I became cognizant and immediately got to work.
Sixty-one hours had passed since loss of consciousness.
Re-establishing connection to the vessel's nervous system, I sat up and surveyed my surroundings. They'd placed her in her original bedroom, clad in a simple shift. Sitting in the bed, I let my new sense swell out while beginning to formulate a plan to fulfill my directives.
Is this Evie controlling Lilly's body?
Yolun Silas |Integration Vector:: [Iteration to Perfection]: Mana :: 31st 23rd Growth|
Huh is this the Ethos Yolun had before being possessed? Cause Iteration to Perfection feels very different from a carpenter with good runes that we knew he was. Also Iteration to Perfection sounds similar to Rapid Iterator, a normal Ethos version compared to the RI Foundation? Also that 31st being crossed out is ominous
Liatris Silas [[Bloomling]] |Integration Vector:: [Service to Man]: Flow :: 41st Growth|
Our mom lied about her name. Her name is Liatris which looking up is a flower called Blazing Star. Also to Evie sight Bloomlings are pretty obvious. Service to Man is Flow nice to know. Wait is Growth mean level? Is our Mom level 41 in her Ethos? Is that impressive?
Zach Silas |Scheduled Vector Translation Channel:: 12D [Auctioned to Manoth]|
Given Manoth's stuff I fear for Zach's future. Though interesting to note that people have Scheduled Channels for Ethos. Reminds me a little of Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint where Gods watch people through magical television channels and sponsor those they like with their powers for both entertainment and power since the people they sponsor also get the God's more power.
Micah Silas |Scheduled Vector Translation Channel:: 2Y4M13D [Generic Allocation]|
OOF the Generic in the family of greats.
Marcus Silas |Scheduled Vector Translation Channel:: 5Y1M2D [Premium Allocation]|
Wonder how they decide who gets Premium or generic stuff.
Altogether none of them should be that difficult to avoid as I slipped away.
In fact, the horse not that farther off in the barn was exactly what I needed.
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.
Evie no. Please no
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.
Okay Mom's scary and Evie's also scary in that she wants to kill/dissect our Mom.
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.
Sensorium sounds like an important term for how Spirit's and God's view the world. Evie please stop please don't kill our family. Also apparently Inverted Ethos are known and feared by the people of this world that they would chase after us if we had one.
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.
Evie pls pls stop. Also Negative Essence (Death?) is a thing which sounds like we can vampire off of Essence links. Which is pretty scary since if someone gets us I think they could drain us and everyone we care about dry at the same time.
[My Resolution, Thy Bedrock] was attempting to restore her original consciousness, so I had to stall it for now. I'd have time to tinker and get it to recognise me as the original eventually. The {Attuned Locus} was silent and withdrawn within the Psychosomatic Bridge. I should have been given full control of it, but Ev'aclliál must have been too busy. I shut off {Collective Communion} for now, I'd override it when I had time. Right now, I needed to make the necessary changes and then leave.
Wait what? Who is in control? Cause I don't think Evie would refer to herself in third person.
Also come on Bedrock we got you to prevent things like this. Prime Tree (if that's what Attuned Locus is called) seems to not be helping this outsider which is nice. Is Psychosomatic Bridge our Dream is always close to us power we just got?
Ev'aclliál's bud was undergoing expansion, I took control of the Gravitas Absorption Lines and directed them all into the [Towering Edifice to Heaven]. There was important work to do.
Okay definitely not Evie since I doubt she can pull off all of this while leveling up.
Hmm Gravitas Absorption Lines seems to be the in setting term for XP and whoever is in control seems to really like our New Foundation thing. Is this Tower taking control?
First, I focused on {Oaken Core} and {Essence Metabolism}, excellent general reinforcement Concepts. With beyond mortal understanding of their true nature, it was trivial for me to maximise their integration right to the limits of what [Dream within the Forest]'s anchor to the girl's soul could currently handle. In case I could not avoid people, I updated her physical features for added social viability too.
Whoever this is is scarily competent if they can just max out abilities like that. Also what does updated physical features mean? Did it change Lilly's face/body or give the ability to alter those at will like how we can alter the toughness of our skin so we can easily change our face?
(I would need to work on some concepts from the other integration vectors later, right now I didn't want to push too far and accidently decohere her.)
Are Concepts from other Integration Vectors mean they want more Ethos to play with or that they're so good that if given enough time they can mimic other Ethos's powers without having them?
Baseline humans had certainly become several orders of magnitude more powerful since the commencement of the Plan, but it would still be foolish to shape an artefact around one of the girl's mortal concepts. One day the indivine would equal their patrons, but not today. I selected {Oaken Core} to bud from. After the work I had done to speed along its integration, it could now serve as an excellent spark for what I had in mind.
I fear any plan that has a capital P. Don't really have much to say on the Plan thing since 0 context.
Artefact? Pretty sure now that this is Tower and it's trying to figure out what Artefact to make and making sure it isn't based around Lilly's mortal concepts whatever that is (family?).
Indivine? Assuming that means humans like us apparently we (as in humanity) can become equal of the Gods/Spirits.
Is Tower using Oaken Core to make our first Artefact somehow?
The girl was in tremendous danger, there were so many unguarded vectors of attack which could take her life that she lacked any tools to counter. Specific solutions would follow later, for now a generalized barrier to at least make such efforts more difficult would have to suffice; a meta-frame to amplify her influence and importance on reality and dimmish all else. I wove it and thus it was so; its name, 'Primordial Chassis'.
Tower certainly seems very scared for Lilly (won't say paranoid since things are out to get us) which is kind of nice for all that it refers to Lilly as girl and keeps thinking to kill her family.
I feel like there's something I've seen before that sounds like the Primordial Chassis but I can't think of it at the moment so it's just special energy shield which is cool I guess. Still doesn't make up for maybe dooming Yolun.
