The portal dropped us in a verdant temperate forest. My acute hearing picked out the sound of waves crashing several miles in the distance, and I began letting out scarabs to have a look around. The beach was rocky rather than sandy, with a sheer sandstone cliff rising up just a couple dozen feet from the edge of the surf. The air was filled with the cries of gulls. It was, I had to admit, a rather pleasant place to start our journey. If only the company was equally pleasant.
"You know, I've always found faking one's death to be the perfect opportunity for a makeover. Have you considered updating your wardrobe? I'd be delighted to offer my advice."
It wasn't that I disliked Eithan. If pressed, I would probably admit that I was actually somewhat fond of him. But dealing with him was always a bit of an ordeal, for multiple reasons. He seemed completely incapable of not constantly trying to get under everyone's skin, somehow combining the most annoying aspects of Alec and Lisa's personalities. More importantly, I'd never been able to really trust him. Even if our goals seemed to align well enough for now, something about him set off every single one of my instincts from my first life and my second. As irritating as his affected clownish personality was, I felt absolutely certain that whatever was lurking underneath was dangerous enough to give even me pause.
Taylor being reminded of Alec and Lisa makes sense given how he fills that niche. She has good enough instincts to know that he's absurdly dangerous though.
He pouted slightly. "Towards the ocean. But don't think I'm letting you off that easily! I've always felt it was a true tragedy, the way you squander your potential for fabulousness."
This was going to be a long trip if I didn't fire back at least a little. "You know, I was actually something of an amateur designer when I was younger," I said as we set off. "Would you like to see the first outfit I designed?"
His eyes narrowed slightly; he knew perfectly well he was being baited. He took the bait anyway, of course, quickly plastering a beaming smile across his face. "I would be delighted! I never gave up hope that deep down, you had the heart of a true fashionista!"
Without hesitation, I Forged an illusion over myself, Skitter in her full regalia, complete with spiders and centipedes crawling on my armor and in my hair. "I knew you would appreciate my sense of fashion," I said, my voice the buzz of thousands of insects.
Eithan couldn't contain a snort of laughter. Then he sighed and shook his head. "I once told you it was a shame you weren't adopted by my family instead. I take it back. You truly were destined to be an Akura."
"I'll take that as a compliment," I said dryly, dismissing the illusion.
"Still, you certainly can't deny that you appreciate the importance of presentation," he said.
"Would you believe me if I told you I didn't originally intend for it to be so intimidating?"
He laughed again, considered for a moment, then smiled slightly. "I suppose I would. It is difficult, when you're young, to remember that not everyone sees things the way you do."
Taylor fashion sense leans towards terror as expected. Eithan is likely remembering being young and not getting why people don't see things the way he did.
Hunger aura flowed over us. It was weaker than it would be closer to the Slumbering Wraith's prison in Ashwind, but still very much present. This was the first trial of exploring the labyrinth; the hunger aura slowly but steadily sapped the power of everything inside, including sacred artists. You could still recover madra with elixirs, but they were less efficient than they should be, and the elixirs themselves would lose potency far faster than normal as well. It also attracted Dreadgods like flies to the scent of rotting meat, which was why opening one of these doors was a crime punishable by death or worse virtually everywhere on Cradle. None of the Dreadgods were close enough to notice it at present, but I still closed the door as soon as we were through.
Inside, the hallway was bare whitish stone. It went forwards about twenty feet, then split in two, leading off in either direction. Walking to the intersection, I peered down the hallway both ways. I saw nothing but more bare stone until my sight was blocked by the hallway's ceiling due to the curvature of the planet itself. Given how much larger Cradle was than Earth, that was a distance of dozens of miles.
It's an very large and dangerous area.
I slammed my will back against the Slumbering Wraith's hand with implacable force. I had no interest in what it was offering, and my mind was inviolable. The fingers writhed, the dismembered hand reached up to try and grasp me. But it was a tool, nothing more than that. It had no true will of its own, only the echo of it. "Obey," I snapped, bringing the power of the Crown Icon down on the hand. It resisted a moment longer, then went limp, and I felt an unfamiliar authority fall under my control.
Crown Icon coming in clutch.
"So it would seem," agreed Eithan. "No doubt we stand in the workshop of some long-dead Monarch."
"But not Ozmanthus?"
