--[X] TL;DR: Bring him in on the Lillyspiracy, he's stuck his neck out for us, the least we can do is reciprocate. Lilly is a gamechanger, and more importantly she's established that she's as responsible as someone can really get in her position. That being said, less demonstrations with the weirder shit--it's okay to stick to generalities, but having an unpredictable surprise up your sleeve feels like it might be important in the immediate future. No. of Votes: 21
[X][DoD] Tell Captain Martin what you have overheard. No. of Votes: 29
[X][AMahs] Actually, most of what I need to train has to be done with no one else there. Mathew will be helpful, but I don't need him every day. No. of Votes: 20
[X][Lmt] Whatever the circumstances, I made a promise before witnesses and it would be looked down upon to renege. No. of Votes: 28
[X][Fsr] I want an educated tutor who will teach me anything I want to know, no questions asked. No. of Votes: 28
[X][Auw] Tell Captain Martin. Whatever he hopes to accomplish, this will change things. No. of Votes: 28
[X][AC] Take Myah under your wing, she wanted to run away with you, collect her before it's too late. No. of Votes: 18 [X][AC] You have the tree waiting for you, dedicate time to sneaking to it and communing. No. of Votes: 17
While Lira and Molain conspired to claim unrivalled ascendancy over one another. While Kailsii desperately strove to retain its position as their favoured lapdog among other lessers. While Tosliav sought to hide their empire's crumbling from inside itself and elven-kind set about their Great Solution. While the Yaugry sat in her empty kingdom, chasing apotheosis at the top of her soul-wrought tower. While these schemers and a thousand more besides fought on battlefields of soil, future and mind; each thinking themselves the only one worthy.
While great magics clashed and priceless resources were expended, titanic struggles for supremacy over enemies real and imagined.
All these efforts and many more amounted to less than nothing, all an utter waste; for in this time not a single eye turned its gaze onto the only place that truly mattered.
Humanity had more than enough time to save themselves, but so preoccupied were they in yesterday's wars, none perceived that the end fast approached. Instead, in the isolated community of Harmuph, it would all fall upon the shoulders of a single young girl.
Where a weaker soul would crumple, she stood strong. Where the coward would run, she was brave. Where misfortune could twist a heart cruel, she chose kindness.
In a world so dark, humanity's only hope was brighter than they deserved.
But time ran thin, …and she was not ready.
Chapter 2.3 - - - - The Shape of Things 8th Day, 3rd Moon, LE 2302
(Late Afternoon)
Thanks to {Tremendous Mechanist}, you understand the nature of the adrenaline within your blood and how under normal circumstances it would be giving you shakes right now from the come down. {Essence Metabolism} sits at a level that removes almost all the drawbacks alongside other stress hormones.
Physically, you are fine.
It is not any form of withdrawal that causes you to move and act somewhat unfocused in the aftermath of Lord Waters' departure, but simply the weight of the future weighing down upon you.
Kaymie's warning. {The Ladder}'s analysis of men like Senus. {Contention Prognosticator}'s confirmation that appeasement would barely even be a stopgap. The near tragedy you were nearly wrapped up in. Any of these things would have had an impact alone; together, they establish an unquestionable truth.
You must leave Harmuph within the month, likely much sooner. That or lay hold of so much power an entire kingdom would not oppose you. You understand better today than any before just how quickly you are growing in strength, but to rival armies of men decades your senior still seems a wildly outlandish goal.
Thankfully, if there is any man nearby who could give you an idea of the feasibility of any decision, it is likely Captain Martin himself. It's time to move on from any lingering guilt of potentially stealing autonomy away from him with your knowledge of the future, you don't have time for such thoughts when your family is on the line. Act now, judge yourself later.
So that is how you find yourself bidding the rest of the Watch farewell, dismissed by the Captain with various instructions presumably aimed at ensuring Lord Waters does not simply attempt some other immediate treachery.
You, Captain Martin and your three brothers stand atop the porch as the watchmen depart. One of their camps which Micah had mentioned is actually visible some distance away, perhaps fifteen minutes on foot.
It will be evening soon.
You turn to Marcus and explain to him what Micah and Zach likely already grasp. "Marcus, I need to speak with the Captain about some very important things. I know I only just woke up, but you need to stay with your brothers." You end up hugging him partway through that.
Marcus looks up into your eyes, still within your embrace.
"…O-Okay," he sputters through held back tears. You note with some sadness that the innocence that would have sulked and tried to argue is no longer there behind his eyes. You're not the only one who has been forced to see the harsher side of life these past few days.
You wish you could just talk and play with Marcus for hours and hours, help push away the horrible events of the past few days from his memory. But honestly, you admit to yourself that even without the need to sleep you will probably run yourself ragged in preparations for at least the next few days. You will sneak short moments of affection when you can, but until your family's position is secure, you will not allow yourself to stop pushing forward.
With one last squeeze, Marcus lets go of you and walks around the corner of the house at a decent clip without looking back, holding back sniffles all the way. He's having to grow up too soon.
Micah follows him with a blank look on his face. Micah has always been fairly cluey, he undoubtably understands how precarious your family's situation now is. Given how helpless you feel with all your personal power, you can't imagine what it must be like for him or in fact any of your brothers really.
Zach squeezes your shoulder. "Don't go to sleep on me again," he says with a smirk, but you catch the wince of genuine uncertainty.
Dad, comatose. Mum, a wreck. Yourself, likewise wrapped up in unconsciousness. You can understand Zach not wanting to be left to manage alone again.
"Zach," you comfort, "I'll have Dad awake tonight, mum will improve once he's awake and I am stronger than ever. It's going to be okay."
Zach steps back breathing out slow breaths. "…yeah." You think he believes you, sort of.
"Maybe go do some chores? Pass the time?" you suggest.
Zach nods at you with an unreadable expression, then walks away himself.
Your family doesn't deserve what you've all been through.
Damn Lord Waters. Damn that Corruption within the Woods. Whoever is responsible, Damn you all!
Captain Martin has been respectfully quiet while you politely shooed your brothers away, likely sensing you would not have responded positively to being hurried along.
"Ready?" he asks as you turn back to him.
You establish Innate Essence links to Zach, Marcus and your Mother just like you already had to Micah and your Father. It will slowly work out kinks and minor defects in the days ahead, more importantly you are now able to know their rough location and if they are in immediate peril.
"Ready," you answer, stepping inside and ushering the Captain behind you.
You move straight to your parents' bedroom to finish what you started on your father. You do briefly wonder if the Captain will make an issue of decorum following you into the room, but you are not putting this off any longer so that's on him. As you expect, he simply comes in behind you.
You quickly take stock of both your parents in the modest room as you enter, applying the knowledge of {Tremendous Mechanist} and your newfound sense of essence within people to examine them.
If your father's situation was not so important, you would likely instead focus on your mother. The levels of physical exhaustion and stress you pick up border on truly dangerous. Were it not for your essence-link, she would likely have needed to see a healer if she went many more days unattended. As is, there is no more danger. Not only can you fully restore her over time without thinking, you could also re-establish a link within seconds if it were broken thanks to {Sympathetic Linkage} and your ever expanded control of the golden strands. You won't force her to wakefulness now though even though that is within your capacity, if at all possible, you want her to find dad restored when she next opens her eyes. You have some pretty mixed feelings regarding your mother right now, but even without {Rest State} highlighting the signs, you know someone on the edge when you see it.
"Just a moment," you say to Captain Martin as he brings in a chair from main room. Kneeling beside father, you place your hands on his chest. There's something new you want to try.
Since expelling the foulness, restoring dad has been about calling back his original state. You believe essence is already good for that in general, {Rest State} making the process a significant step easier so long as you are physically touching. But rather than just finding the original form of things and coaxing essence to pull its surrounds back to that state, you want to try something akin to how {Wood Memory} feels. Not actively change anything, just remind the strands of what they were and then attach them to each other. Let them self-organise like the strands do without your intervention, holistically.
It's finicky and you have a few false starts, but your intuition proves right. After a few short minutes, you succeed in empowering your father's own essence to begin self-recovery without your direct intervention. You feel {Sympathetic Linkage} deepen and diversify within your soul, taking on a new facet to greatly enhance this and similar processes. The ability to form Essence links between things without you as an intermediary, either within themselves or between each other. Honestly, it's a little embarrassing you didn't see things this way before. {Golden Rapture} has always been a series of links that merely terminated with you at one end, there was never an implicit rule saying you had to remain part of that chain. You'll have to investigate the use of such a thing some time, learn how to make things self-sustaining.
For now, the advantage is immediately useful. Aside from needing the physical contact, restoring your father will take nearly zero attention, fully sparing your focus for the Captain.
"Okay, I can talk now," you say.
It's honestly surreal having Captain Martin sitting here in your parents' bedroom. Despite the actual gap in time, it feels like only last night you were meeting this new and imposing figure of authority set between snarling fangs and technicolour explosions. Now? His motivations are laid bare before you, and the powers you have gained have you questioning whether it is a matter of months, weeks or days until you surpass him. It makes Captain Martin seem… smaller.
"You are beautiful." The Captain states matter of factly.
You chuckle at the out of place compliment. "These are the matters of great import you wished to discuss?" Motivations known or not, it is reassuring to know that even those {The Ladder} unveils can still surprise you.
"Don't be coy," Captain Martin says with a hint of disapproval, leaning forward in his chair to examine your face more closely. "You are more beautiful than you were days ago."
"One of my many powers," you state. Without {The Ladder}'s information, you would never be so bold. To know that Captain Martin will stay by your side so long as you appear to be a rising star in the making; this combined with your mounting understanding of the oncoming storm that will soon bash against you and your family's lives in the form of Lord Waters. One alone would not be enough, but together they are enough to convince you to reverse one of the first decisions you made. What seems like months ago now, despite being less than a week.
"One of my many Ethea," you elaborate. Letting the big secret flow out and fill the small room.
Captain Martin stares at you for what feels like minutes.
Finally, he answers. "I believe you."
Huh?
"You do?" you question, half disbelieving. You'd thought it would take a fair bit more than that.
Captain Martin reclines in his chair and smiles. "You hid it far better than most would have managed, but I was in the unique position to put the pieces together."
You lean forward yourself, he has you hanging on his every word.
What gave me away? {The Ladder} said he hid information from others, but what did he find? How did he do it in the first place?
"Mathew Lye reports your expansion the afternoon before the attack," the Captain begins reciting off a list. "Uylge Jovin, one of our essence watchmen, reports detecting what felt like an expansion that night towards the end of our trek south. I personally witness your body shine with blood-red light shortly before that imbued-bear's reflection fails and afterward receive reports again that Uylge and others detected what felt like two expansions simultaneously before your links winked out."
'Oh my.' In retrospect, you had identified watchmen who could use essence that night. It is not unsurprising they were able to feel something when you didn't even think to try and figure out how to hide it.
"That's not even the end of it," Captain Martin continues to list off, "Your magical staff, ability to put your father into a sleep, essence healing, changed physical appearance, essence linking and detection, pithe enhanced strength and so much more. Marius noticed you move to save his life before that attack even came for him too. It's not impossible, but that last one doesn't sound like Essence or Pithe at all."
"Oh no," you hold your head in your hands in embarrassment as you sit beside your father. {The Ladder} has told you Captain Martin can be trusted in this sense. Good thing too, because it seems you already blew up your secrets sixty times over.
Captain Martin's tone becomes uncharacteristically playful as he continues on, clearly enjoying himself. "I thought you had some monstrously powerful Ethos. A new Divine Avatar despite the heavenly wars being long passed. But no, Ethea actually makes a lot more sense. Not a couple world-shaking powers, but an endless series of smaller ones piling atop each other. If I had to guess, Essence, Pithe, Concordance… maybe Flow? Or are those flowers in your dress actually real?"
He's figured out way more than I thought!
"They're real flowers! Essence," you quickly rush out an answer. "I don't even know what Flow is. Or any of them really, just what I've figured out for myself." You knew people might have clued into you being more powerful than could be reasonably expected given what you demonstrated in the forest, but the extent of what you inadvertently revealed is ridiculous.
Your mention of not knowing things seems to put a damper on the Captain's mood for some reason. He leans in closer to speak seriously, "Listen Lilly, I know you might think that Senus Marnic's rose means-"
'Oh hell no.' Time to nip this misunderstanding in the bud.
"-He's a monster," you interrupt. "I'm under no illusions of that fact. Concordance told me that he wanted to rape me."
That has the desired effect of ending that line of conversation. Whatever concerns the Captain may have had of you being wooed by the outwardly kind knight are sufficiently corrected.
