- Location
- San Ramon, CA
Up next is meeting the Flower, our second divine revelation in 24 hours! Aren't we blessed?
It's a Girl's World -- And Lilly wants Adventure
- Thread starter Slyvena
- Start date
- Original Mature Fantasy Action
Up next is meeting the Flower, our second divine revelation in 24 hours! Aren't we blessed?
- Location
- Who Knows Where
@Storyteller That's a funny image. Madame Silva surrounded by divining tools, concentrating and concentrating until "We're in! Pack the silverware!"
We know that Captain Martin believes information about what just happened is almost impossible to suppress, but depending on the esoteric stuff Aboleath and Evie were throwing around, it might have muddied the water a bit for Concordance. Unlikely, but I like to think there's a chance.
We know that Captain Martin believes information about what just happened is almost impossible to suppress, but depending on the esoteric stuff Aboleath and Evie were throwing around, it might have muddied the water a bit for Concordance. Unlikely, but I like to think there's a chance.
- Location
- United States of America, Michigan
I think we soul-bonded Evie to help fix her up
- Location
- Who Knows Where
Yeah, for sure. I was thinking about later, if another Major Relations Slot becomes available.
- Location
- United States of America, Michigan
Random thought but I feel like what Val did with her voice commands was Maw cause the 'make parts of the soul something other' feels Mawish and how it was operating on multiple different Sources which I think is rather rare cause even Lilly with her multi Ethea bullshit can still only only mess with 4 or so. So I think it makes sense if she was doing something with Maw where it seems to operate on multiple layers given our Maw Hybrid Siphon helps block/absorb Concordance along with its other stuff.
Makes me worried about what Val's soul is looking like given how often she's been commanding herself and how much other her soul has been replaced with. Now that other might just be how having some Maw Innate Source is like how Lilly has some from whatever the fuck happened to her but I worry if it means Val is going to be a lot harder to unfuck in the head.
Actually if Valerie and some of her effects don't seem to show up in Concordance how the fuck did Ladder know enough to know she can be rehabilitated especially if Abby and her words are Maw related?
Makes me worried about what Val's soul is looking like given how often she's been commanding herself and how much other her soul has been replaced with. Now that other might just be how having some Maw Innate Source is like how Lilly has some from whatever the fuck happened to her but I worry if it means Val is going to be a lot harder to unfuck in the head.
Actually if Valerie and some of her effects don't seem to show up in Concordance how the fuck did Ladder know enough to know she can be rehabilitated especially if Abby and her words are Maw related?
- Location
- San Ramon, CA
...This actually reminds me of a moment from the Arcadum DND campaign "Broken Bonds". (*SPOILER WARNING FOR BROKEN BONDS SEASON 1 EPISODE 11*)
The DM Arcadum runs multiple simultaneous campaigns (sets of players and plots) in the world of Kalkatesh, a custom setting that Arcadum had written up extensively years ago. The campaigns are considered a "shared world", and while different campaigns may only cross paths, there is always the chance that one group's success or failure may have ripple effects on others. The "overarching villain" is the Violet Herald, who seeks to end all of existence, and different campaigns all end up having their own plates to keep spinning to stop the world from ending.
One group, however, knows nothing about any of this. The "Broken Bonds" group is a bunch of criminals who have been contracted to go adventuring to serve out their sentences Suicide Squad style. During one such adventure, the group finds a pile of corpses that seem to be covering an egg of some kind. The party, in its infinite wisdom, pulls apart the pile to reveal what appears to be a 3-foot long larva, about the size of a dog. The druid decides that she wants a new pet, picks up the larva, and gives it a hug. After Arcadum rolls some dice to determine exactly what the larva is, he tells the group that the "larva" is actually the birthing sac of an extremely powerful undead, and that the druid needs to make a wisdom saving throw to best figure out how to handle "the imprinting process". As in all legendary D&D stories, the druid rolls a natural 20.