"No," said Eithan, shaking his head. "We've passed beyond the surface layers of the labyrinth now, but our destination is far deeper. We should search for an exit at the bottom of this complex."
The doors here were just regular doors, requiring no authority to open. My scarabs spread out, slipping through the cracks. I found the remains of dormitories, cafeterias, storage rooms, and other necessities for a support staff. Multiple spiral staircases led down to the next level; we headed for the nearest.
"I wonder what they studied here?" I asked idly as we passed by offices, lecture halls, and libraries with shelves of ruined books.
"It could have been any number of things," said Eithan. "Some come to the labyrinth to study the work of those that came before, or the nature of hunger aura. Others come for the unique environment. The depths of the labyrinth are thoroughly isolated from the outside world. For particularly sensitive experiments which can't be carried out in a pocket world for whatever reason, this is an ideal location. And, of course, it also provides privacy. Even the most keen-eyed Monarch will be unable to see what happens here."
There's tons of ancient stuff that's been lost and the Labyrinth has a good amount of it. It's an ideal study area.
The shaft leading down was quite long, and I was fairly sure there was some spacial trickery at work as well. I didn't really understand the structure of the labyrinth, but I thought this elevator was taking us down to a "deeper" level than the one holding the rest of the complex. The shaft finally opened up into an large circular room with a spherical ceiling, the platform floating down to land in the center. A few open tunnels led out from the edges, leading to rooms full of large machines which I guessed were some sort of infrastructure. There was also a huge, ornate gold door protected by the most active scripts I'd seen yet. That, I assumed, led to the personal quarters of whatever Monarch had created this place.
I approached, frowning slightly. "A lot of these scripts are beyond my understanding."
Taylor is good at scripts due to her studying but that just shows how bullshit good they are.
It stared at me, blinking several times, then spoke. "Why have you awoken me, Sage? Why do you trespass in the domain of Sun King Medjedu?"
I'd never studied the history of Cradle deeply, but Charity had made sure I wasn't ignorant. The Akura clan had no records whatsoever of a Monarch going by that name or title, which meant he probably predated the Dread War by several centuries at least. "We aren't here for the works of your master. We seek an artifact which lies deeper within the labyrinth. Will you let us pass?"
Lost wonders and legends are common.
This time, the doors obeyed. They revealed a wide hall, with several more doors leading off to the sides. My scarabs explored them, finding once-lavish living quarters and advanced workshops. Unlike the laboratories above, some of the constructs here were relatively well preserved. After a moment, I started opening the doors with aura as we passed, my scarabs ferrying anything that looked functional into my void key. Monarch-level soulsmithing tools were too valuable to just leave lying around, but I decided to make sure their origin was recorded in the clan archive. My main focus, though, was on the door at the far end of the hall, and the sense of power radiating from behind it.
Loot is Loot.
The room was huge, probably close to a thousand feet across. Like the one we'd come from, it had a spherical ceiling. In the center, two curved pillars rose from the floor, a series of heavily scripted rings slowly rotating between them. In the middle of the rings floated a star. It was barely twenty feet across, but it was very clearly a star. It glowed bright yellow, dotted with sunspots and slowly twisting loops of plasma. More than that, I could sense the authority in it, declaring to the world that it was unquestionably a star no matter how compressed it might be.
"Now that," said Eithan, "is actually impressive."
"What do you think it's for?"
"A forge, most likely. A weapon forged in the core of a star would have some very interesting properties. This one is quite a bit more convenient to access than the one up there."
Okay damn Medjedu is impressive.
A difficult proposition," he said. "I wouldn't think the Akura clan would have use for a Divine Treasure with such a strong light aspect."
"We can always trade it to Emriss, or the Nineclouds. It seems wrong to just let it sit here and decay." I hadn't made any promises to the remnant, but I still would have felt a bit guilty ignoring its last request.
Eithan smiled slightly. "I agree. I'm sure a way can be found, once all this is over."
Taylor values the last wish and Eithan is aware of that.
The next hall was much shorter. Visually, there was nothing to distinguish the door at the end from any of the others we'd seen, but to my more esoteric senses, it radiated danger like a stove radiated heat. I focused all of my senses on it, but couldn't pierce through the labyrinth's authority. "I don't suppose you have any idea what's behind this, do you?"
Her senses are really good.