Ev'aclliál's craftsmanship was ingenious and intricate, the Foundational Ethos slowly uncompressing itself from a knotted singularity within our vessel. This was recent work, inspired by nothing less than the Maw̵͚̋'s own designs to make it possible. Normally there should be all kinds of constraints on the quantity and quality of structures the [Tower] could produce. But thanks to her machinations, eventually the only hard limits would be available resources.
Okay probably not Tower then. But what's left? The entity that Lilly's named after? But then why would they want to eat Mom's Bloomling and worry about a curse from Mom's side?
Tower at least sounds like it could be really bullshit though it needing resources worries me since that will probably be annoying to source.
My quick analysis was interrupted and I became concerned when I realised {Collective Communion} was active again without my intervention. That should not be possible. I pinged {The Ladder} to give me a Concord sitrep.
Its answer put a stop to all planned action.
The {Attuned Locus} was not properly reoptimized. It has retained and is attempting to reassert an Identity backup. Do not retaliate, will cause mutual self-termination.
Thank you Dream nice to know you're on our side. Not sure what to think of you Ladder cause I feel like you might get along with the current Controller. At least you made sure that it didn't accidently mess things up.
A shame. That news was remarkably unfortunate. Ev'aclliál's changes were beyond my ability to replicate and she had clearly missed something important.
In any identity battle, the conceived would always have a decided advantage to the constructed.
I had no sentimental attachment to my own consciousness; I understood and could emulate emotions such as fear or anger. But here alone with no witnesses, I remained impassive as I considered this revelation.
Hmm nice to know that Lilly has an innate advantage to any constructed personalities or the like though it just makes me wonder who is in control even more.
My choice was to either fight the change and thus kill us both, counter to my purpose. Or not resist at all and allow the {Attuned Locus} to restore the girl's original mind. Both options were terrible. The girl was unprepared and had too many priorities other than herself to ever succeed.
But when presented with poor options, my nature was to optimise. Instead of only not resisting, I actively began giving {Collective Communion} full autonomy and universal permissions while attempting to decode part of my own mindstate to a level a human could retain.
Wait is this Evie's fault? Cause iirc she tried to come up with a mindset changed to make Lilly less altruistic/suicidal. Not sure what I feel about it trying to mess with Lilly's mind even as it accepts its own deletion.
You collapse on the floor utterly overloaded by new stimuli. The dissociative unfamiliarity of your own body, the inability to trace the origin of your own thoughts, Essence feels different, Pithe feels different, something you think is Concordance but have no idea, other whole new alien parts of you connected to new powers you don't understand. Scrambling for a firm purchase, you instead find deeper feelings of a greater truth within yourself pulling you from any ability to orientate in the mad nonsensical world your every waking moment has now become.
Hmm I wonder what changed for all our power source to feel different. Anyways poor Lilly she wakes up and her mind feels like its going down a drug trip.
'Dad!' You immediately try and fail to re-establish the healing link when you realise it's gone. Even the attempt of reaching out for Essence fills you with nausea and incomprehensible overstimulation.
Please don't have doomed Dad please. I want at least one win.
'Help me', you whisper to no one and anyone, trying to ignore how you can feel every drop of moisture on your lips, the blood underneath the skin, the flexing and slacking of muscles to move the chin. The interaction between things you can't name, essence and your body stirring with each movement, the hooks pithe has into different parts of your being. 'Please, please help me.'
Oof that's a major sensory update and once again poor Lilly. Wonder what else is in our body besides Essence and Pithe. Flow, Fracture, Maw? Would be nice for Bedrock to start kicking in soon
Something is different here, you realise. Not only are you still fully awake, but the whole forest seems as if it is bearing some great burden for you. A terrible weight pressing down upon its many shoulders.
The puzzle concerns you. Right before now, surrounded endless impossibilities, that was horrible. Why are you here? [Dream within the Forest] is not expanding, you definitely didn't fall asleep, so what is happening?
Forest tanking the mental stress for us? Cool nice to find out how Dream is even more bullshit than we thought it was.
"You are indeed still awake. I brought you here."
You shoot up along with letting out a high-pitched squeal. Spinning round to face the unexpected voice, you come face to face with… yourself?
Standing with you in the clearing is… you. Lilly Silas, naked as the day you were born.
Is this the remnant from the Personality that was just in charge in which case wow that's certainly a lot to survive a system restore. Or is this Prime Tree!Lilly?
"Hello Lilly. You can call me Petal, I am your {Attuned Locus}, the 'Prime Tree'." She ends with a short playful bow.
Called it! Anyways more Flower names scares me. Also I wonder how common it is for Attuned Locuses (loci?) to take a human avatar.
Now that she mentions it, you are aware of everything here. All the leaves, the layers of bark, the dirt and roots along the ground. You don't feel stretched by all the information here at all. Something like this in a real forest would be too much, yet here it was so natural you didn't even notice it was there.
It's different to Essence Sight, to anything else really. More akin to knowing where your own arm is than any sort of 'sight'.
Is this what our new upgraded Essence Sight just with the Dream Forest helping us process it or is this just a Dream thing?
Petal continues to explain as you take in your surrounds, "So, I don't really have thoughts that aren't yours. I'm a tree after all, anything I can think of you can think of something better and faster. Unless its related to something precisely me."
Damn I was hoping for a Tutorial NPC we could trust but Petal seems nice so far even if her knowledge is limited to herself.
Thank you, Petal. For calling me here. You heard me, didn't you?"
Petal smiles coyly before stepping forward to hug you as she speaks.
"Yep. I'm still a little bit like this when you're gone, enough to understand when you're distressed."
The two of you stay like that for a time, silently holding each other. The sense within the forest, that weight you've been aware of since you've come here. It needs to be addressed, Petal has one last thing to say before that though.
Self Hug! Nice to know Petal can play emotional support.
"Yes. And dad needs us. You went all weird for a while there before I pushed the truth of you back up. You even cut the link. The foulness has been really placid the past few days with whatever the Watch is doing, but it definitely hasn't let go of him yet."
