Abyssal Road Trip

Amdirlain’s PoV - Outlands - Outpost of the Monastery of the Western Reaches

Once Lezekus had conveyed the details of their adventures—exploring lands and minds between fighting back demonic plots—the four ventured off to arrange accommodations and left Amdirlain to her thoughts. They’d been careful not to mention Orcus by name; nevertheless, the Outlands felt almost tainted by tales of the undead his followers had created across worlds. Amdirlain had seen them off and walked along the courtyard boundary, the structure’s grey stone and redwood echoing the bleak carnage from Lezekus’ tale.

When Cyrus arrived, he silently fell in beside Amdirlain. Four laps of the yard later, she stopped and went to speak, only for Cyrus to raise a finger. “One more lap.”

Amdirlain, recognising the omens accompanying the number four in some Asian cultures, nodded and continued.

The library and the duty pavilion have floors grouped in threes.

A quick check through Resonance found all the more prominent structures broken up similarly.

“Your warriors and healer shared their news,“ said Cyrus. “What do you plan to do?”

“They did, and it’s food for thought, but I’m not rushing off,” replied Amdirlain. “At least not for longer than it takes to do some construction that my plans require. However, even that can wait until after our lesson. I’m putting my plans first and not dealing with the battles others must fight.”

Cyrus nodded approvingly. “I’ve learned that Kadaklan contributed the Ki Flight technique, as he no doubt informed you, so I’ll leave that to him. Which would you tackle first, Universal Life or Ki Blast ?”

“The Ki Blast has the furthest to go, and I’ve got an objective now that requires six Ki Powers to be at Senior Master,” advised Amdirlain.

“Oh?”

Amdirlain motioned down the slope towards the ladies’ dwelling. “Nomein gained a Class that requires knowledge in psionics, Ki, and Mana.”

“As much as I’m honoured to teach you, might I make a suggestion?” asked Cyrus.

“I’m listening,” said Amdirlain.

“Your Dao would be best served by a course of action that isn’t motivated by fear,” offered Cyrus. “Monk has given you a foundation of mental strength, but as you said to Livia, there are some things that only you can do. Ask what serves you best in that respect.”

Amdirlain felt her Mental Hardening hold back a surge of annoyance, the strength of emotion a warning that caused her to pause. “I’ll think about your suggestion, but Monk gave me a foundation that was all mine, not Ori’s.”

“You see that the stability of a house depends on its foundations?” enquired Cyrus.

“Yes.”

Cyrus nodded. “Yet the cap of a roof requires far different material from a foundation.”

“If you want to use a building analogy, I’m still building my lower floors,” countered Amdirlain. “I want a Class that improves the frequency of my insights into a Monk’s abilities. If I decide it will not achieve what I want, I’ll seek something else, but I still want to learn enough to meet its requirements.”

“Be aware I’m not judging it right or wrong for you. I simply suggest you seek the right step for progress, not the first one that appears. In the meantime, as you said, expanding one’s abilities is the right approach on anyone’s journey,” said Cyrus. He sat on nearby bench and brought out a copy of the Ki Blast techniques; the tiger leaping from the man’s hand seemed particularly alive in the sunlight.

When he turned to an illustration near the start with an outline of a man standing on an empty riverbed, filled with coiled animals, Amdirlain raised an eyebrow. “I’m not going to guess.”

“The author enjoys his cryptic symbolism, so that is for the best,” said Cyrus. “The beginning of acquiring this technique focuses on an intense study of how your energy moves within you. Empty your Ki Pool until you have barely enough to ignite the sigil.”

“The nearly dry riverbed,” murmured Amdirlain, and she received a nod from Cyrus.

“And as you move between the nodes, be mindful of its energy flows. Looking upon it from the outside, the spiritual net seems straight, but it’s curving through your flesh. Consider the path and what it teaches you about the sigil as your life energy travels its course.”

