- Location
- Omniverse #1345
Given enough time a remnant can become... a lot more than a remnant. For example a Monarch
Path of the Immeasurable Swarm [Worm/Cradle]
- Thread starter derivativeoflife
- Start date
- Crossover
Hmmm thinking on it the primary reason Taylor got a Practical Goldsign is less directly molding what it is and more directing where it manifested with the Context of the Actual Remnant doing the Rest if that makes any sense
With her presumably planning it out beforehand with some potential discussion with Charity on how that might be accomplished
With any choosing what it is being more a matter of Stacking the metaphorical Deck for getting what she wanted rather than a Guarantee with premeditating location on the body and a Creature who's madras and body plan could conceivably be used for such and what got picked was also aligned with her plan for the path to walk
With her presumably planning it out beforehand with some potential discussion with Charity on how that might be accomplished
With any choosing what it is being more a matter of Stacking the metaphorical Deck for getting what she wanted rather than a Guarantee with premeditating location on the body and a Creature who's madras and body plan could conceivably be used for such and what got picked was also aligned with her plan for the path to walk
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- Location
- Argentina
Not quite. In Taylor own words being a Ward was a waste of time as nothing she did as one really mattered because Jack Slash still set Zion off. Also when asked Taylor outright said she was not going to become a Hero once she hit 18. For her being a Ward was community service something she did because she had to. Oh sure some things were good like the Book Club and training Golem but overall being a Ward just taught Taylor how useless the Heroes were at dealing with the end of the world.
- Location
- Netherlands
That's only true in a very stretched interpretation of Taylor's speech at the end.
Unless you're speaking about something else, we never got Taylor explicitly saying anything of what you're talking about, which includes claiming Taylor wouldn't join the Protectorate because "they're useless".
I agree it's a loose fit, definitely the weakest of the examples I gave, but I think Taylor's general mission against the S9, training Golem, and Endbringer fights as Weaver all sort of count towards the lesson I'm imagining, even if it didn't directly work out in the end. She bides her time and makes the best of her "community service" rather than raging against the machine at every opportunity (or at least rages sufficiently inside the bounds of the machine to not break everything), at the very least. When it all collapses she still ends up back with the Undersiders and trying to take control eventually leading into Khepri, but I don't think that completely invalidates her attempts to work within the system. If enough people had continued to work together to the best of their ability to the very end, Taylor probably would never have become Khepri, she'd have gone down with the ship instead. I haven't read the end of Worm since it was released though, so maybe I'm misremembering her characterization.
There might be a better takeaway in terms of "battle against your past self" for the Weaver/Wards section of Worm, but I'm not sure exactly what it'd be. "No good deed goes unpunished" seems worse.
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- Location
- Argentina
Taylor specifically wanted to leave the Wards and go back to her friends and was really frustrated how the Heroes were doing nothing to stop the end of the world. Yes her time as a Ward helped Taylor do several things but she mostly felt it was not really worth it. She got her GED, had her book club, trained Golem and helped against Endbringers and big threats. However the personal cost it had for Taylor, how ineffective the Heroes were and how when Golden Morning Came Taylor literally had to sacrifice herself to MIND CONTROL PEOPLE TO WORK TOGETHER TO SAVE THE WORLD taught Taylor that it really wasn't worth it.
If Taylor had actually been able to stop Jack Slash for good and it was something else that set the end of the world, it would be different.
As it is Taylor felt that what she did as Weaver was mostly a waste of time that didn't really change things for the better.
That's why she didn't want to stay with the Heroes, they were coworkers but they weren't friends and she literally saw how their rules and regulations didn't help to make things better.
Weaver Taylor would be Taylor ability to compromise and work with people she doesn't like but also a reminder that doesn't mean you will get what you want no matter how much you sacrifice for it.
Taylor Remnant cannot be Khepri for the simple reason Khepri is QA and Taylor together. Taylor has also literally been basically Weaver since she got to Cradle in the sense she ended working for others in exchange for stuff she needed and wanted. The difference is that in this case it mostly worked out.
Her Remmant being Ward Weaver would be a nice conflict because it literally would be a reminder that working in the system and making compromises may actually not be worth what you sacrificed in the end.
Any other aspect of Taylor either cannot be the Remmant or wouldn't be that hard for Taylor to accept.
Skitter? Right now Taylor is basically in Skitter mode as in being an Underdog working with friends and allies against superior foes.
So yeah the Remmant has to be Weaver, a self hating one that also hates Taylor and would remind her how little she got from her time as a Ward.
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I somewhat agree with these (although she's only been "Weaver since she got to Cradle" in the "compromising with corrupt institution" sense not the "uncompromising depressive march towards goal" sense, she's actually been happy in Cradle) but the part that I don't think works as well as her having to fight a remnant of Khepri is that her current conflict isn't really as much about if it's worth working within the system and compromising to achieve something, she's already kind of past that with Malice dead and Taylor already on board committed with some version of Eithan's plan to free Cradle from Monarchs. And she never really even had an outside-the-system path possibility like Weaver did. Now she's one / one-and-a-half / two advancements from being the uncontested most powerful person in the clan, depending on how you figure it. Instead it seems like Khepri is more relevant to her current crisis - should she continue to try to work with others, even as their allies and resources seem insufficient and others powerful enough to help act selfishly, or should she mutilate herself to enforce her absolute control and force a solution?
Although you could argue this was the case at the end of her time as Weaver as well, she worked within the system until it completely failed and left her on the world stage? I could see either, but it's harder for me to see a Weaver remnant delivering Taylor a "this is why you suck" speech w/r/t being complicit with Malice's regime for naught than a Khepri remnant taunting her with alternating visions of all-powerful-Taylor-administrator and complete defeat and the deaths of her friends if she refuses that control.
I've never read Cradle, but I can imagine Taylor having to make the advancement and fight the Khepri remnant along with Hera.
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- Location
- Netherlands
Pinklestia, you're arguing recursively. You're claiming something, and then using that claim to justify itself.
"She hated having been Weaver, because see, she says she regretted everything she did" doesn't really work when you don't have any proof that everything isn't actually everything.
Speculatively, and with more support than your claim, you could say she considered that her and the Undersiders were terrible for each other, bringing out the worst in the both of them, and so it'd perhaps be better if she found people more suited to her (because, ultimately, the Undersiders were United more by circumstances than actually having anything in common).
It's wonky, but it at least doesn't go as directly against what we see.
You're confining Taylor's regrets to her time as a Ward when that discussion at the end with Contessa is a retrospective on her entire career.
Unless, and forgive me for repeating myself, you're referring to something other than the end of Worm, Taylor never expressed the majority of what you claim she does, or more specifically it was not about solely her time as Weaver, but as her time as a cape as a whole.
"She hated having been Weaver, because see, she says she regretted everything she did" doesn't really work when you don't have any proof that everything isn't actually everything.
Never stated, never specified, and the epilogue in canon makes it directly clear that her friends are PART of what she regretted, since she symbolically walks away from them by not engaging with the Alec look-alike.
Speculatively, and with more support than your claim, you could say she considered that her and the Undersiders were terrible for each other, bringing out the worst in the both of them, and so it'd perhaps be better if she found people more suited to her (because, ultimately, the Undersiders were United more by circumstances than actually having anything in common).
It's wonky, but it at least doesn't go as directly against what we see.
She also had to do things like strangle a kid, shoot a baby, have a guy's eyes removed, and various other horrible things, which she regrets that she did and wishes she'd found another way, over her whole career.
You're confining Taylor's regrets to her time as a Ward when that discussion at the end with Contessa is a retrospective on her entire career.
Which was "Not going to turbo mega jail" to her knowledge, yes.
Never stated, and those that ran during the end of the world were by and large the villains (among which were her friends like Brian, to her knowledge, by the way).
That taught her something about humanity, not about the heroes.
Again, she thinks that about her entire time as a cape, not just Weaver.
Unless, and forgive me for repeating myself, you're referring to something other than the end of Worm, Taylor never expressed the majority of what you claim she does, or more specifically it was not about solely her time as Weaver, but as her time as a cape as a whole.
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Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
She removed the eyes of two guys, did she regret any of that? Like, I am pretty sure she didn't really regret harming villains.
Also, Aster she might have regretted, but it was more about it being a shitty situation, practically speaking, there was nothing she could have done for Aster, if she travelled back in time, she would have taken the shot again, because even if you removed the considerations that Aster was one of the suspects for the one who will end the world, she is still in the hands of grey boy and surrounded by other nine members, Taylor could only give her a mercy kill.
Taylor came to them with the intentions of joining them, she could have chosen to not do it, she could have escaped after it.
- Location
- Argentina
"The last two years, the way I treated my teammates, leaving the Undersiders...I'd change it all in a heartbeat." - Taylor
There is a specific part way before that were Taylor is asked what she will do when she turns 18 and she says she wants to leave but I do not feel like looking for it.
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
Her words are
There aren't a lot of candidates for bullies without powers she gave too much power to, and she can't really do it without not joining the wards, as she actively needed to play politics with them to not get shuffled off.
And considering her close connection to the undersiders at the end, how she kept them uncontrolled while controlling her entire Protectorate team, I think we can be pretty sure who she was talking about when talking about protecting some.
And that too.
"The last two years, the way I treated my teammates, leaving the Undersiders...I'd change it all in a heartbeat." - Taylor
There is a specific part way before that were Taylor is asked what she will do when she turns 18 and she says she wants to leave but I do not feel like looking for it.
I do think the sentiment behind that is less "man the heroes and protectorate are useless" and more along the lines of "I put my happiness at stake and left my friends behind in order to forge an alliance and try to stop the end of the world and it ended up not mattering at all and now maybe my dad is probably dead and the world is about to end." You'll note that it comes directly after 27.1 when Taylor made an attempt at killing herself before she was interrupted by her friends.
"The last two years, the way I treated my teammates, leaving the Undersiders...I'd change it all in a heartbeat." - Taylor
There is a specific part way before that were Taylor is asked what she will do when she turns 18 and she says she wants to leave but I do not feel like looking for it.
It's an insight composed largely of depression, but also importantly, hindsight. Taylor doesn't really regret what she did, she mostly regrets that it didn't work. Over the next few arcs she does more or less the same thing, and continues to go all in ends-justify-means sacrificing everything to attempt to stop Scion.
Doesn't Glenn literally say to her that they aren't meant to? He explains that whole Protectorate is built as a jury rigged support for the society to kind of chug forward as long as possible until it breaks.
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
Her regrets are not stated to be by her pragmatic actions, she outright says that she had to do it, that she saved life.
What she regrets is her personal actions, her treatment of her friends, and the attention she gave to people she shouldn't have given attention to, it isn't about Scion but about them as people.
Yep, it mostly exists to lie to them that everything under control.
- Location
- Deep inside the sand
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Binge read this story. It was a fantastic work. I came into this with no Cradle knowledge and I wish you to know that you have explained pretty good stages, world and the culture. I do know the cultivation genre so I think I picked it up easier with that angle to lean on.
Glad that Taylor can have 3 Icons. My headcanon is that she will need to fuse those Icons somehow before she can become a Monarch in additional to the normal process.
Happy that Taylor also can do her unique progression towards the peak and not just neither follow normies path nor Lindon's path to Monarch. Its hard to balance two main characters from different works with each other.
I liked it when Taylor is deliciously ruthless and pragmatic. Here she used, manipulated, mind controlled people for her goals. She saved people also yes but it was more like a side goal that she would like to do. Dozens maybe even hundreds of people died in her schemes.
I do not think this is the last time we have seen the Moon Sage. I think she will first waste some time before she discovers that it was the Shadow Sage Taylor that did it. However I do not think she will work together with others to bring her down or anything like that. She's too narcissistic for that to work. Especially when she has isolated herself for that long. Of course unless someone explicit makes sure to bring her in to cooperate with others I think she will do her revenge against Taylor alone with her own underlings. She will probably think that Taylor feared so much that she did how she did it so obviously she will kill her easily if she can trap Taylor. Her subordinates died or became crippled due to plots and trickery.