You know you need to help your father. You know you need to wake up to do it. But that doesn't change the fact of what's waiting for you up there. You can't help anyone as a senseless invalid.
Petal calls him Dad too! Oh thank god that the Maw or whatever is slowed down that means there's a chance!
"Ugh. You've pushed so much of yourself into me that I guess I'm the smart one for once. I don't like it. Compared to being the forest, it sucks."
You don't know where she is going with this. But it does answer at least one question, you can indeed feel the distant sense of a lot of yourself being held within Petal. Held back that is, separate from you.
"Lilly, you're not overwhelmed by all your new senses here right now like you were up there are you?"
"I… can't really feel anything at all."
Petal looks at you significantly.
"Yeah, you gave it all to me. And I don't want it."
Sorry Petal. Thanks for not immediately shoving it back despite your dislike of it.
"Look I get it. I'm used to the whole 'be everywhere, see everything' deal, it's basically becoming my whole shtick while you're busy gallivanting around with people. I can handle it way better than you, but this isn't how things are supposed to be and it's hurting us."
You look down at that. You know where this is leading. She can hold things back, but not for long. You don't like it, you're afraid… and you know it is the only way.
"You wake up, I feed you the new stuff as quick as you can take it. Probably take us ten minutes tops to get you ambulant. Bam, I get to be a tree again and you get to not be a foetal wreck on the floor," Petal sums up the plan.
I like Petal she has a fun personality despite being a Tree and/or Lilly.
You quickly establish a minor healing link to your father. You wish you could do more right now, but this literally cannot wait.
Hope this worked.
You want to do literally anything else right now. You want to go tend to your father who you can feel in the next room beside mum. You want see your brothers. You want to know what happened and if everyone else was okay. Most of all, you want to lie down and just… be still; not be needed, or required, or wanted anywhere. To be unimportant and know that everything will be okay, to have nothing depend on you.
But we don't always get what we want.
What you have to do, is this.
'Petal. If you can understand, I'm ready,' you lie.
Lilly's a tough and good kid and I feel sorry for her. It's been a hectic few days and she deserves to rest and process it all.
{Oaken Core}'s hardiness runs deep now, there is a sense of immutable robustness to your form. While still lithe, your legs and especially arms have grown thicker and denser. You have been refined and streamlined into a creature of outward sinuous beauty and grace which belies inward explosive strength.
Captain America treatment? Nice but that's going to be pretty noticeable.
That part is new, not just the robust strength of nature embodied within you, but a natural sublimeness to your features. It is a strange thing, to know you are beautiful. To know there some objective standard by which one can be measured and that you have been pushed upward on that scale. Though you suppose if anything could make such a claim, then nature itself is quite often irrefutably beautiful. Still, you'd never thought {Oaken Core} would be the source of such a thing.
Oh God we're an Elf now!
{Essence Metabolism} is, if anything, even more extreme from what you remember. Gone is the simple power that helped avoid some of the weaknesses a living body could have; in its place is something entirely more expansive. You body is alive with Essence held on a hair trigger. The slightest disturbance and it would rush to reinforce the site of stress or harm. A pent-up regeneration capable of being stored before the fact. Beyond even that, you feel as though even if you were to lose a part of your body, then for a least a moment, {Essence Metabolism} would in some way make it as though you had not; that is one facet you hope to never explore the limits of.
Nanomachines Son? Cause hardens up in response to physical trauma and fast healing sounds like magic nanomachines.
[Cleaver of Fortune] has expanded. Was there no vision this time? Or did you miss it? You'll probably never know. What you do know is that you now possess the {Contention Prognosticator}. It is like a sense of smell or aroma that exists only in the mind. It is from its calm yet suspicious prying into everything around you that you glean its purpose; to find threats. Or, to suss out conflict? Something like that. When you are going to butt heads with someone or something, you think {Contention Prognosticator} will quite often be able to give you that impression in advance. It reveals a pattern to you about [Cleaver of Fortune] you've missed until now. All of [Cleaver]'s powers, they don't actually do anything. Of course, they do do things, but not in the practical sense. Even the rocks you threw up over your head didn't change their direction midair, they were simply made to have always been landing in a different place. You are still the one that threw the rock. The Ethos is not the [Cleaver]. You are. It empowers you to change fortunes, to do better.
That's some big words for danger sense but alright if Cleaver wants to use a dictionary for its powers it's free to. Anyways nice insight to Cleaver though we kind of already knew it but the revaltion that Lilly is the Cleaver of Fortune is nice. Not sure what it means but its nice.
A new power, {Riemannian Geometer}, throws you for a turn. The world spinning for a bit as you nearly topple over from your sitting position. You have become so at home with your Essence Sight that in many ways it has replaced your original sense of balance, which is why {Riemannian Geometer} was so discombobulating for a moment. It's hard to explain the difference you now perceive to someone who hasn't seen it. You've known for quite some time that distance was still important yet somehow more complex than how things appeared when it came to essence, part of that complexity is now within your grasp. There are… spaces within spaces. In some spaces things can be far apart and in others they can be close; that jumbled up your Essence Sight for quite a bit before you were able to reorientate yourself. It's… your not really sure what you can do with this fully yet. But you think that with practice and time, one day, you could make those Stags look like amateurs at their own game. But you certainly won't be saying that boast out loud for quite some time. There will be far more to explore.
Space is an illusion and I don't know what to say besides there's apparently sub-realm like things all around which makes Distance a literal joke. Didn't think we would get Space powers like the Deers from this but nice to have.
{Holistics}, that's its name. A subtle synergy behind every movement or drift of Essence you desire for the rest of your life. Rather than having to force it, you have gained a natural instinct for the directions Essence prefers to flow and can anticipate where it will be most resistant. Essence itself seems to rejoice at the transition in a celebratory emanation you didn't think it was capable of. From now on, the Essence around you will passively aid you in the tasks you set your mind to as well as resisting the influence of others who attempt to counteract it.
