, almost certainly not. Harvested for whatever potential they hold or just murdered by mind-fucked Valerie, to cut away sympathetic connections to that could be targeted.
Because in unlikely scenario her mom isn't dead, that order is still in her head. She's still forced to think her baby boy (and daughter too maybe) is not worth any attention.

I don't know- I think Aboleath may have beelined Valerie out of the general area so he could continue manipulating her into self-modifying harder and so she wouldn't feel so strongly about her first intentional murders, or discover the consequences of her unintentional killings.

Alectai said:
There we have it then. The question then is what she pays for all of this. It doesn't feel like she got an {Inverted} Ethos because she was perfectly happy it seems before Aboleath started doing things, and afterwards it's dubious as to whether she had the free will to feel trapped at all. So this just seems like a form of Oath that... Somehow alters how everything works, and apparently causes chronic damage if overused on people.

Hybrid Flow/Oath is, as mentioned, a possibility. Also, I don't think Inverted Ethoi only go to people undergoing some kind of horrible trauma. [Will Winnower] doesn't have to be an Inverted Ethos for Valerie to do something horrifying for horrifying reasons using it, any more than Marigold's Ethos has to be.

Storyteller said:
I doubt it. See our problem with our family still having the "Stop" orders in place.

To be fair, their "Stop" orders have only been in place for a short time compared to the total duration of Valerie's activities.

Alectai said:
The issue is that it looks like Valerie's life was... Fine? She started using this shit before anything really traumatizing happened and was honestly a pretty normal small child?

And {Inverted} Ethae appear to be Manoth's "Gift" to humans in an insoluble, inescapable situation--by giving them a means to flip the table on their tormentors. That {Inverted} Ethae appear to lack the same psychospiritual safeties that the more established Ethae possess to deter people from jailbreaking them appears more a matter of "He's a one transcendent crew on this and nobody else gives a shit, and he has only a finite amount of time--getting something functional on the table is more important than getting something safe"

Is Marigold's Ethos inverted? Because she was in a situation nearly as insoluble and inescapable as any we've come across so far, arguably more horrifying. Did Flower just go "MINE" and shove him aside and teach Marigold how to jailbreak a normal Ethos without inverting it?

I think we should consider the hypothesis that while traumatized people are likely to get Inverted Ethoi, you can get them without being super-traumatized. Zach was slated to get nothing but Inverted Ethoi, after all, and while he's not a happy person he's not in anywhere near as dire and miserable a situation as Myah (who didn't start with one) or Marigold (who so far as I know didn't either).

I wonder if that's the key factor than? {Inversion} isn't about 'Flipping the Ethos so it's evil'. It's 'Giving you the lategame superpowers right now without having built up to them over time, so you either immediately become a legend and can pick up the control stuff later or you collapse under the weight of having Level 100 powers at level 5' With the scale heavily tilted to the opposite side of that scale.

Since that seems to be the unifying theme of all the {Inverted} Ethae from what we got in the infodump. insane power but lack of control to use it responsibly. "Shoving the lategame powers into a newbie chassis" if you will. How bad would [Dream Within the Forest] be if we got Riemannian Geometer before we got anything else for instance? It nearly knocked Lilly for a loop even in her current state!

In that case, Valerie's might not be {Inverted} at all, she just got directly taught how to do Non-Consensual Oath effects by a transcendent master of it, and whatever Ethos she did receive rolled with it. That or she's got an Apotheotic or Ascendent Ethos that are doing the heavy lifting but Aboleath is to Valerie what Evie is to Lilly--a guide and a middleman for the powers.

I think you may be onto something here...

Edifier said:
Valerie could be or have been ethos-less and is simply borrowing Abby's powers. The Lotus Ritual implies some sort of messing with Integration Vectors on the mortal's part.
Making contracts with deities is a form of oath Ethos or power. In a way, Abby himself can be the integration Vector.
If you look at the status sheet we without an oath ethos have Freeform Oath unlocked. And Captain Marcus said that Spirits can give power.

Then how come Valerie was, by all appearances, able to explode people by looking at them cross-eyed after we drove Aboleath out of her and Evie tackled him?

Or am I misremembering the sequence of events?

I think the complex web of oaths Abby had Valerie form made her practically immortal. Her mind restored, her body reformed. It's a permanent, self-perpetuating effect.
I suspect all mental alterations will wear off, one of it's functions may be something similar to how {Rest State} works.

I would want to use [Shine] and {Subversion} to remove her memories of what she did while being friends with Abby. Give her a new start, cut away her memories or detatch herself from what she became. But I imagine that would fall under Liberal Use on allies. Unless you'd be fine to go full out with Flow powers on a case by case basis instead of sticking to subtle use.
Yet, as I stated earlier, I think the huge ritual she goes to do at the end of part 3 makes her practically immortal both in body and mind, always returning and recovering anything lost. So may not be an option at all and she will simply have to live with it. Unless she gets power like the one she has, make herself forget regularly - tho we might be able to do that too... Hmm. May be good training for our power to regurally apply {subversion} and [Shine] to keep her in a healthy state of mind.