Amdirlain settled onto the bench beside Cyrus and followed his instructions. The minimal Ki she left within the pool needed to be carefully rationed to make it through the ignition of each of her sigil’s nodes. Her obtaining the sigil reinforcement with Phoenix’s Rapture had left a spiralling helix around the inner core. Yet, following them simultaneously, Amdirlain felt the truth of Cyrus’ description and, in places, started to make out how it curved along the limits of her body. It was an understanding that, at first, she thought might be more suitable to Kadaklan’s technique until she noticed the path allowed Ki Blast the most efficient exit from her flesh.

“Just relax and focus on your sigil’s pathways for now. Don’t worry about whatever purpose you believe relates to the exercise,” instructed Cyrus mildly.

The words prompted Amdirlain to let her curiosity wash away as she sought to become one with the pathway in following its course. As each node ignited, the reserves in her pool grew thinner. Amdirlain brushed away concerns about misjudging the amount needed until she’d completed the final loops to join the flames above the Phoenix’s crest. Ki surged within it and cascaded back through, washing along the pool’s edge. Without prompting, Amdirlain cycled again and drew wisps of energy along the course. Hours later, Cyrus signalled her to stop, and Amdirlain handed him a crystal block she’d concealed within her grip the entire session.

Cyrus immediately secured the block into a storage device and frowned. “It is customary to return gifts with items of equal value, yet I’ve never accumulated enough wealth to exchange even a single gift of the type you give so freely.”

“Your patience in waiting to teach me is a gift, and this is just a token of my thanks for the gift you’ve already given,” replied Amdirlain, and she bowed formally. When Amdirlain straightened, she gave him a serious smile. “You didn’t even run screaming from my form, Master Cyrus.”

The formality caused Cyrus’ brows to lift. “I thought you said your True Form did not bother you.”

“It doesn’t, it’s just ugly,” said Amdirlain.

Cyrus patted Amdirlain’s shoulder reassuringly. “You should see how monstrous the North Wind is. Your appearance is beauty incarnate compared to that sight.”

“A snake turtle?” asked Amdirlain, and she shook her head in confusion at Cyrus’s nod. “How does that even work?”

“They are two, yet one, and their intermingled natures overlap,” answered Cyrus. “The Emperor of the North is certainly unique.”

“Does that mean effectively he has four forms: human, snake, turtle, and then the combined form?”

“He is unique,” repeated Cyrus, and he headed off.

As the courtyard’s front gate closed, Amdirlain returned to her room. After considering the floor harp that Euterpe’s Instrument had become, Amdirlain put sound barriers in place and settled herself to practice.

I am learning the floor harp on an instrument made for gods. There’s nothing to see here, folks; move along.

Her thought brought forth a smile of disbelief, and Amdirlain ran her fingers along the strings. Though she failed to achieve the result she wanted, her fumbled run of notes still brought forth a notification as Floor Harp was unlocked. She had barely taken in its synergy with the Lap Harp Skill before the harp that had inspired the Greek pantheon ignited a memory within her Soul.

* * * * *

While the realm was in its birthing phase, there was no horizon, and the Material Plane’s boundary had already raced outward further than Orhêthurin could hear.

Amidst the nearly complete darkness of the void, there were only two sources of light: the white flames of her father’s forge and the prismatic spray that continued to pour forth from a realm on a cascade of collapse. Its doom wasn’t her doing, but listening to its death tones, Orhêthurin blinked back the tears brimming in her eyes. Aeons of hopes and dreams had been dying after its rulers had extinguished themselves and, without their renewing forces, the place had spiralled towards heat death, matter and planes growing stagnant as they compressed. That she profited from their losses stung bitterly; the sorrowful notes twisted knives in her gut, and telling herself their fate had long been sealed made no difference.

Orhêthurin forced herself to regard the rift positioned where their universe’s central core would be, an eternal primordial star to cauterise the wound and prevent anything from entering from the collapsed realm. Though she would have preferred only one, the dying realm didn’t possess sufficient energy to go beyond igniting the realm’s growth and establishing the planar framework. They needed far more energy and materials to fulfil their plans.