Nice we don't move the Essence anymore it just moves with us. We're no longer the Conductor directing the Chorus we're just the Disney Princess who the World sings and hums along with.
Somehow, you missed gaining an entire Ethos while unconscious. And it changes absolutely everything. [My Resolution, Thy Bedrock] asserts itself.
One moment you are just a girl, the next, you are Life.
Wow that sounds like a big deal and powerup.
Every part of you blazes like a furious storm of Golden Strands tightly coiled and entwined through your entire body. The grinding flurry erupts out, slamming against and seeping into all the surrounding walls as you scream in ecstasy.
How naïve were you to ever imagine that your own body was the source of yourself and not simply a fleshly puppet? Before your enlightenment, you would have described this merely as an inner awareness of Essence combined with an innate source of the power. But you see now that every move you have ever made was first made by the essence within you, each drawn breath first pulled within the Rapture. All things are connected. You thought you knew that, but until this moment you were blind.
Lilly are you alright? You sound like you're on a hippie drug trip. Also does this mean our Essence is our Soul? What were people like before Evie's boytoy did his thing and made Essence a thing?
You raise a hand to touch your face, and nearly weep at the depth of sensation. You do weep at the thought that no one else can feel what you are feeling right now. You sit in childlike awe, enraptured and overtaken just like that first time your eyes were opened to essence in the clearing. This awe looks inward though, perceiving the great currents and smaller rivulets of essence swimming and pulsing all throughout your body. From there your own being can swell out and reach into its surrounds in glorious symphony.
You will find a way for others to feel this somehow. To deny them would be ultimate selfishness.
That's good I hope?... Yeah it's good for Lilly to get another dose of Wonder and desire to help others even if again it sounds a little like a drug trip.
[Dream within the Forest] and [My Resolution, Thy Bedrock]. The enormity of two Ethea with very perspectives on the same Source. It's intoxicating.
Very perspectives? You mean Varied? But good to note that two Ethea for the same source are very good if once again bringing up drug imagery. Kind of want to get another Concordance one since I bet that one would be super fucky.
The essence you have used up to this point, you realise now has never been yours. It was always borrowed and lent, needing to be cajoled and convinced. Even {Holistics} rendered the outside a well understood friend but still not your own in the way that mattered. Innate Essence. It's marvellous. You're crying happy tears. Even the massive well of essence you can draw through Petal's Channel is innate now too.
Innate Essence doesn't need to be convinced, or pulled or directed. It is you. What you want, where you want to go, what you want to do; Innate Essence wants all of this too, because that is what it means to be innate. Up until now, you've been using someone else's hand to open every door, walking everywhere in shoes the wrong size. But Innate Essence always fits, it's never out of sync.
Innate Essence is no joke apparently. Makes me wonder how much use Holistics is going to be now since I doubt we'll really need that much more Essence that Petal can't give us Innately.
Together, {Holistics} and Innate Essence blend you perfectly into the natural world. You casually pull a sphere of essence to surround your left hand, a thousand times denser than anything you've ever managed, before letting it splash out in a pressurized spray throughout the room. For all the time you've had Essence, you've never found many direct uses for it on the material world. When you do, you'll be mighty.
Okay that answers that question we're basically... I think Thrall as the World Shaman from Warcraft is a good example? Not sure I haven't played those games but it certainly feels like we're an amazing Druid just without any Spells yet.
Looking within [My Resolution, Thy Bedrock], there is a power, {Rest State}. You know it in the space of a heartbeat, an uncanny familiarity no power has had on arrival before. There is an echo within the {Rest State}, peace and safety abound within it. The echo, it's you. You at the best you've ever been. All the times you have been strong, every breakthrough, every selfless act immortalized as its central feature. Looking upon it fills you with the memory of every precious thing you hold in your heart. Your family, your principles, your dreams. And some of the things you sometimes forget are valuable, like yourself. Your reflexive recoil of false humility at that thought is immediately quashed by the {Rest State}. Not valuing yourself is unnatural while within its sway. To deny the truth would stunt your access to all of [My Resolution, Thy Bedrock]'s power. You're just going to have to get used to it. {Rest State} will help with that.
Ah a Happy Memories Vault and it helps us appreciate ourselves too. Really nice I can't wait to see what Bedrock gives next.
It is shocking in a most peculiar way. Because although being a massive revelation, it feels completely natural the moment you can perceive it. You take off your shift to look at the {Core Heart}, placing your hands against your chest to feel out its shimmering crystal-hard shape. It's right there, between your breasts, emanating a soft blood-red glow. Resembling if someone had melted a wax sculpture of a heart underneath your skin and let it flow, the {Core Heart} is a central clump of knotted crystalline strands entirely filling the space in and around where your sternum used to be. Thick subdivisions extend out a bit further, giving the appearance of thin crawling vines which sometimes reach as far as your stomach before thinning out to no longer be visible. Were you to find it in the ground somewhere, it would be eerily beautiful. You intuitively know that if it were not for the innate essence that now flows onto any clothing you wear, the {Core Heart} would dissolve anything it touched. While it inexplicably feels entirely at home within your body in a way that makes you weary of what happened while you were unconscious, you know anyone else would react decidedly less neutral. Thankfully, other than having to be careful with thin layers and low lighting, it is located such that you do not own a single item of clothing that could reveal it.
Our Dungeon Heart. Nice to know it looks pretty despite being in our chest. Also Evie it would had been nice to know it would had dissolved clothes cause if we didn't get our upgrades just now it would had been pretty obvious despite you saying it would be easy to hide.
You almost miss the subtle presence of {Uplifted Vessel} which was revealed at the same time. There isn't much to say other than the vague awareness that it makes you 'better' somehow. Your body, your powers, you. All of it, just better in some ineffably broad way.
What is this from? Part of the body upgrades Evie was doing?