Arcadum then rolls…and rolls…and rolls with increasing incredulity. He then tells the group that the type of undead he rolled for was so powerful relative to the group, that if the druid had rolled anything less than a natural 20, not only would she have died instantly, the party would have had to fight TWO powerful undead with little chance to survive. He then calls for a 10-minute break as he now has to consult the Deep Notes, as the dice have just done the equivalent of having Bilbo Baggins roll on the Random Loot Table and end up with the One Ring.
The undead pops out of the sac, looks at the druid, and feels no fear from her, so he does not attack. He says that he has forgotten his name, and he asks that the party help him find his brother. The group agrees. Arcadum then reveals that, by simply encountering this undead, surviving, and agreeing to help it, they have effectively fulfilled one of the win conditions to beating the Violet Herald and saving the whole world. The druid gets a prestige class, and Arcardum makes a note that he'll have to update the Deep Notes, since one of the more vital entities in his cosmology now goes by the name of "Zorro."
One group, however, knows nothing about any of this. The "Broken Bonds" group is a bunch of criminals who have been contracted to go adventuring to serve out their sentences Suicide Squad style. During one such adventure, the group finds a pile of corpses that seem to be covering an egg of some kind. The party, in its infinite wisdom, pulls apart the pile to reveal what appears to be a 3-foot long larva, about the size of a dog. The druid decides that she wants a new pet, picks up the larva, and gives it a hug. After Arcadum rolls some dice to determine exactly what the larva is, he tells the group that the "larva" is actually the birthing sac of an extremely powerful undead, and that the druid needs to make a wisdom saving throw to best figure out how to handle "the imprinting process". As in all legendary D&D stories, the druid rolls a natural 20.
Arcadum then rolls…and rolls…and rolls with increasing incredulity. He then tells the group that the type of undead he rolled for was so powerful relative to the group, that if the druid had rolled anything less than a natural 20, not only would she have died instantly, the party would have had to fight TWO powerful undead with little chance to survive. He then calls for a 10-minute break as he now has to consult the Deep Notes, as the dice have just done the equivalent of having Bilbo Baggins roll on the Random Loot Table and end up with the One Ring.
The undead pops out of the sac, looks at the druid, and feels no fear from her, so he does not attack. He says that he has forgotten his name, and he asks that the party help him find his brother. The group agrees. Arcadum then reveals that, by simply encountering this undead, surviving, and agreeing to help it, they have effectively fulfilled one of the win conditions to beating the Violet Herald and saving the whole world. The druid gets a prestige class, and Arcardum makes a note that he'll have to update the Deep Notes, since one of the more vital entities in his cosmology now goes by the name of "Zorro."
Aetharian
Currently on Fire
- Location
- USA
Well that was an excellent way to blow through 170k words worth of quest! And a good thing I read the comments after the threadmark! I nearly thought this gem had kneeled over and died! Never been happier to find something still among the land of the living! My compliments @Slyvena ! This was a most excellent binge.
- Location
- USA
[X] [YoN] Yay. We want to hear the rest of Lilly's story. Even if it gets slow and has occasional errors that need fixing.
- Location
- Somewhere.
Vote's closed! Good news, you won!
- Location
- San Ramon, CA
Missed the implications on this the first go-around. You're telling me that Lilly's now reached full "regrow your arm in an instant" levels of healing? Without the debilitating Mana-Curses or ritual expenses that can make it less than worth it? Granted, it seems that the only reason Lilly was able to pull it off this time was due to her connection to her mother, but if it can be done once, it can be improved further. This is flat-out "call the Noosemen NOW" levels of power. If we wouldn't be killed or enslaved for having it, we'd be rich!
...Yeah, Plan: Build Up Zach's Self-Esteem just got hit with a sledgehammer. I don't even know how best to try and salvage it at this point. We'll have to look at that after we deal with the Flower and the Dungeon and with Evie's infodump and will the Watch keep Myah safe while we're in the Dungeon and GAAAAAH IS ONE BLASTED DAY OF PEACE TOO MUCH TO ASK FOR?!
So, despite my jokes about Flower's presumed pretentiousness and "the lightshow that worked on Sarah won't impress Lilly", we the audience are aware that whatever the Flower is, her "weight-class" is no joke. Now, chances are that the Flower is going to have her own set of requests and rewards, but she's going to have her work cut out for her, since that all the advantages she has granted Lilly have been behind the scenes:
- Being a Bloomling seems to have some effect in faster leveling (and the Spreadsheet implies it may alleviate some of the "bottleneck" conditions for Ethos).