With the weight of the floor harp resting against her shoulder, Orhêthurin tried to relax into the musical flow and consider the distant rift with her eyesight alone. The rift had been vomiting energy for months, and millions of battered and dying beings had come forth with it. Gideon was a multitude of whirling facets absorbing the facts of aeons of their existence and providing a translation to their natures to set them within their rules. As Gideon went about the task, their strength surged.

Each being whose knowledge Gideon absorbed and then translated helped the Aspect of Knowledge refine their essence. Not wanting to lessen the Aspect’s growth, she merely provided support with a background melody to implement Gideon’s decisions. It moulded these unexpected arrivals into the closest forms and species allowed by the rules. The translation effect shunted each to a suitable nascent Plane according to their natures and temporally sealed them to avoid injury amidst the growing planes.

Even while conducting that work, one hand danced across the mithril strings of the harp while she plucked a steady harmonic note with the other. Orhêthurin was working her way through her recreation of the music when her inexperience showed, and she plucked too hard on the harmonic string and muddied the other notes. With a dissatisfied huff, she stopped and began playing the song from the top, determined to master the orchestral piece she’d heard in Bahamut’s court.

Nicholaus turned his attention just enough to observe her out of the corner of his eye. Despite splitting his attention, the stream of energy that ran from the rift through his forge flames didn’t falter. “You could sing that flawlessly. Why bother with the harp?”

“Can’t I just be enjoying the sound of Moradin’s gift?” questioned Orhêthurin.

Nicholaus huffed dismissively. “I heard you sigh. It doesn’t sound like you’re enjoying it now, and your voice transcends it in beauty.”

“You are tone-deaf, Father. Also, not everything has to have a practical purpose,” said Orhêthurin. “It doesn’t have to make the same music to provide enjoyment, plus not everything has to have an immediate use.”

“I don’t understand what use you see any instrument possessing,” grumbled Nicholaus.

Orhêthurin grinned. “It will be the first Skill I learn here from scratch in our realm. I should see that the framework applies as intended, even to us. As for the harp, it’s allowing me to make a racket without any risk of breaking the planar framework, unlike the arguing of our intended guests.”

A metallic hiss from Tiamat stressed her side of the argument and shivered along the still-growing spire. Without singing aloud, Orhêthurin squashed the vibrations and restored the framework to a pristine state.

“The uninvited ones are less troublesome,” agreed Nicholaus.

Orhêthurin sighed. “Have you decided when to release them from the temporal lock?”

At her unhappy tone, Nicholaus huffed. “When I feel like talking to any of them. We were told all the inhabitants had perished.”

“Please treat them fairly, Father. Consider that they’re not willing intruders, we are absorbing the remains of their home realm, and they were swept here with that tsunami of energy,” said Orhêthurin.

Her words got a pained grunt from Nicholaus, and he had to snip out a section of the adjusted energy to reprocess it.

“It’s not their fault they’d been left to perish when the mortals died, and the gods faded,” said Orhêthurin. “I feel sorry for them. They faced the horror of a slow annihilation or the choice of ending their own existence. Having survived, I wonder how they’ll feel.”

“Their fates weren’t your responsibility, little songbird. If their realm had been healthy, we wouldn’t have gone near it. I’m glad you’re not still insisting that you speak with them. They are in a new realm, I’ll ensure they don’t have any stupid ideas that the rules of their old home apply here,” declared Nicholaus, and he set to work on the cables of power racing through his forge with more vigour. The impact of his will beating it into shape made the rage of a solar storm pale. “Let’s complete the spire, seed all the planar layers, and create a few systems.”

“Just a short list of work for you to do, Father,” replied Orhêthurin. Despite all the songs she already supported, new melodies raced outwards from Orhêthurin, and Amdirlain followed them. An orb of tremendous forces appeared, glowing the colour of a glorious dawn, prompted by memories of home. When she released the orb from her control, it hurtled along the spire and manifested above; a layer of phantasmal cloud that served as its base faded from view as it shifted out of phase with the Material Plane.

“Judgement.”