My scarabs flitted inside, but it took me a good couple of seconds to really understand what I was seeing. The room was roughly cubic, around half a mile on a side. The omnipresent whitish stone of the labyrinth was nowhere to be seen, because every inch of the room was covered with grey, diseased looking flesh. It piled up in enormous cancerous mounds, some of them hundreds of feet across. Every fleshy surface was dotted with half-melted features from tens of thousands of creatures, some of them disturbingly human. It reminded me strongly of the 'garden' beneath Cauldron's base.
Unlike the Eden entity, though, this… creature was very much alive. It had clearly been deep asleep, but the opening of the door had been enough to wake it. A shivering ripple swept across the expanse of flesh, and it roared, a discordant noise produced by tens of thousands of mouths. I instantly used my Ruler technique, filling the room with my swarm. Before it could fully manifest, ropy tentacles burst forth from the masses of flesh, thousands of them, and lunged towards the open door.
She's seen some weird shit before so it's not to out of context.
The creature retaliated with a technique of its own, or more precisely, several hundred clashing techniques. Fire, lightning, force, shadow, and more burst out of every appendage, battling my swarm and blasting down the hallway towards us. I sensed Eithan's response and quickly put myself behind him. Pure madra caught the chaotic blast in a whirlpool, swinging it around and flinging it back down the hallway. Combined with my swarm, it was enough to make the creature jerk its damaged tentacles back, screaming in pain and anger. But given the space limitations, my swarm had been tiny, and it was already nearly gone. With the door momentarily unblocked, I snapped, "Close!"
It began swinging shut, and the creature slammed more tentacles into it, attempted to force it back open. I sent a volley of Dream Parasites at it, along with my flying daggers and bluish white spears from Eithan. Compared to the size of the abomination, the damage they inflicted was minimal, but it was still enough to clear the doorway. The doors sealed the hallway with a thump, and the spiritual pressure abated.
"A Herald-level dreadbeast," I said after a moment. "Lovely."
"Somewhat more powerful than a Herald, I think, although it can't use its power with any kind of efficiency," said Eithan, still smiling. "Quite the obstacle, it must be said. How do you intend to deal with it?"
Damn that's really impressive.
I narrowed my eyes, suddenly understanding. He wasn't trying to push me to grow, he was trying to force me to let Hera loose. Why? If he was curious, it would be easier to just ask me. There was something more going on here, something dangerous. I had the sudden sense that I'd wandered into a minefield without noticing. I chose my words carefully, not letting any hint of trepidation show on my face. "If you have questions, I suggest you ask them. We've been forced to take enough risks already. I won't take another just to indulge your curiosity. And I don't think you're as callous as you pretend to be, either."
Going for the direct method is the best way of handling it.
Now it was his turn to consider his words carefully. "You have an exceptionally strong will," he said after a moment, "But I fear you may not fully appreciate the dangers of forming a bond with such a creature. Given sufficient time, it may begin to influence you without your even being aware of it. It may have done so already. I don't know what circumstances drove you to form the bond. I'm sure you had good reason. But whatever it may have promised you, it will ultimately seek to corrupt you. Its nature makes it incapable of doing otherwise."
I frowned slightly. There was some sort of misunderstanding happening here, I was almost certain. "What, exactly, do you think my companion is?"
"I believe the Abidan call them Fiends," he said slowly. "They are creatures born of the Void, the antithesis of existence. All of them are unique, particularly among the more powerful. Some are utterly hostile towards all life. Others can be negotiated with, to an extent. But universally, their presence alone is enough to warp the laws of reality and damage existence."
Eithan is worried for Taylor and thinks Hera is a Fiend.
What he was describing sounded similar to Hera in some ways, but quite different in others. Judging by the vague sense of offense in the back of my mind, she agreed. "I think you're mistaken. Why don't I introduce you, so you can judge for yourself?"
Eithan visibly tensed. "I'm not sure if that would be prudent."
"Then you're going to need to trust me. Like I'm continuing to trust you, despite trying to put me in a position where you'd be able to kill me if you decided I was a threat after all."
Basically they want to show him he's wrong and are willing to take a leap of faith.
Slowly, he nodded, although he remained tense. I began Forging Hera's avatar, slowly and deliberately. She didn't strictly need it to talk to him, of course, but having a body to focus on would probably be less offputting than a voice speaking into his head from nowhere. "This is Hera," I said as I finished.