- She has directed Marigold our way for protection.
- She has kept the Colossus from interfering with us (imagine if an Ethos Pick Expansion had ONLY Apothetic Maw options)
- She cleared the way for Evie to have a straight shot at Lilly, allowing her to retain enough info to install [Towering Edifice to Heaven]
Edifier
Trusted within thoughts.
- Location
- Court of Moon Wizards
You forget we're still on the same day when we woke up with the dungeon heart integration. This isn't the second divine revelation by a longshot.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Wow, this is all happening within the same 24 hours. Lilly, what a champ.
Speaking of, do we even need to sleep anymore? We powered through that night like nothing
Speaking of, do we even need to sleep anymore? We powered through that night like nothing
- Location
- Who Knows Where
The 1.3 update says it was 23 days of underground sleeping for Lilly, I think.
But yes, one of the first benefits of Dream Within the Forest was access to natural energy, which mostly removes the need to sleep for Lilly. Though chances are she's going to want to sleep, just to help process everything she went through recently.
But yes, one of the first benefits of Dream Within the Forest was access to natural energy, which mostly removes the need to sleep for Lilly. Though chances are she's going to want to sleep, just to help process everything she went through recently.
Half Moon
In the end, there is no end.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Just thinking about Valerie. We've removed the influence of her own commands. At the very least, she'll feel guilty about what she did.
But, well, with the absence of guilt, she enjoyed what she did. I doubt that was entirely unnatural.
We'll be fighting some truly evil people, over the course of the quest. People who, undoubtedly, deserve to suffer.
I bet that'll haunt her.
But, well, with the absence of guilt, she enjoyed what she did. I doubt that was entirely unnatural.
We'll be fighting some truly evil people, over the course of the quest. People who, undoubtedly, deserve to suffer.
I bet that'll haunt her.
- Location
- San Ramon, CA
Well, the end of Valerie's interlude implied that Aboleath tricked her into making an Inward Vow that would effectively make her a sociopath that enjoys whatever she puts her hand to.
If my suspicions are correct, the [Rest State] will eventually be able to revert her back to her previous state of mind (there were hints that some mental commands that conflict with a person's self-image would degrade over time without reinforcement). Lilly will know when this happens when she hears the sound of ultimate suffering from the Princess Bride echoing throughout the whole dang countryside.
- Location
- Somewhere.
We even saw her having to be pushed to maintain it.
We do. She had weeping, terrified breakdowns, and then Aboleth convinced her to "fix" herself using her Compelling Voice so she wouldn't feel guilty about anything she did.
- Location
- San Ramon, CA
...I'm pretty sure we've had access to the 2.5 stats (including info about [Shine, my Gentle Heart) since April 9th. Or are you referring to something else?
- Location
- Somewhere.
SV told me it was new, and I foolishly believed it. Don't mind me.
Non-Canon Omake: Evie's Log: Reflections upon Restoration
- Location
- San Ramon, CA
Ladies and gents, I present for your viewing pleasure another Omake of questionable canon, to celebrate our 1st Nat 100 and the continuance of this quest!
Evie's Log: Reflections upon Restoration
Evie's Log: Reflections upon Restoration
It's always a strange feeling when circumstances make ensuring your own survival more a function of tedium than of risk.
Oh, make no mistake, my current form is in no way out of danger. There are a hundred thousand timers on a hundred thousand functions, all requiring alterations of such precision, timing, and synchronicity to avoid critical failure. Every success is but a single step up the mountain, any failure could see me slip into the endless chasm below. The operations required are only further increased by the additional energy strain required to maintain my current level of cognition (and I am NOT going back to being Baby Evie, thank you very much). Still, my condition has officially gone from "hopeless" to "manageable". My improved mental state is able to prioritize and multitask accordingly, and the margins for completion are 'just' wide enough to proceed without accumulating too much stress. Also, the new Major Link to the Tower allows me to offload "complete" sections to be set to self-sustaining, allowing me to have fewer and fewer simultaneous functions that I need to worry about at a time.