He looks at you with an odd expression. "You're different now."
"Oh," you question, idly noting the slow but steady improvement within your father, "You're going to have to be more specific."
"That, right there," the Captain gestures in your general direction, "The way you speak. It's more confident, clear. Were I unaware and judged on your words alone, I would easily think you many seasons older."
If you are honest with yourself, he is right. Older is perhaps the wrong word, but more than just your recent experiences, the [Towering Edifice to Heaven] and {Core Heart} in particular give you an inhuman ability to examine things from an outside context. From a couple angles, you guess that makes you seem more mature.
"Yeah. I've found a lot of new perspectives recently," you confirm. You don't think mentioning things like Evie or [The Tower] would be wise, not until you know the gist of the reaction that would cause.
"Lilly," Captain Martin looks at you with a serious expression, "You are going to have to make some very important decisions, soon. Things that will affect the rest of your life, your brothers and parents too. We need to discuss exactly what powers you possess, and what options that gives us."
Us. There it is, the gradual attempt to work his way into your inner circle. Would you have noticed it without {The Ladder}'s prewarning? Does it matter?
It seems the Captain is ready to begin talking seriously. You will gladly tell him the general scope of what you can do, you know now that it will only further entrench his confidence that you are the right horse to back. To have someone knowledgeable of Ethea able to advise you, that's an opportunity worth risking a lot for. But first, you will no longer accept being ignorant of the wider world. If the Captain wants your cooperation, then he is going to answer many questions.
Before he can speak again, you ask what is most pressing on your mind, "Captain. What does Lord Waters want from me? Is it the Tithe? Who are the Noosemen?"
Captain Martin breathes out a heavy sigh before answering. "Lilly, from your feats with Essence alone, you are rarer than a once in a generation find for a town the size of Harmuph. Lord Waters' wants you now, before the Tithe takes you."
"Wait, so Lord Waters could only keep me until I was thirteen, then the Tithe says I go to Aronne?" you ask.
Captain Martin looks at you with a strange expression for a moment before answering. "...if only. The Tithe is not paid to Aronne, or even the capital, it is paid to Lira and their allies. The low kingdoms' independence is true only in the legal sense, we are all tributaries to the far north in every way that matters. Anyone with sufficient talent or promise is removed from the kingdom, baring perhaps a few powerful nobles allowed to administrate. If you were not given over at thirteen, they would raze Harmuph to the ground and kill anyone else who helped you or obstructed them, then take you away anyway. Lord Waters would never dare keep you past the deadline. If King Naris himself tried to shelter you, his life would be just as easily forfeit."
So, above threats like Lord Waters stand true juggernauts, influence looming over entire nations. So much new information, all hinting at even more things you don't know. It seems you were mistaken to think the Tithe and going to Aronne were related, when the implications are in fact more far reaching.
"Captain. Please start at the beginning. Explain everything to me. How do Ethea work? What are the kingdoms of the mortal plane and what is our place in them?"
The world outside Harmuph is a great unknown of vague generalities, it's time to learn the truth.
"I forget how little civilians are told," the Captain says with sadness, "Yes, from the beginning. There is too much to cover, but we'll start with the things that may save your life."
We could talk about Ethea for days, right now though I think it's most important to cover the typical basics of what you might encounter coming to bring you ill or harm.
Pithe:
Pithe was a gift, or at least that is what the common belief is. The more you grow into it and observe the taut cords within, you will discover the yearning and desire pervading its patterns are fragments of some greater being. We do not know if it is actually alive, but it is certainly benevolent. Many believe that whatever unnamed God gave it to us should be quietly revered in equal measure to Aurora, for they are her equal in protecting us from the dangers of the world.
Pithe is the most common and restrictively simple of all types of Ethos, but that simplicity is its strength. Drawing from the Resonating Field you can already sense, Pithe Warriors gain discrete and direct abilities from inside it. Outside other factors, a Pithe ability will almost always be more powerful than that of another Ethos at the same level. The abilities gained are often very limited in their flexibility, doing what they do excellently, and utterly failing outside that scope. For this reason, a Pithe Warrior is at their most dangerous when you are unaware of what they can do; but once revealed, avoiding or combatting one is a simple matter of engaging them such that their known abilities cannot help them. Pithe powers lack the flexibility to adapt to changed circumstance.
Be very careful, unlike other Sources which tend to interact with the world in more predictable ways, Pithe abilities can be almost anything. It is true that they are more often direct attacks or enhancers of some form, but that is a trend not a rule. Even if you far outstrip a Pithe Warrior in total capacity, allowing them to use their power in an advantageous position could be ruinous.
If you must engage a Pithe Warrior with little intelligence, then favour as far a range as you can manage. Melee based Pithe abilities are more common and you are likely to hold the initiative simply by kiting them. Try to draw out encounters, discover as many of their talents as possible while probing for a weakness. With Essence by your side, you will always outcompete them in a battle of attrition.
Essence:
Honestly you probably know more about Essence than me by this stage, but I can tell you the common knowledge of how it measures up against other types of Ethos.
Essence is… primordial. Poorly understood, but widely considered to be the 'blood of the soul', lifeforce. It highly favours powers with a wide scope and range of applications with more gradual effects rather than sharp and immediate ones. While all types of Ethos can be non-combative, even Essence Ethea's most violent iterations tend to still favour support, with direct combat as a secondary concern.
This is Essence's weakness and strength. It is difficult for an opponent to avoid its effects given how all encompassing and far reaching they tend to be, but likewise, those effects are often not severe enough to make a difference in the breakneck pace of a battle on their own.
The unique defining feature of Essence is how easily it interacts with the other kinds of Ethos. Pithe, Mana, Flow and Oath (which I'll get to) all have multiple interactions together with essence, usually greatly enhancing the former in some discrete way. All the different Sources for Ethea are known to interact in one way or another, but essence in particular is best suited to this by a large margin. You have already seen some of its benefits, Pithe and Mana gaining improved stamina and healing respectively. I know it greatly simplifies Oath's process with affecting others. Flow, that one I'm not sure of.
When fighting a superior essence wielder, be careful to take note of stacking passive effects they will often progressively lay down on top of you over time. While an annoyance at first, they can turn deadly in a protracted encounter and can remain even after an opponent has been laid low. While an essence wielder may find it hard to put you down themselves, they could make your next battle a treacherous slog.
More often than not you'll find an Essence wielder who only possesses supportive powers, they should still be a priority to disable if you can though as they can greatly enhance the threat of their allies.
You are a special sub-category of Essence wielder too, an Auron. Not all who use essence can directly observe it, most have just a general impression. You are the most extreme known kind, directly perceiving essence around you, like how you helped us track those wolves and spotted the ambush in the forest. This is good as you are unlikely to not notice hostile essence effects being slowly laid down onto you, but be careful all the same.
Mana:
Mana is an incredibly expansive source of power. Often feebly weak in the beginning, it is generally regarded as being the most dangerous at the higher levels.
This is because Mana is at its very core the idea of Conceptualisation. Finding the symbols and meanings embedded within creation and organising them into discrete effects. This is known as Spellworks, gaining an understanding of some meta-physical phenomena and from that point onwards being able to design mechanisms to bend it into highly adaptive suites of applications; Spells.
You in fact already practice the most basic form of this, Runes. With a Mana Ethos, this art can be extended to terrifying lengths. Glyphs are essentially far more basic forms of Spells, more easily learnt and manifested by anyone with a source of mana, but woefully less efficient than a designed Spell.
The unique aspect of Mana Ethea is the need for study and research far beyond any other kind. The powers a Mana Ethos grants are not Spells, and are in fact quite often useless without them. Mana Ethos powers are modifiers or alternate modes of expression of a spell or spellwork. Marius for example is able to delay the activation of a Spell that should be constantly active, reserving its entire effect for the point of impact. He did not need to learn how to do this via some form of Spellworks, it is an implicit aspect of his Ethos.
All Mana Ethea tend to have a form of focal concept; An aspect of Creation that they are significantly more suited to aiding the mage in mastering the Spellworks of. Marius' is a split focus on Fire and Percussion for example. This does not mean a mage cannot learn unrelated Spellworks, it is just significantly more difficult, only moderately easier than someone without a Mana Ethos. Again, Marius is one of our best healers despite his Ethos having nothing to do with that.
Be wary of fighting against a Mana Ethos wielder for a prolonged length of time. While only the most elite could even think of crafting a new Spell in the heat of battle, most mages are quite adept at progressively modifying their existing spells to better exploit your weaknesses over time. Hard and fast, that is how you want to end an encounter with a Mana Ethos wielder.
Oath:
Oath has some similarities to Pithe in regards to how varied its powers can be, but with more rigid rules. It was the demons that taught us of Oath, the magic of the Soul.
Oath Wielders are an eclectic bunch, in the short period of a single battle they are often as rigid as a Pithe wielder in their options. But given days or weeks to prepare they can flexibly alter their powerset much like a Mana Wielder, sometimes to a nearly unrecognisable degree.
While they can have both, you will find Oath Wielders favour one of the two subcategories that exist within the Source. Freeform or Bound. Freeform Oath Wielders tend to prepare discrete packages of effect often based around reflection, piercing or synergy that can be applied to their allies. With some prepwork they can also be placed onto their enemies, though more often than not it is easier to rely on a lesser being from an outer plane to do such direct offensive work. While you should be wary rushing into fights with an Oath Wielder uninformed, you also shouldn't delay excessively as they can often eventually switch into a powerset better equipped to face you, this is especially true of Freeform Oath wielders.
Most Oath Wielders will use both Freeform and Bound methods, but you will see them often lean strongly in one direction.
Oath is not suited for direct attacks on an opponent because its most potent effects require consent (or at the bare minimum, unconsciousness in consent's absence). Hence it often relies on conscripting assistive entities. Freeform Oath Wielders will bring forth strange blades, shields and armours or sew esoteric effects into their very skin for the short duration of a battle. If you have a reliable method, sudden ambush is more reliable on an Oath Wielder than most.
More powerful assistive entities are more the wheelhouse of Bound Oath Wielders. They are long term binders, creating profound bonds between people or more alien entities in exchange for some form of service commonly referred to as a Contract. This process is highly regulated, in our long history a quite expansive list of approved entities with reasonable contractual demands has been compiled. Straying from this list is a good way to end up dead. You'd think the risks would be enough to dissuade people, but promises of power for small compromises have lured many an Oath Wielder to ignoble ends. Some Entities are powerful enough to outright lie, and if you do not know their True Name then they can present in meeker less threatening forms to entice carelessness in a contracts wording and terms.
You saw a potent entity in action in the forest. Plasil is Bound to one which is very well equipped at negating the effects of just about any other power given enough exposure to it, which they used to temporarily sidestep the stag's space manipulation and shear it in half. It also disrupted the second's concentration allowing Legle to use the backlash to implode it.
Flow:
I know very little about Flow. Baring specific approved Ethea, when discovered, they are not allowed to remain in Harmuph for any significant length of time. Flow is the aspect of the mind, Psionic Power.
A Psion is able to interact with something called 'The Construct' and perceive the 'Wakes' of living beings' consciousnesses. Frankly I think they are terrifying and I'm not exactly displeased that so little abide in Harmuph, save for worrying about what use they are being put to elsewhere.
When fighting a Psion… well first of all try not to. Try and set something up that allows you to attack them from an incredible distance away or which allows you to ignore as much of their existence as possible. If at all feasible, your first instinct should always be to simply run. I know from personal experience that Psions can warp even the most good-natured of people into absolute monsters given enough time. Until you or I know more about Flow, I'd avoid dealing with powerful practitioners of the Psionic art regardless of if they seem to be friend or foe. You can't trust your own thoughts or perceptions around them.
Concordance:
Concordance is a complete enigma. I'm not sure if anyone understands it.
Many of the same warnings for Flow also apply to Concordance; you can't trust your own actions or decisions around them. How can you combat someone who already knows what is going to happen and thus is only allowing it for their benefit?
Concordance Ethea redefine reality, or fate, or something. Like I said, I'm not sure anyone knows. I've known a few good men who practiced it in my time, even they were not able to figure out much before the Tithe collected them. Diviners use it, but at a level so mild it just isn't the same.
I can tell you two dynamics humanity has been able to glean some information about, Tension and Fractures.
High Fracture Concordance Wielders are a timebomb waiting to happen, they can cause frankly impossible things to occur and link events together that have no business influencing one another. The only saving grace that prevents them from being unstoppable is that they find it difficult to control the exact outworking of their changes and can be prone to backfires if pushed too far.