1) I think you're far too ambitious about our ability to edit Valerie's mind in a constructive manner without turning her so nonfunctional that she becomes a massive burden.

2) I don't think she's doing a "huge ritual" at the end of Interlude 3. I think she just makes a few self-modifications. Then a day or two later she makes a few more. And a few more. And a few more. The corruption methods Aboleath use are rapid, but it's also progressive- there is no single point where everything happens at once.

Edifier · Apr 8, 2021

I'm probably overestimating what Lilly is capable of, yeah.

Simon_Jester said:
Then how come Valerie was, by all appearances, able to explode people by looking at them cross-eyed after we drove Aboleath out of her and Evie tackled him?

Or am I misremembering the sequence of events?

She got the power by Abby teaching how to stretch her mind into the {Realm of Infinite Possibility}. Which I assume is from a freeform oath made with Abby. I assume we too could form an oath with Abby, since our innate freeform oath source is unlocked - even tho we lack an oath ethos.

Slyvena said:
You have mastered the arts of double-think and ex-nihilo conceptualization, it is time to bind the outward Vow.

Slyvena said:
Dissociating her thoughts, Valerie reached into the realm of pure ideas that Aboleath had begun to show her. Remaining as both herself and no-one at all, she resisted the now familiar tugging to become one with all knowledge and possibility, instead searching for the singular aspect of her desire. It was impossible to stay here for anything longer than the length of a breath; as her tether to her own identity grew weaker, running out of time, Valerie finally found it.

She can make the oath by thinking it. By willing it. And since it's likely an Inverted Oath Ethos she does not need consent or agreement from those she targets, boom goes her target. Or alternatively, Abby is a deific ethos like Evie, so ignores rules.

A realm of pure ideas. Hmm, Hmm. What could it possibly be? This {Realm of Infinite Possibility}.

Simon_Jester · Apr 8, 2021

Edifier said:
I'm probably overestimating what Lilly is capable of, yeah.

She got the power by Abby teaching how to stretch her mind into the {Realm of Infinite Possibility}. Which I assume is from a freeform oath made with Abby. I assume we too could form an oath with Abby, since our innate freeform oath source is unlocked - even tho we lack an oath ethos.

The question is whether unlocking Freeform Oath is enough to let you use it, or whether you also need an Oath Ethos.

Since she can't even perceive Oath, Lilly having 'unlocked' Freeform Oath means very little to her. Something more must be required before a human(oid) can interface meaningfully with Oath. So far as I can tell, in ALL other cases we know of, that something is an Ethos.

Which is more likely, do you think:

1) That Valerie's power is something anyone can learn if a supernatural being is willing to teach them, because it requires no special Ethos?
2) That Valerie's power is an application of a powerful Ethos given to her by whatever entity sent Aboleath? Or
3) That Valerie's power is a 'jailbreak' or over-application of normal Oath abilities Valerie obtained with her Ethos?

(2) and (3) combined seem far more likely to me than (1).

...

Also, you misunderstand me. What I was trying to say is that Valerie retained her Oath-related power, or some of it, even when we drove Aboleath out of her. This suggests that the Oath-related power is attached to her, not to Aboleath.

Edifier · Apr 8, 2021

Simon_Jester said:
Also, you misunderstand me. What I was trying to say is that Valerie retained her Oath-related power, or some of it, even when we drove Aboleath out of her. This suggests that the Oath-related power is attached to her, not to Aboleath.

I think what heals her are the self-applied effects. Like the stop commands but more complicated. Things that Abby talked Valerie into doing at the end of part 3. Getting rid of Abby doesn't stop the already applied ongoing effects.

I think it's 4.
4) That Valerie's power is an ethos obtained from an oath contract with Abby.
...
Or yes, 1). But Abby is an entity similar to Evie. And entities like that are what weave Ethea in the first place.

Tho it's not a stretch to say that it's possible to have an oath ethos, and for an demon to show up to make a deal to lend her its power. Making deals with things is one of the ways of Oath. So it could be 3) and the deal with Abby jailbroke her existing ethos.
Except, in part 1 it's explicitly stated Valerie has no ethos.

Slyvena said:
It all came down to Ethea. Valerie was late. Thirteen and a half with no inkling of one approaching. Officially, they could come as late as sixteen (or perhaps even longer) and everyone was sure she'd receive an excellent Ethos. Unofficially, father had already stopped paying for the Lotusing ritual six months ago, she was no longer a prospect worthy of the cost.

I mean, 2 moons ago, here is Valerie without an Ethos and Abby showed up.
So I think it's it's option 4).
And 2 days later she learns Abby's magic and starts doing crazy things.
And 4 days later she starts self-applying effects.

All Valerie needs is to start accepting deals from Abby. For Abby to pull her up into power.
Note that Evie had a slew of modifications she could do to Lilly's soul. Like repurpousing the maw bits, foundational ethos, more xp, flagging her for mammoths pet project, just flooding her with power to make her divine right away, giving her meta-ethea cognition, remove her from consequence, and more. Abby is similar to Evie and she can do all sorts of shenanigans.