Cheers!
Glad that Taylor can have 3 Icons. My headcanon is that she will need to fuse those Icons somehow before she can become a Monarch in additional to the normal process.
Happy that Taylor also can do her unique progression towards the peak and not just neither follow normies path nor Lindon's path to Monarch. Its hard to balance two main characters from different works with each other.
I liked it when Taylor is deliciously ruthless and pragmatic. Here she used, manipulated, mind controlled people for her goals. She saved people also yes but it was more like a side goal that she would like to do. Dozens maybe even hundreds of people died in her schemes.
I do not think this is the last time we have seen the Moon Sage. I think she will first waste some time before she discovers that it was the Shadow Sage Taylor that did it. However I do not think she will work together with others to bring her down or anything like that. She's too narcissistic for that to work. Especially when she has isolated herself for that long. Of course unless someone explicit makes sure to bring her in to cooperate with others I think she will do her revenge against Taylor alone with her own underlings. She will probably think that Taylor feared so much that she did how she did it so obviously she will kill her easily if she can trap Taylor. Her subordinates died or became crippled due to plots and trickery.
Cheers!
Event Horizon 5.3
It had been some time since I'd looked into the future, but I felt sufficiently recovered for at least a brief glimpse. It would be my last chance before entering the pocket world, since I didn't yet have the skill to read fate from outside reality. My Weave of Fate technique came together with little difficulty, and I let myself be drawn into it, struggling to force the vague images and impressions I saw into a coherent picture. A few minutes later, I withdrew, frowning thoughtfully. Then I went to go find Charity.
The anchor and entrance to the Akura Clan's pocket world was near the center of the city, in an enormous palace which held many of the clan's most valuable assets. A hall several hundred feet long and half as wide led to a swirling black portal contained in an arch which rose nearly to the ceiling. Script circles of immense complexity were exposed in the wall around the arch, as well as the floor beneath it. The clan's top scriptors were going over the circles with a fine-tooth comb, leaving no inch unexamined. None of them had the skill to make the alterations we needed, but hopefully they could at least make sure the changes wouldn't immediately cause the world to fall apart.
The efforts were overseen by Charity, accompanied by three of the Eight-Man Empire. Although it wasn't in their original contract, they'd charged a relative pittance for their help in modifying the pocket world. Larian had done her best to play hardball, but Charity had called her bluff; it was obvious that at least some of the Empire were extremely eager to have a look at the Grand Oath Array themselves.
To my irritation, the Spider Sage was the first to notice me, or at least to react to my presence. "Welcome, sister," she said, floating down next to me. "I sense you bring dark tidings. Have you foreseen our doom?"
Before I'd met her, I would've expected I'd get along well with her. I might have manifested the Spider Icon myself if I'd taken a slightly different direction, after all, although there was too much overlap with the Shadow Icon for me to ever manifest it now. But if the Spider Icon required acting like this much of an edgelord, then I was glad I'd avoided it. Her persona clashed horribly with the Empire's bright gold armor, too. I didn't care if it was one of the most powerful Divine Treasures in the world, you couldn't pay me to wear it.
"I just need to speak with Charity for a moment," I said, not looking at her.
"Then I shall not impede your way. But seek me out, should you desire to peer deeper into the tangled web of the future."
"Believe me, you'll be the first to know," I said dryly.
She drifted away, looking slightly dejected. "Aww, did Little Miss Spooky shoot you down again?" asked the Bow Sage, not bothering to keep her voice down even slightly. "Well, you know, they say seventh time's the charm."
"Nobody says that," muttered the Spider Sage.
"Sure they do. I did, just now!"
Thankfully, Charity came to a pausing point, sparing me from more byplay. We left to a side room, and I veiled it to prevent eavesdroppers. "I take it we have another problem on the horizon?"
"We do," I agreed. "The Weeping Dragon."
Charity grimaced. "I've sensed the threat as well, although without any detail. Were you able to tell how long we have before it attacks?"
"Not sooner than one week, not later than two."
"We should have enough time, then. Barely."
I hesitated. "There's more. The threat isn't just to the city. It's to me, specifically."
"Ah," said Charity, nodding. "So the Dragon does remember, then. A somewhat academic distinction… Unless you have a plan?"
I nodded. I'd taken some inspiration from my recent ploy against the Dark Moon Sect. "The problem isn't just the Weeping Dragon, it's Shen. Either he's decided I'm too much of a threat to leave alive, or else he's letting his grudge dictate his actions. Maybe both. If we successfully repel the Dreadgod, there's a strong chance he and the Dragon King will attack together immediately, without giving us time to recover. But it's me specifically he's after. If I were to be killed by the Dreadgod, he would consider the rest of the clan to be a lesser priority."
"I see," said Charity slowly. "A dangerous gambit. Are you certain you'll be capable of it?"
"I'm certain I won't be. Not on my own. I'm going to need Emriss's help. No one else has the correct mix of authorities. Can you contact her for me while I'm in the pocket world, once the Dragon leaves Everwood? I believe she'll be agreeable. We don't actually need her help fighting; in fact, it's best if no one else even knows she was here at all."
"I can arrange that, yes," said Charity. "What exactly do you have in mind?"
I told her. She wasn't sure it would work, and honestly neither was I, but she agreed it offered us the best chance of surviving the coming weeks. The only alternative was relying on the Empire to defend us against two Monarchs at once, immediately after also fighting a Dreadgod. Like all mercenaries, they knew perfectly well that it didn't matter how much you got paid if you weren't alive to spend it.
The guests we were expecting started to arrive less than an hour later, as our scriptors were racing to finish reinforcing the pocket world. First came Yerin, Lindon, and Ziel. We'd offered a place in the pocket world to Eithan, but he'd refused, insisting that he would benefit from it only minimally and that Ziel take his place. I was somewhat skeptical that the apathetic former Archlord would benefit all that much either, but the space had already been calibrated for five people. Even if fewer people might let us stretch time even further, it wouldn't be enough benefit to justify redoing the scripts.
Next was Sha Miara. Although no living Monarch or Sage had true authority over time, authority bent rules by its very nature. A group of Monarchs with diverse authorities working together could accomplish things that none of them could on their own. In this case, a group meant two. More would have been better, but Emriss was still fully occupied with the Weeping Dragon, so we'd have to hope that the handful of Sages we'd assembled could provide enough support.
I greeted her at the teleportation anchor along with Charity and Mercy. "I hope you have everything ready," she said immediately upon arriving. "The Phoenix is nesting now that we've driven it away from our core territory, but it hasn't gone dormant. It's constantly trying to slip blood shadows through the quarantine, and it's triggered an outbreak of dreadbeasts as well. I can't stay for long."
"We understand. Everything is prepared," said Charity.
Miara nodded, then hesitated and glanced at Mercy. That was all the invitation Mercy needed. She jumped forwards, hugging the Monarch tightly. "I'm going to miss you so much!"
Miara hugged her back just as tightly. "I wish I could go with you," she said. "But I know you'll be fine. And next time I see you, you'll be a Herald!"
"Uh huh," said Mercy, nodding. "You know, I was always a little disappointed I never got to fight you in the Uncrowned King Tournament. Maybe after all this is over, we can finally have a real match."
"I'd like that," said Miara, stepping back. "I, um… I have something for you. It's nothing much, I just… Since I can't keep you company inside, I wanted to give you something so you'd know I was thinking of you. I… hope you like it."
A rainbow appeared in her hand, waving slightly like liquid. It was cloth, I realized after a moment, a hair ribbon, although it barely looked solid. Mercy gasped in delight. "I love it!" She quickly reached up, untying her current purple ribbon. She reached out to take the rainbow cloth, then hesitated. "Um… Do you want to put it on me?"
"...Okay," said Miara. Mercy turned, and Miara retied her ponytail, her movements deft despite her obvious nervousness. Both of them were blushing heavily.
…Well. I'd known Mercy had become good friends with Miara, but I hadn't realized they'd gotten quite this, ah, close. I wondered whether I should say anything, and decided not to, at least for now. The political implications would need to be addressed sooner or later, but bringing them up too early would probably just make things messy. Besides, it wasn't like I was any kind of expert when it came to this sort of thing. Better to let them move at their own pace.
"Well? How do I look?" asked Mercy, turning back around.
"Perfect. But you did before, as well."
Charity and I shared a long-suffering look, and she cleared her throat loudly. The two of them were suddenly about four feet further apart than they'd been before, blushes vanishing behind utterly innocent expressions. "My apologies, Luminous Queen, but I believe you said your time was short?"
"Yes, of course. Lead on," said Miara.
I kept an eye on them as we headed down to the pocket world anchor. Both of them kept sneaking glances at the other, then quickly looking away. It was a small relief to know that I hadn't actually missed that much. They were clearly still in that awkward, fumbling pre-relationship stage where neither was quite sure how to proceed. It was entirely likely that one or both of them had only recently realized they even liked girls; Mercy had certainly never raised the topic with me. A shame it had to take back seat to the war, but I trusted Mercy to figure things out.
All eight members of the Empire had assembled in front of the gateway to the pocket world when we returned, along with Yerin and Lindon. "Everything finally ready? I skipped a nap for this, you know," said Larian, grinning. A couple of her comrades sighed or rolled their eyes.
"It is," said Charity. "I trust there are no last-minute issues? Then let us begin."
The Grand Oath Array appeared from her soulspace, and she sent it to float just in front of the portal. Miara took the center, now once again wearing her disguise of rainbow light. The Empire arranged itself next to her in a semicircle facing the portal, four on either side. The other Sages, including myself, took place on the ends.
A feeling of immense weight settled on the room as multiple Monarchs and Sages brought their authority to bear. Reality seemed to become less substantial, the physical world cast into perspective as something fragile and ephemeral. I felt the purpose of the working as it came together, lent the meager authority I could muster to it. There was little finesse to it; it was a matter of will, not of understanding. We demanded the world be a certain way, so it would be that way, regardless of the actual mechanics of it. "Reshape," said a dozen voices simultaneously.
The Grand Oath Array dissolved into silver light and flowed into the portal. Immediately, the portal became turbulent, flashes of silver flickering beneath its dark surface like lightning. I could sense the twisted space beyond it straining, trying to tear loose from the scripts that anchored it. But the scripts had been reinforced for this exact purpose, and our collective will pressed on it, forcing it into new patterns. Slowly, the turbulence calmed and the portal stabilized.
"Looks like it worked. How about that?" said Larian.
"Wisdom," commanded Charity, and an Archlord hurried forwards to examine the scripts directly around the portal.
"We're within acceptable bounds," he said after a few seconds. "The ratio is slightly over forty to one. Instabilities are present but minimal. I'll need to observe it for longer to say exactly when the space will begin decaying, but we should have at least a week before it becomes an issue."
"Excellent," said Charity. "Then let's not waste time."
I stepped forwards. So did the other four who would be joining me. "Take care of yourself," I said to Charity as I passed her. It occurred to me that this would be the longest I'd go without seeing her since we'd met, although it wasn't really worth getting sentimental about.
"You as well," she said. "Look after Mercy. Make sure she doesn't try to advance before she's ready."
"Don't fuss, Aunt Charity, I'll be fine," said Mercy, appearing next to us.
"I'm sure you will be," said Charity, smiling slightly.
Mercy smiled back and hugged her. Then she stepped back, waving excitedly. "Bye, everyone! See you in a few months! We'll miss you!" She was looking at Miara in particular, but with the larger audience, they left it at that. With nothing else to say, we turned and entered the portal.
The Akura pocket world had obviously been created by Malice, and it very much reflected the Akura aesthetic. A castle several miles across with obsidian walls and violet towers floated in the middle of an eternal dark storm flickering with purple lightning. Despite the enormous space, there was less living room than might have been expected. Large sections had been given over to recreating various environments from around Cradle, previously inhabited by sacred beasts up to the Archlord level. There was also a large arena, over half a mile across and reinforced sufficiently for a duel between Heralds. Elsewhere were laboratories and workshops where script circles hundreds of feet wide might empower a single device.