The one issue I hadn't anticipated was the dysmorphia starting to kick in. I mean, I know exactly how this form works and how to make it do what I want, but it's still a transition to go from, say, being a seamstress sewing a dress to being a dress trying to sew itself. Clinical operations are now associated with actual sensations (imagine stabbing 'yourself' with a needle), and every once in a while I try to move an influence-appendage that I simply don't have anymore. Granted, Baby Evie didn't have this trouble, but that's because she didn't have any frame of reference of being anything else.
…Baby Evie didn't have a frame of reference for a LOT of things. No real knowledge of past Eras, the Outer Planes, or even the Melange Layer itself. The Nanny was more focused on making sure Baby Evie knew how to properly manipulate soul-workings, in the hopes that as long as she could keep making Lilly "secure", there would be enough time for me to naturally gain my memories and capabilities back, and grow back into my pre-Ethos personality. Which is ironic, considering that the Nanny ended up being more like me, well, Past Evie more than Baby Evie ever ended up being before she became…me… Gah, trying to keep track of so many memory states existing in such short proximity is frustrating.
Of course, this type of discussion is old hat amongst those of us who have "reincarnated" at least once. The former angel who realizes that he had been acting like a twat to everyone he ever met, the demon who tried to argue that his "death" had cancelled all debts he owed but not all debts owed to him, that one poor sod who got eaten by his "servant" memory-clone who everyone ended up preferring over the original. Over the Eras the rules of inheritance and blame had to be hashed out and refined in order to promote some semblance of order and precedence for these situations.
As a purely random example, is the Evie-who-is-now to be held responsible for putting Lilly into a sociopathic Mindstate? On the one hand, allowances can and have been made in the cases where a "tabula rasa" is exploited, so one could argue that Baby Evie was simply following the orders of the Nanny, an intentionally short-lived memory clone. On the other hand, the Nanny was made by Past Evie specifically to nurture and guide Baby Evie in a case of "pre-meditated memory loss", and as all evidence points to the Nanny knowingly and willingly following both the word and intent of her designated purpose, then Past Evie is the true intent behind the plan, with the Nanny acting as her agent. Past Evie became Baby Evie, and Baby Evie became Evie-who-is-now. Evie-who-is-now has both awareness and understanding of Past Evie's motivations and intentions, being the "inheritor-in-full" of Past Evie in a way that Baby Evie was not. Now, there have been cases where a reincarnate effectively "disowns" their past self and is willing to forsake their previously earned titles, belongings, and even knowledge in order to make a clean break. But in this case…no, I'm too much like Past Evie to pretend that the me-who-is-now would never THINK of trying to do something like that.
And yet…I don't think I am quite Past Evie anymore, which is a bit of a surprise. I have now finished what some reincarnates call "a vacation of ignorance", which means that I should be going back to my job of scrambling and back-stabbing to stay alive one more minute at a time while the world burns. But looking back at Past Evie, she just seems so…controlling and fearful and jaded, to the point where she utterly failed to predict Baby Evie's actions. The idea of Baby Evie defying Nanny for the sake of a mortal never even occurred to her. Where did she get it wrong?
Well, for starters, she made the mistake of dropping impressionable Baby Evie into the middle of an Adventure. Oh, yes, meet Lilly, the underdog girl with lots of powers, who's fighting to save her town and her family! And Nanny says that she's the Most Important Girl in the World (I now know Nanny meant that it was important for Lilly to live so I could stay in the Melange Layer, but that was a REALLY poor choice of words). Let's go on a horse ride and fight the evil Wolves and have all the Gravitas you can eat! Oh, but I have to hide from the other humans, because I'm a SECRET friend who helps! We're going to be best friends forever!…Other demons would claim that they would have more cynicism and detachment even as a tabula rasa, and all of them are filthy liars.
