When we finally get back to Estelle, I’m looking forward to spending a little time sitting down and chatting, and not grinding spiders or doing puzzles or whatever else.
We tell Estelle about our encounter in the Hedge Maze and Aunt Savannah’s stupid insistence that we don’t become involved.
“How could we best end the goblin war?” I ask. “Aunt Savannah won’t commit without a quest but I’m not going to hang Milo out to dry.”
“I concur, of course,” Estelle says. “It depends on whether the hostile cores are willing to submit, but it is likely that they will not accept compromise. Ultimately, the only way to make sure that a Hearth does not become hostile later is to subjugate it by invading the core room and touching the core. Someone will need to fight past many, many goblins and delve deep into their caves. They might throw all of their people, even noncombatants and children, in the path of any invaders.”
“And the goblins might be typically low-ranked, but they still have a few Heroics and even Epics,” I say.
“They probably don’t have anything that can threaten Aunt Savannah and Uncle Winter,” Anise says. “But they’re not going to leave the Hearth for longer than they have to.”
“What about Uncle Hawk’s party?” I ask.
“They’re high Heroic by this point, yeah,” Anise says. “They’ve got to be at the bottleneck by now. Ending a domain-wide war might just be enough to push them into Epic.”
“Even if they don’t have a quest for it?”
Anise shrugs. “People put way too much stock in quests. Sometimes you just gotta do things.”
“I wish my mom would see it that way,” Meadow says with a sigh. “Hopefully Uncle Hawk will see reason.”
“And also hopefully he won’t get a quest to just wipe out Grubwick too,” I say. “Corwen might not give one, but what if Tempest did?”
“I don’t care what Tempest wants, at any rate,” Anise says.
“We can get Lily’s party to help, at least,” Meadow says. “We were planning on heading for the Hunting Grounds again, but we’re all kind of sick of it and goblins would be a good break. An Elite party might not be able to delve in and subjugate warrens with Heroic or Epic bosses, but we can pick off their patrols and make things safer for our friends.”
“I should also point out that the hostile goblins attacked the Hedge Maze, not just a group of friendly goblins,” Estelle says. “The Spooky Grove, the Hedge Maze, and several others are vassals of Corwen, and you are obligated to protect them. Had they sent a Heroic, they might have caused serious damage.”
“It kind of feels wrong to send someone else to do this,” I say. “Like this was supposed to be my Epic quest.”
Anise laughs. “Nonsense. If anything, this was supposed to be Uncle Hawk’s Epic quest. You’re still a Basic child. You will have plenty of time for Epic quests of your own in the decades to come.”
“Is there any way to convince Corwen to give out quests to assist Grubwick in the goblin war?” I ask.
Estelle paces. By which I mean she floats silently back and forth across the room for a moment. “There is something you can offer it that may be able to sway it.”
“What is that?” I wonder.
“You have lived many lives,” Estelle says. “You were a rental and not a purchase, like I was, were you not?”
“So I’ve been told, yes,” I say. “Corwen said I would not respawn here if I died.”
“And you were doubtless expensive as well. Corwen invested considerable resources in you, likely far more than Treharris did in me. I remained by binding myself to an object, and the rest of my souls returned to the Great Orb. I made a mistake that resulted in my death, but I know what I did wrong. I can teach you to do it properly. Your other countless souls move on, but Corwen would get to keep Drake.”
“What about Alex?” I wonder.
“Done properly, you should be able to choose which souls to keep and which to let go of,” Estelle says. “Though whether or not you keep his soul, you will retain his memories. They are already a part of you and have influenced your actions up to this point.”
I frown thoughtfully, and there’s a lot to be thoughtful about here. It’s a big thing to consider, but… Drake was already not getting another life. Chances are that whoever Alex becomes next will never remember any of this.
“It’s not a decision to be made lightly,” Estelle goes on. “It will be dangerous and you may wind up like me, or worse. Though at least if the attempt kills you, Corwen can put your soul into another baby. The same could not have been done with me, as we had no children. And regardless of what you choose, there are a number of things you will need to do to prepare, many of which would be good to do anyway. Tell me, what soul skills have you unlocked so far?”
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“[Fractal Consciousness] and [Identity],” I say.
“Excellent. That is a solid foundation and I would recommend getting them as high as you can before attempting this, because you will need them.”
“Didn’t whatever you did require Necromancy, though?” I ask.
“It required Necromancy to create a phylactery to bind my soul to this world. Simply splitting your soul will only require Enhanced Soul. Corwen will need to do the rest itself.”
“Why do only reincarnators have a Soul attribute?” I ask. “Do they… not have souls?”
“A fair question, but yes, they have souls,” Estelle says. “Their souls are just busy keeping their bodies alive and aren’t available for anything else.”
“Like a drive just big enough to run an operating system without leftover space for any other software?” I muse.
“Ah, yes, you were a computer person,” Estelle says. “I fear I know little about software but that sounds like an apt comparison. You can consider their 0 Soul to be 0 available Soul. I, with 1 Soul, essentially have two versions of me still—Estelle and Asphodel.”