Low Fracture Concordance Wielders often speak of seeing multiple clear pathways or of 'nudging events' in their favour. The scope of the changes they can make are radically less severe than High Fracture, but what makes them so troublesome is that these changes are almost always exactly what is needed to achieve their goal. They have less to work with, but are experts at applying that leverage.
Redefining reality has feedback to it. Tension is the measure of how well equipped the Concordance Wielder is to mitigate that effect or push it to the limit. Low Tension wielders tend to be less flexible in how they can operate, but far safer overall. High Tension wielders can push things far enough to destructively snap back, erasing themselves or events they were a part of from reality.
High Tension Wielders tend to have a short lifespan, they are always pushing the limits until one day they go too far.
Never give a Concordance Wielder time to prepare for your arrival, they will almost certainly set the stage of an encounter such that no possible future leads to your success.
Deific / Spirit:
The Divine source of Gods and Spirits. This was once more common in the ages of the Divine Wars before the Gods largely lost interest in us and broke contact.
There are rumours that some of the greatest men and women alive draw from this Source, but it is hard to know. Bound Oath entities typically do what they do through a minute trickle of this source.
There is no point trying to understand Deific power, it simply does what is does and every single case is unique in its limits and abilities. Assume every warning for every type of Ethos applies.
Rank Ups:
Something to be wary of when fighting stronger opponents is that each type of Ethos tends to have certain universal features they gain over time. Typically, every twenty expansions (though the first is often delayed until closer to the thirtieth).
Pithe: |Bulwark|
- A defensive aura of endurance and durability enabling the Warrior to shrug off more and more severe damage. Rumoured to enhance strength/speed at the higher levels.
Essence: |Holistics|
- Typical of Essence, the wielder simply tends to become increasingly more proficient at everything to do with their Ethos faster than the other kinds.
Mana: |Recompilation|
- Adaptive ability becomes increasingly faster and farther reaching, allowing Spells to be more and more specifically tailored to individual opponents.
Oath: |Dedication|
- Increasing flexibility within Soul. Affect non-humans more easily, leave soul-effects residing latently in material or immaterial spaces.
Flow: |Abstraction|
- No Clue. But I have been told the idea of what counts as a 'mind' becomes looser to the Psion.
Concordance: |Serendipity|
- Intuitive Luck. Knowing when to pick fights and when to run, their timing happening to be exactly right. Life just goes better for the Concordance Wielder.
Inversions:
The last thing we needed to cover regarding Ethea is Inversions. They are remarkably rare (in no small part because we judiciously put them down when they appear), but incredibly dangerous.
Either at the point of choosing or later in life, an Ethos can Invert. The resulting transformation renders that individual a blight on those around them, it is a mercy to put them down.
Pithe: |Mutation|
- When a Pithe wielder's Ethos Inverts, the cords within the Resonating Pithe Field manifest physically within the body, twisting it into a hyper-realisation of the Ethos. Soul, Body and Mind are distorted into a parody of their former self. A master of the sword could become a humanoid grinding blender of blades screeching against each other. Some can retain their sanity for a time, but their Ethos will forever push them toward manic violence. All will break eventually.
Essence: |Negative|
- Power over Life becomes Power over Death. Negative Essence wielders divert, alter and cheat the limits of the other side. Masters of necromancy and the beyond, they come to view life as an inconvenience and other living beings as nothing more than construction material. Their powers all turn hyper-focused toward inflicting and extending death in rapidly escalating measures.
Mana: |Chaos|
- Concepts become Anarchy. Spellworks, loosely bound Madness. The only good fortune regarding Inverted Mages is that they are prone to killing themselves without assistance, not before devastating a region though. Often their influence lasts long past their death, rendering a certain area uninhabitable due to storms of wild magical effects that spring up unpredictably.
Oath: |Non-consent|
- Not much to say here. The Oath Wielder becomes driven to inflict their will on others, despising autonomy and free choice. Their powers become a twisted version of before, piercing into unwilling beings as easily as a knife through air. They also tend to become obsessed with self-modification, eventually binding themselves into a mess of Oaths so tangled that their soul withers away onto nothing.
Flow: |Blank|
- I know little of this, save that an Inverted Flow Wielder is the end of thought. They are often only tracked by following the trail of bodies as direct observation is usually obscenely difficult.
Concordance: |Paradox|
- There is apparently a level of impossible beyond the 'normal' impossible, and Inverted Concordance Wielders utilize it. They normally kill or trap themselves in a labyrinth of nonsensical pseudo-events within days, usually this is helped along by sending in High Fracture Concordance Wielders to directly destabilize the surrounding area.
At some point during the discussion, you feel the final pieces of alteration within your father's body revert back to their untarnished form. The path has been long and hard, but finally, you lift your father's mind up from {The World Beneath} back into himself.
You're not sure what to expect, he was delirious in the hour before your return with the Watch in tow. Will it be like waking up from a bad dream? Will he simply not remember? It doesn't matter, against all odds it is finally time.
"You're not listening," Captain Martin says, prodding your shoulder. You'd been staring at your father's face.
"Sorry, I just finished, he should be…"
Nothing is happening.
You pulse an extra dose of thick essence into your father. The body reacts physically, but he remains as still as the grave… a cold wrenching tightness starts to settle all over you and you look as you upon a pristine body, motionless like a corpse.
Everything else ceases to matter as you press both hands on your father and search {The World Beneath} for any missing piece of him, finding nothing. {Rest State} finds nothing out of the ordinary when you push its power into him. Your father is perfectly healthy, whole and ready to open his eyes.
And nothing is happening!
"-illy! Look at me. He is fine." Captain Martin is gripping your hand hard. Your eyes lock in on his, 'Explain' written clear across your face.
"It's the Wake," The Captain says slowly when he sees he has your attention, "You said you have not gained access to the Flow, I'm impressed you could pull him into sleep with essence alone, but returning someone to consciousness after this long will take more than just a jolt of life."
"What will it take," you demand.
"Time. The Wake will re-establish itself in a couple hours on its own. I've seen it in men we have to sedate for more than a day. The mind pulls inward, takes a while to reach back out."
You let out a breath of relief as Captain Martin releases your hand. One more scare like that and you'll need to crush rocks just to work off the stress.
Even though you don't need to, you sit by your father's side on the bed as the conversation with Captain Martin resumes. You'll have many more questions about Ethea as time allows and the Captain himself says there is more he wants to cover in the days ahead also, but he does need to get back to Watch's Camp and settle the aftermath of Lord Waters' actions eventually. He wants to go over the political and geographic landscape before he has to leave tonight. Music to your ears.
You were planning to tell him some of what you can do, but in truth he has guessed most of what you'd considered safer topics anyway. He has a general idea of what [Dream within the Forest] and [Brave Blood]'s immediate combat applications are and you simply add a brief explanation of [Cleaver of Fortune] framing it as a general dangerous situation avoidance Ethos. Close enough to the truth for an outline.
The Captain does ask if you have any more surprises that might worry people. Revealing Evie is a solid 'no way'. [Towering Edifice to Heaven] would have been on the cards if you hadn't just found out how much of bad reputation physical mutations have thanks to Inverted Pithe Ethea. Somehow you think the reveal of the sharp pulsing blood-red {Core Heart} sitting in the middle of your chest might be better left for another day. So you say 'There is a lot that I am still figuring out, but none of my powers are difficult to keep in check'.
Your looser lips on the topic of powers is not just from {The Ladder}'s earlier vouching of Captain Martin's motivations. For the past few hours you have been steadily narrowing the topic of its advice down to 'warnings about Andrew Martin'. You know your Concordance is stretched thin right now, but given that {The Ladder} has said literally nothing on the matter, it was enough for you to be less cagey about at least the general description of your most visible Ethea. You release {The Ladder} to return to its broad scope over the next hour.
With that covered, it is time to talk of nations and kingdoms. Of powers and men, the laws and history that has shaped the world. It's a topic that could span months and you know that the Captain will obviously be framing information in ways that elevate conclusions he'd like you to come to, but you will take what you can get.
Dominating every human kingdom on this entire continent are Lira and Molain in the far north. Narisell like all its neighbours are only independent in name, not practice. The best resources and the best people are Tithed to one of these two kingdoms, Narisell (your home kingdom) being under Lira's dominion.
There is more that can be said of the Tithe system, but for simplicities sake, kingdoms that don't submit to it do not stay kingdoms much longer. While Lira or Molain may be months of travel away, that does not mean they do not possess the capacity for immediate and total obliteration of those they are disappointed with.
As far as your own position is concerned, Lord Waters would seek to use you for his own purposes within Narisell until you turned thirteen at which point the Noosemen would collect you to be transported to Lira. The moniker is darker than necessary, Noosemen are simply servants of the higher kingdoms whose primary purpose is retrieving Tithes. Tithes themselves simply enter the service of the higher kingdoms for life and can even bring their families along with them (though anyone without a tithe-worthy Ethos must be sterilised on entry). "You are too powerful to be allowed to keep your free will, the Tithe would not be a happy ending." The ominous warning of Captain Martin's regarding them.
Narisell itself is practically a joke even among the other lower kingdoms. It only persists because its neighbours are each more concerned with other borders. Captain Martin estimates Narisell's slow decline will lead to total collapse within a couple generations.
That is not to say Narisell does not have resources to bear, far from it. They can when required field tens of thousands of potent warriors each trained to work in synchronised and synergised units. Unlike what you've been lead to believe by stories and fairytales, war and battle is more often decided by well rounded armies rather than singular individuals of incredible might (baring a few notable exceptions to the rule standing at the absolute pinnacle of human power).
The Captain floats the idea you may need to leave Harmuph, and in the absence of any immediate rejection from you, begins to outline some of the basic features of Narisell's neighbours.
Scobar: Scobar are the final human kingdom standing against the lizard-like monster race known as the Desert-Kinn. Extremely militant, they would only welcome foreigners willing to contribute, though would not defy the Tithe if they discovered the full span of your power. They would be easiest to slip away into, but are somewhat of a dead end. Lamric: Not only are Lamrians distrusting to a fault, the Captain is very wary of basing any travel plan upon sea travel, it's just asking for trouble. Lamric is a rich nation that outperforms its small size through trade and some well placed internal resources. Parisi: Were it not for most of Narisell being in the way, this would be an excellent choice. Parisi opens up to countries in every direction, including Alenria the best long-term location in the Captain's opinion. Loilsv: Hate of Goblin-kind is almost a religion in Loilsv, making it easy to make friends at least on one point of common ground. If you must leave Harmuph, this is likely the best location despite requiring travelling through a more populated region of Narisell. Narisell and Loilsv have a lot of bad blood between their nobles and neither would cooperate with each other in tracking you down. Kailsii: Absolutely not. They embrace their subservience and actively seek to gain the favour of the higher kingdoms. Kailsii is powerful by the lower kingdom's standards, rivalled only by Alenria, best avoided. Alenria: Alenria is in danger of growing too powerful for the higher kingdoms to tolerate without being cut down a peg. Captain Martin is coy about how they have grown this powerful, but a major positive is their noble class tend to be genuinely caring of the general populace. Determined and hardworking, they have a good international reputation. Shara: Difficult to reach and the Captain does not know as much of them. He is generally wary of any country with direct coastal access to the Dove Sea. Too accessible to the higher kingdoms. Quarn: Powerful and not excessively difficult to reach, but they have similar cultural undertones of loyalty to the higher kingdoms, not recommended.
There is also the great empire of Tosliav across the ocean, but they are so far away the Captain knows little of them other than that they rival Lira and Molain and are human.
Aside all these human kingdoms, the Captain admits most of the world is in fact the territory of monstrous creatures and savages which humanity holds back from overrunning all civilisation. The two nearest being the Desert-Kinn and Goblinoids. Naturally, you should never go near such places.
You notice the Captain is evasive when speaking of certain 'resources' countries possess, when pried he simply says you should come join him at the Watch's Camp tomorrow. There is something you need to do before he can tell you of such things.
Your foreknowledge of Captain Martin's motives does mean you take how he speaks of the world with a grain of salt. 'It is a scary and dangerous place and you will need a lot of help to make it out there, like for example, from me' being the general vibe.
The night approaches and the Captain must depart for now, he will fetch some a guard to remain near the household, there are also other forms of interception he already instructed to be in place further out to help protect your home. For now, he must go address the traitor you brought up (to some anti-climax) during the discussion. He already suspects he knows exactly who it is and Kaymie's warning has only helped him narrow it down somehow.
Once the guard arrives, the Captain would like you to quickly come visit the nearby camp tonight. Apparently Marius is in a bad way only you are equipped to help with, some sort of lasting damage from the encounter in the forest.