Actually thinking of it.
Valerie's ethos is probably the Abby equivalent of Lilly's [Effervescent Animus] – Ambrosia of Joy. After that Lilly was in regular contact with Evie, before that only during receiving an Ethos was Lilly able to communicate with Ev'aclliál - or well, with the players. Curious that in that rush Lilly also lost a few seconds. So Valerie may not even have noticed the gaining of an ethos since there is a memory wipe in gaining it. Since Abby started talking to Valerie, it can be reasoned that Valerie got her as an ethos, much like how Lilly got Evie.
Not like Lilly got any direct powers from [Effervescent Animus], just what Evie can do. But perhaps something similar could apply to Lilly, Eevie teaching Lilly as Abby did Valerie. Evie teaching how to properly reach out to and use Strey Vector by her own initiative, or Subversion, or Hybrid Syphon, or do stuff with raw Deific, or other powers.
Lilly got her Deific bits unlocked from the foundational ethos. Perhaps there are more ways to unlock the powers, things that Abby did to Valerie's soul, adding access points to them without the appropriate Ethos. Makes me wonder what else Lilly would need to do to unlock the rest of the N/A things on the powers chart - the things that are barred from mortal hands.

grommile · Apr 8, 2021

Alectai said:
The issue is that it looks like Valerie's life was... Fine? She started using this shit before anything really traumatizing happened and was honestly a pretty normal small child?

"Living in a gilded cage" is an interesting definition of "fine" and "pretty normal".

Simon_Jester · Apr 8, 2021

Edifier said:
I think what heals her are the self-applied effects. Like the stop commands but more complicated. Things that Abby talked Valerie into doing at the end of part 3.

I would just like to note that we don't know how much Aboleath talked Valerie into doing at that specific moment, beyond the initial "not needing sleep" modification. I suspect that as Valerie got stronger in her Ethos and Aboleath subverted her mind more heavily, she made more extensive self-modifications over time.

I think it's 4.
4) That Valerie's power is an ethos obtained from an oath contract with Abby.
...
Or yes, 1). But Abby is an entity similar to Evie. And entities like that are what weave Ethea in the first place.

...The point is, Valerie has an Ethos now, in all probability.

Tho it's not a stretch to say that it's possible to have an oath ethos, and for an demon to show up to make a deal to lend her its power. Making deals with things is one of the ways of Oath. So it could be 3) and the deal with Abby jailbroke her existing ethos.
Except, in part 1 it's explicitly stated Valerie has no ethos.

Valerie had no Ethos before she met Aboleath. Then there's a timeskip. Then we see her with supernatural powers.

The simplest explanation is that she chose an Ethos between the events of Interlude 1 and Interlude 2.

We simply do not have enough information to draw a firm conclusion that no, she has NO Ethos, only Aboleath. Or that Aboleath is her Ethos. Or whatever. The circumstances under which Aboleath got into Valerie are very different from the circumstances under which Evie got into Lilly. There are analogies, but the analogy isn't 100% precise or simple.

Since we no of literally no case in which anyone could access Oath or any of the other Sources without an Ethos of some kind... And since we know that Valerie's probably-Oath powers still worked when she was disconnected from Aboleath... It is reasonable to infer that her powers derive from an Ethos, and that Aboleath simply influenced the manner in which she used that Ethos while also providing some additional power and (evil) control.

grommile said:
"Living in a gilded cage" is an interesting definition of "fine" and "pretty normal".

Quite true. I'd say Valerie had as much reason to be unhappy with her life and likely to select an Inverted Ethos as, say, Zach does.

Zach has understandable, relatable reasons to feel terrible about his life- but so did Valerie, and neither is in a position anywhere near as overtly terrible as, say, Marigold when she got her Ethos, or Myah immediately after getting hers.

Faraway-R · Apr 8, 2021

It's a Girl's World -- And Lilly wants Adventure Original - Mature - Fantasy - Action

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...

forums.sufficientvelocity.com

From the Marigold's power blurb we can see the lack of any notes on whether the Ethos is Inverted or not. I suspect that it isn't Inverted, just like some of the less pleasant Ethea we have seen (the "girl who lies" from the starting spread, and both of the Apotheotic ones that were obviously offered by the Maw, at a minimum).

My current assumption is that neither Marigold nor Valerie have Inverted Ethea. Rather they have Ethea that were specifically designed from the ground up with the potential or even intent to be nasty like the Ethae of Lord Waters or his Concordance Evil Chancellor.

Alcor · Apr 8, 2021

I'll take my spin at what exactly is/went down at Valerie's manor.

First, this section is a flashback to two days prior to the start of the interlude so I'll list it first.

Slyvena said:
"Not̷̛͚̒ḥ̴̂ing w̴̰͛͆ort̶h̸ n̷otic̷͕̓ĭ̶̻ng he̷̘̕re," she had said, hoping to shield both herself and Mali from the consequences. Valerie had thought she'd put enough oomph behind the Idea, and was doubly thankful for Aboleath when she felt him add an extra push to it, clearly she would have undershot without him.