“I see. That makes sense.”
“What do you know about the effects of absorbing concepts into different aspects of your being?” Estelle asks.
“Well, I was trying to practice Enhanced Feet (Soft Landing) with jumping on feather mattresses, but someone started a pillow fight and I wound up with Enhanced Muscles (Soften Blow).”
Estelle nods. “Both potentially useful things to have. And what do you think would happen were you to absorb the concept of ‘softness’ into other aspects?”
“Hmm,” I hmm. “I’m not sure on some of them. Maybe Enhanced Hands has a skill that helps avoid breaking things while doing delicate crafting? Maybe Enhanced Senses has one to avoid sensory overload. Mind, Heart, maybe something to stay calm? Enhanced Breath might be something to be quiet.”
“Good speculation. Now, what if you were to absorb it into your soul?”
I work up my face thoughtfully, not willing to just say I don’t know without making a guess.
Estelle doesn’t leave me to think for long. “Your Hearth has books of skills that your ancestors have discovered. This may give the false impression that there is a limited and specific list of skills that exist. While the number of skills that exist may be finite, they are limited only by what you can conceptualize. You saw fluffy mattresses and pillows stuffed with feathers and thought softness.”
“Right,” I say. “So what other Enhanced Soul skills should I learn?”
“Be aware that every skill you learn, every concept you absorb, everything you do influences you in some way,” Estelle says. “[Identity] will keep you stable, but you wlil need more than that. While [Fractal Consciousness] will enable you to split off souls, you will need a way to heal your soul afterward in order to survive. I released most of my souls at once, and the backlash caused severe damage it took many years to recover from. If you release them one at a time and heal yourself between each one, you will likely be able to survive the attempt.”
“Sounds good,” I say. “How do I learn that?”
“You will need to absorb the concept of healing from places and objects associated with it. Healing springs, certain plants, animals with regenerative abilities, the symbol of a snake coiled around a staff, and so forth. I fear the Spooky Grove would be a poor place to do this, as my home is now associated with death and not life and would not help you.”
“Understood,” I say.
Enhanced attribute skills entail drawing in conceptual energy from our surroundings. Ever since learning and starting to understand that, I’ve been getting ideas on what skills I want to learn. The big book of skills is too extensive to properly sift through and my ancestors have been very creative with the uses of their skills. And yet I’m the one here who has memories of being an engineer in a very different world.
For the moment, though, it’s time to get back home and have a nice, long chat with Corwen. I’m sure it’s listening. It’s always listening. But it rarely says much unless I’m in the core room. And so, to that end, we return to the Hearth and I head down to the core room.
Even though we dump our trash down here to be absorbed, the core room always feels sort of sacred to me. I’m the only one who regularly comes down here. I position myself in front of the glowing sphere and sit down cross-legged on the floor.
[Hello, Drake,] Corwen sends, opting to use telepathy today instead of simply shoving system notifications in my face.
[I assume you already know what I’m here to talk about,] I think.
[Of course,] Corwen replies. [You need not rush for my sake. You can take your time and learn your skills properly so they don’t kill you.]
[Will you issue the quests, then?] I ask.
[I will. This is an issue that needs to be addressed, but Savannah’s own primary quest is to defend the village. Asphodel Treharris is correct that we need to protect our vassals and allies. The Hearth would benefit from having another Epic, as well.]
[So, if I do what she’s suggesting, would that mean I’d stay with you forever?] I ask.
[You will still be sent to the Primary Core if we lose. As you would be a new root soul, it would be you who would continually reincarnate. You would remember being Drake Corwen for every successive life.]
[If I release my souls one at a time, does that mean they would also each become new root souls?] I ask.
[Correct.]
[Can you tell me what happens at the end of an age?]
[The Heavens challenge us. As an aether core, I am eternal, but that which I create is not. All that is around me may be destroyed, forcing me to start over. Tiganna System was almost completely wiped out at the end of the Age of the Azure Fox. A significant percentage of domains do not survive the Divine Apocalypse at the end of each age. Some do not survive even the Mythical Apocalypse at the end of each millennium.]
[What kind of apocalypses are we talking about here? Zombies, solar flares, tomatoes?]
[Yes. No. Do you wish to submit the suggestion of tomato-based apocalypses to the Primary System?]
[No.]
So in other words, if we ‘lose’, as Corwen says, I will be enslaved by space demons for eternity. Instead of having my soul owned by a space demon who decided to try free will just for kicks. Cheerful thought. Maybe I’ll even get [Self-Delusion] up high enough to not think about it eventually.
It still beats how things were on Earth in those memories I blocked off. I don’t know what sort of hell on Earth made Alex so elated to be incarnated here.
Skills increased: Discipline (Delegation), Discipline (Long-Term Planning), Persuasion (Diplomacy), Recollection (Suppression), Discipline (Self-Delusion)