Nicholaus turned his full attention to the forge, not commenting on the millions of songs he knew his daughter effortlessly supported to guide the energy streams he controlled. It was a month before Nicholaus spoke again. By then, Orhêthurin had mastered the celestial melody and continued experimenting with it while she spent time creating and expanding thousands of planes.

“Are you sure we’ll need so many planes within the Abyss?” asked Nicholaus.

Orhêthurin nodded. “We want all the materials we can capture in a single attempt, and they’ll give us a buffer in case sealing the hole takes longer than expected. Your forge can handle translating energy through the outer barrier, but this is the largest influx we’ll get. Do it too often, and we’ll leave too many vulnerabilities.”

“Okay, I’ll leave it to the expert,” said Nicholaus.

“I’m hardly the expert, Father,” protested Orhêthurin.

“If you’re not the expert, then I’m just a normal smith,” rumbled Nicholaus, and he rubbed a hand through his short grey hair. “Feels like we're about to ruin our new boat. Do you want to ask Bahamut if he’s ready to relinquish his spear, or should I?”

“That’s fine, I can do it. We told him he’d needed to contribute to come along,” said Orhêthurin. “Do you expect it will take long to make him a new spear? He won’t get that one back once it’s out in the Far Chaos.”

Nicholaus grinned shyly. “The outer membrane of the realm has expanded enough that there is plenty of energy available, so it’s an easy matter now.”

“Relatively easy,” chimed Gideon, and they floated over to lightly bump against Ori’s shoulder. “The material is so dense it has the gravitational attraction of a white dwarf star.”

“How are they all?” asked Orhêthurin.

“Do you wish a grossly optimistic and reassuring summary or the truth?” Gideon inquired hesitantly.

Orhêthurin groaned. “How bad is the truth?”

“You heard their songs, and I’d recommend you kill them all,” said Gideon. “It would put them out of the misery they’ve already suffered and avoid future contaminants within the realm.”

Orhêthurin’s mouth tightened as she held back a retort. “We’re not doing that.”

“Then they’re all fine, peachy even,” offered Gideon. “If you don’t want the truth, don’t ask me to grade them.”

“You’re right. I had hoped my assessment of them was mistaken,” admitted Orhêthurin.

* * * * *

Amdirlain's fingers moved in a graceful performance of the song that Orhêthurin had sought to perfect when the memory released its hold. Wide-eyed Amdirlain jerked her hands clear of the strings, and grunted in disbelief.

That’s disturbing.

Discomfort held at bay by her self-control, Amdirlain resumed the song before turning her attention to a waiting notification.

[Floor Harp Unlocked!

Floor Harp (1)

Major synergy detected: Lap Harp [S] (127)

Floor Harp (1) -> (13)

Partial memory synergy achieved < 0.001%

Floor Harp (13) -> Floor Harp [M] (1)

True Song Genesis [G] (6 -> 8)

Muse’s Insight [S] (105 -> 109)

True Song Architecture [G] (4 -> 14)

Note: Ori possessed a natural gift for all things musical. If you’d synchronised with a later memory involving a Floor Harp, you would have far outstripped your Lap Harp skill.]

Amdirlain carefully returned the harp to an upright position on its stand and stepped away. The memory felt like she had lived every moment, but the melodies confirmed it had lasted a mere second. Slowly pacing around the room, Amdirlain considered the fragments of the understanding that had remained with her and how much she’d experienced that still lay beyond her grasp. The leap in True Song Architecture hadn’t caused even a mild headache let alone the agony from dropping Skill points into it. That was Amdirlain’s biggest surprise considering she’d gained more associated knowledge than she knew what to do with. Despite that, Amdirlain still had more questions. The sorrow Ori had felt for those she’d inadvertently rescued felt to be the most vital and emotional part of the memory, though she’d averted an otherwise grim fate.

Is that the reason Ori didn't take action against Balnérith earlier? Did she feel sorry for the abandoned servant of a deity?