I think what this command did to Valerie's mom is basically made - at a minimum - Valerie, Thomas, and Mali topics that her mom literally can no longer think about. If applied more broadly, "here" could possibly expand to mean the entire household.

Returning to the "present":

Slyvena said:
What Valerie didn't quite get was why her mum was so calm about Thomas. She'd have expected the lady of the house to be raising a huge fuss about her brother being a little fevery and sulky, but instead her mother had been keeping to herself. But her mother seemed rather withdrawn the past few days, from just about everything really.

Slyvena said:
She'd heard some of the servants chatting about her mother apparently 'having a headache' since then. Which was obviously idle gossip, her family had access to magics that made such ailments trivial to remove.

Valerie left her brother in the wetnurses care, there was nothing she could do for him expect keep practicing. And honestly despite her mother's unexplained apathy, her parents would never let Thomas actually get worse.

Unsurprisingly her apathy is explained by the prior command. However, I'm a bit intrigued by the rumors of a headache. I wonder if because Valerie was still new to this ability if the headache wasn't her mom trying, but apparently failing, to fight back against it either consciously in a similar manner as to how Lilly tried to struggle against the compulsion or unknowingly in a "I feel like I'm forgetting something..." sense.

Slyvena said:
Mali's face went a little blank as the Idea washed over her, she'd be like that for a couple minutes. Valerie would probably sneak her some of the family herbs tomorrow, it wasn't exactly fair that only Nireiles weren't supposed to get sick when they had plenty to spare.

The thought made her sigh, people were harder than things. It's why she couldn't just command Mali to be well, or Thomas for that matter.

Her brother had gotten rather inexplicably ill the past couple days, her and Aboleath were practicing minor harmless orders on people just about as much as possible to build up Valerie's skill to the bigger concepts such as overall health. He'd tried teaching her some of the details of how the human body worked to have a go at more specific remedies, but it all got so complex with so many new words for things.

They'd abandoned that as one of their preparation activities when Valerie burst into tears halfway through some convoluted explanation about blood vessels yesterday. It hurt to admit it, but she was just too dumb.

It's impossible to know since it's all contained in this little blurb, but I suspect that Mali and Thomas's illnesses arose as a result of some unintentional side effect here during the "harmless orders" experiments. Valerie specifically notes blood vessels so it's the natural assumption for the direct cause, but honestly the exact nature is probably irrelevant here. Maybe if this was taking place right in front of us and we could still save them if we could diagnosis it but...

Slyvena said:
"Sĺ̵̗ȇ̸̻ep.̵"

The crying infant's eyes closed as he fell into a serene rest immediately, escaping his current distress.

Valerie looked into Thomas' cot as he slept, her brow crossed in frustration.

"It's amazing how he responds to you so well," Mali, his wetnurse, said from where she sat a short distance away. "Poor dear has been having a rough time of it. *cough* Excuse me."

Mali held her hand to her mouth as she coughed a couple more times, she looked to be coming down with something.

"It's no̸thi̵n̸g sp̸̻͂eciaľ̶͍," Valerie answered on impulse, "You sh̶͓̄o̸u̷ldn't̸ thin̵k̸ about it too hard."

Mali's face went a little blank as the Idea washed over her, she'd be like that for a couple minutes. Valerie would probably sneak her some of the family herbs tomorrow, it wasn't exactly fair that only Nireiles weren't supposed to get sick when they had plenty to spare.

Well, regardless of Thomas's illness, the sleep command is the more immediate issue now. I'm assuming Valerie effectively placed him in a coma here. As for Mali, she probably can no longer really think about Thomas's condition either. And possibly Valerie's ability to get Thomas to listen to her - inadvertently helping cover her tracks. While the "she'd be like that for a couple minutes" definitely suggests Valerie's observations from past orders, I suspect that with her power developing that may not hold as true anymore. The orders are likely increasing in duration and/or becoming permanent.

Slyvena said:
Oh and Shallia basically left her alone now, which was pretty great. Valerie just told her that "Sh̸͚̋e dǐ̴̺dn't nę̴́e̷̍ͅd to̶ do̴ a̶ny̵͚͝thi̴͓̕ng̶" yesterday morning. It was a pretty cushy deal for her Governess really, the woman got to live at the manor for free and now she didn't even have to do her job anymore. Which was a pretty awesome way of thinking about it, Valerie had been having second thoughts until Abby had explained it like that.

...Well. I'm assuming the full horror result of the governess no longer feeling a need to eat, drink, sleep or anything until her body gives out.

Slyvena said:
Yes Valerie, I am sure. Try to get some sleep.

Valerie felt herself actually be able to settle a little bit. Life could be such a whirlwind, but she kept repeating Abby's words to herself. It would all be fine. She was quite tired, her eyes were getting a little heavy.

Aboleath?

Yes?