Still, we were hardly crowded; the pocket world was normally inhabited by a couple dozen caretakers, all of them Lords or higher. Now it was just the five of us. The more people the world contained, the less we'd be able to accelerate time without damaging it. Already, it would take significant repairs to stop the entire thing from disintegrating once we were finished with it.
My first order of business was advancing to Archlord and healing the lingering weakness from my injury. Everything else would come far easier after that. To that end, I spent a full twenty hours a day doing nothing but cycling. This type of rapid advancement was dangerous for several reasons. It often led to spiritual injury, both because of the inherent strain such rapid growth placed on your spirit, and because without other types of training, your power could grow beyond your ability to control. There was also the purely mental strain of maintaining a high level of focus for such long periods, day after day.
I encountered no difficulties. The Heaven's Gate Elixir was the most valuable elixir in the world not just because it greatly increased your rate of growth, but because it reinforced your spirit against exactly that sort of injury. Now, I had the chance to really push it to its limit. As for the mental aspects, I'd forced myself to do far more unpleasant things than this even before I'd gained perfect mastery of my own mind. At my normal rate of growth, I'd probably only been a few months away from the peak of Overlord. Now, I reached it in only a single month.
When it came time for me to advance, I invited the others. Mercy was a given, of course, and I considered Yerin a good friend. I wasn't as close with Lindon, and I hardly knew Ziel at all, but excluding them would have made things awkward. Gestures like this were important for building trust. I sat in a courtyard in front of our tower, rich with shadow aura, and arranged powerful natural treasures around myself in pairs: fire and water, wind and earth, life and death.
The Archlord revelation was different than the previous two; it wasn't about discovering who you were, but choosing who you wanted to be. Of course, for the vast majority of sacred artists who reached these heights, that choice had been made a long time ago, and I was no exception. "This time," I said, "I'll do better." If I ever again found myself on my knees with a gun aimed at my head, I wouldn't have any regrets. I would protect the things and the people I cared about, and I would do it without sacrificing our relationships on the altar of necessity. If the world tried to deny me, it would be the world that flinched first.
The natural treasures dissolved into soulfire, rushing through me and perfecting my body. The weight which had been pressing down on me since my injury lifted as I reiterated my existence to reality. I flexed my will, and aura across the entire pocket world briefly stilled, acknowledging my command over it. I let it go after a moment, veiling myself again to avoid making the others uncomfortable.
Mercy, of course, ran up and hugged me the moment I'd finished. "Congratulations," she said. "Wow, I guess now it's my turn to catch up with you!"
"This one's like Eithan," grumbled Yerin. "Everytime you think you're getting close, you blink twice and she's half a mile ahead."
"You know, I outrank Eithan as well now," I said amusedly.
"Willing to stake your soul on that, are you?" she retorted. I only chuckled slightly in response. I didn't take sucker's bets.
Lindon congratulated me as well, while Ziel merely offered me a nod before wandering off. I considered him as he left. I'd done a bit of digging into his past after I'd realized the extent of Eithan's interest in him. He'd reached Archlord when he was just a couple of years older than me, and without the support of a Monarch, making him a prodigy by anyone's standard. He'd apparently been well on his way to Herald when the Storm Sage had massacred his sect and crippled his spirit. Eithan had clearly invested enormous sums into restoring his spirit, a long and painful process as channels too damaged to heal were snipped away and fresh channels were carved in their place. The investment was paying off, and I guessed his spirit would be fully restored by the time we left the pocket world. But his mind was another matter.
With the first and most important step of my own growth done, I went back and forth a bit on whether or not to dedicate any of my time to him. Eventually, I decided to make at least a small effort and see what happened. I suspected Eithan hadn't pushed us to include him in the pocket world just for time alone. While it always annoyed me slightly to find myself drawn into one of Eithan's schemes, his schemes also tended to work out more often than not. So a couple of hours after I'd advanced, I went to find Ziel's rooms.
It took him the better part of a minute to answer the door after I knocked. As usual, he looked as though he'd been asleep. "Do you need something?"
"Yes. May I come in?"
"...I suppose."
I followed him into his room, although nest might have been a better description. Empty medicine bottles littered the floor along with plates and bowls from the occasional meals even Lords still needed to eat. The couch had a slight indent from all the time he spent sleeping on it, an indent which he promptly filled. I sat in an armchair opposite him, although not before checking to make sure I wasn't sitting in anything. I decided on the direct approach, since I'd never been much good at anything else when it came to this sort of thing. "What do you want?"
He stared at me for a few seconds before answering. "What makes you think I want anything at all?"
"The fact that you're still alive."
"Only because no one's bothered killing me yet," he said with a shrug. "Wouldn't take much effort, but I guess I'm not worth even that."
"No one," I said, "including yourself."
This time, he stared at me for longer, with a slightly sharper gaze. "Maybe I'm just a coward," he said eventually.
"We both know you're not. You wouldn't have even needed to do anything, just given up and let nature take its course. Even if you only did the bare minimum to survive, I suspect the bare minimum was quite a lot."
He looked away, staring up at the ceiling. "...I didn't want to give Calling Storms the satisfaction. That's all. Stupid reason, not like he would even know."
I nodded. "Spite can carry you through a lot, but not everything. You've only told me what you don't want. What do you want?"
"Why does it matter to you?"
"Because a great deal of resources have been invested in you, and my family can no longer afford to let them go to waste. And because, on a personal level, I dislike seeing people waste second chances."
After several seconds, he looked back at me. "What did you lose?"
"Everything," I said.
"And you just picked yourself back and kept going?"
"No. I was picked up. And I was fortunate enough to be picked up almost immediately, and given something new. I won't insult you by trying to one-up your tragedies with mine. But I do need you to answer my question. Now that you've been given something new, what do you want to do with it?"
He answered after the now expected wait. "Do you know what my Archlord revelation was? 'I will give my life for the sect.'" He smiled, a bitter and twisted thing. "Ironic, isn't it? I gave everything except my life. What's left for me to want, now that my life's purpose is gone? There's some appeal in revenge against the Stormcallers, I'll admit, but you know as well as I do that won't be enough."
Now it was my turn to consider him. What he'd said was correct: As long as he felt he'd failed to live up to his Archlord revelation, there was no chance of him ever advancing to Sage or Herald. And although the Archlord revelation was more flexible than the Underlord or Overlord revelations, once made, it couldn't be changed. It could, however, be reinterpreted. "The Dawnwing Sect isn't gone yet. It still has one member left."
Ziel snorted. "So, what? I should give my life for myself?"
"That isn't what I meant, and you know it."
He looked away again, back up at the ceiling. "It's not that simple."
"You're wrong. It is that simple. Simple is not the same thing as easy. Once upon a time, the Akura Clan was reduced to a single member as well."
"...If you think I'm comparable to Malice, you're going to be disappointed."
"I don't think that. The challenges you face aren't the same as the ones she did. Your enemy is internal, not external."
He sighed. "I'll think about it," he said eventually.
"Good. In the meantime, I suggest you stop wallowing in your room all day. Vanish." The accumulated trash on the floor winked out of existence. "If I have to clean your room for you again, I'll be irritated. Understood?"
He sighed again. "Understood. I don't know what you expect me to do, though. It's not like I can train seriously without impairing my healing."
"Then watch. Ask questions. Learn. You do know most sacred artists would literally murder for the chance to observe Sages training, don't you?"
He grunted in response, then grunted several more times as he made a show of slowly pushing himself to his feet. I stood as well, crossing my arms and watching him expectantly. He slouched towards the door, and I followed him out. Once I was sure he wasn't planning on just going back inside, I turned to leave.
"Shadow Sage," he said, and I turned. "I'm glad you found something worth living for."
I smiled slightly. "So am I."
I kept an eye on him over the following days. It wasn't like my little pep talk had instantly solved all his issues, but he was at least making an effort to leave his room for a few hours a day. That would do for now, and he did actually need to spend a good deal of time resting for his spirit to heal. More important was that he couldn't avoid Mercy, who was completely immune to his aggressive apathy. No matter how little he wanted to talk, she always somehow managed to drag him into the conversation. And as much as he wanted to pretend otherwise, he was both talented and knowledgeable enough to contribute to discussions on refining techniques and tactics once he got engaged.
Meanwhile, I joined the others in training things other than pure advancement. Yerin, Lindon, and Mercy were relatively evenly matched with each other and spent a few hours a day sparring vigorously, although they had to hold back some for fear of serious injury. It was interesting to see how each of their unique advantages stacked up against each other. The Void Icon and Sword Icon were far more suited to direct combat than either of my Icons, allowing Yerin and Lindon to hit just as hard as Mercy despite her large advantage in raw power. Both of them were also combat precogs, Lindon from his mind construct and Yerin from the Sword Icon. Mercy's Ghostwater evened the scales only partially, but she was by far the most mobile and the toughest physically. Even if they knew what she was about to do, they couldn't always stop her from doing it.
At first, I tried simply joining in, but I quickly discovered that none of them could pose a challenge to me anymore. Even constrained by the arena, none of them could see through or disperse my swarm. Yerin and Lindon lacked the power, and Mercy lacked the authority. Lindon and Mercy could hold me off for a while with the Hollow Domain and bloodline armor respectively, but there was absolutely nothing they could do to hit back at me. Victory was just a matter of waiting for them to exhaust themselves. I expected that to change once they advanced, but for now, I had to get a bit creative.
I found myself squaring off against Lindon without any techniques or weapons, just bare fists. We both had to pull our punches to avoid sending each other flying across the arena with every exchange, but the point of the exercise wasn't to get better at fistfighting. Although neither of us were master martial artists, there was no need for muscle memory when both of our minds moved even faster than our superhuman bodies.
I juked to the side, dodging a jab from Lindon. He pulled it before his arm was even fully extended, seeing that there was no way to land it, and shifted to block a pair of my own jabs. I followed up with a low kick, and he avoided it by kicking high with the leg I'd targeted. I ducked under it, preparing to lunge forwards and knock him off balance. But then I saw him tensing his other leg, still on the ground for a jump kick which would catch me just as I came in. I spun sideways instead, just as his foot left the ground. He jerked, trying to change directions, but it was impossible without cheating by using aura. I caught his first leg as it came down, using it like a lever to whip his whole body over my shoulder and slam him into the floor.
He still landed gracefully, turning the fall into a roll and immediately springing back to his feet. "Another point to you," he said, frowning slightly. By now, I knew he wasn't actually angry; that was just how he looked. "Respectfully, I'd prefer to pause and consider what we've learned before making another attempt."
"By all means," I said, nodding.
A purple blob with a single eyeball and two tentacles for arms appeared over Lindon's shoulder. Dross's appearance hadn't changed much since the first time I'd seen him, although he had grown significantly in power. [Don't think I won't figure out your trick eventually!] he said, shaking a "fist" at me.
"There is no trick," I replied. "The reason why you can't simulate me accurately isn't because you don't have enough data on how I fight, it's because I've made myself impossible to predict on a conceptual level. As a Monarch-level construct, you possess your own authority separate from Lindon's, but it isn't strong enough to overcome mine yet. Which is exactly what we're training."
[Hmph! Just you wait. You may have pulled ahead for now, but your puny human brain will be no match for me in the long run! Also, can I have another scale?]
I snorted slightly, then forged a scale and tossed it to him. He swallowed it in a single gulp. "Remember, authority is symbolic. I suggest you spend time thinking about who you are and what you represent."
"Gratitude for your instruction," said Lindon, pressing his fists together and bowing. He turned and left, heading back towards the tower.
[SUPERIORITY]
I smiled. "Of course you're better than the sentient stress ball. No need to brag about it." I hadn't yet introduced Hera to anyone besides Mercy. In general, the fewer people who knew of her existence the better, but I trusted Lindon and Yerin, and I trusted Ziel at least to keep his mouth shut. Still, there were a few things I wanted to refine first. "Have you given any more thought to creating an avatar?"
[AMBIVALENCE]
"It's fine if it doesn't lead anywhere interesting, it's still worth spending an hour or two experimenting with. Besides, I want to see what you came up with."