Just like that, you now know the beginnings of how the world works. There's so much information that you don't really know where to start unpacking it. For now, you can focus on some more immediate concerns while also taking the time to think of further questions for the next chance you have to speak with the Captain.
You did not tell him about it before Captain Martin left, but {The Ladder}'s words regarding Myah being strangled by her father have been weighing on you. The predication was five days, sure, but what events will lead up to that? Things can't exactly be going well.
Of deeper concern is your memories of the strange way essence was around her. Your greater intuition of how essence naturally flows would have made you suspicious to begin with, but the corruption you removed from your father has given you some experience with the ways essence can be made wrong. Myah is not corrupted, but you think she might be truly sick. If it is the black lung again, you'll tear down mountains to find the Ethos to let you heal her yourself. You try not to think of such horrible options, but you know you won't be able to rest until you know.
You think after visiting the Watch's Camp to help Marius, you'll likely go to Harmuph during the night. You are not exactly a master of stealth, but sneaking your way into Myah's (formerly both her and her brothers) room was something you could have managed even prior to gaining [Dream within the Forest]. In fact, now that you think of it, it can't be something so plain as the black lung again…
Myah wanted to leave Harmuph, badly.
She wanted no one to be able to find her.
Her father will kill her in five days.
Is her dad… hurting her? It's strange to even think it. Bad people are thieves and bandits, not family men. At least you'd never have considered it before; before Senus Marnic. People can be lovely on the outside, respected and lauded, all hiding a pit of darkness beneath. You're not jumping to conclusions, but if Myah wants to leave Harmuph… maybe you'll help grant that wish.
These thoughts run through your head as you whisper your goodbyes to dad and kiss his forehead, then step out of the bedroom. He is noticeably slowly becoming more aware with stilted slurs and half committal movements, but it looks like it will take the better part of a full day for him to return to himself. The sleep you pull people into seems a deeper sort than most, perhaps for your next Ethos you'll pick something that draws from Flow to speed it up.
You stand on the front porch looking out at the red-hued sky rapidly receding to deeper dark blues away from the horizon. Another hour's light before night settles in. There are storm clouds rolling in from the west too, it looks like it will rain tonight.
You should go back inside and stir your mother, who does not know you are okay and awake again. But honestly, you are still very upset with her. You don't know what you will find out at the hillock to the west, but you do know you wouldn't even know that was an option were it not for the past few day's events.
For years you thought there was something different about you, something that didn't belong. The sheer unbridled joy of discovering days ago that your father's love was not nearly as conditional as you'd thought it was is counterbalanced by this more recent sense of deep cutting betrayal you feel toward your mother. Because there is something different about you and has been long before the clearing in the forest ever happened. You don't know what you'll find there, but it wasn't hers to keep from you.
So yes, you're going to the Watch's Camp without waking her. You'll go to Harmuph tonight without coming home first too. A little spiteful yes, but you want your mother to feel some of what you are feeling right now. You want her to understand how not okay what she did was.
You cannot see Marcus and Micah within your essence sight, having gone further than its reach some hours ago, but you can sense them via the essence links not too far off behind the house. Zach is within your direct perception in the barn cleaning Chariot's pen. The horse himself tacked to a post nearby.
You sigh against the wind rushing past your hair. You'll tell Zach you're going to the Watch's Camp tonight, to stop your family worrying too much. You set out toward the barn, scolding yourself a little for considering actually not telling anyone where you were going to be. Not only would you have been punishing your brothers for no reason, it would actually be quite stupid to be alone given the day's events.
Things have been strained between you and Zach, you're not sure if you'll push that issue right now, but you at least want to try and leave on a more positive note rather than a sour one.
Zach is shovelling out some old matted hay as you approach, he doesn't see you until you're outside the pen.
"Hey," you say softly.
Zach drops his shovel with a little jolt of surprise to look at you. You are a little worried the same awkwardness of the days before will return, but that quickly fades as Zach's features soften and you both walk into a long silent hug.
It's nice.
There is so much you will need to be doing in the coming days that you can't really see the end of that tunnel, but here and now, you can just forget that for a little bit and pretend that everything is completely okay. There are no dangers waiting, no ominous far-reaching threats you're not sure you can ever escape; just a brother and a sister holding each other.
"Dad's going to be okay," you start, feeling Zach noticeably relax at the news, "He'll take some time to wake up and may be quite confused when he does, but he'll be okay. I… I need to go to the Watch's Camp for serious business, I'll probably be gone all night."
Zach does not respond immediately, simply holding you a little longer before he speaks. "But everything is okay?"
"Everything is okay," you answer, releasing him from the hug.
For a moment neither of you really knows what to do, until you remember a stray comment from earlier in the day that makes you quirk your lip into a smile.
"So," you say, "was I hearing things earlier?" Your tone tilting playful.
"Huh," Zach half questions, not sure where you're going with this.
You know Zach will remember his earlier surprised comment on your floral arrangement and you revel in his pending embarrassment.
"Well, just how pretty would you say I am?" You tease, stepping forward into an exaggerated pose that shows off your very done-up hair, flowers and all (which you should probably undo but just haven't brought yourself to ruin yet, essence just makes keeping it so easy).
"Ugh, Lilly." Zach grunts in mock disgust, pushing you lightly and turning to start shovelling again.
"I distinctly remember something along those lines. Was pretty the wrong word? How about gorgeous? Lovely? Cute?" You grant no mercy.
"You're the worst," Zach answers with a smile creeping up his lips, trying to pretend you're not there.
"It's okay. I am as patient as I am beautiful. One day you will have to admit I mmphh-" A mouthful of shovel-propelled hay succeeds in ending what would have been your glorious monologue.
Zach looks at you with empty shovel in hand, about as surprised as you that he managed to nail your face perfectly.
You step forward, {Tremendous Mechanist} letting you know how to crack your knuckles for maximum loudness and effect. "That's it."
"Hey now," Zach says, backing away, "You have an Ethos, no fair."
"Too Late."
Zach lunges out of the way as you jump through the air toward him, narrowly avoiding your grasping hands, before bolting out of Chariot's pen into the wider barn. It would of course be trivial if you were actually trying to catch him, you were the best at chases even before becoming capable of superhuman feats of speed and strength. You trail Zach out into the barn and cut off his attempt to make it to the doors, wagging a finger in an 'uh uh' gesture.
Zach stands in the middle of the barn trying to anticipate your next move, he does not expect you to close the gap between the two of you in a near instant thanks to a {Pulse Surge}. {Tremendous Mechanist} combined with your essence sight and {Perfect Proprioception} gives you the fine control and general impression of Zach's body that allows you to tailor the impact force just below what would be painful. The two of you roll to the ground as you pin him underneath, victorious.
"Surrender!" you yell, putting on your best impression of a haughty villainess.
"Never!" Zach screams, mimicking a deeper more heroic voice.
After a few moments both of you fall into a much-needed fit of laughter, drawn back into the lighter memories of simpler days. Afterward the two of you lie on the ground, Zach panting from exertion as you bask in the moment of unspoiled joy. You wish you could stay like this, but you don't want to keep Marius and whatever affliction he is suffering waiting for long. Still, there is something you've decided you do want to take one more try at.
"Zach?" you question lightly.
Zach is content to stay lying on the ground looking at the ceiling as he answers. "Mmm?"
You don't want to risk spoiling the first proper fun you've had for a while, but the question keeps nagging at the back of your head. After hesitating a moment, you speak. "You kept being weird around me before the wolves, what was going on?"
You don't need essence sight to know when Zach immediately tenses up, the audibly sharp inhale does a good enough job. Zach gets up, not looking at you. "I just… I have chores to do."
Zach starts walking away before you leap onto your feet and step in front of him. "Zach," your eyes pierce pleadingly into his before he looks away, "Please."
Zach stands unmoving for a bit, even looking back toward the open barn doors as if he's considering just leaving. You feel relief flood through you as a wave resignation comes over him; whatever it is, at least he's decided to speak of it.
Zach squares his shoulders and meets your gaze again, hesitating for a few more seconds before speaking, "You're so ungrateful."
What?
"What?" you respond. You didn't have any real idea what was off about Zach recently, but you were expecting something more… significant? You don't like the way Zach is looking at you either, it reminds you of your father's expression whenever he caught you procrastinating or getting distracted in the workshop.
Zach's tone gains a little heat, almost accusational, "Father's invested years into you. But you can't wait to get away."
Lying about your feelings towards your father's trade once took effort, but it's been effortless for years. So automatic that you don't even hesitate a second before the denial starts rolling easily off your lips, "That's not-"
"-Don't lie to me," Zach immediately overrides you, his face scrunching up in genuine anger, "I know that's why you ran away; you wanted a different Ethos."
You stand there flabbergasted. You'd planned out so many responses for if your father ever challenged you on your lack of interest in rune engraving, promises of trying harder and apologies for not being a good daughter. Ways to excuse your lacking qualities whilst affirming you were obedient and could learn your lesson without punishment. So many hypothetical discussions roleplayed out in your head between your father and you, each of varying intensity and focus.
Of course, then something truly wonderful happened. Against all odds, on a mundane cobbly street in Harmuph, the two of you had a meeting of hearts. All those hypothetical conversations became unnecessary as your father helped you take the first steps to truly accepting yourself as you are. Something you never considered until right now was that Zach would be the one to confront you.
You honestly didn't mean to immediately start with a lie, that was just a well worn habit you haven't had the chance to lose. You're not sure why Zach wants to know, but in many ways you're glad. Instead of something difficult or unsolvable, this has an easy explanation that you no longer have any shame about or reason to hide.
"Say something," Zach says, standing unhappily in front of you as you collect your thoughts.
A part of you still feels the echo of irrational panic at admitting it openly. Even with {Rest State} affirming the truth inside you, even with all the power you've gained ensuring no one you meet would ever assume you were just a carpenter's daughter, even the past week's events proving you can be the hero you've dreamed of being; years of scripting to say the opposite of how you really feel requires a conscious choice to reverse.
"Zach..." you start slowly. Awkward as it is, it feels good to realise your days of lying about this all lay behind you now, "I always knew. Since the start, I never wanted… to…"
You peter out when Zach recoils with a look of utter contempt on his face. It's an ugly look, something you'd never have expected from him. A little confused, you try to push onward and open your mouth to speak again-
"-Pfft," Zach cuts you off and turns around to walk away. Your essence sight lets you read the anger written over his face and posture even with him facing away from you. "Whatever Lilly."
You watch Zach walking away having completely dismissed you. The feeling of awkwardness and confusion inside you rapidly melts away. It is replaced with rage.
This image. You sharing your heart and being immediately disregarded; it is intimately familiar. You don't think you could accurately count the number of nightmares you've had that went exactly like this between you and various horrid facsimiles of your father. The fears you held so long, played out the worst possible way.
You start to walk after Zach, clenching your fists hard enough to crush rock. How dare he.
A week ago, this exact scene would have hit every insecurity you'd ever held, confirmed you were a terrible person and didn't deserve to be your father's daughter. You'd have crawled up into a ball and mourned the terrible fates that cursed your family with such an unworthy daughter.
All that shame is gone now, washing off without finding any purchase. How dare Zach judge you. He understands nothing of the years you spent wallowing in guilt, wishing to be anything but yourself, praying hopelessly to wake up changed into the daughter you play-acted being. He's never seen the countless nights you sobbed into the covers, clenching your whimpers tight to avoid waking Marcus sleeping beside you. No, walking away from you right now is just another stupid boy with stupid ideas about what is expected of you, what you should be. And now, when you try to tell Zach the truth, try to explain that the very man he's taking offense on behalf of doesn't even support him? He scoffs at you. He has the gall to not even let you speak. The knowledge that this would have completely wrecked you had it happened a week ago makes you even more outraged, that Zach would so carelessly throw your biggest fear right back in your face. It hurts in a way only family can.
Screw you, Zach.
"Hey!" you shout, stomping up behind Zach. "What's your problem? It's my life! Not yours!"
You reach out and grab his shoulder to spin him around just as he reaches the open barn door. Angry as you are, you are still careful to not use a dangerous amount of strength. {In thy Likeness} and {Uplifted Vessel} together make it rather easy to grip someone hard enough to bruise if you don't show at least some restraint.
You nearly unload a barrage of insults and admonishments onto Zach, but stop yourself at the last moment when Zach's flaring anger flips on a dime to despair.
"I… I…" Zach is caught halfway between shouting and crying, struggling to get any words out. He takes a moment to swallow hard.
So help me Zach, if you start talking about how I am 'failing dad' or anything about duty I think I might just punch you.