I guess this means I'm going to be going on my first adventure. It won't be dangerous right? You'll look out for me?

Trust me Valerie. Soon enough, you'll love every second of it.

...Okay, looking past the enraging manipulation on Abby's part, I think this bit actually may recontextualize the interlude because what we see here is that Abby can influence Valerie directly which I think introduces even more malice in the rest of the interlude because it makes me think that Abby intentionally had Valerie cause the deaths of her entire household - to corrupt her and make her reliant on him, of course, but I think his primary goal was to sever every connection of Valerie's that he could as a preemptive defense against Concordance. Why do I think that? Because we've seen this modus operandi before.

Slyvena said:
First priority was to get away from human civilisation. The risk factors had grown wildly unmanageable and the girl's vessel was sufficient to endure without aid from others now. There was no point staying here. I cut the essence link to the father. If I did not manage to sneak away unnoticed on my first try, his resumed corruption should offer a fresh distraction to slip away.

It was a shame I needed to leave on such a tight timescale. There was so much that could be done with the mother's deific fragment. But unless I was willing to settle for a paltry boon, the proper work would take weeks which I didn't have. Still, I could always return at a later date to claim it. If anything, she needed to die simply to cut off the numerous magics that could be used to target the girl through the matriarchal bloodline.

Using my Sensorium, I knew that there were no other witnesses nearby. If I wanted to solve that problem now, it was feasible I could simply murder the entire family and leave before anyone else came to check. But I didn't want people thinking an integration vector had inverted and coming after me. Having already witnessed some of what the girl could do, they'd commit everything they could to the hunt if they thought she'd turned.

No, better to simply disappear without a trace. Survival was my purpose for existence, it was against my nature to enact nonoptimal solutions. Short term gains at the cost of notoriety was a fool's trade. The family would live, for now. Once I established access to negative essence through a future Ethos I could likely prune and harvest them from any distance.

This was mindstate!Lilly's first thought upon waking up. Her immediate thought was to erase all connections to Lilly for the sake of self-preservation, only opting not to do so immediately because of the risk of bringing the full force of the Watch on her for thinking she inverted - and that didn't put an end to that plan either, just delayed it until she could do so from a distance. This is the mindstate that Big Evie wanted for us so when I see another eldritch carrier achieve the same thing I can't help but see intent on Abby's part. There was absolutely the factor of emotional manipulation in doing it the way he did, and in many ways that's actually the more detestable bit, but I think this was the true objective.

The loose thread here is Valerie's father. Valerie says he was out on a trip. I'm thinking Abby calculated that it wasn't worth sticking around to similarly deal with him or risk him raising the alarm upon seeing the results of Abby's labor and being there for it... unless that trip was Valerie/Abby caused, just off-screen, and we should not expect he'll return.

Faraway-R · Apr 8, 2021

That's a great observation, Alcor!

I probably should also add to that, that Aboleath's efforts were suspiciously strongly aligned in the direction of not just cutting Valerie off, but also doing so through making her people no longer care about her. I think this was intentional and would weaken the links to Valerie from their side, even further.

When viewed from this angle, neither Valerie's father nor her extended family actually matter all that much, for they have already been cutting ties to her of their own volition even before she met Aboleath.

sheep-dodger · Apr 8, 2021

Kymecho said:
Whatever plan wins, perhaps phrase the Myah issue as offering her an opportunity/choice, and giving some reassurance? She's probably freaked out by now, being left with an injured Silas family and 2 messy corpses.

I have a write-in for that to offer Myah a choice to join up with us if you want to support that:
[ ] [MnM] If she wants to, Myah is part of the family now

actuallynotanegg said:
I don't remember, do any of the plans have provisions on using Shine on ourselves or not? I feel like we should have something in there saying to limit self-usage

I have an [AC] write-in on that specifically you can add to your vote
[ ] [AC] Heed {Rest State}'s warning wrt self-application of {Affective Radiance} and limit its use to short bursts in dangerous moments

Alectai said:
The issue is that it looks like Valerie's life was... Fine? She started using this shit before anything really traumatizing happened and was honestly a pretty normal small child?

You don't have to be brutally abused to receive an inverted Ethos tho, remember we got an offer from Manoth for an Inverted Ethos that would let us rip knowledge straight out of people's heads because they kept not telling us stuff. I'd assume that "your entire family is cutting you out of their life because they think you're worthless trash" is sufficient to qualify for an Inverted Ethos, even if it's not physically abusive in the way Myah's situation was.

actuallynotanegg said:
Has anybody mentioned the concordance blurb on Myah's situation? It called Myah's upcoming inversion a "synchronicity restoration" as well, so that seems somewhat significant. I was kinda gonna speculate a bit, but Silverking just said what I wanted to say better lol.

Alectai said:
It means that her Sync is incredibly high, but the {Inversion} will bring her new Ethos in a position where it's no longer desycnched.

Myah's Sync was actually really down in the dumps.