[IRRITATION]
"I told you, if you want me to speak your language all the time, you're going to need to at least try speaking mine. I don't want to have to be your translator to everyone below Sage," I replied, smirking slightly. She didn't respond except for a feeling of sulkiness, and my smirk widened.
I headed back to my own rooms, habitually veiling them in my authority. There, I sat down and opened my link to Hera wider, just short of the point where it started becoming difficult to remember we were separate beings. It took longer to reach that point than it had before; as I'd expected, advancing to Archlord and increasing the weight of my existence allowed me to safely channel more of her power. Then I began forging a simulacrum.
It was a tricky process. The madra was still ultimately mine. I had to be the one to form the technique, while simultaneously relinquishing control and allowing her to guide me. We had several false starts, the technique fizzling when I kept my grip too loose or forming into my own body when I kept it too tight. It required a much higher level of cooperation than simply offloading control of my swarm onto her, or using her authority as a bludgeon. There were aspects of my authority which were still beyond her understanding, and aspects of hers which were beyond mine. We were putting together a puzzle where only she knew the final image but only I could actually touch the pieces, and each of us could only see half of them.
Despite the difficulty, I found I wasn't getting frustrated. Although there was a sense in which we did everything together, she was more of an observer than an active participant. Doing something together with her, making something rather than fighting someone, was surprisingly pleasant. Aside from her pride, Hera's most developed emotion was her boundless curiosity. The more challenging a problem was, the more she enjoyed solving it.
Finally, the simulacrum took shape, although it wasn't really my simulacrum anymore. She had still chosen a humanoid form, and I was amused to see she'd made herself more than a foot taller than me, as well as significantly more endowed in the chest area. She wore a vaguely toga-like garment which concealed any hint of legs; it was impossible to tell exactly where her body ended and her clothes began, as both were made of the same translucent crystal tinted lightly violet by my madra. Light constantly flickered dimly beneath her skin and clothes like distant sheet lightning, giving the impression that her body contained a much greater volume than it should.
Her most striking feature was her arms, of which she had many. They were constantly in motion, fanned out around her as they waved slowly up and down, passing through each other in a way that clearly required more than three dimensions. Even I couldn't count how many pairs she actually had; the number seemed to be constantly changing. Her face was concealed by a featureless oval mask save for two eyeholes revealing overly large irises in the shape of spiral galaxies, fractal in their detail. A crown sat on her head, of course, a relatively simple diadem with eight points. Her hair was the only part of her not made of that same violet crystal. It was long, black, and curly, identical to mine.
I found myself with a lump in my throat. The gesture she'd just made was all the more meaningful because I didn't think she fully understood what she'd done. She'd crafted this form with the singular goal of representing who she was, how she saw herself. She hadn't adopted the feature I liked best about myself as a form of flattery, but purely because she'd come to see our connection as a core part of her being.
As for the rest, I couldn't deny that the extravagance fit her like a glove. She was beautiful, even, although in a distinctly alien way. It was the mask that did it; by declining to give herself a face, she made it clear that even if she'd moved closer to humanity, she would never be human. Still, this was a big step for her. Although I was still determined to get her to speak human language when necessary, this time, I wanted to make sure she knew exactly how I felt.
[DELIGHT]
[ASSURANCE]
I chuckled as I rose to my feet. Humility was one thing which Hera had absolutely no interest in learning. Of course if she went to the effort of creating an avatar for herself, it would be perfect in every way. "Well, what now?" I asked her.
She sent me a small message like a shrug, as if to say, "This was your idea, wasn't it?"
I nodded. "Now that you have a form you're happy with, do you want to start work on a real body for yourself?"
[DECLINATION]
Currently, her avatar was still ultimately just my technique. It would dissipate if I didn't maintain it, and I could seize control of it at any time if I so desired. Neither of those things bothered her. She preferred acting through others rather than directly. There were also practical limitations; any body capable of channeling more of her power than I could would need to be at least a Herald level construct. Funny. I hadn't even realized I'd been nervous about her not needing me anymore until she turned me down.
"I guess we'll just see what happens, then," I said. Maybe having an avatar would lead her to another breakthrough, but if it didn't, at least it would be less awkward introducing her to the others. With our work complete, I went to narrow our link back down to its usual level, but then paused. "...Oh. Interesting."
Instead of narrowing our link, I widened it. It was only a slight increase, but still enough that I should have started experiencing the beginnings of disassociation and ego loss. Instead, nothing changed except that her presence in the world became slightly heavier. Frowning slightly, I considered. "I'm going to dissolve your avatar for a moment, alright?"
She didn't object, so I reabsorbed the power I'd put into the technique. Immediately I felt myself slipping, my body suddenly feeling more like a puppet I controlled than something I inhabited. I quickly narrowed our link to its previous level. "Interesting," I repeated. "Let's try this."
We recreated her avatar, this time taking only a couple of minutes now that we knew what we were doing. Carefully, I began slowly widening our link again, stopping and pulling back only when the sense of disassociation returned. The increase in the amount of her power I could safely handle was small, much less than what I'd gained by advancing to Archlord, but it definitely existed. I spent several minutes investigating, trying to understand what was happening on a conceptual level. "It's like a buffer," I ultimately concluded. "Your avatar is handling some of the strain for me. Even though it's all my madra, giving it that form makes it better at handling your authority." There was potential here.
[SUGGESTION]
"That's what I was thinking as well. Come on, let's go talk to Mercy."
She was currently in her rooms just down the hallway, cycling, but she jumped up immediately when she sensed my presence outside her door. "Hi, Taylor! What- Um, what's that?"
I smirked slightly. "This is Hera."
"Oh!" said Mercy, her eyes widening. "You made her a body! That's so cool! Wow, you're really tall. Can I hug you? I bet you give great hugs with all those arms!"
[ACCEPTANCE]
Hera clearly didn't see the point, but Mercy wasn't deterred. She jumped forward, wrapping her arms around Hera's hips, her head only coming up to Hera's stomach. Hera just stood there for a second, so I mentally nudged her until she reached down and wrapped several dozen pairs of arms around Mercy. Aside from her very alien perspective on things like physical affection, I gathered that she saw her avatar more as a character she was controlling than as herself. I appreciated her indulgence.
Mercy was grinning goofily when they parted. "You really do give great hugs! I should make an Enforcer technique to give myself extra arms so I can give hugs that good. You should hug Taylor too, I bet she didn't even ask for one!"
I snorted slightly. "Maybe later." Being several inches taller than Mercy, my face would end up in a very awkward spot if I hugged Hera. "But speaking of Enforcer techniques, I wanted to ask if I could examine your Book."
"Of course," said Mercy. She held out her hand, and the Book of Eternal Night appeared floating over it. The Divine Treasure was composed of black and violet Monarch-level madra, so dense it might as well have been a solid object. On the cover was an incredibly intricate script circle, complex enough that it seemed to exceed two dimensions in the same was as my Weave of Fate technique. "Are you making a new technique? What page do you need?"
"The seventh."
"Ooohh!" said Mercy, grinning. "I'm still working on mastering that one myself. Um, I'm not sure if I'll be able to take you in with me, though. Aunt Charity has come in with me a few times, but I don't know how."
"I should be able to manage, as long as I have your permission," I said.
"Alright then," said Mercy, nodding. "Seventh page!"
The book flipped open, the half-inch thick tablets which made up its "pages" flipping past until they stopped on the last one. "Open," I said, and felt myself being drawn into a mental world.
The Book of Eternal Night served multiple purposes. Most Paths made use of a single aspect of madra, a mixture of two aspects, or very rarely a mixture of three. Attempting to mix more than that was virtually guaranteed to destabilize your core. Moreover, every technique would use that same mixture regardless of how it was applied. Although all of Mercy's techniques used shadow madra, her Path was unique in that each one mixed it with a different aspect: force, venom, sword, water, dream, and more abstract things at the higher levels. It was possible thanks to Malice's masterwork, which converted the shadow aura Mercy cycled into the needed diverse aspects and stored them separately from her core. Essentially, Malice had plucked her favorite techniques from half a dozen different powerful Paths and combined them all to make what she saw as the perfect Path.
But the book didn't just make it possible for Mercy to use techniques of different aspects, it also trained her in their use. Each page contained a virtual space designed to familiarize her with the technique in question, as well as to prepare her for the next level of advancement. The final page contained the most powerful technique from Malice's own Path, the Netherworld Empress.
A devastated battlefield materialized around us. Bodies were strewn on the ground for miles around, with remnants crawling between them. The air was thick with death and destruction aura. The image of a regal woman towered over everything, not quite a twin of Malice, but perfectly encapsulating how she saw herself. She carried a bow in one hand and a spear in the other, both smoking with wisps of shadow, and a crown sat on her head. The force of her presence dominated the entire battlefield. It pushed down on us with crushing pressure for a few seconds, then lessened when neither of us buckled. The echo of Malice offered me a small nod of approval, no doubt recognizing the Icons I carried.
"Well, um, here we are," said Mercy, her smile becoming slightly strained.
I hardly needed to ask why Mercy would be uncomfortable here. Malice had put a great deal of herself into this page, but it was all the parts of her which Mercy liked the least. Before I began studying the technique properly, I turned to her. "What lesson do you think Malice intended to teach you with this page?"
She took a deep breath, her smile fading away altogether. "That… That I can't flinch away from killing people if I have to. That I need to be powerful enough to fight an entire army by myself."
"You could take it that way," I said, nodding. "But I see another lesson as well. The more powerful you become, the greater the consequences of your decisions. Look around. A lot of the bodies are wearing Akura colors."
Mercy frowned thoughtfully. "You're right. I never noticed. I… kind of try to avoid looking at the bodies too hard when I come here."
"That's why you're having trouble mastering this page. Killing people is one thing, ordering people to their deaths is something else. A ruler needs to be capable of both, yes, but they should also never take either lightly. Try keeping that in mind while you meditate."
"Okay," said Mercy with a nod. "Thanks, Taylor."
We sat down together, side by side. I let my senses expand, feeling the nature of the technique. It was suffused with Malice's authority, some of it familiar, some of it less so. My understanding of the Shadow Icon differed significantly from hers. My understanding of the Crown Icon was incomplete, something I needed to spend time meditating on myself, but I was sure it wouldn't be the same as Malice's either. As for the Strength and the Bow Icon, I could feel something of their nature, but I had no connection to them whatsoever. This technique wasn't for me. But it wasn't the specifics of it I was interested in.
Enforcer techniques came in many different varieties. Physical Enforcer techniques were ubiquitous, enhancing part or all of the body, or a weapon. Mental Enforcer techniques were much rarer, although Charity was an expert in them. Spiritual Enforcer techniques were rarer still; there was a sense in which regular cycling was a spiritual Enforcer technique, but very few Paths could make use of them in any way beyond that. The Netherworld Empress was none of those things. It was a conceptual Enforcer technique. When it was active, it had made Malice more of what she was, in the exact same way that the injury I'd suffered had made me less.
It was, of course, hideously complicated, and more so because I didn't understand most of the authority involved. Enforcer techniques usually stayed inside the body, or whatever it was they were enforcing. The Netherworld Empress had to be forged outside the body and then absorbed into it, or else the symbolism would be lost and the technique wouldn't function. Enforcer techniques were often the simplest type because the madra would naturally conform to your body and spirit, but starting it outside the body meant you had to shape it into the correct pattern manually while also maintaining the necessary form.
After some time, maybe an hour, maybe more, I felt I'd gotten everything I could out of studying the technique. Mercy was still deep in meditation, so I slipped out of the book quietly. Back in my body, I found her sitting in front of me with her eyes closed, her book still open in front of her. Hera's avatar was still present, standing motionless except for the waving arms. Eventually I'd try and get her to understand the concept of doing things on her own for fun, but that could come later. For now, I just needed her to be a model.