[GREETING]
Eithan's face went from tense, to confused, to completely gobsmacked. "What are you?" he asked, focusing all of his senses on her. I thought the question was probably rhetorical, but she answered anyway.
[ADMINISTRATOR]
"I… I see," said Eithan. "I have never…" He trailed off, examining her further. Slowly, an enormous, delighted grin grew on his face. "Aren't you just magnificent?"
[AGREEMENT]
"Don't encourage her," I said dryly. "Her opinion of herself is high enough as it is."
Eithan is just so damn hyped right now, Hera is out of context for him and he's just in awe of it.
Eithan ignored me, still grinning and giggling to himself. "Oh, they are going to absolutely hate you," he said, looking like a kid who'd just been told there would be an extra Christmas this year. "To think something like this…" Eventually, he gathered himself and focused back on me. "Her name was Hera, you said? Did you name her that yourself?"
Eithan is excited for the Abidan being pissed at Taylor, man has gotten all his dreams answered. Plus this way if she ascends she kinda has to join the Reapers because no one else would take her besides the Vroshir. He's going to be very interested in learning more about Hera.
"Fascinating," said Eithan. He paused for several seconds, his grin fading. "I… apologize. It seems I leapt to erroneous conclusions. The trouble with rarely making mistakes is that it becomes increasingly difficult to recognize them when they do happen."
I hmmed. "I'm glad for both our sakes that you avoided doing anything catastrophic. But this discussion isn't finished yet. First, my original point. Like I said, relying on Hera's power is risky for a number of reasons, and I see no reason to take that risk if it's avoidable. You know what's at stake, here. I don't think you're willing to let people die just so you can keep playing the fool."
Good on Eithan for apologizing. Taylor gets it and is explaining why she's holding Hera back in reserve.
...No, I suppose not," he said, his expression turning surprisingly melancholy. "Tell me something, Taylor. Have you ever wanted to be someone other than who you are?"
The question caught me off guard, and I took my time to think about it before I answered. "Yes. But not for a long time. You should know as well as I do that no one reaches our level if they can't accept themselves."
"...I suppose I do," he replied. I didn't think I'd ever seen him look so sad before. "Maybe I really am a fool, for hoping otherwise."
It was easy to forget that Eithan had his own demons, skilled as he was at hiding them. "We can't change who we are," I said. "But I think we can become better versions of ourselves."
"A better version," he repeated. He pondered that for a while, laughing slightly to himself, then looked up. "Well, then. Allow me to deal with the obstacle in our way, and we shall see if you're correct."
Eithan is desperate to change and Taylor gave him some really good advice for someone who gets it so Eithan would value and listen to it.
All the while, dense stars of blue-white madra began gathering over his head, the technique steadily gaining power even as he defended himself. They formed one at a time, until eight of them hung above him like a glittering crown. I sensed their power reach a peak just as he passed through the center of the chamber. Then they speared out, each in a different direction, and Eithan said, "Die."
I could see nothing special about the places where the techniques struck the dreadbeast; there was little to differentiate one mound of flesh from another. But every single tentacle suddenly froze in place. Then the creature simply… fell apart. Flesh sloughed away from the walls, tentacles tore loose from the rest of the body, and mounds of flesh split open, releasing foul black ichor. In the air over Eithan's head, the image of a scythe flickered into existence, seeming to extend beyond the bounds of the room.
It took me several seconds to figure out what had just happened. The spirits of dreadbeasts were fused with their bodies, but not properly, like in a Herald. It made their techniques weak and unreliable, but their bodies stronger and more resilient. A spiritual attack should have had relatively little effect. Instead, Eithan had seemingly used that fact to attack the dreadbeast's body through its spirit. The abomination had obviously been an amalgamation of many thousands of smaller beasts, and the points Eithan had struck had apparently been the seams holding it together. With those cut, it had simply unraveled.
That was all impossible, of course, but nothing the correct Icon couldn't handle. More interesting was the Icon itself. The fact that Eithan had been sitting on an Icon so he could manifest it on demand didn't really surprise me, but the specific Icon did. The Oracle Icon would have easily been my first guess, with a few other less likely possibilities, but the Death Icon hadn't entered my thoughts even for a moment.