Slyvena said:
Host: Myah Uyle | Species: Unmodified Human | Age: 13th Cycle
Integration Vector: [These Bonds I Bear] 4th Expansion | Warning: Synchronicity 3%, Inversion Risk: Extreme. Divergence Factor: Extreme. Gravitic Saturation: Very Low.

My guess is that the report lists two distinct outcomes for Myah:

Slyvena said:
|Upcoming Gravitic Juncture: 45 Hours| Myah Uyle [These Bonds I bear] {{Inversion/'Synchronicity Restoration'}} No-Return Horizon Event |Current Pre-Factor: 33%| |Current Post-Factor: -94%| Concord Node 'Lilly Silas' capable of circumvention? Yes. Gravitic Actor Factor: 74%

Either she inverts her Ethos or she restores Synchronicity to her Ethos as she realises that there are in fact people that care about her. We'd have to see more readouts for gravitic junctures to see if this one is showing two competing results or two names of the same effect. The format of x / y makes it read as competing event outcomes to me at least.
In the end Synchronicity Restoration could refer to either restoring Synchronicity to her existing Ethos because her circumstances and mindset changed or restoring Synchronicity by inverting her Ethos to match her frame of mind, so for now at least we don't know for certain which it is.

Vokivas · Apr 8, 2021

A lot of this is either going over my head, or been touched upon by others, so I'll try to focus my attention.

Alcor said:
The loose thread here is Valerie's father. Valerie says he was out on a trip. I'm thinking Abby calculated that it wasn't worth sticking around to similarly deal with him or risk him raising the alarm upon seeing the results of Abby's labor and being there for it... unless that trip was Valerie/Abby caused, just off-screen, and we should not expect he'll return.

Even if she killed her mom and Thomas, and we write off her father, she still has 5 siblings off at the academy. MindState!Lilly was specifically interested in the 'Matriarchal bloodline'. Is the Patriarchal bloodline less important because Lilly is a girl, or is it not mentioned because MindState!Lilly had already cut off the efforts to heal Yolun? Either way it wanted to kill the entire family, so that might suggest that someone can be tracked through all of their relatives. Patriarchal bloodline, Matriarchal bloodline, and the siblings. Or there isn't really a similar connection between siblings, and the that thought was about taking the simplest and most direct route.

Nothing really conclusive, but I'm inclined to believe that people can be tracked through their Patriarchal bloodline as well. If such a thing could be done in Harmuph, then it's certainly something that Valerie's family could achieve. So I'm reasonably sure that there are people tracking her, even if it's just lackeys sent by her father.

Which I think only really becomes significant later on. Once Lilly leaves Harmuph, they'll still be able to follow without the obvious trail Valerie has left up until this point.

Though this does make me wonder what kind of things Abby might've done to try and throw off anyone following them. Their behavior of 'just' slurping up whatever deific fragments were closest doesn't scream that Abby fears being tracked. Then again, Valerie got to Harmuph incredibly quickly. So I would guess that it's actually pretty obvious, and Abby didn't care too much about pursuit or a trail because Valerie was moving so fast and powering up with so quickly with deific fragments.

Edifier said:
PS. Any chance NULLERROR's poem relates to Valerie?

The first part makes a lot of sense for Thomas, but the second part doesn't really fit. With 7 total kids it doesn't make sense, unless some of them are illegitimate. Even then, they'd be half siblings.

This is all over my head though. The part about 4 siblings makes sense for the Silas family, but the first party only kind of makes sense for Zack and knowing just how the confrontation with Valerie would pan out was unknown at the time. Sure, in universe there might be a way to know what would've happened exactly before hand (which I'm skeptical about due to how much meta manipulating stuff was involved), but Slyvena doesn't have those powers. Which is to say, this poem almost certainly relates to something already set in stone. Like Thomas' fate and Valerie's backstory.

I saw some stuff going around about Myah's family, but I didn't follow too closely and wasn't Jeremy the oldest anyway? That's as much as I have about this.

Razzocnor said:
....It is immediately apparent that there almost certainly wasn't any 'grand curse', but rather that the 'illness' is probably a direct result of Valerie carelessly using Words on people.

Maybe it's just me, but my mind went to the illness that once effected Myah. Was it established that it was the dungeon that's causing it? Because maybe this is one of the major disasters. Just because Abby is manipulative and evil, and can seemingly lie, doesn't mean that they necessarily lied about the sickness. Or it's origin.

Then again, because Mali also got sick, maybe it's just a regular illness. The one in Harmuph doesn't seem to be typically infectious, and I'm unsure how it spreads. But Thomas could just be regularly sick, and his mother couldn't do anything because Valerie made him not worth noticing. So maybe there is no grand curse, Valerie isn't the reason behind it, and what's happening in Harmuph is unrelated.

That would just bring up the question of if she was using her power on Mali and Thomas before they got sick. Because it says she was practicing to try and heal him. So, maybe, there's another scenario. Thomas (and maybe Mali) contract a mundane illness, and Valerie attempts to heal them with her power. It either doesn't work at all and Abby lies about the origin and the severity, or it makes things worse and Abby is 'just' lying about the origin.

