The following day passed by in a blur.
Come the afternoon, I returned my borrowed books to the Athenaeum, thanking Mentat profusely for his assistance, and politely declining his offer to rent more by way of informing him of my decision to compete in the Agoge.
The Blessed Librarian was overjoyed to hear that I’d passed the examination and made me promise to come back and visit him once I’d gained access to the Bern Institute, flatteringly considering my victory a foregone conclusion.
During my passage back to the Mare, I made a couple of brief stops at general provisioning stores, buying up quite a copious amount of food and drink, mostly in the form of dried, salted meat, dehydrated fruits, and bottled water. I also took the opportunity to acquire some random odds and ends, bits and bobs that were unlikely to ever save my life, but might save me some convenience in the bowels of the World Titan.
After all, I’d no idea how long we’d be delving for, only that the overall time limit was one month.
I picked up a small, stick-shaped light, powered by Entropy, about fifty feet of rope, a thick, fluffy pair of pants and jacket, and a set of lockpicking supplies that I doubted I’d ever use or even be capable of using. It was cheap enough, though, so I bought it anyway.
Ironically, all of the items I’d ended up purchasing were, in a sense, redundant to me.
I could both produce light and warm myself with my ability to control Fire, eliminating the need for the magic torch and the mundane clothing. The rope was useless when I could fly, and I’d likely have far less trouble unlocking a door by manipulating Entropy alone than attempting such a thing with mere physical tools.
But, as I’d already decided to conceal all but one of my powers, at least to the extent it was possible, I hoped that these items would serve me well in my deception.
I also noticed a number of objects for sale that I desperately wanted, but which were all well out of my price range. A baggy cloak that rendered the user intangible, allowing them to float phantasmically above the ground and even travel through thin walls. An arcane flask filled with an endless supply of fresh water and an accompanying loaf of moist, supple bread that would regenerate perpetually so long as it wasn’t entirely eaten. Finally, and most alluringly, a backpack that was spatially enchanted to hold a great number of possessions within it; apparently common stock for most delvers.
Oh, well. Maybe next time.
After the short enough excursion, I returned to my lodgings and settled into a cross-legged position on the floor of my room. There was one thing left for me to accomplish prior to the day’s end, and I intended to waste no time.
I needed to examine my new Blessings.
My saved Shards differed significantly from those I’d made active, in one key way. These five recently-acquired powers refused to communicate with me and were otherwise completely muted in the song. I’d little idea what they did, or how they functioned. Needless to say, before I decided whether or not to slot them, or even keep them, I had to know.
And in order to make contact with them, I’d need to sink deeper into my soulsea than ever before.
First, I relaxed.
I stretched ponderously, thoroughly, making myself comfortable on the soft, carpeted floor, nestling into the tassels of lavish fabric. I cricked my neck and cracked my spine, shaking my limbs, driving out what little lactic acid had accumulated within my muscles over the past few hours. Then, I stilled, body drooping, every cord and sinew slackened, save for my back which held me lightly upright, opening my chest and lungs.
The room’s walls were thick and its interior was quiet and peaceful. With the outside world muted, all I heard was the soft hum of Entropic lights, sweetly lulling my meditation. I closed my eyes.
I began to focus on my breaths.
Slowly, ever so slowly, half consciously and half not, I directed my own respiration, inhaling deeply. Patiently.
In, hold, two, three.
Out, hold, two, three.
I felt the cool, conditioned air enter my lungs, flowing through my nose and rushing down my airways. I felt it sufflate me, swelling my chest and filling me with energy and life. As I gradually exhaled, I felt it depart me, taking with it the worries and stresses that had plagued me since I’d entered the city and leaving me with a sense of tranquility.
As my breathing steadied and my mind calmed, I took in what surrounded me.
I felt the soft, plush carpet between my toes. I felt the sleek, supple Entropic fabric of my clothing caress my chest and legs, sliding smoothly over pores and gently tugging and pulling on cuticles as my body shifted with my breaths. I felt the near-imperceptible breeze of fresh air emitted from the room’s arcane filters graze my cheeks and disturb fine strands of hair that stuck out from the mop atop my head.