The second thing was…let's see…probably Baby Evie learning that love is a choice. Baby Evie had seen Lilly go through the full gambit of emotions on her trip: excitement, fear for her life, relief, fear of exposure, betrayal, confusion, acceptance, wonder. But the most confusing emotions she saw was when Lilly had learned that her mother had kept a big secret from her. Now, Baby Evie had seen something like this before: Lilly trusted Mathew, Mathew betrayed Lilly, so Lilly withdraws all investment in Mathew. Now, Lilly trusted Mom, Mom betrayed Lilly…but while Lilly was mad, she wasn't willing to abandon her emotional investment. There was something deeper, something that was strained but nowhere near broken. Lilly chose to love, even when there seems to be no benefit and when there's a chance it will just open herself up to more hurt. …So, when Baby Evie realized that the Mindstate she was helping to build would NEVER choose to love, it sank in that maaaybe this wasn't something Lilly would actually want.
The third thing, of course, was Baby Evie finding out that there was a solution to this problem…through trickery. There was no way of obviously undoing the construction of the Mindstate without the Nanny noticing, but leaving open the connection to the Locus that wouldn't be noticed until Lilly regained consciousness was much more doable And the fact that this would both help Lilly AND pull a fast one on Nanny who thinks she knows everything? If nothing else of me persists through all my iterations, that compulsion, that addiction for that feeling of cunning will remain a constant.
And that was end of all of Past Evie's plans, as well as the Mindstate. Oh, I still know how to build the blasted thing, but at this point it's completely unviable. For starters, it's a little bit tricky to try and build when the subject is awake, and Lilly probably isn't going to be sleeping when she could be doing something productive (I may need to actually be the one who makes the argument that she needs some rest for her mind's sake if not her body's). Secondly, the Core Heart is now synced up with "Petal", who will probably notice and intervene in the case of significant "personality drift". Finally, and most importantly of all, Aurora has, in her polite but firm way, informed me that Lilly has a rather large part of her attention, and that any attempts to compromise her judgement will be NOTICED. Now, we spirits may joke about Aurora being soft-hearted to the humans and a bit scatter-brained, but everyone knows what happened to spirits that manage to get her undivided attention and ire.
…Which leads me to making a rather crucial decision. Now, the more "honorable" types of spirits would try to formalize this with an Oath, but…that doesn't mesh so well with tricksters like me. Throughout my life I have viewed Oaths more as a game to win, as a challenge to beat, as a chain to give the one holding it a false sense of security before I slip out of it at the last possible moment. I know myself well enough that no matter what words I use, I will always have a temptation to defy the spirit of the Oath in any instance where I view in only as an obstacle getting in my way. So, I will be phrasing this my way.
Until further notice, Lilly is now within the First Circle of Trust. There, I said it. Gosh, I'd be afraid of never living this down if the Maw wasn't going to be the big topic of conversation for the next century.
Now, to a fellow spirit, this is more of a level of entering into a long-term business relationship. We both have more to gain from cooperation than not, so it is in both our best interests to have relatively open discussions, be honest with any concerns or grievances, and keep the other party informed of any glaring gaps in knowledge that would cause them to make fatal errors in judgement. But opening such a level of trust to a mortal is like saying that you would be in a "mutual business relationship" with a farm animal. A farm animal isn't fed and sheltered for its own sake, but because the "harvest" of resources or labor is profitable, usually at the farm animal's expense. You don't tell a bull that his purpose is to make calves and then be lead to the slaughterhouse, both because an informed bull does not usually become a helpful bull, and because if an angry bull manages to corner you, there's a chance it can actually do a bit of damage.
With Lilly, however, there are a few mitigating circumstances. The first is that without Baby Evie's child-like nature giving me the benefit of the doubt, the greatest way to make Lilly feel comfortable with me is to be her source on how the "Spirit World" works. This isn't as great of a concession as one may think, due to every spirit and their cousin trying to get a chance to talk to her. The illusion of sanctity and awe has already been shattered, and it is in my own best interest for Lilly to know what she's dealing with when the next spirit comes calling.