It didn't matter how much of a prodigy you were; you couldn't just manifest an Icon of your choice because it would be useful. You had to genuinely embody it. Dangerous as Eithan was, he had put a lot of effort into portraying himself as harmless, never someone who would be seen as a killer first and foremost. It should have been impossible… But anyone who didn't know my personal history would have thought the same thing about myself and the Crown Icon. It had happened, which meant there was an explanation, and I had a suspicion of what it might be.
Eithan basically was like well you showed my who you where so I'll show you who I am. Man is the Reaper through and through and there's no escaping that just as Taylor can't escape she's the Queen of Escalation. But that doesn't mean they can't become better versions of themselves as Taylor said.
I kept an eye on him as we approached the far door, wondering if he would open it himself now. He didn't, and I didn't bother commenting. I let the silence linger for a few seconds as we started down the next hallway. Then I turned towards him and said, "So. How much of you is really Eithan, and how much is Ozmanthus?"
Understanding of Icons wasn't something which could be passed from one person to another. It could be recorded in sufficiently advanced dream tablets, but anyone who didn't already possess the understanding themselves would get nothing but a splitting headache or worse if they tried to view it. But as with everything involving authority, impossible was just a word. The Ninecloud Monarchs were an exception to the rule I already knew of, passing down the entirety of their power to their successor, authority included. It wasn't so hard to imagine that the founder of House Arelius might have discovered a way around the limitation as well. But without royal madra, the means had to be different, and perhaps less savory.
Taylor thinkings it's something like the Sha stuff makes a lot of sense and the Arelius house is really old so who's to say they don't have something similar. She doesn't know about the ascending to Heaven and then coming back bits so that conclusion is the most logical one.
I wasn't sure exactly what reaction I'd get, but I hadn't expected Eithan to burst into genuine laughter. "I truly do admire your insight," he said after a few seconds. "That is a rather complicated question, and one I've spent a great deal of time considering myself. But I shall do my best to set your mind at ease. My Path is not actually the original Path of the Hollow King. The original version created by Ozmanthus used exclusively destruction madra, you see. Adapting it to use pure madra instead was quite an interesting challenge. The techniques transferred surprisingly well once I slightly modified my natural madra to emphasize pure madra's property of erasure. My version is certainly still much less effective than the original, of course. But I have yet to regret making the change. Even if I ultimately failed to find my way to any Icon which wasn't his… It's like you said. Perhaps I can't fully escape him, but I would like to think of myself as the better version."
Eithan loves having intelligent and canny conversation partners. Eithan is trying to become the better version of himself and that's the whole goal of this Cradle larp.
I nodded slowly. "What was he like?" I asked after a moment.
Eithan seemed to consider the question. "In some ways, he was very much like you. A prodigy, of course. He became a Sage at Underlord. He was ruthless, even cruel when he had a reason to be, although never to innocents. But he was also very alone. He was respected by many, feared by more, but loved by none. He had no one he could call a friend, or even a peer. I wanted something different."
He was, I thought, what I would have become without Mercy. I didn't think Eithan had distanced himself from Ozmanthus quite as much as he might have wanted, either. He might have avoided gaining a reputation as a ruthless killer by portraying himself as a clown instead, but no one had ever taught him how to trust. I considered whether or not to say more, and decided I would.
"Let me tell you something my closest friend once told me. She said I never really learned how to ask for help. That I would make a decision on my own, and the only thing I would ask anyone else for was to go along with it. I doubt Ozmanthus ever learned how to trust anyone. Have you? And I don't just mean that they won't betray you. I mean trusting them to make their own decisions, even if you think you know best. Allowing them to see the real you, and trusting that they won't condemn you for it."
Oz is a Taylor that never stopped being Skitter and Weaver. Taylor sees that and really wants to help him because she gets it. So she introduces him to the power of friendship because that's what's worked out for her.
He snorted in amusement. "Yes, that would do it. I can only speculate, but… I suspect that at the height of his power, Ozmanthus would have noticed that even from the other side of the planet. He was a special case, of course, but one would think that the Heavens had sharper eyes. Curious. Violating their own laws, neglecting their duties… If I didn't know better, I would think that the Abidan were in a bit of disarray."
He looked… not exactly worried, but definitely thoughtful. "What does that mean for us?" I asked.
"Impossible to say. But I would recommend you avoid assuming their eyes will always be turned away."