Let's just say you are now extra glad things were revealed in the order they were. Because you never could have handled discovering the existence of your [[Domain]] otherwise. There is no real physical analogue, but the sensation is akin to discovering you'd always had a third fully functioning leg and not noticed it until this moment. There is no sensation, no feeling or inputs. Because your Domain is not a Source or a Power or Magic. It's outside the context of your existence prior to this moment.
Double bracketed Domain interesting. Hmm does this mean everyone has a domain and most aren't aware of it? Cause that's what the explanation makes it sound like.
It's awareness. A claim to a territory. Sovereignty over a small parcel of reality, at least to the extent your human mind can track such a thing. Right now, that territory is your own body. Your whole body is claimed by yourself. What you want, wish and desire counts for more there than it does outside. This was the part of {Uplifted Vessel} you couldn't see before. Your body counting for more for no other reason than that it's yours. Your Domain could grow, but that's beyond you now. The awareness, the territory, you name the effect {Favoured Within}. For you know you can one day influence all that transpires inside it.
Does this mean we didn't own our body before hand? Scary though that and how if we grow our domain we could influence people.
Total Awareness. Infallible Perception within. Even after everything you've faced the enormity nearly overtakes you. The tension of your muscles as they flex, the rhythmic beating of your heart as your blood is pumped throughout your arteries. Nerves conducting and signalling constantly all throughout your body. Your brain in all its self-referencing feedback looped glory, the places where the physical gives way to the hooks that intersect with your soul. Your Soul. You have a soul. Overlayed over the physical whilst also being somewhere else entirely, it is an immense thing. It is a sleeping giant expressing but the tiniest fraction of its potential. There are subtle interplays between it and your various Ethea as they slowly integrate and awaken small parts within it. They are like small rocks casting ripples in a pond. Huge swaths all throughout remain entirely silent, a stillness to match eternity. All that you are and could ever be contained within a singularity of possibility.
Complete Awareness of our body is complete. Nice to have since we'll probably be able to instantly tell if something is messing with our body like poisons or parasites. Also we have a Soul which is probably different than Essence since we only noticed it now. There's some revelations about what the Soul is that I'm not currently equipped to think about. But Calling Ethea including Evie as small rocks in our Soul either means Souls are super big deals or we're Special with a Special Soul.
Within your soul, Essence is thicker than any other place you've ever seen. Held in a rigid pattern so complex you cannot even start to unravel it. You see places where it has, with [Brave Blood]'s help, latched onto little pieces of Pithe; the chosen patterns from your expansions. You can also sense the vague tension of your soul's interaction with Concordance, but any further detail of that escapes you. The bits of essence within your soul that are slowly developing rather than remaining looped or static carry the impression of [Dream Within the Forest] and [My Resolution, Thy Bedrock]'s influence. You thought you might see Evie here, she's notably absent. In fact you think she's hiding until you're finished, not wanting to complicate things.
Okay Essence is connected to the Soul very thickly but the Soul isn't Essence itself. Hmm our Essence ethea are developing our soul instead of running in circles or standing still interesting. Evie is nice to not drop her eldritch horror self in our first look into our Soul.
At the very least, you have {Perfect Proprioception} now. Complete awareness of your body and its interplay with the other aspects of your being. The ability to perfectly reproduce any motion or action you make again, forever. Having so many reference frames from which to orientate yourself means that even the complete jumbling of one shall now barely affect you.
ooh that sound nice especially with our perfect second ability. Learn how to shoot a rock once shoot perfect rocks forever.
In the same vein, you are now a {Tremendous Mechanist}. Any physical system less complex than your own anatomy will now be entirely trivial for you to immediately grasp in full from a moment's glance. So long as you have passing familiarity with what you're looking at, you can likely instinctively extrapolate 90% of how it functions on sight.
Wow that sounds good though probably not as useful as it would be in real life since I bet a lot of the most complex mechanisms use some magic of which Lilly is currently ignorant of.
You can't help but hold your head a little higher as you settle into your Domain. An intuitive awareness of having cosmic value is one hell of a power trip. A stamp of approval from reality itself saying "This girl's alright" sets a practically immutable minimum your self-worth can't fall below.
There are still many things you can feel but not feel which you assume are other magics and sources, mysteries to be explored another day. You feel incredibly powerful, the stress of the past few minutes rapidly melting away as you come to grips with these implications. By this stage you feel it is almost a given you will be able to heal your father, you actually find yourself feeling a slight pang of impatience before the final thing Petal was holding back is finally released.
Nice to see Lilly get some confidence and self-worth since she really did a lot and so deserves some personal reward instead of "oops Dad's possessed" or "powers that break your mind".
You are now able to perceive the [Towering Edifice to Heaven], an entirely new and unexpected Ethos residing within your {Core Heart}. Although it is certainly the largest, it is actually almost entirely 'packed up' and compressed. There's a whole other Source you're connected to that seems way beyond your ability to understand right now, it's incredibly stable though. Just sort of sits there if you don't do anything to it, so it can wait. There is not much to come to terms with other than understanding that a lot of what you've gone through was all to pave the way for this.
And our Dungeon located in our Heart. We're going to have learn how this works soon cause it sounds cool if not really doing anything at the moment.
The {Primordial Chassis}'s nature is simple. It protects you a little bit from everything. Its implications are not. It protects you a little bit from everything. Weapons, Magics, Curses, Spirits; you name it. It will take time to understand the full scope, but you know that it is wide and deep.
So a literal Omni Shield that protects from Everything. Does it protect our self esteem from people making fun of us? Does it protect our character when people try and slander us? Who knows! Certainly not current Lilly.
The final thing is it lets you understand is why your Ethea skyrocketed in growth. Gravitas. You haven't figured out how to properly sense and manipulate it like the [Tower] apparently did when making the {Primordial Chassis}, but you know that's what it did. It took Gravitas and made something out of it. That's what's happened with the wolves, part of their greatness left them and became you. The great mystery of why Ethea grow faster in mortal conflict and peril revealed, yet with no explanation as to why things are that way.