The second is that Lilly's access to multiple Sources and soulworking, as well as her exceptionally high intelligence, make it so that she can actually help with my soul manipulations. Plan: Demigod is now back on, and getting her cooperation will make things easier to implement. Also, I can actually coordinate what alterations she would actually be comfortable making, rather than making an executive decision and hoping she's satisfied with it ([Bedrock] was a huge help in getting her used to the [Core Heart], but mortals can get emotionally attached to all sorts of inefficiencies).
Finally…I just have no desire to "handle" her. Oh, I could give the game a go; lead her to conclusions while making her think it was her idea, parceling out information to act as extra incentives, all the tried and true tricks that prepubescent humans are known to fall for (it's no accident that their Ethos come to them before the rational parts of their brains have fully developed). But doing that to Lilly…it just feels like trying to keep a unnecessary feeling of control when there is no NEED.
Because the nightmare scenario that Past Evie was terrified of has already come to pass, hasn't it? The spirit, the stranger, the new-found pet is injured almost to the point of uselessness, and Lilly finds herself in a position where she can save her family that she cares for above all else if she just stretches out that last little bit of life of a husk that was doomed anyway. And the worst part was that Baby Evie was willing to try doing just that of her own free will. But, no, Lilly told me to stand down and rest, because in her mind I was her friend, and Lilly will move heaven and earth to keep her friends and family safe.
So, here I am, putting myself together, planning out how to explain the secrets of the Spirit World, and hoping Lilly doesn't tick off Flower too much. Well, whatever the future holds, I'll be doing the best to help Lilly get through it alive and mostly well, and I know that she'll do the same for me.
…I wonder if Captain Martin's "ignorance bonus" from the dungeon will actually work, given Lilly's got the Tower. Then again, the Tower might be able to extract more than usual anyway. I wonder if there will be enough material for me to give unsupressing her meta-cognition a shot…
Oh, make no mistake, my current form is in no way out of danger. There are a hundred thousand timers on a hundred thousand functions, all requiring alterations of such precision, timing, and synchronicity to avoid critical failure. Every success is but a single step up the mountain, any failure could see me slip into the endless chasm below. The operations required are only further increased by the additional energy strain required to maintain my current level of cognition (and I am NOT going back to being Baby Evie, thank you very much). Still, my condition has officially gone from "hopeless" to "manageable". My improved mental state is able to prioritize and multitask accordingly, and the margins for completion are 'just' wide enough to proceed without accumulating too much stress. Also, the new Major Link to the Tower allows me to offload "complete" sections to be set to self-sustaining, allowing me to have fewer and fewer simultaneous functions that I need to worry about at a time.
The one issue I hadn't anticipated was the dysmorphia starting to kick in. I mean, I know exactly how this form works and how to make it do what I want, but it's still a transition to go from, say, being a seamstress sewing a dress to being a dress trying to sew itself. Clinical operations are now associated with actual sensations (imagine stabbing 'yourself' with a needle), and every once in a while I try to move an influence-appendage that I simply don't have anymore. Granted, Baby Evie didn't have this trouble, but that's because she didn't have any frame of reference of being anything else.
…Baby Evie didn't have a frame of reference for a LOT of things. No real knowledge of past Eras, the Outer Planes, or even the Melange Layer itself. The Nanny was more focused on making sure Baby Evie knew how to properly manipulate soul-workings, in the hopes that as long as she could keep making Lilly "secure", there would be enough time for me to naturally gain my memories and capabilities back, and grow back into my pre-Ethos personality. Which is ironic, considering that the Nanny ended up being more like me, well, Past Evie more than Baby Evie ever ended up being before she became…me… Gah, trying to keep track of so many memory states existing in such short proximity is frustrating.
Of course, this type of discussion is old hat amongst those of us who have "reincarnated" at least once. The former angel who realizes that he had been acting like a twat to everyone he ever met, the demon who tried to argue that his "death" had cancelled all debts he owed but not all debts owed to him, that one poor sod who got eaten by his "servant" memory-clone who everyone ended up preferring over the original. Over the Eras the rules of inheritance and blame had to be hashed out and refined in order to promote some semblance of order and precedence for these situations.