I nodded. I'd already assumed I should avoid calling enough of Hera's power to fully overwhelm a Dreadgod or Monarch except as a last resort, but it was good to have confirmation.
Abidan ain't doing to good and Taylor showing up at such a time isn't going to be a good look.
We eventually came to the end of the hall, opening the door to another junction like the ones we'd seen before. This time, Eithan commanded the Slumbering Wraith's hand entirely on his own, dropping the pretense that he'd needed me. I sensed the labyrinth once again shifting around us. But when the door opened this time, the hall ahead was no longer the smooth off-white stone which had grown so familiar. Instead, the walls were made of heavy blocks of dark basalt, or at least something which looked like it. The ever-present hunger aura faded away, replaced by a feeling of immense weight. The ancient significance of this place made Monarchs look small and ephemeral.
"This is, I believe, the single oldest place on Cradle," said Eithan quietly, the atmosphere having an effect even on him. "Ozmanthus suspected that the entire labyrinth was originally constructed to protect this place, and its other functions came later. He spent many decades searching for it, and many more decades studying it."
The hall was short, only a few dozen feet long. "What is it?" I asked as we came to the far end. The room beyond was a square chamber made of the same blocks of dark stone, with multiple doors leading further into the complex.
"I suppose you could call it an archive," he said as he led me through the door in front of us. "The original Court of Seven discovered deep truths about the nature of reality, deeper than Icons. They left a record of their discoveries here, to guide those who came after them, so long as they could prove themselves worthy. So far as I know, Ozmanthus was the only one to ever live up to their standards."
The door he led me to had nothing to distinguish it from any of the others, except for the carving above it. It was too complicated to be called a sigil; I might have called it a script circle, if it had looked anything like any script circle I'd ever seen. The curved lines looked almost organic, like a tangle of vines or a dense bush with berries hanging from its branches, except most bushes were limited to no more than three dimensions. Just looking at it for a few moments was enough to send a spike of pain into my head, and I quickly looked away. The authority imbued in the symbol was well beyond me. "These," said Eithan as he opened the door, "are the Paths of Heaven."
This is an INSANELY big deal, Eithan is showing her the deep lore because he's trusting her with it and thinks she has potential. Eithan honestly wasn't expecting to stumble onto someone like Taylor at most he was expecting something like Lindon and Yerin but I think he's really happy about meeting Taylor, she's someone who actually gets it. This is some insanely important stuff that he's showing her and he's doing it because he trusts her character.
The room beyond was circular. Seven more doors were spaced evenly around its edge, and an eighth opening without a door which looked like it had been added later. That was the first to draw my eye. The arched opening had been carved directly into the stone, the cuts perfectly smooth. Inside was nothing but utter blackness. I approached cautiously, stopping several feet away. The void wasn't simple darkness, which would have been familiar. Instead, it felt like utter oblivion, the absolute end of existence. Above the opening, the image of a scythe had been carved into the stone.
I turned away after a few seconds, leaving Eithan to consider the work of his ancestor. Slowly circling the room, I examined each door in turn. They also had symbols above them, but these were like the carving outside, eye-twisting shapes imbued with authority. Each door had a window in its center, revealing its contents. Like the opening carved by Ozmanthus, there weren't rooms on the other side, but spaces that weren't quite physical, or were possibly more than physical.
Eithan needs some time to think about his life and what Taylor talked to him about, plus he's likely reflecting on his life as Eithan.
Only after I'd examined each other door did I let myself be pulled towards one in particular. It was the fourth door from the entrance, moving around the room clockwise. Inside was a storm of words. They were written in no language I recognized, and in fact no two seemed to share any sort of common alphabet, but I could still almost taste the meaning in them. If each door represented a concept, then this one represented information: the gathering of it, the processing of it, the use of it to effect the desired outcome, the denial of it to one's enemies. No, not just information, but true omniscience.
Knowledge and Information is what Taylor, Hera and the Entities have always valued.
"What do you see?" asked Eithan, coming up behind me. He was looking not at the door, but at the symbol above it. Like the others, it held authority which made it hard to perceive or even look at. But when I focused on it, the lines didn't seem to twist away from me like the others had, and there was only a dull ache behind my eyes instead of a stabbing pain. It felt like trying to read a book without my glasses back when I'd still needed them, but a familiar book that I'd read many times. Even if parts were too blurred to make out, I still somehow knew what was supposed to be there.