So it was Tower in control??? Anyways understanding that XP is a thing in character is nice. Taking part of what you defeat into yourself for further growth. Still doesn't explain how things grow without murder though.
Father', you pace for the bedroom door wasting no time… before quickly remembering with a slight blush to get dressed. In many ways, you are exhausted; operating at a fraction of your strength. Yet you're probably stronger now than you have ever been. Perspective is a funny thing.
"I'm operating at 1% but I could literally bench-press a 100 past Lillies" Perspective is fun
Micah stiffens at first not expecting someone up and about in the house, before blinking away the shock and quickly walking toward you, "L- Lilly? Lilly! You're awake! We thought it- whooa," his half-disbelieving gait is immediately thrown off when he steps inside the billowing sphere of innate essence you'd absentmindedly started gathering around your general vicinity. Micah stumbles forward forcing you to catch him from falling. He's light in your arms, fragile.
My mental image for this is Lilly is constantly charging up in a DBZ fashion just without the yelling.
You've never really considered just how vulnerable your family is to physical harm every day. The thought you or rather someone like you could crush the breath out of Micah's lungs with ease is somewhat terrifying.
Even now, you feel your innate essence swamping inside Micah and subtly realigning slight imperfections. Nothing extreme, but he'll probably feel amazing in five minutes.
Yeah sure would be bad if someone used your body to kill all your family before you regained awareness that would really suck hahaha /fear.
Nice to see we can upgrade our family a little.
You could withdraw your essence from him, but the minor problems it is helping with are still real. So you settle instead for withdrawing the spherical plume around you back into your body and keeping a direct essence link to Micah. As much as you seem to never succeed, you still don't want to advertise how different you are to just anyone.
Poor Lilly she just wants be be normal/have an adventure but now she's... well not a demi-god but probably close to a demi-demi-god.
Your mother is asleep next to dad's comatose body, looking about as worn out as the day you first returned. Seeing her like that, you feel bad for how you left things last night. Or rather, almost three days ago. Essence can help you tell the time now, the distance between events. Weird.
Internal Clock neat. Guess Trees always know the time.
You poke and puncture the outer layers of the wall. Ripping at threads to pull out of the knot. Whenever you find a purchase, you innately use a new talent from [My Resolution, Thy Bedrock], {Current Lock}. Whenever you want to concentrate on one weakness or leave it for later, {Current Lock} fixes every strand of essence in place making them as close to immoveable as you can manage. So you always strike with the initiative and the foulness can never take advantage when your attention is elsewhere. Slowly, inexorably, you work it backwards, stealing back ground piece by piece.
Huh that's a neat power makes me wonder if we can make walls and shields of solid Essence.
At a certain point the foulness switches tactics, trying to tear and rip apart your father from the inside. But it cannot, for yet another expression of {Rest State} holds it in its tracks, {Cessation Rivet}. The ability is as potent as it is simple. You flood your environment with essence and then strain every strand to maximum tautness. The resulting effect is an absolute annihilation of any movement. The foulness is not quick enough, any section it tries to damage is immediately rivetted into complete inviolable stillness. It grows smaller, weaker and less protected with each attempt. Until scarcely any remains at all.
Bedrock MVE Most Valuable Ethos. I'm sorry Dream and Cleaver I'm biased but I really needed this. I feel like Bedrock with our amount of power is going to make us like a Time Stopper given its abilities so far.
Without any context, you already know a few things immediately. 'Lord' is a noble title. There are no true nobles in Harmuph, only upper-class citizens who like to drape around the title. There is a noble coming here to your house, from somewhere other than Harmuph. By default, this presents great danger, fortune and everything between the two based on the precise reasons why they are here. It is obvious it has something to do with you, but that could be anything from idle curiosity to something far more sinister.
Glad to see Lilly is as wary as I am about this noble. Really worried about being stolen away or taken from our family before we fix everything and mend relationships as best as we can.
You'll be a peasant girl greeting a noble. You'll never meet their standards, but that doesn't mean you can't try to come as close as possible.
Nice thinking Lilly! That's honest praise and not me being sarcastic.
Before today, this is the best you could likely have done. But you have a hunch, an inkling that's been sitting in the back of your mind since Micah was able to directly feel your essence. Just its presence had a physical impact on the world. You recall Petal and an intricate dress sewn from leaf and flower.
Lilly no that's drawing more attention to you then is needed.
Not with your hands. {Golden Rapture} breaks past a threshold and you feel your connection to all that is material around you lock into place, an entirely new dimension of growth. The flowers levitate into the air and fall under your influence as essence roils around them bringing them alive in glowing lustre.
No time to waste, you quickly choke down a giddy laugh and with your newfound finesse and skill weave the yellow and pinky-purple flowers into your hair whilst simultaneously telekinetically braiding your hair into a complex pattern inspired by a rune you once learned in your father's workshop. Were another Auron present, they would see a thousand separate strands each plucking and pulling at individual or small clumps of hair to set them just right.
You surprise even yourself with the results your remarkably deft touch achieves. Being so new to this nascent talent, what you are doing should not be possible. Yet your {Perfect Proprioception} of your body and the ease of manipulating innate essence makes the task trivial.
If nothing else Lilly will look really nice which is alright I guess. Still feel that she might had been better off as being a normal peasant instead of a druid with Flowers in her hair.
A piece of memory comes to you there as you're holding Zach. A little bit of the time missing from your head. The sense, the knowledge, Zach will receive his Ethos in twelve days. How you know, you don't know, but this has the smell of truth.
12 days until he's meant to get a Danoth Ethos. Scary since as far as we know Danoth seems to like Inverted and scary Ethea. I hope our brother doesn't get traumatized or forced into getting an evil power.
You think one of the women may be an Auron. Essence shows the same pleasant reaction to her as you've come to associate {Holistics} with. In fact, you believe you can perceive hints of essence bound in tight formations and patterns inside her quite unlike anything you've ever managed. She doesn't wear as much equipment as the others, so you reason she must not need or have use for it.