As a purely random example, is the Evie-who-is-now to be held responsible for putting Lilly into a sociopathic Mindstate? On the one hand, allowances can and have been made in the cases where a "tabula rasa" is exploited, so one could argue that Baby Evie was simply following the orders of the Nanny, an intentionally short-lived memory clone. On the other hand, the Nanny was made by Past Evie specifically to nurture and guide Baby Evie in a case of "pre-meditated memory loss", and as all evidence points to the Nanny knowingly and willingly following both the word and intent of her designated purpose, then Past Evie is the true intent behind the plan, with the Nanny acting as her agent. Past Evie became Baby Evie, and Baby Evie became Evie-who-is-now. Evie-who-is-now has both awareness and understanding of Past Evie's motivations and intentions, being the "inheritor-in-full" of Past Evie in a way that Baby Evie was not. Now, there have been cases where a reincarnate effectively "disowns" their past self and is willing to forsake their previously earned titles, belongings, and even knowledge in order to make a clean break. But in this case…no, I'm too much like Past Evie to pretend that the me-who-is-now would never THINK of trying to do something like that.
And yet…I don't think I am quite Past Evie anymore, which is a bit of a surprise. I have now finished what some reincarnates call "a vacation of ignorance", which means that I should be going back to my job of scrambling and back-stabbing to stay alive one more minute at a time while the world burns. But looking back at Past Evie, she just seems so…controlling and fearful and jaded, to the point where she utterly failed to predict Baby Evie's actions. The idea of Baby Evie defying Nanny for the sake of a mortal never even occurred to her. Where did she get it wrong?
Well, for starters, she made the mistake of dropping impressionable Baby Evie into the middle of an Adventure. Oh, yes, meet Lilly, the underdog girl with lots of powers, who's fighting to save her town and her family! And Nanny says that she's the Most Important Girl in the World (I now know Nanny meant that it was important for Lilly to live so I could stay in the Melange Layer, but that was a REALLY poor choice of words). Let's go on a horse ride and fight the evil Wolves and have all the Gravitas you can eat! Oh, but I have to hide from the other humans, because I'm a SECRET friend who helps! We're going to be best friends forever!…Other demons would claim that they would have more cynicism and detachment even as a tabula rasa, and all of them are filthy liars.
The second thing was…let's see…probably Baby Evie learning that love is a choice. Baby Evie had seen Lilly go through the full gambit of emotions on her trip: excitement, fear for her life, relief, fear of exposure, betrayal, confusion, acceptance, wonder. But the most confusing emotions she saw was when Lilly had learned that her mother had kept a big secret from her. Now, Baby Evie had seen something like this before: Lilly trusted Mathew, Mathew betrayed Lilly, so Lilly withdraws all investment in Mathew. Now, Lilly trusted Mom, Mom betrayed Lilly…but while Lilly was mad, she wasn't willing to abandon her emotional investment. There was something deeper, something that was strained but nowhere near broken. Lilly chose to love, even when there seems to be no benefit and when there's a chance it will just open herself up to more hurt. …So, when Baby Evie realized that the Mindstate she was helping to build would NEVER choose to love, it sank in that maaaybe this wasn't something Lilly would actually want.
The third thing, of course, was Baby Evie finding out that there was a solution to this problem…through trickery. There was no way of obviously undoing the construction of the Mindstate without the Nanny noticing, but leaving open the connection to the Locus that wouldn't be noticed until Lilly regained consciousness was much more doable And the fact that this would both help Lilly AND pull a fast one on Nanny who thinks she knows everything? If nothing else of me persists through all my iterations, that compulsion, that addiction for that feeling of cunning will remain a constant.
And that was end of all of Past Evie's plans, as well as the Mindstate. Oh, I still know how to build the blasted thing, but at this point it's completely unviable. For starters, it's a little bit tricky to try and build when the subject is awake, and Lilly probably isn't going to be sleeping when she could be doing something productive (I may need to actually be the one who makes the argument that she needs some rest for her mind's sake if not her body's). Secondly, the Core Heart is now synced up with "Petal", who will probably notice and intervene in the case of significant "personality drift". Finally, and most importantly of all, Aurora has, in her polite but firm way, informed me that Lilly has a rather large part of her attention, and that any attempts to compromise her judgement will be NOTICED. Now, we spirits may joke about Aurora being soft-hearted to the humans and a bit scatter-brained, but everyone knows what happened to spirits that manage to get her undivided attention and ire.