"It's a spider," I said after a moment, "sitting in a web shaped like an eye."
He grinned so broadly, it nearly split his face in half. "The door will open for you, if you want it to."
I think that the rooms mean you could become a Judge of something and receive the knowledge/insight of the OG Abidan. The fact that Taylor qualifies for even one of them is insanely impressive. Eithan is just so happy about it, he's getting a freak of nature to work for him.
"Be careful," said Eithan quietly as I stepped forward. "Don't dive too deeply." I hesitated briefly on the threshold, then opened my link to Hera wider. She had just as much right to see this as I did. Together, we stepped into the maelstrom of information.
For a moment, I was overwhelmed, sent spinning like a leaf in a hurricane. I didn't let myself panic, instead sharpening my will. The storm wasn't as chaotic as it first appeared; there was an underlying order to it. I couldn't force it to change, but I could change my own perspective of it. The illegible words became insects, not my scarabs, but spiders scurrying back and forth on a vast, dimension-spanning web. They were my eyes and ears, seeing every vibration of every molecule in every distant corner of the cosmos. They were my hands, weaving the strands of Fate so subtly that my enemies never even realized they had been ensnared until it was already too late. They were my voice, guiding my allies out of danger and positioning them in the perfect place to strike. I was everywhere, and yet none saw me if I didn't allow it.
Visions of the past flickered by me, given new meaning. Tricking Cherish into killing the Butcher. Tricking the Seishen princes into fighting one another. Harrying a trio of minor Chicago villains until they simply gave up and surrendered, having never even seen me. Manipulating the Rising Earth and Forge's Heart sects into a civil war. Organizing Eidolon, Phir Se, and the Yangban against Behemoth. And of course, above everything else, Khepri. I wasn't afraid to fight myself when I needed to, but those fights had always been the most desperate. The times when I felt most effective, most in control, had always been when I stayed in the background. Sometimes I directed my allies, sometimes I played my enemies against each other, but always I was the one who saw the larger picture.
[UNDERSTANDING]
The vision doubled, Hera's perspective overlaying my own, both familiar and alien. Where I saw a web, she saw the network of shards. They swam through dimensions in a perfectly choreographed dance with her at the center. Around them, the universe teemed with secrets waiting to be discovered, a mouth-watering feast of knowledge. Lesser shards offered their discoveries to her like tribute, and with every secret uncovered, the network grew stronger, further extending her reach.
I reached back towards her, sharing my own vision. The world twisted, and our visions merged into one. We stood together in the center of my web. Her avatar embraced me from behind, her many pairs of arms wrapped around me possessively. Around us, my spiders had become crystalline constructs, their many legs skittering across dimensions. But they weren't shards. The will in them was mine and hers alone. We would direct others as necessary, of course, but she no longer needed an entire network to be her eyes and ears, her hands and voice. She had me.
…And I had her. Maybe her possessiveness should have bothered me, but I realized I felt the same way. For all that she'd frightened me in the past, it had been even longer since I'd been able to imagine my life without her. I didn't want to be just another host to observe, a tool to be used for a certain purpose and then set aside. I wanted her all to myself. If she wanted to discover the secrets of the universe, then I wanted to discover them with her.
[AGREEMENT]
I wasn't sure which of us the message had actually originated from, and which of us had echoed it. It didn't really matter. The vision in front of us was to both of our likings, so we would make it into reality.
Hera and Taylor have learned a lot about this both in regards to themselves and the Spider position/authority/role. It feels like their relationship has reached the point we're they've gotten complete symbiosis and are going to learn about the multiverse together.
I blinked. I found myself staring at the door I'd entered, now closed. There was something on my face; when I wiped it, my hand came away red. My head was pounding. It felt like my brain had been forcibly expanded by whatever I'd seen inside. I could remember only flashes of it, but the knowledge was still there. The understanding would come to me when I was ready. No, when we were ready. That much, I did remember. The slightly pained jumble I sensed from Hera told me that she was struggling as well, but behind that was something close to genuine affection, an emotion I'd never felt from her before.
They've grown a lot in terms of understanding due to this.
"You could use it yourself, couldn't you?" I asked after a moment.
"...I could," he admitted quietly. "Do you want me to?"
Part of me did. Instead, I said, "Mercy can decide for herself."