I forget did we learn what an Auron is? Anyways seems like a high skilled Essence user is part of the party. Hope she's not meant to be here to counter us or catch us on any lies about Essence. Slim hope for Druid-sensei is in my heart.
Your {Field Sense} shows you some of the eleven have Pithe 'wound up' somehow. Normally you would consider that the prelude to an attack, but given it simply sits 'as is' on them you assume it's some form of perpetually prepared defence. Not even your {Melded Carapace} works that way, so this is new.
Hmm even our armor power isn't always on. Good to know that and that people can have ready defenses spooled up.
Sebastian Waters respects forwardness. Do not use non-committal language.
Do I just call him 'my lord'? That's how it works right? Hey!
...great.
Forwardness? From a Noble? Are sure this is a noble lol. But seriously it pictures a man who's serious and doesn't like to play word games which is good since we really suck at and it means he probably respects Captain Martin's thoughts.
Also hey Ladder I thought you were supposed to answer follow up questions now! Whatever you're always helpful so I'll let you off this time.
"Marvellous, absolutely marvellous. A peasant? Truly a noble born into the wrong family if I've ever seen one." His voice carries easily to all assembled as he gestures in your direction.
You are caught flatfooted. From your admittedly sketchy understanding, nobles always announce each other's names at the start. Maybe you don't count? Not to mention his compliment was essentially saying you are noticeably separate in nature from your own family, something which hits a little close to home.
Great he only said three sentences and my alarm bells are already ringing. First because we're special we obviously can't be a mere peasant which shows that he looks down on non-nobles though hopefully in a nobless oblige matter instead of "It's alright if I kill peasants for fun they're not people" matter. Also kind of implying that he might take us away from our family since we 'obviously' don't belong with them. Which to be fair our dad who is the leader and breadwinner of the family is out of commission so we could had needed to make difficult choices about what to do if we couldn't cure him.
Nice to see Lilly have similar observations to the same line.
After a pregnant pause which you think only stretches because of your nerves, he opens. "Providence smiles upon you…"
The man closest to him leans in to whisper, "Lilly Silas."
"-Lilly Silas. I can tell just looking at you that there has been no exaggeration. I have business in the east and you are just the girl I want to ensure success."
lol this guy is now giving me Zapp Braggin vibes. Which isn't exactly the best impression but it makes me laugh. Also wants to use us to ensure success. Probably referring the dungeon but scary that a noble is coming to us for help with that.
Captain Martin, seeing your hesitance, begins to speak for you. "My Lord, this isn't-," before closing his mouth at a stern wave from Lord Waters.
The attempt failed as it was is noted and appreciated Captain Martin.
"-Aah aah." Lord Waters says. "None of that now. What would you like? A new home? Gold? Some minor title? It doesn't matter, these and anything past the southern divide are my lands we stand on. We can get you outfitted from the best the Watch has in its stockpiles here and decide on the way."
You're floundering. You can't just directly disagree. But the Words of Wisdom implied that maybe you could?
"My Lord," you begin, "Your faith in me is appreciated… but… I-"
Ah he's that type. The type who thinks he can basically buy anything he wants since 'who doesn't want money?' . I don't think he's mean or evil but he certainly seems to have come here with an idea of what's going to happen and so is trying accomplish that with sheer force of will (along with money and noble presence). He's kind of bullying us into doing what he wants but I have the feeling if we could explain ourselves for a second without being interrupted we could convince him to wait a bit. Cause he's the kind of guy who would go "Why didn't you just say so beforehand" if talked about this after being bullied into coming or at least that's the feeling I get.
"Now girl," he overrides you again, "I understand that rising above one's previous station can seem scary. But it is the bold who lay hold of destiny and seize it when it comes calling. Where is the girl who rode north through the night alone? Where's that drive that pushed you into the forest?"
So everything the Watch saw is probably out in the open then.
Oh god he respects us and knows basically everything we showed. He came here with an image of Lilly and hyped himself up about meeting that Lilly. ahhhh
"My young flower, you'd not be amongst only us old men," he releases a slight chuckle at his self-deprecation, "Young Kaymie here is about your age and I'm sure she'd enjoy the company."
At her mention, the same woman you'd noticed the essence structures inside pops her head up in surprise. Too distracted by that unique feature, you'd failed to notice that, although tall, she is young by the standards of every else here. Looking at her wide surprised eyes and soft features, you wouldn't put her a day past sixteen.
She isn't a possible Druid-sensei she's a Senpai! I would be more hyped about making a new friend if we actually had a chance to try and reconnect to our old friends a little first and weren't about to be pulled away from our home. Anyways wow someone at 16 having Holistic level skill without Lilly's absurd growth speed. She's probably a big deal and probably who would help everyone against the Dungeon if Lilly wasn't around.
You feel Evie coming close to an expansion within you. With that awareness you see she also has a Domain of her own. Despite being overlapped, yours does not directly interact with hers.
I really hope Evie doesn't pop when everyone is around us. Also kind of surprised and not surprised that Evie has a domain and that isn't interacting with ours despite occupying the same 'space'
"Actually my Lord, she cannot go with you." Captain Martin interjects, pulling you back to the present. A slight ripple of tension passes through the men gathered.
"Oh?" Lord Waters looks at you a few moments longer before turning to the captain. "Do explain."
"Forgive me for not thinking it relevant in our previous conversation, I could have saved you this inconvenience." Captain Martin speaks in a strangely uncertain tone you're not used to. You have no idea where he is going with this. "But Watchman Silas has already sworn her vows onto the next long night and joined us in defence of Harmuph."
Martin once again thank you for the attempt but I feel you might have made a wrong move but hopefully it works out. Nice to see he's really on our side despite seeming harsh during the night. But it also shows that he might not have that much power to help us despite wanting to.
{Contention Prognosticator}: There is no distant future where both Lilly Silas and Sebastian Waters remain alive. One day, one shall kill the other.