GenericName · Apr 8, 2021

Honestly reading through all this... I kinda like Manoth? I think y'all are right that he's trying to help but he doesn't understand why inverted ethos could be anything but a gift. When you're stuck and you have no happy ending, what gift could be greater than a chance? Sure the chance might end up horribly, in fact it's likely it will. But is that any worse than certain failure? Is the chance at freedom and success worth the risk of things going horribly wrong?

Vokivas · Apr 8, 2021

I have a had time humanizing beings like Manoth, Aurora, Abby, and Evie. Because aside from Smol!Evie, all of them are more Lovecraftian than anything. They might be able to come off as human, but it seems like more of a mask than anything.

Thinking about things like that, it has me wondering about Petal and the Dream. Things are pretty nice right now, but what's the end point? Unity. So I'm left wondering if there'll be a point in the future where Lilly and Petal truly merging becomes a Thing. I don't know about you guys, but at the very least I'm hesitant. Because while it might still be Lilly, it won't just be her. Then again, Lilly's basically guaranteed to have those types of identity issues. Heck, Core Heart has already touched on this. She blasted her ear drums, and I can't remember if she ever healed what she did to her brain a while back.

Troubling thoughts. Though as an aside, thinking about all of this reminds me of some of the more ominous Diglett underground memes.

Razzocnor · Apr 8, 2021

Yeah, Lilly is sooner or later going to have to come to terms with the fact that she is steadily changing into something distinctly Not Human. She's already pretty far along, frankly, with the Primordial Chassis and more extra senses than she knows what to do with, and a personal dream-world that she has motivations for pulling more people into.

Really, at a certain point it'll be the other Lovecraftian beings looking at her and tutting about how she's dangerously insane for a nascent Elder Goddess, what with stubbornly holding on to her human mentality and all. How are they supposed to understand something that thinks like a human while still having hyper-dimensional biology?

actuallynotanegg · Apr 8, 2021

Well I don't exactly think Lilly needs to come to terms with that. We already have, Bedrock is one heck of an ethos.

Edit: thinking about Bedrock, I feel like it's going to be an incredibly helpful paring with Tower once we level them both up and get a better understanding of Ethea. {Hope Shock} mentions halting rapid decoherence, which we've heard used with souls very frequently. I think in the future, assuming we manage to scale up there, we'll be able to preform some truly epic feats on our Ethea and soul. Being able to just casually max out integration, temporarily increasing the strength of our powers, who knows why else. I really think Oath should be a priority, hopefully Shine ends up hybridizing soon.

sheep-dodger · Apr 8, 2021

We should get a separate Oath-based Ethos anyway tbh. I'd assume [Shine, My Gentle Heart] is most likely to hybridise into Freeform Oath to boost allies, so getting a Bound Oath Ethos would add another valuable tool to our arsenal.

actuallynotanegg · Apr 8, 2021

I thought it would likely be bound oath to contract with some aspect of Aurora

Storyteller · Apr 8, 2021

So two general thoughts.

1.

sheep-dodger said:
My guess would be that [These Bonds I Bear] is intended to be used in a way where you empower and support your family and friends through the essence abilities you get from it. Myah's high Divergence score probably means that she saw the titular Bonds as alienating, oppressive and holding her down, rather than as something to be cherished and enjoyed. So if we want to help her get her Sync back up and Divergence back down we should probably help her develop new healthy relationships.

I wonder what benefits Myah gets from her Ethos. These Bonds I Bear - well even the wording is different from Service To Man. Bonds are intended to be a two way street.

2.If we tell Zack what his option selection for Ethos is going to be... I wonder if he'll decide to not choose one. In the same way that you can have a program wait forever by simply never answering a question as it waits for your response.

Edifier · Apr 8, 2021

The first genuine bond to Myah is going to be Lilly. She saved her, she's powerful enough to protect her from her family, she can take her away and already did.
Now it's a question of if Lilly will reciprocate her need and accept her. Once she feels secure that Lilly's not gonna toss her to the side she'll likely feel more relaxed in trying to form a bond with our comatose family or other followers of Lilly like the captain.

Razzocnor · Apr 8, 2021

I concur that {Bedrock} is quite possibly our top Ethos in many ways. Sure, it doesn't do all that much on its own, but it combos so well with everything, and for a multi-ethos user like Lilly that is priceless. There is also the fact that its quite likely the only thing keeping Lilly from going off her rocker, and is certainly what stopped Mindstate Lilly from being a permanent thing (and what a loss that would have been). Taking {Bedrock} may have gotten us Valerie'd early, but it was undoubtably worth it.

And {Hope Shock} just makes things better. Try it on everything! Try {Hope Shock}ing {Rest State} at the paralyzed family to see if a reset button on steroids can clear the commands! Try {Hope Shock}ing Wood Memory (or rather {Recalled Genesis}, its true name) at Micah's body to see if the Shock is enough to make it apply to more than wood and give us a body template, or maybe even a mind template, for when we rebuild him! Try {Hope Shock}ing our major relations link to see if it makes it bond to Evie faster! We need to fight? {Hope Shock} {Brave Blood} and slam the enemy even harder and hotter! Need to teleport faster? {Hope Shock} {Slipstream} to power-charge it!
Though we should probably exercise some caution at first to make sure that overusing it won't cause complications.