The tears pour freely from Zach's eyes as he finally steadies himself enough to speak, pain written large across his face. "I'd kill to switch places with you Lilly! I'd do… You have no idea! Sometimes I wish you'd just-" He catches himself before saying something you think you'd both regret.
Pieces were already starting to click together from his admission, why he would take personal offense to your rejection of the family trade. But before you have time to properly process the implications, Zach says something from the bottom of his soul, something that you immediately know has sat there unspoken for many years… something that breaks your heart.
No longer shouting nor screaming, instead oddly quiet, Zach speaks through staggard sobs and sniffles, "Dad picked you over me. Why? He had to know that you didn't… that I would gladly… ugh!"
Zach punches the barn door hard enough to draw blood on his knuckles. He rests his head against it to cry some more as you stand their speechless. All these years, it wasn't one Silas child hiding their pain, it was two.
Chariot grows unsettled before you pulse a short bit of comfort into him on instinct, you wish that was what you could focus on right now.
"Why Lilly?" Zach pulls you from your shellshocked thoughts, his voice almost pleading as he looks at you again whilst slumping against the door, "Why don't you want it? What doesn't he… want…" Zach isn't able to finish, his hands idly trace the faint outline of a tiny hardening rune built into the barndoor's wood, the parts not lightly obscured by flecks of blood.
"I…" you start and stop. You have to say something, but what can you possibly say? Zach is right, dad did choose you over him, you were always so concerned with how terribly misplaced your life was that it never occurred to you someone might be envious of it.
"I'm… sorry Zach. I didn't realise that… you're right, but… let me speak to dad. Things are different now, we can-"
"-Please Lilly," Zach interrupts as he pushes himself up off the door, he stands still while looking away from you. "Just… please. Leave me alone."
And with that, your brother slowly walks away. You could force him to stay, it's certainly what you would have done when you were still seething with rage, but it's funny how a few words can change everything.
"Zach," you call out, not walking after him. Your spirits lift a little when he stops to look back at you, "Dad loves all of us. You know that right?"
There is a lot you will need to speak with your father about tomorrow when he is recovered and awake, but training Zach in your stead just earned a high spot on that list.
Oh how you wish you had the {True Song} right now. You know that if you could sit Zach and your father down together and sing then Zach could know the truth. You don't fully understand why your father chose to invest all his energy in training you alone, it would not have hurt your progress much to have another learner beside you; but whatever his reason, you know that your father does indeed love all his children.
"Yeah, he does…" Zach says sadly before continuing to walk away.
You breathe a little sigh as he leaves, it could be worse. This will be an awkward problem to unravel, but it at least feels solvable.
{Zach}: "…but he'll always love you more."
You quickly step behind the barn wall out of sight so Zach cannot see you start to shake. That is the exact thought you've had so many times in the past, hearing the same pain mirrored word-for-word in your brother's voice makes you want to physically gag. A punch in the guts that just keeps on twisting. You hold your hand to your chest as some of your breaths turn to choking gasps just thinking about it. The next whisper brought to your ears makes you fall to your knees and clasp your hand over your mouth so Zach can't hear you scream.
{Zach}: "I… I'm not enough. I won't… ever…"
He simply cries after that, no more words, just tears. They match your own, running freely down your cheeks and dripping off your chin.
You know that pain, deeply and personally. The consuming grief of doubting a father's own love, of doubting if you could ever be worthy of it. Zach's story isn't just similar to yours, its exactly the same. Except his hasn't had its happy ending.
And there is a horrible doubt building in your stomach too, a terrible idea so twisty and jagged you almost want to ignore it's there. But the question has to be asked.
What if Zach is right?
Your father has always paid special attention to you. It was in the form of demands to improve your craft, expectations of success and requirements to progress. But now that it's been pointed out, what if the worst possible answer is true. Even if you get the {True Song} back one day, what if you sing between Zach and your father and the result is not a happy ending, but something too horrible to imagine.
You're angry again. Not at Zach, but at your father. He chose you instead of his firstborn son and the result has been ripples of despair in at least half his children that reach into every crevasse of their soul. You can't help but see your parent's mistakes repeated again in yourself. A Daughter who keeps secrets just like her mother, who misses the pain and misery right in front of her face just like her father.
There have been a lot of mistakes, unnecessary pain that could have been easily avoided. You love your mother and father and don't think for even a second they've ever been deliberately malicious. But are they good parents? Unless deeply held insecurities about one's fundamental worth is the norm for half a person's children, perhaps not.
You wipe Zach's blood off the barn door, it was a nasty scratch, he probably won't notice your essence link helping it heal a little faster and not pick up anything nasty in the meantime. Your own punch into the door is significantly louder, the hardening rune briefly flaring to life in a dim yellowish sheen before fading back away.
Each new Ethos you gain grants you more and more strength, so much potential growing into an influence that will reach far and wide simply by existing, but you can't help but wonder if there'll always be problems you're powerless to solve. The Alphas were easy; family is hard.
You walk outside the barn to sit on the grass. You can't actually leave for the Watch's Camp until the guard that will watch over your family arrives. Until then, you watch the growing darkness creeping over the sky as the fully set sun recedes further and further behind the horizon. Your thoughts stay on Zach the whole time, he's wandered off further than your essence sight can see, you don't blame him for needing the space.
You kept trying to not think about it and failing. It just makes you more and more angry at your dad as time goes on. You search for an answer, but you're not sure there is one to be found.
You feel {The Ladder} recalling your previously unlocked memory, the fact Zach will gain an Ethos soon is almost an afterthought compared to everything going on. You grimly consider how his chances of getting a good carpentry Ethos like he likely dreams of are probably not good, even if your father was to turn about-face and start training him intensively tomorrow, you doubt it would make a great deal of difference.
Even gaining your father's acceptance, the personal power your Ethea granted you was also a massive help in putting some of your insecurity behind you. If Zach receives a paltry Ethos, that will be a reminder of his 'unworthiness' for the rest of his life. You remember that fear too from before the clearing, the desperate hope for some great Ethos to come rescue you out of your own life. Your success will likely make Zach's probably failure sting even more sharply. It seems that no matter what you can't help but hurt Zach just by existing. Though again, you note with a flare of anger that that is almost entirely your father's fault.
There is a thread you can feel in your soul, another half to {The Ladder}'s message. You concentrate and reach out, nearly missing it. The [Cleaver] is still weak and stressed, but apparently the message was important enough to risk a failed delivery. Concordance (you think that is what you are feeling) is slippery and half-unseen even with {The Ladder} guiding your hands; with some effort, you lay hold of the other thread and reel it in.
Inverted Ethos, Zachariah Silas will receive an Inverted Ethos. High Risk of permanent mental breakdown. High risk of violent reaction amidst early confusion. Piercing Zachariah's soul with your domain can permanently destroy his ability to receive an Ethos.
…
You're alone right now. So no one sees you have a little cry of lament for the cruel twists of fate over Zachariah Silas' life.
Because of course this is what would happen on the heel of finding out how dysfunctional your family has apparently always been. Like you didn't already have enough to do; Now you get consider whether it is better to let your brother most likely become a twisted monster on the day he dearly hopes his life will turn around, or become the monster yourself and rape away his only chance of ever fulfilling his dreams.
You're not sure there is any choice you won't regret forever.
- - -
It's not long before you see a Watchman riding back toward your home. You recognise the cloak even this far out, having seen it in the forest. Legle Tal'k, the metamagican who killed the second stag. You have a short time left while he crosses the remaining distance.
It is a little hard to motivate yourself to get up and moving, pondering Zach's situation has yielded no real answers, but you hold out hope there may be some solution that won't require some horrible tradeoff.
There is something you want to investigate before Legle arrives, you don't let the draining atmosphere of apathy stop you, pushing yourself up and walking over to a single conspicuous ruined rose ground into the dirt. Senus Marnic is a terrible man, you have no doubts; he would be complicit in any of Lord Waters' designs to hurt you with zero hesitation. Which just makes what you want to try and do even more important.
You stand over the rose, probing at it with {Wood Memory}, one of the earliest powers you ever gained. As you suspected, whilst more at home amongst its namesake, any unthinking living object can hold patterns of Essence and is thus a valid target. If there is any scrap of information or perhaps even a lucky insight into some weakness of Marnic's this rose could provide, you'd be foolish not to try for it.
It is difficult. The rose is not wood, it is a not a whole but a smaller part of something and even though you quickly revive it, it had began to die and shed the memories it held in life.
Were it not for your newfound awareness of how essence flows inside living things and {Holistics} in general, it would have been an insurmountable dead end. But after some intense concentration sorting through the chaos that had began to override the order within, you feel {Wood Memory} start to unfold its secrets and a stream of sights and sounds flow into you as you- - - - pleasepleaseicannotitswhatyouitrustedandyouthepainnomoresitstillyoulittlewhatyoudeservesobsijustwanttodieyourlifemyownyourplacechildrenareeasiesttheplacewherethepainhurtahhhcantgofurthertheartefactisthirsty - - - -finish corrupting the memories with {Subversion} such that the only thing you'll remember is this moment when you finished destroying them. The rose has already been ground into mulch and dust against some nearby rocks in the intervening two minutes and fourteen seconds your sense of Essence Time reveals you are now missing. The you who saw the memories within the rose made sure you could never see them again before erasing them from her own head.
Werrible. Wo Wo. (Super Bad. Better Gone.)
Evie has been silent a long time, sensing you were either busy or not in a good place to talk the past few hours. To resurface now means she deemed the current circumstances more important.
You take a moment to consider what on earth would have convinced you to try and irreparably destroy your own memories? You have at least a vague impression of the horrible things it might have revealed, but even your darkest imaginings don't seem like something you would deny your very chance to remember. You can feel the space of disjointed memory within yourself, whatever you saw was large and important. Surely with {Rest State} aiding you, you could slowly repair and understand the scrambled memorie-
Swop! waneweros. (Stop. Infohazard. Do not pry.)
…
You briefly consider doing it anyway, before common sense prevails.
…Okay Evie. If there is one person I trust enough to tolerate 'you are better off never knowing' from, it would be you.
You'd have preferred to find nothing at all, succeeding in your long shot of finding something important within the rose only to have yourself withhold that information was unexpected and honestly rather frustrating, but you can at least trust the you of a few minutes ago was better informed to make that choice and that you'd agree put in the same position.
With nothing more to do, you set out and meet Legle a short way from your home. Your pleasantries are crisp and to the point. He confirms you are heading to the Watch's camp and you let him know of your father's improving condition. You note as you part ways that overall Legle was a bit warmer to you than you remember from the night of the wolves. You guess you've risen a few notches in his eyes thanks to your actions.
That puts a little smile on your face as you walk south toward the palisades visible in the distance. Despite deciding it won't be your source of self-worth anymore, you've still spent most of your life chasing that kind of validation from male authority figures. It just feels good, independent of context.
Months ago that was about as complex as your naive dreams ever got. You achieving some difficult task and receiving the approving nods of the heroic knights you stood equal among. Every step between now and then dismissed as trivial details that would 'just happen'. You laugh at yourself, only a little bitterly. Despite life turning out far less black and white than you ever imagined, you are still proud you've held to your principles when it would have been easy to just give up. Yes, you've seen horrible horrible things, but you've also snatched light out of what seemed like hopeless darkness. Your father is alive, a thousand others too due to your actions.
There's still so much that could go irreparably tragically wrong. You think the road ahead will be… hard. But, worth it. You hope.
- - -
The sky has finished its transition into stary blackness by the time you finish your meandering walk to the Watch's camp.
You've removed the flowers from your dress and simplified the arrangement of your hair, though you can't resist leaving a couple yellow dayflowers in the modest ponytail that flows over your shoulder to rest against your chest. You are still in your blue market dress, not having had the compunction to change out of it before you left the homestead. Normally you'd be worried about your best clothes growing tattered from overuse, but you've come to realise that {Favoured Within} combined with the general reinforcing nature of your own Innate Essence will stop light clothes suffering from wear and tear.
You run your hands through your hair in front of you, mulling over a realisation you've had about Myah on your way. Solidifying your idea that visiting her sooner rather than later is critically important.
The Black Lung is a horrid illness.
Striking seemingly at random, next to impossible to cure, taking it victims through a long and drawn-out torment, before finally, death. Eventually they drown in the secretions it produces, or the lungs just keep failing even if you constantly heal them with magic.
You'll never forget the sucking and wheezing cough that echoed throughout the halls. Jeremey in his death throes. The Temple of Virtue were able to make him safe to see, but could do no more against the Black Lung, once it has its hooks in someone, there is little that can be done.