Okay that's a big drop. I didn't think Waters was evil or our enemy but I don't see how there is literally zero near futures where we don't kill each other if he won't try and kill us first. Cause I feel Lilly could easily decide to not kill him but if what Con Prog is saying is true that just means Waters will kill us.
Not sure why there's a giant blank space between the previous quote and this next one there's no invisble text as far as I can tell.
No! How could this happen? Everything had been going so perfectly! There were so many ways things could fall apart when I first arrived. One by one I had helped to insure Lilly's survival. This last step was supposed to be my 'coup de grâce', taking Lilly from doomed to having a genuine chance all in one magnificent fell swoop. The new mindstate was essential to that, freeing her from self-destructive decision making entirely. What went wrong with [Dream within the Forest]? I configured it the same as all the other integration vectors and they showed not problems at all.
So it was Evie's fault! And I trusted you despite using scary words like " Her emotions and altruistic cognition also represented unreasonable risks. Both had to change immediately. "
This was bad. My bud was firmly growing and I was fading fast. I needed to try again. Whatever went wrong could only be fixed by… someone like…. me.
Oh you. You absolutely idiotic, immature, reckless cretin!
Mow?
Don't you start with me! Why? Do you know what you've done? The danger you've put us both in?
Meawn.
Thanks Evie for fighting Ev'acllial. Not nice having to fight yourself is it!
…and be happy, yes. Okay, but don't you see that… wait. What did you just do? Did you just lock me out?
mow? *smug*
!You little b-
Guess that's the end of Echo Ev'acllial's help and advice but well she was a bitch anyways. Makes me wonder if we rolled her doing more of the options if we would really be fucked as the echo would have more time to mess with us.
Not commenting on the speech choices cause I want to stew on that more
[ ] [EvieLVL] Lots and lots of spiders! Everyone loves my special spiders.
Spiders worry me. Lots and lots of Spiders worries me more. Spiders that Evie thinks everyone will love and are special really worry me. If nothing else I imagine this choice will be really visible while in use which makes using it hard
[ ] [EvieLVL] If Lilly dies, then so will everyone else.
Ah perfectly nice upgrade with no downsides or scary features! /sarcasm. But honestly considering that game over if Lilly dies I'm not sure if this thing is really useful other than as a threat of MAD which requires revealing it exists which might not be that good.
[ ] [EvieLVL] A fun thing demons sometimes do…
Note what demons do for fun is probably horrifying to everyone else since that list includes stealing souls, cursing, having sex, and a whole lot of other stuff. Probably really noticeable to the right people too since Demons are probably a known factor.
[ ] [EvieLVL] What's better than one of me? Dozens of mini-me! Sublets ahoy.
/Fear
But honestly one of the things that would really help is Evie being able to focus on more than one thing since iirc she took wolves down one at a time instead of just lazering them all at once which this should help with
Not commenting on interludes since they're all vague
Your +5 Grasp Reward came in the form of the way that temporary possession at the start of the chapter ended. The consciousness willingly surrendering and actively easing the transition.
/fear
Having alternate personality try and fight us instead of backing down would had been bad.
- I lol at the fact you've jumped right past regular enchantment to the direct creation of artefacts. The irony that you will probably find it easier to pick up regular enchantment later on by studying your own designs.
lol achievements in ignorance
You lucked out a bit with the synergy between [Dream within the Forest] and [My Resolution, Thy Bedrock]. The Dream tends to be highly flexible and broad, mobile and adaptive. Bedrock is a firm stationary point to dig in from. Being able to take the strengths of both forged something greater than the sum of its parts. It's basically the ideal case for Ethea combination. You'd have to be lottery winners to do a repeat with a 3rd Essence Ethos. All the low hanging fruit has been picked.
Yeah I noticed they really work well together. I can't even imagine what a 3rd could do that we can't already.
Don't go crazy only picking Ethos of which you already have the same Source. I don't think any of you would say [Brave Blood] was a 'poor' choice as your first Pithe, for example. Mana/Oath/Etc would open up entirely new categories of possibility rather than just making you better at a thing you can already do.
Yeah having more powers would also be great too. It'll depend on our next choices since if I see something that really works with what we already have I'll be tempted but I would also wish to get some new stuff too.
Your temporary mindstate didn't need to make rolls to accomplish any feats. It would automatically succeed with its available resources. In this case those resources were the delayed EXP Evie had left over from last chapter. Lilly gets to keep the artefact and the technical capacity that was unlocked to make it.
Rationalist! Lilly scary OP and also plain scary. Nice to of her to give us an artefact and the ability to make more.
[Towering Edifice] was the most 'substantial' of the Foundational Ethos choices in terms of difficulty adapting to it, almost all the rest had much lower stress rolls. The DC to not be overwhelmed when you first properly awoke was quite high, but you failed it abysmally by a wide wide margin. I wasn't planning to, but I did roll a DC 1d10 (8) Death-save after that. Which you passed (You still rolled on a d100 to beat the 8). Lilly has gone through the furnace and come out the other side, whole.
Maybe we should had thought of this more when picking Foundation cause that's really bad.
After that though excellent rolls adapting to your new nature and perceptions! It might not feel like it reading this chapter, but compared to how poorly so many parts could have gone, it went stellar. If you'd failed your progressive rolls, every power that hadn't yet been revealed would have been partially broken and Lilly would have been knocked out for another 1d10 days to recover. I didn't decide what the DC for Yolun not being fully possessed during that time would've been, but it would have been high.
Yeah Lilly adapted to all her new powers and stuff like a pro though it's scary that we could had broken some stuff cause the loss of Brave Song still hurts.
- Honestly, some adversaries might get a nasty surprise when they try to disorientate you in the future and Lilly goes "Pfft, I've seen worse."
Yeah I can't really see enemies really messing with Lilly by weird senses anymore.
I'll check out the spreadsheet later but first posting this and seeing what everyone else said.