…Which leads me to making a rather crucial decision. Now, the more "honorable" types of spirits would try to formalize this with an Oath, but…that doesn't mesh so well with tricksters like me. Throughout my life I have viewed Oaths more as a game to win, as a challenge to beat, as a chain to give the one holding it a false sense of security before I slip out of it at the last possible moment. I know myself well enough that no matter what words I use, I will always have a temptation to defy the spirit of the Oath in any instance where I view in only as an obstacle getting in my way. So, I will be phrasing this my way.
Until further notice, Lilly is now within the First Circle of Trust. There, I said it. Gosh, I'd be afraid of never living this down if the Maw wasn't going to be the big topic of conversation for the next century.
Now, to a fellow spirit, this is more of a level of entering into a long-term business relationship. We both have more to gain from cooperation than not, so it is in both our best interests to have relatively open discussions, be honest with any concerns or grievances, and keep the other party informed of any glaring gaps in knowledge that would cause them to make fatal errors in judgement. But opening such a level of trust to a mortal is like saying that you would be in a "mutual business relationship" with a farm animal. A farm animal isn't fed and sheltered for its own sake, but because the "harvest" of resources or labor is profitable, usually at the farm animal's expense. You don't tell a bull that his purpose is to make calves and then be lead to the slaughterhouse, both because an informed bull does not usually become a helpful bull, and because if an angry bull manages to corner you, there's a chance it can actually do a bit of damage.
With Lilly, however, there are a few mitigating circumstances. The first is that without Baby Evie's child-like nature giving me the benefit of the doubt, the greatest way to make Lilly feel comfortable with me is to be her source on how the "Spirit World" works. This isn't as great of a concession as one may think, due to every spirit and their cousin trying to get a chance to talk to her. The illusion of sanctity and awe has already been shattered, and it is in my own best interest for Lilly to know what she's dealing with when the next spirit comes calling.
The second is that Lilly's access to multiple Sources and soulworking, as well as her exceptionally high intelligence, make it so that she can actually help with my soul manipulations. Plan: Demigod is now back on, and getting her cooperation will make things easier to implement. Also, I can actually coordinate what alterations she would actually be comfortable making, rather than making an executive decision and hoping she's satisfied with it ([Bedrock] was a huge help in getting her used to the [Core Heart], but mortals can get emotionally attached to all sorts of inefficiencies).
Finally…I just have no desire to "handle" her. Oh, I could give the game a go; lead her to conclusions while making her think it was her idea, parceling out information to act as extra incentives, all the tried and true tricks that prepubescent humans are known to fall for (it's no accident that their Ethos come to them before the rational parts of their brains have fully developed). But doing that to Lilly…it just feels like trying to keep a unnecessary feeling of control when there is no NEED.
Because the nightmare scenario that Past Evie was terrified of has already come to pass, hasn't it? The spirit, the stranger, the new-found pet is injured almost to the point of uselessness, and Lilly finds herself in a position where she can save her family that she cares for above all else if she just stretches out that last little bit of life of a husk that was doomed anyway. And the worst part was that Baby Evie was willing to try doing just that of her own free will. But, no, Lilly told me to stand down and rest, because in her mind I was her friend, and Lilly will move heaven and earth to keep her friends and family safe.
So, here I am, putting myself together, planning out how to explain the secrets of the Spirit World, and hoping Lilly doesn't tick off Flower too much. Well, whatever the future holds, I'll be doing the best to help Lilly get through it alive and mostly well, and I know that she'll do the same for me.
…I wonder if Captain Martin's "ignorance bonus" from the dungeon will actually work, given Lilly's got the Tower. Then again, the Tower might be able to extract more than usual anyway. I wonder if there will be enough material for me to give unsupressing her meta-cognition a shot…
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Slyvena
I don't like pie.
- Location
- Pie Shop
Some fantastic work there Silverking, and while non-canon, you also hit on quite a few grains of truth.