Myah would sit with her brother for hours on end, holding a one-sided conversation like everything was completely normal. Stories of fun spent in the warm noon-day sun and the antics of other children. There was no reason it should, but both you and Myah agreed the tales seemed to ease Jeremey's fits, his pallid rictus ebbing to a subdued almost peaceful expression in those hours. Myah always saved the tears until after he passed out from the pain.
It broke your heart to see your friend waste away. The light in Myah's eyes grew distant in equal measure to Jeremey's fading strength, you'd never been close to him amongst your group of friends, but you mourned his impeding passing all the same.
Things went quickly after Myah's mother died. The Temple were not able to make her safe to see, none of you were able to visit her and Myah's father could not afford the cost of warding letters to be passed between any of you. The Sisters simply informed Myah and her Father when she'd left the mortal coil.
None of you told Jeremey, he didn't need to bear that weight on top of everything else, but somehow, he knew. Two days later, he passed on too while none of you were there.
That was the day you stopped regularly praying to Aurora. You still believe that she loves all of humankind, but wherever her attention usually rests, you don't think it's Harmuph.
Things never went back to normal after that.
Jeremey, Tarry, Sally, Tunia, Myah, Lilly. You all got along well enough. The others lived in town and you looked forward to every trip where there'd be time to run through the streets or fields together. But Myah didn't want to leave her house after Jeremey, she was cold to you and worse to the others, saying all sorts of horrible things.
It was like a switch, the empathetic kind friend you'd known most of your life suddenly turned into this cold and hurtful creature. It confused you, made you wonder if you'd done something wrong and Myah blamed you somehow.
Tarry, Sally, Tunia stopped trying. You too if you're honest. A token effort here or there, but Myah clearly didn't want to be friends anymore.
And here is where the realisation you've had comes in, because maybe you'd actually still believe the convenient lie that Myah just didn't want to be friends anymore after losing Jeremey if that was the last time you ever saw her.
But the way she acted in Harmuph on your last visit, the strangeness of her essence, {Rest State} giving you the tiniest nudge of something being off about her when you look at those memories, Zach proving you can miss really huge things. It makes you think twice about these things.
No. Myah needs help. She's needed help for months. And you gave up on her no more than a few weeks after Jeremey's death, because she was being mean and prickly. What a stupidly selfish reason. Myah would have died five days from now never seeing any of you again if {The Ladder} hadn't given its warning. Right at the lowest point of her life, when everything was falling apart, all her friends abandoned her, including you.
You can't imagine how you'd feel if one of your brothers died, if Micah was suddenly ripped from your life, your last memories of him an unending ordeal of wracking coughs and seizures before the final bitter end. That is what Myah is going through right now, and just like Zach, you didn't spot what was right in front of you. Not your best moment, or the kind of person you aim to be.
I'm sorry Myah. Truly.
Well, if it's not too late, you're going to try harder this time.
You have your essence healing, you have the {Rest State} to maybe help her find some measure of peace. Given Captain Martin's support of leaving Harmuph in the near future, through him you likely have some measure of circumventing the divination Myah was so insistent to avoid. You don't think she needs to run away from home, but if that is necessary, maybe you can realistically offer that too.
The wooden gates of the Camp lie ahead, you stroll confidently toward them. At least for the next few hours, you know exactly what you want to do.
Choice Time:
*** Make sure you copy paste exactly from the options, the only change is adding 'X's.
*** Approval/Multi-Voting Allowed. (Do it all in one post or tally won't count it properly)
*** Write ins are encouraged. In fact, creative and intelligent ideas receive bonuses on rolls.
First on the List: You don't know why Myah was so eager to leave Harmuph, but it seems you can be her ticket. Why her own father would kill her in 5 days you do not know, but you are not willing to risk other things happening to her first. You're going to Harmuph, after the Watch's camp. Your think it will be fine to simply go to Myah's home and sneak into her bedroom in the early morning, apologise and then offer to help her. Your first instinct is to be quite open with what you can do now so Myah knows that whatever is making her sick or hurting her is something you may have the resources to address. But maybe you're getting caught up in the moment and not thinking this through?
[ ] [FonL] Write In.
While in Town: Will you do anything else in town when you arrive in the early morning, or head back home?
[ ] [WiT] Go to Madam Silva and use your favour in return for an explanation on how Divination works and its common limitations.
[ ] [WiT] Right back home, you'll need to check in on dad again and make sure everything is fine.
[ ] [WiT] Write in.
Boldly forward I go: You are changed in ways you still barely understand. For all that you know of this [Towering Edifice to Heaven] inside you, it only raises more questions. There is so much to learn, but you must focus on something. The future is uncertain, but you will not stop moving forward. (Lilly can progress in other fields, but this will influence her first preference.) Recursive Projection: Deepening my Domain and its impact on reality. Making myself a central fixture around which others orbit. Dissolution: Lvl 1
The facet of Dissolution was null-space. The removal of all that preexists leaving only a bare foundation to build upon. I could learn how to pierce, degrade, remove, fracture, disorientate and jam reality around me. The Material world would simply melt into vapour when I desired so. In time, anything that ran against my goals could simply be willed into nonexistence. Imposition: Lvl 1
The facet of Imposition was the capacity to make any pattern or structure viable. No matter how unstable or unwieldy, I could learn to make it permanent in time. Powers that were meant to be temporary could be slowly and inviolably imbued into the fabric of creation. More than that, I could take inspiration from the material world around me to construct a vast edifice of my own. Hidden within the Dreamspace and other places or wrought forth into reality. Relations: Lvl 1
I have so much I don't want to lose. The facet of Relations was the ultimate safety net, the path to being able to bind literally anything to myself or each other. I could force powers that were unable to synergise with each other to function anyway. I could tie the lifeforce of others into myself so that none could pass from this life so long as I still drew breath. My little Dreamspace would unfold into a vast tapestry of souls. Gravitas Weaving: Expending parts of the Gravitas I have gathered out into the wider world in more prolific forms. Artefacts: Lvl 2
The {Primordial Chassis} was only the beginning. Not only could I learn to grow it in entirely novel directions, but within the facet of Artefacts lay the path of extending several of my other powers into hyper-powerful forms of which I would have almost complete control of the final expression. Given time I could prepare specific artefacts to solve just about any problem. Constructs: Lvl 1
I would take material, and make it better in every conceivable way. Magical items would never run out of power, runes would not lose their charge, potions effects would magnify instead of dwindle. More than this, the facet of Constructs could be split off from myself and become stable in its own right. I could divvy it out to those I trusted alongside weapons and armours beyond mortal kin. Even if I died, my gifts would remain. Entities: Lvl 1
To make life. Even considering the responsibility was a heavy burden, yet here it was within my grasp. Through the facet of Entities, I could bud aspects of my own mind and goals off into copies and raise these facsimiles into almost any shape and purpose. They would not be mindless though, these things would likely not be as intelligent as humans, but I would be kidding myself to claim they were anything less than alive. I don't think this was mother's meaning when she said I should make new friends.
[ ] [Bfig] Dissolution <- Undoing the world.
[ ] [Bfig] Imposition <- Creating the world.
[ ] [Bfig] Relations <- Entwining the world.
[ ] [Bfig] Artefacts <- The creation of tremendous relics.
[ ] [Bfig] Constructs <- The manifestation of wonderous materials.
[ ] [Bfig] Entities <- The spark of mortal Will.
[ ] [Bfig] Write in. (Dual/Triple/etc split focus)
There's always More: With so many new powers, you need to start prioritising. On the way to Harmuph you will have time to experiment, but which of your many powers do you want to try and learn more of the inner workings of?
[ ] [TaM] Golden Rapture
[ ] [TaM] Whispers of Life
[ ] [TaM] In thy Likeness
[ ] [TaM] Collective Communion
[ ] [TaM] Riemannian Geometer
[ ] [TaM] Ply the Line
[ ] [TaM] The Ladder
[ ] [TaM] Imposition of Intent
[ ] [TaM] Contention Prognosticator
[ ] [TaM] Pulse Surge
[ ] [TaM] Melded Carapace
[ ] [TaM] True Song} (Investigate Repairs
[ ] [TaM] Objective Awareness
[ ] [TaM] Rest State
[ ] [TaM] Stray Vector
[ ] [TaM] Unknown Evie Ability Slot-2
[ ] [TaM] Subversion
[ ] [TaM] Artefacts
[ ] [TaM] Write in. (If you really want to focus on a specific sub-ability}
(Lilly will likely investigate a couple/few top votes)
The Throttle: When left to its own devices, {The Ladder} will effortlessly deliver intelligent information to you. It will always be helpful, but is never guarantied to come when you wish for it. You have pushed through a closed door and gained access to the reins of such a power, but steering it yourself will always strain the process making it drop in overall frequency and quality.
Sometimes demanding an answer takes very little, other times it can take a huge amount. How do you wish to use this new dimension of control. (This eats into the same reserve as {Sample Space})
[ ] [TT] One question a day, or whenever I feel my reserve has become completely full. (Default+, how the Ladder has been working but tweaked to not waste potential when at full reserve. Operates best at pre-warning of long-term dangers.)
[ ] [TT] In life or death circumstances. The cost for such things is often exorbitant, but worth it. (Less effective at all other times, long term predictions few and far between.)
[ ] [TT] Whenever I feel the cost would be low, avoiding high cost questions. (more frequent short term advice, less effective at long-term ramifications and unforeseen domino effects)
[ ] [TT] Write in.
(Options are pre-weightings. Lilly can try to ask {The Ladder} questions whenever, but this is what you are setting it to be best geared towards.).
No Good Choice: What you know of your brother's approaching Ethos weighs on you heavily, the risks it will pose to him and others terrifies you. The question of what to do in the coming days must be addressed. Do you speak with Zachariah about this, tell him what is likely going to happen? You're not even sure if it is safe for people to know, given the reputation of Inverted Ethea perhaps no one outside your family could be trusted. Do you tell Zach about what you could do to stop it? He'd never accept such an offer. Besides, after everything you have inadvertently taken from him, robbing your brother of an Ethos would be the capstone to top all betrayals; he'd hate you forever. But what if it's the only way to save him?
[ ] [NGC] Write in.
Additional Considerations:If there is an idea you want Lilly to keep in mind or some action not related to any voting option you think she should do, 'Additional Considerations' is the place to put it.
[ ] [AC] Write in.
Next Interlude Vote:
[ ] [NIV] Razgul on the Run (Goblinoids)
[ ] [NIV] A walk amongst the Daisies (Preteen girl in Lira)
[ ] [NIV] The end of the Second Era (Cosmic Lore)
[ ] [NIV] Meanwhile across the Ocean (Human Far-West)
[ ] [NIV] The Lantern's Eye: "Find Penelope" (2 Years Ago, West Narisell)
- - - - - - - - - -
Author's Notes
- Imagine you are a young boy, right at that formative age where you look to men around you (your father especially) and try to emulate them. Yet while your friends are each taking a more active role in their father's trades, yours is almost always 'too tired' or 'too busy' to invest that time in you. His best efforts instead focused on your sister. Imagine the resentment that could start to form as you watch your sister grudgingly obey and suffer through lessons you'd jump at the chance to be apprenticed in.
Then, your sister goes missing and your world turns upside down. You regret every bad thought you ever had and blame yourself for wasting the time you had with her on petty jealously. The Diviner's word is given and you mourn your sister's death alongside your family, going to bed with a spikey ball of grief and pain that stabs your heart each hour.
But, days turn to weeks and though the pain is still there, it is time to start thinking of what happens now. There is no doubt that you must take on the responsibility to be trained in your father's art. It is a strange mix of excitement and guilt that you feel, getting what you want at the cost of your sister's disappearance. You feel a pang of shame each time the excitement hits you, pushing it down.
You always wished your father had picked you, always wondered why you were not his choice. It wasn't worth losing your sister even a little, but there is a spark of true joy there that even the guilt can't subdue.
Then, your sister returns home. And you are overjoyed beyond words to have the missing piece that had been ripped from your heart returned.
But things are different now, you are glad to have your sister back, of course. But that hope you kindled in her absence can no longer be quashed, you can't help but think of it every time you see her. Your sister has run away and returned home, your father's response is long trips together into the city and special attention from strangers presumably paid for by father at some great cost. Your sister is back and somehow even more of the favourite than ever before, getting everything she wants, and you are forgotten again. You've always thought she didn't appreciate your father's love, the fact that she has been rewarded for effectively spitting in his face, everything swept under the rug, you can't really describe just how sick that makes you feel.