I started with my current Enforcer technique, the Umbral Mantle. Like I'd thought before, it was my simplest technique by a fair margin. I simply pulled my madra over myself like a cloak, and the inherent properties of shadow and dream madra caused me to become invisible. It had been enhanced by my authority, of course, but all that really did was increase its effectiveness. There was no reason to change anything; a simple tool was better than a complicated one as long as it did its job. But I hadn't taken the time to really observe the flows of madra in detail since I'd first learned the technique all the way back at Jade. These were the flows I was going to need to replicate without the natural guidance provided by my body.
The next step was trying to replicate the technique outside my body before bringing it in. It was nothing but a vaguely Taylor-shaped blob of dark purple madra, but if I didn't replicate it perfectly, it would catch on my channels, and trying to force it would damage my spirit. That took some work to master, but not too much, since I did have exceptionally fine control of my madra. Once I'd managed it without mistakes several times in a row, I moved on.
Now came the hard part. Just as the Netherworld Empress represented how Malice saw herself, so did Hera's avatar. The technique had to have that form to function, but the internal structure would be completely different. And where the authority in Malice's technique had been entirely her own, I was borrowing someone else's. When Mercy opened her eyes an hour later, I still hadn't gotten it to work. I felt sure the theory was sound; I just needed more practice. Fortunately, time was something I had plenty of, so I set the technique aside for the moment.
With no day-night cycle in the pocket world, it was natural that our schedules would start drifting. Aside from Ziel, none of us needed more than a couple of hours of sleep a day, if that. By common agreement, we all sat down together for a meal roughly every twenty four hours to help keep us grounded. The next time we did so, I bit the bullet and told them the truth about Hera, and by extension about myself. I didn't go into detail, not like I had with Mercy and Charity, but the fact that I wasn't originally from this world was unavoidable.
"Always wondered why you felt like a dragon sitting on a hen's nest," said Yerin, apparently unbothered.
"Fascinating," said Lindon, his attention fixed on Hera's avatar. "I knew other worlds have their own powers, but I never hoped I'd get to actually see one interact with the Sacred Arts. Not until I ascended, at least. I'd be deeply grateful for any insights you could offer."
[PHYSICS]
"Ah… Gratitude. I hadn't expected quite so much. Dross, could you…?"
Dross popped into existence over his shoulder. [Of course I can handle an entire foreign energy system being dropped on me all at once! No problem whatsoever! In fact, I bet I can analyze all of this, and beat you at Go at the same time!]
[CURIOSITY]
I didn't think the game on Cradle was quite the same as the one played on Earth, although I couldn't be sure since I hadn't played it more than a couple of times in my life. More importantly, Hera had just encountered another fresh concept. Although her species was intimately familiar with competition, it was only ever in the context of the struggle for survival. Competing purely for fun had never been part of her species' history. I decided to explain the concept concisely.
[GAMES]
[INTEREST]
[Ha! Prepare to be- Wait, that one doesn't count, I was getting warmed up. Best two out of three? This time I'll- Oh. Well, this time I'll have you for sure! Best three out of five?]
"Apologies, but… Aren't you worried about the Abidan?" asked Lindon as they continued their rapid-fire games.
I raised an eyebrow. "Yes. They don't seem to have noticed anything yet, but I plan to be more circumspect in the future. I'm surprised you're so familiar with their laws."
He hesitated for a moment, then said, "Since you've been honest with us, it's only right for me to trust you as well."
The story he told me was enlightening in a number of ways. Lindon had always seemed to know more than he should, especially given the absolute backwater he came from. Two facts stood out to me: That an incursion from beyond Cradle had drawn a swift response from a high-ranking Abidan, but that she seemingly hadn't had any problem then meddling in Lindon and Yerin's lives herself. Clearly, their laws were less absolute than they might like us to think. I'd have to see if I could learn more when I had the chance. Emriss and the Ninecloud Court had much longer histories than the Akura clan; they might know more, and be willing to share it.
[Argh! Best 10,538 out of 21,077?]
"Apologies, Dross, but maybe you should take a break for now. Don't you have some information to analyze?"
[Right, of course, that's the only reason I lost. I was playing with a handicap!]
"So was she," I pointed out, smirking slightly. "She isn't actually here in the pocket world, so she's thinking about forty times slower than normal compared to us."
[SMUGNESS]
[Oh yeah!? Well…] He raised one of his little tentacle arms, then let it drop, slinking back over to Lindon. [I'll get that analysis done right away.]
As amused as I was, I didn't want Hera to become a bully. I made a point to sit down and talk to her about being gracious in victory later. I ended up doing it sooner, because Hera decided she liked games, and especially liked winning. She did a lot of that, since she could effectively solve even the most complicated games so long as there was no randomness.
Eventually, I found that a local variant of poker gave her the most challenge. Although she always calculated the odds perfectly, she didn't quite understand the concept of bluffing, or of deception in general. Her species had developed shards to analyze and manipulate the emotions of other species, but they'd always viewed it deterministically, understanding cause and effect without meaning. Now she had to learn if she wanted to keep winning. Slowly but surely, I was leading her down the path towards becoming a complete person.
The anchor and entrance to the Akura Clan's pocket world was near the center of the city, in an enormous palace which held many of the clan's most valuable assets. A hall several hundred feet long and half as wide led to a swirling black portal contained in an arch which rose nearly to the ceiling. Script circles of immense complexity were exposed in the wall around the arch, as well as the floor beneath it. The clan's top scriptors were going over the circles with a fine-tooth comb, leaving no inch unexamined. None of them had the skill to make the alterations we needed, but hopefully they could at least make sure the changes wouldn't immediately cause the world to fall apart.
The efforts were overseen by Charity, accompanied by three of the Eight-Man Empire. Although it wasn't in their original contract, they'd charged a relative pittance for their help in modifying the pocket world. Larian had done her best to play hardball, but Charity had called her bluff; it was obvious that at least some of the Empire were extremely eager to have a look at the Grand Oath Array themselves.
To my irritation, the Spider Sage was the first to notice me, or at least to react to my presence. "Welcome, sister," she said, floating down next to me. "I sense you bring dark tidings. Have you foreseen our doom?"
Before I'd met her, I would've expected I'd get along well with her. I might have manifested the Spider Icon myself if I'd taken a slightly different direction, after all, although there was too much overlap with the Shadow Icon for me to ever manifest it now. But if the Spider Icon required acting like this much of an edgelord, then I was glad I'd avoided it. Her persona clashed horribly with the Empire's bright gold armor, too. I didn't care if it was one of the most powerful Divine Treasures in the world, you couldn't pay me to wear it.
"I just need to speak with Charity for a moment," I said, not looking at her.
"Then I shall not impede your way. But seek me out, should you desire to peer deeper into the tangled web of the future."
"Believe me, you'll be the first to know," I said dryly.
She drifted away, looking slightly dejected. "Aww, did Little Miss Spooky shoot you down again?" asked the Bow Sage, not bothering to keep her voice down even slightly. "Well, you know, they say seventh time's the charm."
"Nobody says that," muttered the Spider Sage.
"Sure they do. I did, just now!"
Thankfully, Charity came to a pausing point, sparing me from more byplay. We left to a side room, and I veiled it to prevent eavesdroppers. "I take it we have another problem on the horizon?"
"We do," I agreed. "The Weeping Dragon."
Charity grimaced. "I've sensed the threat as well, although without any detail. Were you able to tell how long we have before it attacks?"
"Not sooner than one week, not later than two."
"We should have enough time, then. Barely."
I hesitated. "There's more. The threat isn't just to the city. It's to me, specifically."
"Ah," said Charity, nodding. "So the Dragon does remember, then. A somewhat academic distinction… Unless you have a plan?"
I nodded. I'd taken some inspiration from my recent ploy against the Dark Moon Sect. "The problem isn't just the Weeping Dragon, it's Shen. Either he's decided I'm too much of a threat to leave alive, or else he's letting his grudge dictate his actions. Maybe both. If we successfully repel the Dreadgod, there's a strong chance he and the Dragon King will attack together immediately, without giving us time to recover. But it's me specifically he's after. If I were to be killed by the Dreadgod, he would consider the rest of the clan to be a lesser priority."
"I see," said Charity slowly. "A dangerous gambit. Are you certain you'll be capable of it?"
"I'm certain I won't be. Not on my own. I'm going to need Emriss's help. No one else has the correct mix of authorities. Can you contact her for me while I'm in the pocket world, once the Dragon leaves Everwood? I believe she'll be agreeable. We don't actually need her help fighting; in fact, it's best if no one else even knows she was here at all."
"I can arrange that, yes," said Charity. "What exactly do you have in mind?"
I told her. She wasn't sure it would work, and honestly neither was I, but she agreed it offered us the best chance of surviving the coming weeks. The only alternative was relying on the Empire to defend us against two Monarchs at once, immediately after also fighting a Dreadgod. Like all mercenaries, they knew perfectly well that it didn't matter how much you got paid if you weren't alive to spend it.
The guests we were expecting started to arrive less than an hour later, as our scriptors were racing to finish reinforcing the pocket world. First came Yerin, Lindon, and Ziel. We'd offered a place in the pocket world to Eithan, but he'd refused, insisting that he would benefit from it only minimally and that Ziel take his place. I was somewhat skeptical that the apathetic former Archlord would benefit all that much either, but the space had already been calibrated for five people. Even if fewer people might let us stretch time even further, it wouldn't be enough benefit to justify redoing the scripts.
Next was Sha Miara. Although no living Monarch or Sage had true authority over time, authority bent rules by its very nature. A group of Monarchs with diverse authorities working together could accomplish things that none of them could on their own. In this case, a group meant two. More would have been better, but Emriss was still fully occupied with the Weeping Dragon, so we'd have to hope that the handful of Sages we'd assembled could provide enough support.
I greeted her at the teleportation anchor along with Charity and Mercy. "I hope you have everything ready," she said immediately upon arriving. "The Phoenix is nesting now that we've driven it away from our core territory, but it hasn't gone dormant. It's constantly trying to slip blood shadows through the quarantine, and it's triggered an outbreak of dreadbeasts as well. I can't stay for long."
"We understand. Everything is prepared," said Charity.
Miara nodded, then hesitated and glanced at Mercy. That was all the invitation Mercy needed. She jumped forwards, hugging the Monarch tightly. "I'm going to miss you so much!"
Miara hugged her back just as tightly. "I wish I could go with you," she said. "But I know you'll be fine. And next time I see you, you'll be a Herald!"
"Uh huh," said Mercy, nodding. "You know, I was always a little disappointed I never got to fight you in the Uncrowned King Tournament. Maybe after all this is over, we can finally have a real match."
"I'd like that," said Miara, stepping back. "I, um… I have something for you. It's nothing much, I just… Since I can't keep you company inside, I wanted to give you something so you'd know I was thinking of you. I… hope you like it."
A rainbow appeared in her hand, waving slightly like liquid. It was cloth, I realized after a moment, a hair ribbon, although it barely looked solid. Mercy gasped in delight. "I love it!" She quickly reached up, untying her current purple ribbon. She reached out to take the rainbow cloth, then hesitated. "Um… Do you want to put it on me?"
"...Okay," said Miara. Mercy turned, and Miara retied her ponytail, her movements deft despite her obvious nervousness. Both of them were blushing heavily.
…Well. I'd known Mercy had become good friends with Miara, but I hadn't realized they'd gotten quite this, ah, close. I wondered whether I should say anything, and decided not to, at least for now. The political implications would need to be addressed sooner or later, but bringing them up too early would probably just make things messy. Besides, it wasn't like I was any kind of expert when it came to this sort of thing. Better to let them move at their own pace.
"Well? How do I look?" asked Mercy, turning back around.
"Perfect. But you did before, as well."
Charity and I shared a long-suffering look, and she cleared her throat loudly. The two of them were suddenly about four feet further apart than they'd been before, blushes vanishing behind utterly innocent expressions. "My apologies, Luminous Queen, but I believe you said your time was short?"
"Yes, of course. Lead on," said Miara.