Not wanting to commit anything to paper or crystal, Amdirlain used an illusion to display a musical score and started to review it methodically. Hours later, temptation gripped her as Amdirlain redesigned the songs Ori had used to spread the pressure of creating a Plane. With the knowledge the memory had given her, it seemed possible. It would take her multiple steps and wouldn’t be as elegant as any of Ori’s creations, but it was an achievable challenge that beckoned her.

Rather than simply teleporting away, Amdirlain travelled down the mountain with Ki Flight. Skimming across rooftops, she saw the occasional student and servant glance her way, but none seemed surprised. Beyond the monastery’s boundary, Amdirlain opened a Gate into darkness and stepped out into chaos. Among the chaos streams, she absorbed the bracelet of shadow vines, disinclined to risk the device with the effort that lay ahead.

Amdirlain reverted to her True Form, the flames of her wings beat against the darkness and failed to illuminate more than a hundred metres away. It was oppressive darkness, a purer version of that which cloaked Pandemonium, its difference was in that this place obliterated the structure of light that ventured too far from her. The only thing present beside herself was a crystal block she’d set out as a marker buoy for the work ahead. The wild, turbulent music surrounding her waxed and waned, and Amdirlain stopped herself from reconsidering the sanity of what she was about to do. Deep pounding notes struck against the tidal forces, hammering them with repeated body blows.

Blood streams floated outwards from ruptured flesh and mingled with the darkness; before they had stretched more than a metre away, Amdirlain ignited Phoenix’s Rapture. The white flames vaporised her blood and drove back the darkness that had battled to contain the Plane’s growing boundary. Pain Eater catalogued the injuries and advised Amdirlain of the spurs of shattered bones protruding from her body with the first impact of the song, and even with Phoenix’s Rapture burning, her health bled away faster than her regeneration.

In Ori’s memory, she’d only needed to focus the melody into fifty places for seconds to create a perfect planar seed, but that pressure would have killed Amdirlain. Instead, she broadcast it to thousands of locations in a sphere that orbited the block. The lights blazed in the darkness, burning stars that fed from her health and the chaotic flows around them until they finally began to burn on their own. Strands that reminded Amdirlain of her spiritual net extended from each node and spun outwards with each rotation. It was eight hours of continual singing, bleeding, and healing before the work was done.

A pair of extended tendrils from different nodes overlapped and merged. Before the contact could yank the pair off balance, others touched. In seconds, the meshwork glowing in the dark became a fabric of energy that enclosed a sphere that rippled out of phase with the chaos but continued to absorb energy from it to fuel its growth. The shell hardened as a whirlpool of energies was sucked into it from the surrounding chaos, and Amdirlain teleported beyond the edge of the effect.

With the songs at last finally finished, Amdirlain’s ripped and shattered body began to heal.

[Health: 94,230]

Despite all the modifications, I almost had to abort the creation process. Do I need one, two, or more evolutions of True Song?

Amdirlain put the continual updates from Pain Eater out of her mind and considered the experience notification.

[Crafting summary

Planar Seed x 1

Total Experience gained: 2,500,000,000

Pure Scion of the Sun: +1,250,000,000

Ascetic Triumvirate: +1,250,000,000

Phoenix’s Rapture [G] (103->105)

Note: You can’t do anything the easy way, can you? Are you planning to hop right into it?]

[Achievement: Songbird’s First Step (Tier 7 Achievement)

Details: Successfully create your first planar seed designed to slide into place within the planar framework.

Reward: 3,500,000,000

Pure Scion of the Sun: +1,750,000,000

Ascetic Triumvirate: +1,750,000,000

Note: You persist in doing things in the wrong order. Compensating much?

Note: Are you planning to hop right into it?]

No, the forces inside it would rip me apart, and it might take years to stabilise.

“I dub thee Atonement,” murmured Amdirlain, and she felt the name ring through the plane she’d just created.

As she considered her next steps, Amdirlain adjusted the vanished plane’s rules, ensuring it would remain isolated and preventing the Astral Plane from creating a connecting pool within its limits. At least for now, it wouldn’t gather souls.