You still love her, of course you do. But now there is something else there too when you look at her, something sickly and dark festering in half-thoughts and petty emotions. As wrong as it feels, you don't want to let go of it.
Because if it's not your sister's fault, then there is only one other option left. It's yours. The simple truth is you just don't deserve any better. So the hook finds its purchase, and Manoth's Translation Channel begins its delivery.
- Clarification on {The Ladder} telling you about stuff your other powers can do.
This only really works for low-hanging fruit. The kind of thing where just being told you can do it with zero further explanation is enough to let you figure out how. It also runs the risk of being a non-optimised solution; it's an answer on how to do something, but not necessarily an endorsement.
- The 'Tutor for Lilly' as reward conversation just didn't come up, but will be addressed in the coming days at an appropriate time.
- - - - - - - - - -
- Honestly I don't remember many of the others, it's been so long since I looked at the rolls outline and it got gradually replaced as I drafted the chapter anyway.
- You didn't get suckered into being overly influenced by Captain Martin's opinions and demonstrated you have a level head on your shoulders.
- You aced essence rolls up to and including deciphering the link to the 'bush' Senus clips his roses from.
- Started your rolls with Zach well but kind of baulked it at the end there.
- Had some excellent self-introspection rolls for Myah that will help you not step on relationship landmines down the track.
- Passed the roll to unlock the meta-knowledge of Zach's impending Inverted Ethos 'In Character'
- - - - - - - - - -
Current XP: [Dream within the Forest] Lvl 5: 809/2100 (+20) [Brave Blood] Lvl 3: 963/1000 (+2) [Cleaver of Fortune] Lvl 3: 734/1000 (+10) [Effervescent Animus] Lvl 2: 3080/6000 (+47) [My Resolution, Thy Bedrock] Lvl 0: 48/100 (+34)
- - [Towering Edifice to Heaven] Lvl 0: 116.5/10000 (+57.0)
Character Sheet, Maps, Photos: Public - It's a Girl's World
There are three secret challenges for 2.3
A simple one with an unknown boon.
An unlikely one with a Tier/Grasp boost boon.
A left-field one with an 'oh thank goodness we know' boon.
I... I don't feel that saving Zach is impossible, but it's going to require help, and support that he wouldn't normally get, because those tools are barred from mortals. And I think Manoth would get... Testy if we took someone he paid resources for and blocked him out--and I don't want to get the Mad Scientist Super Weaver upset with us. (While he's likely to provide tacit support if we manage to get his newest Target of Interest out of the dragnet and stabilized so he doesn't burn out too quickly)
We know for instance that Ev'aclial considered an (Inverted) Essence Ethos to be a key asset because she knew she could get a lot of shit done with Negative Essence, so the tools to mitigate it almost certainly exist within [Towering Edifice to Heaven], we just need to figure out what those are.
Relations at least is step one. Share the load so he doesn't snap with him, get him tied in with [My Resolution, Thy Bedrock] to stabilize his mental state.
Hmm, I suspect the left-field challenge is projecting just what the fuck it was that Lilly went and infohazarded out based on the gigantic dark text babble that got spat out before the discontinuity--and more importantly, why she did it (Which means we're guarded against running into it again) My thoughts are that it's some kind of Auron Trap? The rose carries some kind of Flow or Concordance based carrier wave that reacts to inquiry with a subversive attack, buried inside its Essence pattern that would make Lilly much more pliable to further manipulation.
Or alternately, it carried a {Blank} Effect, and means that we very much do not want to get into their power. Hence the reaction to even trying to remember why we deleted it having Evie go "Nope! Infohazard! Don't think about it!" It was described as literally the 'End of Thought' and suggests there's a very scary conspiracy run by a metastable (Inverted) Flow wielder that Waters' court is a finger of.
Anyway, I have to go to bed now, but it was great to see the update before then! I'll sleep on the choices. I do feel Relations and bringing {True Song} back online are going to be key to helping Zach get through the rest of this. The rest though is going to be communication.
Every chapter, we get progressively more screwed. Maybe we should've just picked Form Fracture, wouldn't have needed to deal with all this sad emotion stuff
alright, I took a moment to try and parse out the remains of what the rose held a little more clearly.
I'm going to guess that it's a dialogue between Marnus and one of his victims, most likely Kaymie I'd guess: (brackets are my guesses as to what is missing, attributions as to who's speaking what are also my own)
[Kaymie]: please please i cannot
[Marnus]: its what you (deserve)
[M]: i trusted (you) and you (betrayed me?)
[K]: the pain no more
[M]: sit still you little (slur)
[M]: (it's) what you deserve
[K]: sobs
[K]: i just want to die
[M]: your life (is) my own (know) your place
[M]: children are easiest
[K??]: the place where the pain hurt
[K]: ahhh cant go further
[M]: the artefact is thristy
I'm going to assume that the context is some sort of torture and/or rape, which is probably what powers whatever artifact he's talking about (possibly the bush the rose is clipped from, but might be something else)
Wrt Myah I think it's increasingly likely that she's acquired an Inverted Ethos, which is why she has Negative Essence hanging around her (which we neutralised with our own Eseence when we touched her.
It was like a switch, the empathetic kind friend you'd known most of your life suddenly turned into this cold and hurtful creature. It confused you, made you wonder if you'd done something wrong and Myah blamed you somehow.
Myah's asking for something you don't have and can't give. You reach out and touch her shoulder to say "I'm sorry Myah, but I can't- oh" you pause as you watch your own natural energy begin to billow and slough off yourself in thick currents, a stream flows out and onto Myah. As this happens the odd pallor around her is saturated and scoured, coming to resemble what you would consider an ordinary appearance.
Myah for her part is equally distracted, breathing a sign of deep relief as your natural energy blankets her. You pull back your hand and the flow quickly peters out. You muse that you are in fact doing a terrible job at 'not make people ask questions' as you notice Myah's energy slowly start to pale once more. Whatever the strange effect, it was temporary. Myah's relief turns to some sort of hard expression that you can't read.
The reason she was so insistent on us helping her leave Harmuph is most likely that she suspects that her Ethos is/has Inverted, so she's trying to get out to avoid getting merced by the Watch. The reason her father is going to strangle her could be that he finds out about it in five days.
Alternatively it could be that she's the victim of someone else's Inverted Ethos, but her own Ethos being Inverted is a much better fit to what we know atm imo.
That raises the question then as to how we should approach Myah if she has an Inverted Ethos. Because I can't imagine that sheltering her is going to endear us with the Watch Captain.
The most obvious thing we can do for her would be to supply her with Essence, as that seems to alleviate whatever effects the Negative Essence has on her. This might carry the risk of strengthening her Ethos however, if it works on some sort of vampire mechanics.
A more ambitious thing to try would be to attempt to "revert" her Ethos, though that seems like the thing I'd much rather have a more fully grown version of Evie around for. {Subversion} and {Rest State} are what I'd be looking for there. It'd probably be easier to try on Myah than someone fully grown as she's had the Ethos only for a very short time, so the Inverted Ethos probably isn't embedded too deeply in her soul yet.
In either case we'll have to approach her first and try to make sure she doesn't come to harm. Depending on what the threat from her father is exactly (whether he finds out she has an Inverted Ethos or it's him who's hurting her) just cancelling her Negative Essence with our own might be enough to keep her safe for the next week at least.
While I think that Lilly's first instinct to talk to her and see if we can help is probably right, I'd add that we might want to spend some time observing her house and the essence flows first, assuming we can identify and trace Negative Essence as well as regular one.
This is probably be wildly off base but maybe the rose was an attempt by Flower to make us more amendable to her goals. This is not supported or to use a made up desupported by the text the rose actually gave.
This is probably be wildly off base but maybe the rose was an attempt by Flower to make us more amendable to her goals. This is not supported or to use a made up desupported by the text the rose actually gave.
Yeah, I doubt it. My guess is that it's something Senus created. How this interacts with Wood Memory is another question, but in my inexpert opinion this isn't Flower.
'please please i cannot its what you i trusted and you the pain no more sit still you little what you deserve sobs i just want to die your life my own your place children are easiest the place where the pain hurt ahhh cant go further the artefact is thristy'
I'm guessing that this is an interaction between Senus and one of his 'pets'.
'please please i cannotits what youi trustedand youthe pain no moresit still you little what you deservesobs i just want to dieyour life my own your place children are easiestthe place where the pain hurtahhh cant go further the artefact is thristy'
Even still, it's kind of nonsensical. So I'm wondering if this is more than two people. Maybe a third person with Senus, and maybe even a second 'pet'. Another possibility is that these lines aren't all happening in one exchange. Sort of like the memory is compiling random moments scattered over the past whenever. This could be linear progression, but jumping through time and conversations would still make it confusing. Of course this doesn't have to be exclusive their being more than just two people. Also, I'm unsure about that 'ahhh'. It could be the prisoner in pain, or Senus being a sadist. Either out of pleasure, or out of resignation that he can't go further. As for the Artefact, and how the rose might present an 'Infohazard' beyond the mundane trauma of seeing these things, I don't know.
Alternatively it could be that she's the victim of someone else's Inverted Ethos, but her own Ethos being Inverted is a much better fit to what we know atm imo.
Myah is afraid you'll find out the truth that no one is allowed to know. Will become angry as an attempt to deflect your suspicion unless you punch her in the face right now.
Myah's hair is a deep maroon that flows in rivulets down and off her shoulders nearly to her waist. That detail is less than a year old. Her hair brown before her awakening, some consequence of her Ethos.
A sickly beggar camped at an intersection of roads, not really that noteworthy. That is if his natural energy wasn't a morbid reminder and grimmer reflection of Myah's. You recognise the likeness in how the languid flows churn like sludge, straining to circulate as if they may seize up and go still at any time.
So Myah has had an Ethos for around a year. In addition to that, this effect isn't limited to her and it presumably gets progressively worse over time. Lilly 'scoured' it on Myah, to which she reacted positively, but it was only a temporary effect. While I can't even begin to guess what Myah's Ethos is, I wouldn't expect it to be Inverted. At least with how they've been described. I can buy her trying to hide from the guard, going to a Diviner and trying to get out of Harmuph, and her dad killing her over an Inverted Ethos but it's just been such a long time. This on top of it not being exclusive to her, and the corrupted wild life, leads me to believe there's some fuckery going on here. Slyvena has even teased about what's responsible for the corrupted wildlife and their attack. There are certainly plenty of mysteries, already on top of all these new worries. When I first read that chapter in Harmuph, I was under the impression that what Myah was afflicted with was some form of sickness. Maybe, but it's clearly supernatural. This happening at the same time as the wildlife attack, and now these human threats, is terrible. Lilly really doesn't seem ready for this, and we now have to contend with Zach. Though, if it's any consolation, I would bet on the corrupted wildlife and this apparent sickness being linked. I just think it'd be incredibly unlikely for two things like this to happen at the same time. So maybe solving one solves the other.
I'm not one of the expert in this thread, but I hope this helps them.
Edit: The color was borked. Also, I can't help but feel like I'm tempting fare by trying to be optimistic. Also, I guess I was pretty on point with my speculation about the Tithe way back when. But I, and I think the thread, didn't realize the scope. So I was kind of right, but I had no clue just how much worse it was.
Well, there's a lot to go through, but I have to go to work soon. A few reactions:
Narisel's motto being "We Serve" makes a bit more sense now. We got raised in the the vassaliest vassal state.
"Captain Martin, I just told you that I am an unprecedented abomination. You're taking this far too well."
So Pithe can be kited out, but the rest should be killed quickly. I mean, "killing the enemy quickly" is Combat 101, but at least we now know the reasons why.
Turns out when you tell a Captain about a traitor, and you give him all the clues, and he knows all of them personally, he can do the detective work himself. Who knew?
Inverted Oath actually sounds awfully similar to Valerie's power.
I'm not liking how the Ladder says "Zach WILL get an Inverted Ethos" and then lists the risks and the most prominent solution. The Ladder's not big on making absolute statements if it doesn't have to, so this feels a bit inevitable. On the other hand, the Ladder only makes its calculations based on the Ethae and abilities we CURRENTLY have, and we keep saying that we want to get a Flow Ethos anyway...
Rampant speculation: what if the true "infohazard" is knowledge of the artifact itself? You know, one of those "once you learn its name, it learns yours" type of deal.
...I'm sorry, did Martin say they sterilize a Tithe's family who want to come to Lira if they aren't worth a title? Gosh, there's taxation without representation, and then there's THIS hot garbage.
Relations is what I'm leaning towards, if only to try and figure out how to share Self-Worth with Zach.
Anyways, I'll think more about plans and such later.