As I continued to respire, I turned my gaze inward.
I felt my heart, strong and steadfast, beat rhythmically inside my chest. I felt my blood pulse to its tune, pulled from myriad veins and thrust through mighty arteries, forcibly re-oxygenated and circulated throughout my core and extremities.
I looked deeper.
I saw my vital ichor funneled through minute capillaries, so small they were invisible to the naked eye. I saw them exchange nutrients and resources with the cells around them, couriers for an ever-dying, ever-growing ecosystem of flesh and blood and bone. Hours upon hours of Mom’s tutelage in the sciences couldn’t have prepared me for how they appeared up close.
I looked deeper.
Making up the building blocks of the visceral metropolis were tiny…things, proteins and lipids, micro and macromolecules, tiny amalgams of even smaller structures that buzzed and crawled and morphed and writhed and wriggled and fused and broke apart ceaselessly across the grotesque organic garden that was their home.
But there was something deeper, still. Something…something beyond even them.
Once again, I was returned to the forest path, returned to walking through the shrubs and bushes and searching for that which hid beneath the softest tones, sequestered somewhere within those things that made up my very smallest parts, the truest, purest, most fundamental nature of the song. I’d learned the melodies of Fire and of Blood and even of Lightning but this…this was so much more than any of them.
This was the song of Shards themselves.
And I still couldn’t hear it.
I pushed hard, sharpening my ears, focusing my mind, tuning all else out and spiraling my perception down, down as far as I could within me, using every single thing I’d learned of the song over my months of practice.
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It still wasn’t enough.
Sighing, I relaxed once more, rising back above the level of molecules and turning to face the sea that whirled within my soul.
My ocean was clearer to me now than it ever had been before.
Perhaps it was self-aggrandizing to describe it as an ocean, for it more resembled the size of a large lake. A fully-fledged, isolated environment, but hardly as diverse as any in the outside world.
Still, this one was mine.
And it was beautiful. So, so beautiful.
I manifested my perception above the vast expanse of briny water, of my own Entropy given liquid form. As I peered out across its many waves and crests, the choppy surf winked back at me, swells glinting and glittering even under the sunless sky. Turning around, I beheld its center, and with a thought, was transported towards it.
The ever raging crimson storm and ever erupting obsidian volcano were much unchanged since last I observed them, but now I could examine them in far greater detail than before.
I could feel the teeth-rattling rumbles radiate from the craggy mountain with each explosion. I could sense the hair-raising power around me prior to the tempest’s great discharges and smell the burnt plasma, the ozone that thickly permeated the air afterwards.
My active Blessings were all here, save of course for ADMINISTRATION, which remained absent. But, where were the others?
Directing my view upwards, I found them.
They hung high in my soul’s upper atmosphere, far above the sanguine storm, above even the most wispy, willowy clouds. They were ephemeral, light tones, barely audible beneath the orchestra that surged within me. Present in my inner sea, but only just.
Inhaling deeply once more, filling myself with the energy that saturated the air, I elevated my perception to meet them.
It wasn’t easy.
The higher I rose, the weaker I grew, distancing myself from the very source of my powers. The atmosphere thinned as I ascended, shortening my breaths, making it difficult to concentrate. I had the distinct feeling that if I traveled high enough, I risked losing myself entirely, set adrift in the endless space within my soul, never able to return to the real world.
But, at last, I arrived before them.
~~~
Save Slots:
* Personal Storage.
* Haemokinetic Enhancement.
* Bullet Time.
* Prestidigitation.
* Discretionary Mutation.
~~~
They were Minor Shards, one and all, I could tell immediately.
It was a shame I hadn’t been able to copy Pylon’s own, as the Godkin’s Shard had almost certainly been Major. Still, despite their status, I couldn’t help but admit that each of them seemed ideal to merge into one of my existing shards.
ADMINISTRATION, for all its arrogance, had chosen well.