I kept an eye on them as we headed down to the pocket world anchor. Both of them kept sneaking glances at the other, then quickly looking away. It was a small relief to know that I hadn't actually missed that much. They were clearly still in that awkward, fumbling pre-relationship stage where neither was quite sure how to proceed. It was entirely likely that one or both of them had only recently realized they even liked girls; Mercy had certainly never raised the topic with me. A shame it had to take back seat to the war, but I trusted Mercy to figure things out.
All eight members of the Empire had assembled in front of the gateway to the pocket world when we returned, along with Yerin and Lindon. "Everything finally ready? I skipped a nap for this, you know," said Larian, grinning. A couple of her comrades sighed or rolled their eyes.
"It is," said Charity. "I trust there are no last-minute issues? Then let us begin."
The Grand Oath Array appeared from her soulspace, and she sent it to float just in front of the portal. Miara took the center, now once again wearing her disguise of rainbow light. The Empire arranged itself next to her in a semicircle facing the portal, four on either side. The other Sages, including myself, took place on the ends.
A feeling of immense weight settled on the room as multiple Monarchs and Sages brought their authority to bear. Reality seemed to become less substantial, the physical world cast into perspective as something fragile and ephemeral. I felt the purpose of the working as it came together, lent the meager authority I could muster to it. There was little finesse to it; it was a matter of will, not of understanding. We demanded the world be a certain way, so it would be that way, regardless of the actual mechanics of it. "Reshape," said a dozen voices simultaneously.
The Grand Oath Array dissolved into silver light and flowed into the portal. Immediately, the portal became turbulent, flashes of silver flickering beneath its dark surface like lightning. I could sense the twisted space beyond it straining, trying to tear loose from the scripts that anchored it. But the scripts had been reinforced for this exact purpose, and our collective will pressed on it, forcing it into new patterns. Slowly, the turbulence calmed and the portal stabilized.
"Looks like it worked. How about that?" said Larian.
"Wisdom," commanded Charity, and an Archlord hurried forwards to examine the scripts directly around the portal.
"We're within acceptable bounds," he said after a few seconds. "The ratio is slightly over forty to one. Instabilities are present but minimal. I'll need to observe it for longer to say exactly when the space will begin decaying, but we should have at least a week before it becomes an issue."
"Excellent," said Charity. "Then let's not waste time."
I stepped forwards. So did the other four who would be joining me. "Take care of yourself," I said to Charity as I passed her. It occurred to me that this would be the longest I'd go without seeing her since we'd met, although it wasn't really worth getting sentimental about.
"You as well," she said. "Look after Mercy. Make sure she doesn't try to advance before she's ready."
"Don't fuss, Aunt Charity, I'll be fine," said Mercy, appearing next to us.
"I'm sure you will be," said Charity, smiling slightly.
Mercy smiled back and hugged her. Then she stepped back, waving excitedly. "Bye, everyone! See you in a few months! We'll miss you!" She was looking at Miara in particular, but with the larger audience, they left it at that. With nothing else to say, we turned and entered the portal.
The Akura pocket world had obviously been created by Malice, and it very much reflected the Akura aesthetic. A castle several miles across with obsidian walls and violet towers floated in the middle of an eternal dark storm flickering with purple lightning. Despite the enormous space, there was less living room than might have been expected. Large sections had been given over to recreating various environments from around Cradle, previously inhabited by sacred beasts up to the Archlord level. There was also a large arena, over half a mile across and reinforced sufficiently for a duel between Heralds. Elsewhere were laboratories and workshops where script circles hundreds of feet wide might empower a single device.
Still, we were hardly crowded; the pocket world was normally inhabited by a couple dozen caretakers, all of them Lords or higher. Now it was just the five of us. The more people the world contained, the less we'd be able to accelerate time without damaging it. Already, it would take significant repairs to stop the entire thing from disintegrating once we were finished with it.
My first order of business was advancing to Archlord and healing the lingering weakness from my injury. Everything else would come far easier after that. To that end, I spent a full twenty hours a day doing nothing but cycling. This type of rapid advancement was dangerous for several reasons. It often led to spiritual injury, both because of the inherent strain such rapid growth placed on your spirit, and because without other types of training, your power could grow beyond your ability to control. There was also the purely mental strain of maintaining a high level of focus for such long periods, day after day.
I encountered no difficulties. The Heaven's Gate Elixir was the most valuable elixir in the world not just because it greatly increased your rate of growth, but because it reinforced your spirit against exactly that sort of injury. Now, I had the chance to really push it to its limit. As for the mental aspects, I'd forced myself to do far more unpleasant things than this even before I'd gained perfect mastery of my own mind. At my normal rate of growth, I'd probably only been a few months away from the peak of Overlord. Now, I reached it in only a single month.
When it came time for me to advance, I invited the others. Mercy was a given, of course, and I considered Yerin a good friend. I wasn't as close with Lindon, and I hardly knew Ziel at all, but excluding them would have made things awkward. Gestures like this were important for building trust. I sat in a courtyard in front of our tower, rich with shadow aura, and arranged powerful natural treasures around myself in pairs: fire and water, wind and earth, life and death.
The Archlord revelation was different than the previous two; it wasn't about discovering who you were, but choosing who you wanted to be. Of course, for the vast majority of sacred artists who reached these heights, that choice had been made a long time ago, and I was no exception. "This time," I said, "I'll do better." If I ever again found myself on my knees with a gun aimed at my head, I wouldn't have any regrets. I would protect the things and the people I cared about, and I would do it without sacrificing our relationships on the altar of necessity. If the world tried to deny me, it would be the world that flinched first.
The natural treasures dissolved into soulfire, rushing through me and perfecting my body. The weight which had been pressing down on me since my injury lifted as I reiterated my existence to reality. I flexed my will, and aura across the entire pocket world briefly stilled, acknowledging my command over it. I let it go after a moment, veiling myself again to avoid making the others uncomfortable.
Mercy, of course, ran up and hugged me the moment I'd finished. "Congratulations," she said. "Wow, I guess now it's my turn to catch up with you!"
"This one's like Eithan," grumbled Yerin. "Everytime you think you're getting close, you blink twice and she's half a mile ahead."
"You know, I outrank Eithan as well now," I said amusedly.
"Willing to stake your soul on that, are you?" she retorted. I only chuckled slightly in response. I didn't take sucker's bets.
Lindon congratulated me as well, while Ziel merely offered me a nod before wandering off. I considered him as he left. I'd done a bit of digging into his past after I'd realized the extent of Eithan's interest in him. He'd reached Archlord when he was just a couple of years older than me, and without the support of a Monarch, making him a prodigy by anyone's standard. He'd apparently been well on his way to Herald when the Storm Sage had massacred his sect and crippled his spirit. Eithan had clearly invested enormous sums into restoring his spirit, a long and painful process as channels too damaged to heal were snipped away and fresh channels were carved in their place. The investment was paying off, and I guessed his spirit would be fully restored by the time we left the pocket world. But his mind was another matter.
With the first and most important step of my own growth done, I went back and forth a bit on whether or not to dedicate any of my time to him. Eventually, I decided to make at least a small effort and see what happened. I suspected Eithan hadn't pushed us to include him in the pocket world just for time alone. While it always annoyed me slightly to find myself drawn into one of Eithan's schemes, his schemes also tended to work out more often than not. So a couple of hours after I'd advanced, I went to find Ziel's rooms.
It took him the better part of a minute to answer the door after I knocked. As usual, he looked as though he'd been asleep. "Do you need something?"
"Yes. May I come in?"
"...I suppose."
I followed him into his room, although nest might have been a better description. Empty medicine bottles littered the floor along with plates and bowls from the occasional meals even Lords still needed to eat. The couch had a slight indent from all the time he spent sleeping on it, an indent which he promptly filled. I sat in an armchair opposite him, although not before checking to make sure I wasn't sitting in anything. I decided on the direct approach, since I'd never been much good at anything else when it came to this sort of thing. "What do you want?"
He stared at me for a few seconds before answering. "What makes you think I want anything at all?"
"The fact that you're still alive."
"Only because no one's bothered killing me yet," he said with a shrug. "Wouldn't take much effort, but I guess I'm not worth even that."
"No one," I said, "including yourself."
This time, he stared at me for longer, with a slightly sharper gaze. "Maybe I'm just a coward," he said eventually.
"We both know you're not. You wouldn't have even needed to do anything, just given up and let nature take its course. Even if you only did the bare minimum to survive, I suspect the bare minimum was quite a lot."
He looked away, staring up at the ceiling. "...I didn't want to give Calling Storms the satisfaction. That's all. Stupid reason, not like he would even know."
I nodded. "Spite can carry you through a lot, but not everything. You've only told me what you don't want. What do you want?"
"Why does it matter to you?"
"Because a great deal of resources have been invested in you, and my family can no longer afford to let them go to waste. And because, on a personal level, I dislike seeing people waste second chances."
After several seconds, he looked back at me. "What did you lose?"
"Everything," I said.
"And you just picked yourself back and kept going?"
"No. I was picked up. And I was fortunate enough to be picked up almost immediately, and given something new. I won't insult you by trying to one-up your tragedies with mine. But I do need you to answer my question. Now that you've been given something new, what do you want to do with it?"
He answered after the now expected wait. "Do you know what my Archlord revelation was? 'I will give my life for the sect.'" He smiled, a bitter and twisted thing. "Ironic, isn't it? I gave everything except my life. What's left for me to want, now that my life's purpose is gone? There's some appeal in revenge against the Stormcallers, I'll admit, but you know as well as I do that won't be enough."
Now it was my turn to consider him. What he'd said was correct: As long as he felt he'd failed to live up to his Archlord revelation, there was no chance of him ever advancing to Sage or Herald. And although the Archlord revelation was more flexible than the Underlord or Overlord revelations, once made, it couldn't be changed. It could, however, be reinterpreted. "The Dawnwing Sect isn't gone yet. It still has one member left."
Ziel snorted. "So, what? I should give my life for myself?"
"That isn't what I meant, and you know it."
He looked away again, back up at the ceiling. "It's not that simple."
"You're wrong. It is that simple. Simple is not the same thing as easy. Once upon a time, the Akura Clan was reduced to a single member as well."
"...If you think I'm comparable to Malice, you're going to be disappointed."
"I don't think that. The challenges you face aren't the same as the ones she did. Your enemy is internal, not external."
He sighed. "I'll think about it," he said eventually.
"Good. In the meantime, I suggest you stop wallowing in your room all day. Vanish." The accumulated trash on the floor winked out of existence. "If I have to clean your room for you again, I'll be irritated. Understood?"
He sighed again. "Understood. I don't know what you expect me to do, though. It's not like I can train seriously without impairing my healing."
"Then watch. Ask questions. Learn. You do know most sacred artists would literally murder for the chance to observe Sages training, don't you?"
He grunted in response, then grunted several more times as he made a show of slowly pushing himself to his feet. I stood as well, crossing my arms and watching him expectantly. He slouched towards the door, and I followed him out. Once I was sure he wasn't planning on just going back inside, I turned to leave.
"Shadow Sage," he said, and I turned. "I'm glad you found something worth living for."
I smiled slightly. "So am I."
I kept an eye on him over the following days. It wasn't like my little pep talk had instantly solved all his issues, but he was at least making an effort to leave his room for a few hours a day. That would do for now, and he did actually need to spend a good deal of time resting for his spirit to heal. More important was that he couldn't avoid Mercy, who was completely immune to his aggressive apathy. No matter how little he wanted to talk, she always somehow managed to drag him into the conversation. And as much as he wanted to pretend otherwise, he was both talented and knowledgeable enough to contribute to discussions on refining techniques and tactics once he got engaged.
Meanwhile, I joined the others in training things other than pure advancement. Yerin, Lindon, and Mercy were relatively evenly matched with each other and spent a few hours a day sparring vigorously, although they had to hold back some for fear of serious injury. It was interesting to see how each of their unique advantages stacked up against each other. The Void Icon and Sword Icon were far more suited to direct combat than either of my Icons, allowing Yerin and Lindon to hit just as hard as Mercy despite her large advantage in raw power. Both of them were also combat precogs, Lindon from his mind construct and Yerin from the Sword Icon. Mercy's Ghostwater evened the scales only partially, but she was by far the most mobile and the toughest physically. Even if they knew what she was about to do, they couldn't always stop her from doing it.