Edit: I also do wonder a bit about what the Oath aspect of {Shine} will be. I could see either contracting with Aurora directly given the vision thing, or binding to others to declare them 'our people' or something like that. Or maybe something that just Oath-boosts normal love and friendship relationships.
Hey, maybe there's something buried in {Shine} that will let us properly draw power from Friendship and weaponize Love into pink laser beams. That'd show silly Mindstate Lilly and her eagerness to abandon connections just because they might become a vulnerability! And on that topic, if we've seen anything about Ethea, its that things tend to swing both ways. If there are Ethea out there that weaponize connections, I'd be willing to bet that there's also at least one that weaponizes isolation. Not having many attachments may mean they can't be used against you, but it also means that there are less threads holding you to the world if someone learns how to cut them...

Edifier · Apr 8, 2021

Razzocnor said:
certainly what stopped Mindstate Lilly from being a permanent thing

No. That was Evie and Petal. Unrelated to Bedrock.

Razzocnor · Apr 8, 2021

I rather suspect Petal wouldn't have been able to do a mindstate reset at all without {Bedrock}, or at least that's my guess. We did get {Bedrock} at that exact moment, after all.

Edifier · Apr 8, 2021

Razzocnor said:
I rather suspect Petal wouldn't have been able to do a mindstate reset at all without {Bedrock}, or at least that's my guess. We did get {Bedrock} at that exact moment, after all.

The Lilly backup plot was set in motion by Petal and Evie. Which was underway before anyone was even aware that we'd pick Bedrock. It was {Collective Communion} and {Attuned Locus} that did the heavy lifting there.
Loading a backup is within the powers of [Dream], {Recalled Genesis} does that thing with the heartstaff on a regular basis.
Sure, [Bedrock] helps but it wasn't needed. It's a healing-focused Ethos, which mindstate Lilly said that it'd be easy enough to reconfigure to consider her as the true Lilly. [Dream] is utility-focused and it was prepped to reboot her back to the non-optimized Lilly.

Mindstate Lilly mentioned wanting to get a Negative Essence ethos. Which would be amazing and allow Lilly to weaponize her essence links for life drain powers. It'd be perfect for her. Anyone who would want to attack likely through her links would soon realize that they made themselves open for a counter-attack.
[Bedrock] for healing, [Dream] for utility, and [Negative] for an offense. It'd make Lilly the supreme essence user. Tho getting an inverted Essence is unlikely without some [Tower], [[Flower]], or [[Evie]] shenanigans.
Not to mention Lilly has to unlock Oath and Mana still, possibly Maw as well, and most of Concordance, and also the N/A slots... Lilly's missing a lot.

Razzocnor · Apr 8, 2021

Hmm, I wasn't quite following everything going on in there then. Eh, {Bedrock} is still one of our best Ethea. It keeps coming up as being what lets Lilly actually use her powers on herself without turning into a twisted mess, if nothing else. And warns her to not suppress her emotions too badly. And provides the key components of what should let Lilly successfully save people who've been possessed, mindstated, or snapped from Inversion. And presumably protects Lilly at least some from having those things happen to her.

Edifier said:
Not to mention Lilly has to unlock Oath and Mana still, possibly Maw as well, and most of Concordance, and also the N/A slots... Lilly's missing a lot.

And unlike everyone else, she actually has a chance of getting them all! Not sure we actually need/want Maw. Everything that might provide it tends to seem... unhealthy to pick. Probably powerful, but what's the point being powerful if you've been turned into a twisted horror that can no longer interact with society safely? Or had your soul dissolved? We're here to prove that someone can survive the 7th era without losing themselves or becoming a murderous monster. The N/A slots are probably hard too, since they only things we've tseen that might give them have been Foundational Ethea.

Edifier · Apr 8, 2021

Razzocnor said:
Probably powerful, but what's the point being powerful if you've been turned into a twisted horror that can no longer interact with society safely?

Lilly would object actually. With her powerset that's becoming less and less of a risk.

Slyvena said:
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.

With {Meta-Ethea Control} Lilly can even disable undesirable power effects. Like the burning hot side of {Heat}, or as you pointed out the bits that would make her an outcast - tho she already has physical signs of pith inversion, the core heart. With this negative aspects of obtaining more power are being decohered.
She's getting skilled enough and obtaining tools that make her capable of handling even the most hazardous of powers. Which, when the time comes, maybe the line that makes her capable of saving everyone she desires to.

It's a Girl's World -- And Lilly wants Adventure

Trusted within thoughts.

Trusted within thoughts.

nasty-minded old cynic

Trusted within thoughts.

Trusted within thoughts.

Trusted within thoughts.

Trusted within thoughts.