A lot happened here, but I feel the Black Lung could important, depending on where it happens. Seemingly random, can't be stopped with magic? If this only happens in Narisell and other places like it, that's probably because all the really good healers are Tithed and somewhere else where it doesn't happen as much because it can be treated by the,.
But if it comes up in Lira and is a problem that can't be solved there? Something is afoot.
So. Rome and Carthage are duking it out, everybody else just gets to deal. Waters looks even more like a small fish in the face of this, unfortunately that doesn't really help us much even if the Tithe weren't bad news all on it own.
Senus is a complete monster, no news there. Not sure what's going on with the rose but
You aced essence rolls up to and including deciphering the link to the 'bush' Senus clips his roses from him.
depending on whether "from him" is a typo they might be some kind of link/control vector? The text could be an amalgamation of memories or just a projection of intent but I don't think it's Kaymie specifically. He appears to be a complete sadist who enjoys breaking children specifically but the "artifact is thirsty" implies he's also gaining power from this somehow.
The whole situation with Zach is just fucked. I know they're kids but I can't help but feel everyone involved is being really unfair to everyone else and themselves. Lilly's dad is hardly perfect but Lilly of all people ought to at least understand if not condone why he did it after what happened to his sisters. As for what to do about it, I don't know if sitting everyone down and explaining what's going to happen will help, but we have to at least try. Inverted Ethos or no, I'm never going to be on board with just mutilating his soul without his consent.
Turns out when you tell a Captain about a traitor, and you give him all the clues, and he knows all of them personally, he can do the detective work himself. Who knew?
Maybe? It does fit, especially the self modification even if isn't physical but with Abby I'm not sure that's the case.
I'm not liking how the Ladder says "Zach WILL get an Inverted Ethos" and then lists the risks and the most prominent solution. The Ladder's not big on making absolute statements if it doesn't have to, so this feels a bit inevitable. On the other hand, the Ladder only makes its calculations based on the Ethae and abilities we CURRENTLY have, and we keep saying that we want to get a Flow Ethos anyway...
Um, I'm not really sure raping Zack's mind instead of his soul is any better. On flow itself it's definitely handy but the description of Mana Ethea makes me want one even more.
Rampant speculation: what if the true "infohazard" is knowledge of the artifact itself? You know, one of those "once you learn its name, it learns yours" type of deal.
Maybe? I'm feeling more like the Rose is some kind of direct link to the bastard and/or it's just the direct mental and emotional experience of what exactly he does to people as opposed to the more abstract if still horrifying knowledge.
...I'm sorry, did Martin say they sterilize a Tithe's family who want to come to Lira if they aren't worth a title? Gosh, there's taxation without representation, and then there's THIS hot garbage.
They're the assholes who rule over all the other assholes. Gotta uphold their reputation. I'm guessing they're trying to prevent an ever growing and likely hostile populace from taking root inside their own borders. Anyone above a certain level has their minds broken anyway, the Tithed themselves wouldn't be a threat. But considering they draw from so many different kingdoms you could end up with an extremely large number of resentful families and their descendants over time. Allowing their families to come helps keep them pliable, especially the ones weak enough to retain their free will, makes collection less of a hassle, and keeps those same families from trying to cause trouble in their home countries.
So if I am reading stuff right Valerie has an Inverted Oath power. She imposes her will on others, and takes away their free will in a very direct fashion. Perhaps an Inverted Bound Oath likely since she talks to abby like all the time. By now she seems to maybe have Dedication since she was able to command objects to do her will as well.
Wrt Myah I think it's increasingly likely that she's acquired an Inverted Ethos, which is why she has Negative Essence hanging around her (which we neutralised with our own Eseence when we touched her.
There is also a simpler possible explanation. Her father is abusing her, and she wants to escape him. He kills her in five days to prevent her from telling anyone.
With respect to Zach, I wonder if there is any way we can exert the full power of our Domain that we can presently bring to bear, to stake our claim and make him ours. With control we either connect him to another source, or guide the expression of Manoth's power into a form that will not harm him in body or mind.
If it were something that could be done quickly, Cleaver of Fortune could guide our hand. Or we could use a daily question and ask The Ladder.
There is also a simpler possible explanation. Her father is abusing her, and she wants to escape him. He kills her in five days to prevent her from telling anyone.
With respect to Zach, I wonder if there is any way we can exert the full power of our Domain that we can presently bring to bear, to stake our claim and make him ours. With control we either connect him to another source, or guide the expression of Manoth's power into a form that will not harm him in body or mind.
If it were something that could be done quickly, Cleaver of Fortune could guide our hand. Or we could use a daily question and ask The Ladder.
Are we powerful enough for that? Manoth and his ilk are a big deal, and while we're pretty unusual I don't think we're anywhere near their weight class yet, if ever. Baby Evie might be a good source for that, though I don't know if she remembers enough.
Hmm, lots to think on but I'll go with some first impressions and thoughts/lines of thought I had. Will consider a vote a bit later.
Ethea Infodump: Oath and Flow are the ones that most interest me, probably because they're the most mysterious to us. I've been trying to think of applications based on Martin's description and often linking them back to some past events as a sort of "for example could it..." workshop.
Starting with the Rapid Iterator, I'm reminded of the exchange we overheard when the Watch was trying to determine the nature of the threat:
{{Moll Yannicks}}: "Is this just Rampancy, or is it Broken?"
{{Captain Martin}}: "We'd be dead if it was Broken. Stay focused."
{{Plasil Wam}}: "We're still a half hours distance away and it has this much reach. How was it able to build so long unnoticed?"
{{Captain Martin}}: "I also suspect foul play. Questions for tomorrow; tonight, we have a job to do."
Now foul play can take many forms here. One of the more benign, relatively speaking, would be that the authorities restricted and controlled information on the presence of the Iterator so it could develop to the level it had. However, in light of this info dump... I wonder if another possible interpretation of foul play would be if they can be tampered with using the right abilities. We're told Flow users/Psions interact with "The Construct" and given Foundational Ethea are dungeons I see a potential for crossover here. We're further told Psions can warp "even the most good-natured people into absolute monsters given enough time." Can a Foundational Ethea be likewise warped? Even if it doesn't normally ping as a manipulable living thing, we're told that Flow's general Rank-Up leads to the concept of what qualifies as a "mind" becomes looser. On the other hand, could Oath affect them? To say nothing of someone summoning something way too strong for them going rogue there's also this potentially terrifying stack that comes to mind. "Increasing flexibility within Soul. Affect non-humans more easily, leave soul-effects residing latently in material or immaterial spaces." Now, let's suppose you're someone who somehow has knowledge of where a Foundational Ethea is planned to take root - given The Ladder can project when people will receive their Ethos I think it's reasonable to think a sufficiently powerful Concordance user may be able to discern a location where a Foundational Ethea is planned to take root. Now what if you use that knowledge to have an Oath user leave "soul-effects" lingering in that area ahead of time with the intent to corrupt/twist/bend it for your purposes? Could that work?
Geopolitics: Some interesting stuff here but limited by Martin's PoV here. He obviously, and explicitly, favors Alenria and makes a decent case for it both by description and comparison to the others, but that 100% looks like we'd be walking into a war with it trying to break free of the upper kingdoms and all the intrigue that may come with that. I'm not necessarily opposed to such a thing but given Martin's desire to rise in the ranks, the political situation, and us being us we'd surely be taking a starring role in the rebellion. It's also sketchy that he was evasive on how they were gaining their power. Parisi sounds like it would be a good "well let's take the time to figure out our decision" destination... if not for the fact that one of the few places it isn't connected to is Lolisv which sounds like the next-best end goal here. Lolisv is also close to The Still Eye which not going to lie super interested in. (It looks like a tower there in the middle of that lake. Could it be the "empty kingdom" that the "Yaugry" sits in?) Finally, Martin says he doesn't know much about the overseas empire of Tosliav which means we're actually more informed maybe because the opening tells us it is "crumbling from inside itself" and trying to hide that fact. Might make it less appealing. ...Or more if we think we can rise from the ashes there? Might be a feasible option if we decide this continent is just a bad place to be.
Tithe: Kind of a subsection of geopolitics, but Martin notes that Lilly as she is would be considered too powerful to keep her free will. Does he mean this figuratively in that we'd be under constant surveillance? Or is this more literal in that our actual free will would be stripped away? Inverted Oath users are mentioned to be able to bypass the consent requirements of their powers. A Flow user/Psion could probably just warp the subject's mind to acheive a similar effect. Inverted Flow sounds like they perform an extreme version of this to people regularly. Definitely getting the impression that Flow Users/Psions are likely to be at the top of most political foodchains and/or heavily used in enforcement because those powers are just nasty.
Zach: Well. This isn't good. I'm opposed to taking away his ability to get an Ethos. I'm afraid Lilly trying to warn him here could backfire given how stressed their relationship is and could encourage him to take the Inverted Ethos. I think our best odds is to try and improve his situation/family relationships we can in the few days we have with Bedrock and just plain being supportive and... maybe try to use Cleaver to throw as much weight as we can to nudge the "fate lines" to have him pick a non-Inverted Ethea as a much larger application of Lilly's experiments with it before. It's still extremely manipulative and gross but Ladder shut down my desperate "Well, hey, despite what Martin says we might be able to help try and stabilize an Inverted Ethos!Zach" thoughts with that grim assessment. That or we leave it to the dice/fate and let him pick what he picks and deal with the consequences after.
Myah: Yeah, I'm in agreement we found an Inverted Essence user here. It explains so much: Why Lilly, an Essence prodigy is getting "wrong" signals from her, absorbing essence from Lilly, why she's so desperate to flee, why she wants a means to evade detection (since Martin implies Inverted Ethea users are killed basically as policy), and perhaps even why it ends up being her father. I think it fits with what we know of her circumstances too. If she had her Ethea selection after the deaths of her family she'd be in a bad mental place like Zach is now. It could have taken the form of despair (Perhaps Myah was a natural healer and the irony of the timing caused an inversion such that she became an Essence vampire) or the Necromancy side of things from a wish that she could bring her brother and mother back somehow.
The Rose: Yikes. I don't want to linger on whatever the exact nature of the content may have been too much but Evie flagging it as an infohazard is potentially alarming. The mention of the "artefact" sticks out to me the most. I think that's the key here in terms of "useful information." Is it fueled by pain or suffering? What purpose does it serve?
Black Lung: I had always been treating this as a kind of fantasy tuberculosis but I'm beginning to sharply revise that opinion. Resistant to healing? Given the scope of healing we've seen thus far? No, this now flags as unnatural in cause. Inverted Essence? An attack by an outer plane entity from a Bound Oath user? One of those "lingering soul-effects" mentioned as an Oath Rank-Up perk?
Are we powerful enough for that? Manoth and his ilk are a big deal, and while we're pretty unusual I don't think we're anywhere near their weight class yet, if ever. Baby Evie might be a good source for that, though I don't know if she remembers enough.
We would have the advantages of proximity and sole focus. We also have warning of what will occur, so we can prepare.
...perhaps an Artifact could also solve the problem, somehow. What if we made something that preserved Zach's body and mind from unwanted changes?
Edit: He wants to be a carpenter, a worker of plants. We could try asking Petal for help connecting him to something suitable. She might know how. And knows Lilly's power better than Lilly does. She would know better if any plans to stand against or divert Manoth might be plausible.
He appears to be a complete sadist who enjoys breaking children specifically but the "artifact is thirsty" implies he's also gaining power from this somehow.
I forgot to include the bit about the 'bush'. I figure that's what it means when he says the artifact is 'thirsty'. So this gives me little doubt that the rose, presumably coming from that artifact or 'bush', isn't a normal flower. Guessing what kind of effect it's intended to have is another thing though.
Artefacts are unlikely to solve the problem here. The issue is that our domain is in fact, not very large and extending it so far is likely at least a few levels away. We prioritized safety from detection over control and wider range.
Artefacts are unlikely to solve the problem here. The issue is that our domain is in fact, not very large and extending it so far is likely at least a few levels away. We prioritized safety from detection over control and wider range.
Artifacts have vast potential, and they're the aspect of Towering Edifice to Heaven that we've most developed at the moment. So I think there's a chance. But we don't know.
Perhaps our first step is seeking information and advice. We can ask The Ladder, Inner Lilly, and Cleaver of Fortune what might be workable.
The night approaches and the Captain must depart for now, he will fetch some a guard to remain near the household, there are also other forms of interception he already instructed to be in place further out to help protect your home. For now, he must go address the traitor you brought up (to some anti-climax) during the discussion. He already suspects he knows exactly who it is and Kaymie's warning has only helped him narrow it down somehow.