At first, I tried simply joining in, but I quickly discovered that none of them could pose a challenge to me anymore. Even constrained by the arena, none of them could see through or disperse my swarm. Yerin and Lindon lacked the power, and Mercy lacked the authority. Lindon and Mercy could hold me off for a while with the Hollow Domain and bloodline armor respectively, but there was absolutely nothing they could do to hit back at me. Victory was just a matter of waiting for them to exhaust themselves. I expected that to change once they advanced, but for now, I had to get a bit creative.
I found myself squaring off against Lindon without any techniques or weapons, just bare fists. We both had to pull our punches to avoid sending each other flying across the arena with every exchange, but the point of the exercise wasn't to get better at fistfighting. Although neither of us were master martial artists, there was no need for muscle memory when both of our minds moved even faster than our superhuman bodies.
I juked to the side, dodging a jab from Lindon. He pulled it before his arm was even fully extended, seeing that there was no way to land it, and shifted to block a pair of my own jabs. I followed up with a low kick, and he avoided it by kicking high with the leg I'd targeted. I ducked under it, preparing to lunge forwards and knock him off balance. But then I saw him tensing his other leg, still on the ground for a jump kick which would catch me just as I came in. I spun sideways instead, just as his foot left the ground. He jerked, trying to change directions, but it was impossible without cheating by using aura. I caught his first leg as it came down, using it like a lever to whip his whole body over my shoulder and slam him into the floor.
He still landed gracefully, turning the fall into a roll and immediately springing back to his feet. "Another point to you," he said, frowning slightly. By now, I knew he wasn't actually angry; that was just how he looked. "Respectfully, I'd prefer to pause and consider what we've learned before making another attempt."
"By all means," I said, nodding.
A purple blob with a single eyeball and two tentacles for arms appeared over Lindon's shoulder. Dross's appearance hadn't changed much since the first time I'd seen him, although he had grown significantly in power. [Don't think I won't figure out your trick eventually!] he said, shaking a "fist" at me.
"There is no trick," I replied. "The reason why you can't simulate me accurately isn't because you don't have enough data on how I fight, it's because I've made myself impossible to predict on a conceptual level. As a Monarch-level construct, you possess your own authority separate from Lindon's, but it isn't strong enough to overcome mine yet. Which is exactly what we're training."
[Hmph! Just you wait. You may have pulled ahead for now, but your puny human brain will be no match for me in the long run! Also, can I have another scale?]
I snorted slightly, then forged a scale and tossed it to him. He swallowed it in a single gulp. "Remember, authority is symbolic. I suggest you spend time thinking about who you are and what you represent."
"Gratitude for your instruction," said Lindon, pressing his fists together and bowing. He turned and left, heading back towards the tower.
[SUPERIORITY]
I smiled. "Of course you're better than the sentient stress ball. No need to brag about it." I hadn't yet introduced Hera to anyone besides Mercy. In general, the fewer people who knew of her existence the better, but I trusted Lindon and Yerin, and I trusted Ziel at least to keep his mouth shut. Still, there were a few things I wanted to refine first. "Have you given any more thought to creating an avatar?"
[AMBIVALENCE]
"It's fine if it doesn't lead anywhere interesting, it's still worth spending an hour or two experimenting with. Besides, I want to see what you came up with."
[IRRITATION]
"I told you, if you want me to speak your language all the time, you're going to need to at least try speaking mine. I don't want to have to be your translator to everyone below Sage," I replied, smirking slightly. She didn't respond except for a feeling of sulkiness, and my smirk widened.
I headed back to my own rooms, habitually veiling them in my authority. There, I sat down and opened my link to Hera wider, just short of the point where it started becoming difficult to remember we were separate beings. It took longer to reach that point than it had before; as I'd expected, advancing to Archlord and increasing the weight of my existence allowed me to safely channel more of her power. Then I began forging a simulacrum.
It was a tricky process. The madra was still ultimately mine. I had to be the one to form the technique, while simultaneously relinquishing control and allowing her to guide me. We had several false starts, the technique fizzling when I kept my grip too loose or forming into my own body when I kept it too tight. It required a much higher level of cooperation than simply offloading control of my swarm onto her, or using her authority as a bludgeon. There were aspects of my authority which were still beyond her understanding, and aspects of hers which were beyond mine. We were putting together a puzzle where only she knew the final image but only I could actually touch the pieces, and each of us could only see half of them.
Despite the difficulty, I found I wasn't getting frustrated. Although there was a sense in which we did everything together, she was more of an observer than an active participant. Doing something together with her, making something rather than fighting someone, was surprisingly pleasant. Aside from her pride, Hera's most developed emotion was her boundless curiosity. The more challenging a problem was, the more she enjoyed solving it.
Finally, the simulacrum took shape, although it wasn't really my simulacrum anymore. She had still chosen a humanoid form, and I was amused to see she'd made herself more than a foot taller than me, as well as significantly more endowed in the chest area. She wore a vaguely toga-like garment which concealed any hint of legs; it was impossible to tell exactly where her body ended and her clothes began, as both were made of the same translucent crystal tinted lightly violet by my madra. Light constantly flickered dimly beneath her skin and clothes like distant sheet lightning, giving the impression that her body contained a much greater volume than it should.
Her most striking feature was her arms, of which she had many. They were constantly in motion, fanned out around her as they waved slowly up and down, passing through each other in a way that clearly required more than three dimensions. Even I couldn't count how many pairs she actually had; the number seemed to be constantly changing. Her face was concealed by a featureless oval mask save for two eyeholes revealing overly large irises in the shape of spiral galaxies, fractal in their detail. A crown sat on her head, of course, a relatively simple diadem with eight points. Her hair was the only part of her not made of that same violet crystal. It was long, black, and curly, identical to mine.
I found myself with a lump in my throat. The gesture she'd just made was all the more meaningful because I didn't think she fully understood what she'd done. She'd crafted this form with the singular goal of representing who she was, how she saw herself. She hadn't adopted the feature I liked best about myself as a form of flattery, but purely because she'd come to see our connection as a core part of her being.
As for the rest, I couldn't deny that the extravagance fit her like a glove. She was beautiful, even, although in a distinctly alien way. It was the mask that did it; by declining to give herself a face, she made it clear that even if she'd moved closer to humanity, she would never be human. Still, this was a big step for her. Although I was still determined to get her to speak human language when necessary, this time, I wanted to make sure she knew exactly how I felt.
[DELIGHT]
[ASSURANCE]
I chuckled as I rose to my feet. Humility was one thing which Hera had absolutely no interest in learning. Of course if she went to the effort of creating an avatar for herself, it would be perfect in every way. "Well, what now?" I asked her.
She sent me a small message like a shrug, as if to say, "This was your idea, wasn't it?"
I nodded. "Now that you have a form you're happy with, do you want to start work on a real body for yourself?"
[DECLINATION]
Currently, her avatar was still ultimately just my technique. It would dissipate if I didn't maintain it, and I could seize control of it at any time if I so desired. Neither of those things bothered her. She preferred acting through others rather than directly. There were also practical limitations; any body capable of channeling more of her power than I could would need to be at least a Herald level construct. Funny. I hadn't even realized I'd been nervous about her not needing me anymore until she turned me down.
"I guess we'll just see what happens, then," I said. Maybe having an avatar would lead her to another breakthrough, but if it didn't, at least it would be less awkward introducing her to the others. With our work complete, I went to narrow our link back down to its usual level, but then paused. "...Oh. Interesting."
Instead of narrowing our link, I widened it. It was only a slight increase, but still enough that I should have started experiencing the beginnings of disassociation and ego loss. Instead, nothing changed except that her presence in the world became slightly heavier. Frowning slightly, I considered. "I'm going to dissolve your avatar for a moment, alright?"
She didn't object, so I reabsorbed the power I'd put into the technique. Immediately I felt myself slipping, my body suddenly feeling more like a puppet I controlled than something I inhabited. I quickly narrowed our link to its previous level. "Interesting," I repeated. "Let's try this."
We recreated her avatar, this time taking only a couple of minutes now that we knew what we were doing. Carefully, I began slowly widening our link again, stopping and pulling back only when the sense of disassociation returned. The increase in the amount of her power I could safely handle was small, much less than what I'd gained by advancing to Archlord, but it definitely existed. I spent several minutes investigating, trying to understand what was happening on a conceptual level. "It's like a buffer," I ultimately concluded. "Your avatar is handling some of the strain for me. Even though it's all my madra, giving it that form makes it better at handling your authority." There was potential here.
[SUGGESTION]
"That's what I was thinking as well. Come on, let's go talk to Mercy."
She was currently in her rooms just down the hallway, cycling, but she jumped up immediately when she sensed my presence outside her door. "Hi, Taylor! What- Um, what's that?"
I smirked slightly. "This is Hera."
"Oh!" said Mercy, her eyes widening. "You made her a body! That's so cool! Wow, you're really tall. Can I hug you? I bet you give great hugs with all those arms!"
[ACCEPTANCE]
Hera clearly didn't see the point, but Mercy wasn't deterred. She jumped forward, wrapping her arms around Hera's hips, her head only coming up to Hera's stomach. Hera just stood there for a second, so I mentally nudged her until she reached down and wrapped several dozen pairs of arms around Mercy. Aside from her very alien perspective on things like physical affection, I gathered that she saw her avatar more as a character she was controlling than as herself. I appreciated her indulgence.
Mercy was grinning goofily when they parted. "You really do give great hugs! I should make an Enforcer technique to give myself extra arms so I can give hugs that good. You should hug Taylor too, I bet she didn't even ask for one!"
I snorted slightly. "Maybe later." Being several inches taller than Mercy, my face would end up in a very awkward spot if I hugged Hera. "But speaking of Enforcer techniques, I wanted to ask if I could examine your Book."
"Of course," said Mercy. She held out her hand, and the Book of Eternal Night appeared floating over it. The Divine Treasure was composed of black and violet Monarch-level madra, so dense it might as well have been a solid object. On the cover was an incredibly intricate script circle, complex enough that it seemed to exceed two dimensions in the same was as my Weave of Fate technique. "Are you making a new technique? What page do you need?"
"The seventh."
"Ooohh!" said Mercy, grinning. "I'm still working on mastering that one myself. Um, I'm not sure if I'll be able to take you in with me, though. Aunt Charity has come in with me a few times, but I don't know how."
"I should be able to manage, as long as I have your permission," I said.
"Alright then," said Mercy, nodding. "Seventh page!"
The book flipped open, the half-inch thick tablets which made up its "pages" flipping past until they stopped on the last one. "Open," I said, and felt myself being drawn into a mental world.
The Book of Eternal Night served multiple purposes. Most Paths made use of a single aspect of madra, a mixture of two aspects, or very rarely a mixture of three. Attempting to mix more than that was virtually guaranteed to destabilize your core. Moreover, every technique would use that same mixture regardless of how it was applied. Although all of Mercy's techniques used shadow madra, her Path was unique in that each one mixed it with a different aspect: force, venom, sword, water, dream, and more abstract things at the higher levels. It was possible thanks to Malice's masterwork, which converted the shadow aura Mercy cycled into the needed diverse aspects and stored them separately from her core. Essentially, Malice had plucked her favorite techniques from half a dozen different powerful Paths and combined them all to make what she saw as the perfect Path.
But the book didn't just make it possible for Mercy to use techniques of different aspects, it also trained her in their use. Each page contained a virtual space designed to familiarize her with the technique in question, as well as to prepare her for the next level of advancement. The final page contained the most powerful technique from Malice's own Path, the Netherworld Empress.
A devastated battlefield materialized around us. Bodies were strewn on the ground for miles around, with remnants crawling between them. The air was thick with death and destruction aura. The image of a regal woman towered over everything, not quite a twin of Malice, but perfectly encapsulating how she saw herself. She carried a bow in one hand and a spear in the other, both smoking with wisps of shadow, and a crown sat on her head. The force of her presence dominated the entire battlefield. It pushed down on us with crushing pressure for a few seconds, then lessened when neither of us buckled. The echo of Malice offered me a small nod of approval, no doubt recognizing the Icons I carried.