He nodded. I'd never seen him this subdued before, and wondered what else he'd been thinking about while I'd been gone. Surprisingly, he decided to tell me. "How did you do it? Learn to trust her."
"...She made it easy," I replied eventually. "It was much more her effort than mine."
"I had a friend, once, who was… not quite like your sister, but similar in some ways. A good person. Better than I am. I… regret not trusting her more. I want to avoid making the same mistakes again, but I'm not sure if I know how."
"I'm not the right person to ask. But I would say asking alone is a step in the right direction."
Eithan learning how to trust will be good for him same with asking for help.
He stared into the distance for a while, then shook himself slightly, plastering a grin on his face. "Well, enough moping. I would say this expedition has been a smashing success on all fronts!"
This is a total win for Eithan, he learned cool stuff about Hera, Taylor is someone who gets it and gives good advice and she's more then qualified for the Reapers given how good she is at the Spider stuff.
I snorted slightly. It looked like the mask was back on, at least for now. But as we started towards the exit, a question occurred to me. "How many of the doors can you open?"
He paused, the grin once again sliding off his face. I could almost see him forcing himself to answer rather than dodging the question. "All of them," he said, "except for that one."
He pointed to a door two down from the one I'd entered. The window in it revealed soft blue light, flickering slightly like a campfire. It put me in mind of many things; reading a book with my mother when I was young, the tranquility of relaxing when nothing needed my attention, the relief of making it through a fight without anyone getting hurt. But most of all, it reminded me of Mercy. "I see," was all I said.
We left without saying anything else. But as I glanced back, it struck me that he hadn't been staring randomly into the distance. He'd been looking at that door.
Eithan seeks to be able to use Phoenix stuff and get the Joy Icon. Taylor understands the implications of this being the only door he can't open.
Oh wow that was beautiful. Taylor is so so close to guessing the "real truth" about Eithan / Ozmanthus here. And even without a full understanding gives Eithan some genuinely good advice.
She doesn't have the context but she knows that Eithan is enough of Ozmanthus for it to count and he opened up enough for her to help.
Yeah, that was great.
It was a miracle - Taylor and Eithan actually talking. And listening.
They're both pretty similar as people at their core so they understand each other very well. Taylor's just gotten a little further in her personal growth journey even if she's a lot younger.
Something tells me Taylor just might have got the keys to getting through this after having made a truly terrifying series of examples of her enemies.
She also got a Concept that Abidan would sell their souls for. And with Ozriel and Shard Network in the wings they can't do shit to her without betting everything on it.
Taylor is likely good enough to qualify for the Spider Judge position on sheer understanding of the concept alone and this vision really helped her out with that. She's going to be really scary between her own stuff and Hera backing her up. And you can bet that Ozriel is going to recruit her if she ascends because she's just to good of a recruit and confidant not to.
I think that it's less that and more that the question probably doesn't matter. She knows he's X% ozmanthus, that it's very high, and that nothing is stopping it from being 100% really. Regardless of whether it's 70% or 100% he's got most of ozzy's power, most of his knowledge, and most of his issues. Even with 70% he'd still be dealing with reincarnator second life shit, trust and control issues, and the difficulties of prestige classing. Really she's basically his perfect foil, except her mercy isn't dead.
They're both people on their second life after being burnt out world savers. They get each other on a level others just can't.
Nah, the Abidan were the ones who made that room to begin with.
That being said, Taylor has pretty much just passed the initial interview for being the Spider's successor with that stunt. It might not happen for a long time, but she's just crossed the starting line.
(Conceptual mechanics being what they are, it probably helps that the relevant Judge's title is, in fact, "the Spider".)
The OG Abidan made the room the people who created the Judge mantles and had an insanely deep understanding of their roles. Taylor has likely qualified for becoming a Spider Judge with this, like she isn't taking the roel but she fits it enough that she probably could.
Eithan actually opening up? A miracle! Well, done, Taylor.
There's a reason Eithan counts this as a total victory.
In some ways i'm surprised that all of this happened so fast, but in others it felt so natural. This was well done, brilliantly characterised, and threaded some messy needles on levels of threat response. I can't say for certain, but i think it probably holds up pretty incredibly for people who don't know the source material too.
I'm impressed tbh, thanks for the chapter
It felt like a natural thing for both of them, Taylor understood and made leaps of faith and Eithan understood that Taylor got what it was like and could give good advice.