From such close proximity, I could behold the Blessings in what I assumed was their unattuned form. They hadn’t yet bonded to me, and as a result, had yet to take on physical manifestations within my sea, like Flash Step’s hurricane and Fang’s bestial avatar.
Instead, as their collective name suggested, they appeared as vast, crystalline shards.
But they weren’t static, not at all. They weren’t gemstones, like the crystals I’d seen in the Dungeon. No, these were living things. They morphed and vibrated and flickered whilst they levitated, great gouts of pure, unattuned Entropy swirling around them as they burned with power and purpose and potential.
They were both here and…not, at the same time.
They were enormous, each as large as mountains, yet hung effortlessly in the upper atmosphere. Their surfaces were opaque, and their innards concealed save for roiling energy, yet I could hear them all the same. Though far from the distinct, precise descriptions rendered to me by my Grimoire, their songs alone told me much of their nature.
Bullet Time spoke of reflexes honed to an infinitesimally small point, of perceived time slowed to a crawl on command. Discretionary Mutation crooned a melody of rearranged flesh and re-organized muscle fibers, of a physiology refined at the Host’s discretion. Both called out to Flash Step, serenading the crimson tempest that raged within my soul, offering their services to give it form and direction, to make it so much more.
Haemokinetic Enhancement promised to teach me of the power secreted away within blood. I already knew how to control it, true, but I’d just scratched the surface of the element’s potential. With this Blessing’s help, I could use blood spilled in combat to enhance my own abilities, injuries themselves only serving to make me stronger. The Shard volunteered to guide my hands and mind, to show me how I might grasp and mold, how I might unlock the secrets of that substance which animated every living creature.
Prestidigitation sung a similar song. But whereas the prior Shard had offered a greatly increased competency in one small area, this one suggested the opposite. It saw how I already made use of Entropy for basic tasks, and proposed to take me one step further. It revealed to me how I might use energy alone to produce a myriad of effects.
A gust of wind, a change in temperature, a great shower of sparks, a collection of characters and symbols and images produced illusorily through refracting light in complex patterns. It even demonstrated how matter itself might be rearranged and reformatted on a small scale to fabricate new objects and materials.
Together, the two Shards called out to Draconic Blood. But unlike the first two, who’d proposed merely to augment my Flash Step, these Blessings promised something different.
They offered not to improve Draconic Blood’s current strengths, but to broaden it, to expand its possibilities, to elaborate upon its very essence. The path they engineered did not lead to becoming a dragon. Rather, it focused on the properties and characteristics of my blood itself.
Already, it was thick with Entropy. Already, the lifeblood of Shards flowed through my veins.
By the might of ADMINISTRATION, as was my due as noble and lord, the Minor Shards Haemokinetic Enhancement and Prestidigitation allowed me to peer deep within their crystalline architecture, too gaze through their own eyes.
And they unveiled a world of clay.
They whispered to me of how each element could be molded, of how everything from the sun’s light to my own flesh could be given form, and function, and direction, and purpose.
How every last piece of the universe could be SHAPED.
The path they offered was long, and hard, and did not end with them. In order to follow it, I’d need to gather Shards. Many Shards. Tens, perhaps hundreds of them. I’d need to understand countless Blessings that encompassed every aspect of existence, merging them into what my Blood would one day become.
It would be bitter work. But at the journey’s end, nothing in all existence would remain outside my grasp.
The depth, the breadth, the scale of what they offered made my head spin. It made the place behind my eyes ache. It made the connection to my soulsea waver and grow blurry. It was incomprehensible, the kind of power wielded by a being such as the Golden Centipede itself.
Or, perhaps, by the Warrior.
I didn’t mind taking the difficult path, I never had. Even when mundane, I’d trained relentlessly, until my bones cracked and my limbs ached. From dawn until dusk. But this was something else entirely. Something too significant to decide now. And besides, it was a choice I likely wouldn’t even be capable of making until I gained more Attunement in Draconic Blood.
Which brought my attention to my final saved Blessing.