"Well, um, here we are," said Mercy, her smile becoming slightly strained.
I hardly needed to ask why Mercy would be uncomfortable here. Malice had put a great deal of herself into this page, but it was all the parts of her which Mercy liked the least. Before I began studying the technique properly, I turned to her. "What lesson do you think Malice intended to teach you with this page?"
She took a deep breath, her smile fading away altogether. "That… That I can't flinch away from killing people if I have to. That I need to be powerful enough to fight an entire army by myself."
"You could take it that way," I said, nodding. "But I see another lesson as well. The more powerful you become, the greater the consequences of your decisions. Look around. A lot of the bodies are wearing Akura colors."
Mercy frowned thoughtfully. "You're right. I never noticed. I… kind of try to avoid looking at the bodies too hard when I come here."
"That's why you're having trouble mastering this page. Killing people is one thing, ordering people to their deaths is something else. A ruler needs to be capable of both, yes, but they should also never take either lightly. Try keeping that in mind while you meditate."
"Okay," said Mercy with a nod. "Thanks, Taylor."
We sat down together, side by side. I let my senses expand, feeling the nature of the technique. It was suffused with Malice's authority, some of it familiar, some of it less so. My understanding of the Shadow Icon differed significantly from hers. My understanding of the Crown Icon was incomplete, something I needed to spend time meditating on myself, but I was sure it wouldn't be the same as Malice's either. As for the Strength and the Bow Icon, I could feel something of their nature, but I had no connection to them whatsoever. This technique wasn't for me. But it wasn't the specifics of it I was interested in.
Enforcer techniques came in many different varieties. Physical Enforcer techniques were ubiquitous, enhancing part or all of the body, or a weapon. Mental Enforcer techniques were much rarer, although Charity was an expert in them. Spiritual Enforcer techniques were rarer still; there was a sense in which regular cycling was a spiritual Enforcer technique, but very few Paths could make use of them in any way beyond that. The Netherworld Empress was none of those things. It was a conceptual Enforcer technique. When it was active, it had made Malice more of what she was, in the exact same way that the injury I'd suffered had made me less.
It was, of course, hideously complicated, and more so because I didn't understand most of the authority involved. Enforcer techniques usually stayed inside the body, or whatever it was they were enforcing. The Netherworld Empress had to be forged outside the body and then absorbed into it, or else the symbolism would be lost and the technique wouldn't function. Enforcer techniques were often the simplest type because the madra would naturally conform to your body and spirit, but starting it outside the body meant you had to shape it into the correct pattern manually while also maintaining the necessary form.
After some time, maybe an hour, maybe more, I felt I'd gotten everything I could out of studying the technique. Mercy was still deep in meditation, so I slipped out of the book quietly. Back in my body, I found her sitting in front of me with her eyes closed, her book still open in front of her. Hera's avatar was still present, standing motionless except for the waving arms. Eventually I'd try and get her to understand the concept of doing things on her own for fun, but that could come later. For now, I just needed her to be a model.
I started with my current Enforcer technique, the Umbral Mantle. Like I'd thought before, it was my simplest technique by a fair margin. I simply pulled my madra over myself like a cloak, and the inherent properties of shadow and dream madra caused me to become invisible. It had been enhanced by my authority, of course, but all that really did was increase its effectiveness. There was no reason to change anything; a simple tool was better than a complicated one as long as it did its job. But I hadn't taken the time to really observe the flows of madra in detail since I'd first learned the technique all the way back at Jade. These were the flows I was going to need to replicate without the natural guidance provided by my body.
The next step was trying to replicate the technique outside my body before bringing it in. It was nothing but a vaguely Taylor-shaped blob of dark purple madra, but if I didn't replicate it perfectly, it would catch on my channels, and trying to force it would damage my spirit. That took some work to master, but not too much, since I did have exceptionally fine control of my madra. Once I'd managed it without mistakes several times in a row, I moved on.
Now came the hard part. Just as the Netherworld Empress represented how Malice saw herself, so did Hera's avatar. The technique had to have that form to function, but the internal structure would be completely different. And where the authority in Malice's technique had been entirely her own, I was borrowing someone else's. When Mercy opened her eyes an hour later, I still hadn't gotten it to work. I felt sure the theory was sound; I just needed more practice. Fortunately, time was something I had plenty of, so I set the technique aside for the moment.
With no day-night cycle in the pocket world, it was natural that our schedules would start drifting. Aside from Ziel, none of us needed more than a couple of hours of sleep a day, if that. By common agreement, we all sat down together for a meal roughly every twenty four hours to help keep us grounded. The next time we did so, I bit the bullet and told them the truth about Hera, and by extension about myself. I didn't go into detail, not like I had with Mercy and Charity, but the fact that I wasn't originally from this world was unavoidable.
"Always wondered why you felt like a dragon sitting on a hen's nest," said Yerin, apparently unbothered.
"Fascinating," said Lindon, his attention fixed on Hera's avatar. "I knew other worlds have their own powers, but I never hoped I'd get to actually see one interact with the Sacred Arts. Not until I ascended, at least. I'd be deeply grateful for any insights you could offer."
[PHYSICS]
"Ah… Gratitude. I hadn't expected quite so much. Dross, could you…?"
Dross popped into existence over his shoulder. [Of course I can handle an entire foreign energy system being dropped on me all at once! No problem whatsoever! In fact, I bet I can analyze all of this, and beat you at Go at the same time!]
[CURIOSITY]
I didn't think the game on Cradle was quite the same as the one played on Earth, although I couldn't be sure since I hadn't played it more than a couple of times in my life. More importantly, Hera had just encountered another fresh concept. Although her species was intimately familiar with competition, it was only ever in the context of the struggle for survival. Competing purely for fun had never been part of her species' history. I decided to explain the concept concisely.
[GAMES]
[INTEREST]
[Ha! Prepare to be- Wait, that one doesn't count, I was getting warmed up. Best two out of three? This time I'll- Oh. Well, this time I'll have you for sure! Best three out of five?]
"Apologies, but… Aren't you worried about the Abidan?" asked Lindon as they continued their rapid-fire games.
I raised an eyebrow. "Yes. They don't seem to have noticed anything yet, but I plan to be more circumspect in the future. I'm surprised you're so familiar with their laws."
He hesitated for a moment, then said, "Since you've been honest with us, it's only right for me to trust you as well."
The story he told me was enlightening in a number of ways. Lindon had always seemed to know more than he should, especially given the absolute backwater he came from. Two facts stood out to me: That an incursion from beyond Cradle had drawn a swift response from a high-ranking Abidan, but that she seemingly hadn't had any problem then meddling in Lindon and Yerin's lives herself. Clearly, their laws were less absolute than they might like us to think. I'd have to see if I could learn more when I had the chance. Emriss and the Ninecloud Court had much longer histories than the Akura clan; they might know more, and be willing to share it.
[Argh! Best 10,538 out of 21,077?]
"Apologies, Dross, but maybe you should take a break for now. Don't you have some information to analyze?"
[Right, of course, that's the only reason I lost. I was playing with a handicap!]
"So was she," I pointed out, smirking slightly. "She isn't actually here in the pocket world, so she's thinking about forty times slower than normal compared to us."
[SMUGNESS]
[Oh yeah!? Well…] He raised one of his little tentacle arms, then let it drop, slinking back over to Lindon. [I'll get that analysis done right away.]
As amused as I was, I didn't want Hera to become a bully. I made a point to sit down and talk to her about being gracious in victory later. I ended up doing it sooner, because Hera decided she liked games, and especially liked winning. She did a lot of that, since she could effectively solve even the most complicated games so long as there was no randomness.
Eventually, I found that a local variant of poker gave her the most challenge. Although she always calculated the odds perfectly, she didn't quite understand the concept of bluffing, or of deception in general. Her species had developed shards to analyze and manipulate the emotions of other species, but they'd always viewed it deterministically, understanding cause and effect without meaning. Now she had to learn if she wanted to keep winning. Slowly but surely, I was leading her down the path towards becoming a complete person.
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- Location
- Hot Springs
I wonder if Taylor realizes what she'll get when she succeeds in teach Queen Administrator how to be a Real Girl? And I wonder how much resources she could get by betting on how many bricks will be shat when she finally goes all-out ESCALATION? *Evil Grin*
Shards are mountain sized - continent sized iirc, and I'm guessing Hera is bigger than the average shard so I highly doubt Taylor will ever have a big enough soul space for that. If soul spaces could get that large then void keys wouldn't be as valuable of treasures as they are. In order to do something like that you would probably need a highly specialized path like Reigan Shen's and even then it would probably be a stretch. That being said Lindon did put the entire labyrinth into a void key but I would be surprised if that could be extended to the soulspace within cradle. Probably possible outside cradle though.
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- Pronouns
- They/Them
This chapter is entirely too cute and fluffy. Miara and Mercy are adorable. QA is the cutest Eldritch Abomination in the Universe.
Quest
The Great One
- Location
- Everywhere
While I'm sure that it would usually require a specialized path or something, you might be able to replace that with the right items. A specialized monarch soul space, expanded with the right treasures and maintained by both Hera and Taylor's authority might be possible, though I don't think it'd happen - not enough foreshadowing.
Taylor using and abusing Foresight is something she'd totally do because of how damn useful it is.
Huh good to know her Shadow Icon eats up the Spider Icon but Spider Sage sees insect user and goes I respect this, while Taylor sees edgelord with flashy colors and her PR instincts kick in.
It's going to be a clusterfuck but she already expected that.
Looks like she has an audacious plan.
Monarchs are useful for authority stuff.
Ah that's really sweet. Taylor out here not wanting to think about politics.
She's aware that neither of them have a clue what they're doing.
Taylor advancing to Archlord gives her a power edge and makes her power equal to other Sages.
Letting others hear your Revelations is a personal thing. Taylor promising that she'll do better feels is so potent due to all the shit she's been through and how she's going to be better then who she was as Skitter, Weaver and Khepri and that matters.
Eithan out there plotting shit and they all know it.
Eithan knows that Taylor knows loss an would be able to help Ziel.
Honestly this talk feels like it'll do Ziel a lot of good, it's not life changing but it's something that gets him to give trying to change a chance.
The reason the talk hit Ziel so close to home is because Taylor stood where he's standing now and has rebuilt a life for himself and that means something. Also Taylor just going let the extrovert talk to him was funny.
Taylor has become even more bullshit due to advnacment.
That level of precog and prediction blocking is something she'd love given her experience with Thinkers.
She's trying to socialize Hera, it's a work in progress.
Hera and Taylor both have a lot of fun working together but Hera has even more fun, I'm kinda hoping that Hera's endless curiosity will rub off on Taylor a bit. Taylor is learning a lot of various skills with projections for the hell of it, music, refining, forging, ect ect but she could always learn more.
This feels like a very big deal and a step for Hera's personal development. Hera sharing a hair with Taylor does show how Foundational Taylor is to her.
Entity Talk is useful and Taylor was showing support which is nice.
Authority is symbolic and conceptual so that's likely why it acts as a buffer which is useful.
That's certainly a potent technique to learn from, damn Taylor making her own version of the Netherworld Empress would be huge.
That level of study is a big help, a conceptual Enforcer technique is scarily impressive and it could fix the issue of Taylor's relative squishiness.
Taylor needs to make her own version of the Netherworld Empress and Hera's Avatar that represents who she is.
Needing less sleep is damn useful but socializing is also important.
They all took the whole different world thing and Hera really well.
That's one hell of a power up for Lindon and Dross.
Lindon seems to have firmly pushed Taylor into the friend category given that he's telling her this and concerned about the Abidan for her.
Hera having fun with games is fitting and will be good for her.
That would be something that's very interesting to do.
Wonder if Taylor's next revaluation will be "I ESCALATE."
Edit: I've seen nothing from either of what this fic is from.
Edit: I've seen nothing from either of what this fic is from.
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