AbyssalRoadTrip
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Abyssal Road Trip - 332 - Animal
🕑 Added 2023-09-13 16:36:29 +0000 UTCAmdirlain’s PoV - Material Plane - Qil Tris - Year 4370 (Local calendar)
Arriving in her bedroom, Amdirlain spared the now empty clothes racks a glance before she flopped down on the bed. Turning her attention towards the campus, the height of their apartment made it uncomfortable to isolate the zone for the barriers. The biggest challenge was the distortion’s distraction as she identified reference points from the front to the back of the campus.
I need to do this without screwing the foundations.
After isolating enough reference points, Amdirlain carefully composed the song before she started. The theme was a spiderweb of sound, easing through the solid bedrock. With a complex version of the orchestral piece she’d used for the Mousekin burrow, she set an initial meshwork of crystal. Back and forth, she weaved the pattern until it was a solid plate on every side. Besides isolating a boundary beyond the corrupted stone, it would support the stone around it while the pieces shifted.
With other aspects to get ready, Amdirlain opened a Gate into chaos between the realm’s planes. She continuously sang spires into the black and purple substance, causing it to ripple like an ocean. Each demi-plane seed soon disappeared from view on the chaotic tides. The repulsion fields within them were all set to steer them away from planar barriers. After hours of work creating and scattering hundreds of seeds, a long pause caused the notification to appear.
Fifty-nine levels for eight cities, or I use them as the first eight levels for fifty-nine cities.
[Crafting Summary (Category: Planar fundamentals)
Planar seeds x472
Total Experience gained: 26,432,000,000
Ostimë:+13,216,000,000
Ostimë Level Up!
Ontãlin: +13,216,000,000
Ontãlin Level Up!]
[Achievement: Junior Planar Architect badge unlocked!
Details: It's a pity you can’t manage something slightly more complex from the get-go.
Note: Get Good!.]
You bastard!
Laughing, Amdirlain shook her head at the repeat of the quip she’d delivered to Mor’lmes. Scrying inside the first seed confirmed the rocky plain had already spread for hundreds of kilometres and was continuing to grow.
Yeah, they’re all smaller on the outside.
Slicing her way through stone and setting up the required gates didn’t take long. With the outer cube of crystal holding everything in place, gravitational fields eased the corrupted stone onto the surface of a desolate world and added fresh stone from the demi-plane.
[Achievement: Incursion Blocker (Intruder: Eldritch parasite foothold - medium)
Details: The potential for an Eldritch foothold is now contained.
Reward: 7,936,507 experience points
Note: Sarah, Kadaklan, Mor’lmes, and his teams get a share. While none were low-level, a few got rushed through the lower levels of new classes.
Note: Technically, you created an Incursion in another world, but there isn’t life to risk. Just take your trash out later.]
I don’t know how many of Mor’lmes’ observers have classes below level thirty-five. If it's split four ways, one point nine million sits about that level from memory.
Amdirlain sent a warning to Mor’lmes, sure he’d know who to check on; she barely finished when she heard Kadaklan’s theme teleport into the living room.
“Anyone here?” called Kadaklan.
“Why? Are you bringing a sweetheart over?” called Amdirlain.
Kadaklan approached her bedroom door. “I would not. Do you have a moment to talk? I got a gold and black message about an Eldritch parasite.”
“That’s a pleasant introduction to Gideon. Congratulations!” quipped Amdirlain, and she hopped up to open her door.
“Gideon being?” asked Kadaklan with a confused frown.
“They are the primary Aspect of Knowledge in this realm,” replied Amdirlain. “What did the message say to you?”
Kadaklan repeated the first part of the notification without the note section before continuing. “The personification of an ideal? How-”
He cut himself off sheepishly, and Amdirlain smiled.
“You’ve been good for years, and now that I called you about seeing my Soul the other day, you’re asking questions?”
“I apologise for my slipping up. I’ll refrain from asking anything further,” offered Kadaklan, and he bowed his head apologetically.
“That won’t get you much reassurance about the notification,” countered Amdirlain. “I’m going to have many people asking uncomfortable questions soon. What did you want to know?”
“Gideon?” enquired Kadaklan.
“Orhêthurin created them before this realm came about, or at least before the realm was more than a pocket of darkness,” clarified Amdirlain.
“Orhêthurin?”
“The name from my original life,” clarified Amdirlain.
“You created the Aspect of knowledge,” blurted Kadaklan, in his surprise.
“No, Orhêthurin did. I’m not her,” corrected Amdirlain.
Blinking, Kadaklan tilted his head. “But all her experiences are part of your Soul?”
Growing restless, Amdirlain glanced away. “I don’t agree with how Orhêthurin handled some key issues.”
“Do you agree with the way you handled everything since you were reborn in this lifetime?” asked Kadaklan, and he leaned against the doorframe.
“No,” allowed Amdirlain. “If you’re curious about things, we might as well sit. Since you know so much already, even what I am comfortable discussing would take weeks to cover.”
Stepping away from the door, Kadaklan gestured towards the living room. “Would you like something to drink?”
“Feel free,” replied Amdirlain.
“I’ve no need either, but unless you cancelled the grocery service, we need to keep up appearance or give it away,” advised Kadaklan.
Amdirlain sighed. “Precognition is saying those options will attract attention. Too many people are still paying attention to details about Am, so they’ll know I’m not eating out. I’d take it down to the nomads' shelters if they’d accept food from any city dweller.”
“They do have their self-reliance down to a fine art,” agreed Kadaklan.
Heading out to the living room, Amdirlain grumbled. “People going through my trash is the biggest pain; otherwise, I’d just give it to a family that’s hard up. Leave the food; I’ll just disintegrate the contents.”
“The housekeeping service?”
Letting her shoulders slump, Amdirlain gave in. “Whatever is cold.”
Kadaklan returned a glass of water each and set one within Amdirlain’s reach. “You were the realm’s creator.”
“No, Orhêthurin created the realm with her father, Nicholaus, referred to as the Titan.”
“Perhaps this insistence contributes to why you cannot become a Shen,” suggested Kadaklan as he sat across from her.
Amdirlain froze, reaching for the drink. “Not quite the issue, but burn!”
“It is not an insult, merely an observation,” clarified Kadaklan. “You’ve rejected or are at least uncomfortable with your former life, whereas a Shen accepts all their past lives. It is part of the road they’ve walked to reach the steps of enlightenment. Likely, this holds me back since I’ve found unpleasantness to dwell upon in my past lives.”
“Hideous crimes?” enquired Amdirlain lightly.
His nose wrinkled, and his ears flattened. “I was a soldier in some lifetimes. With the Dao I follow now, remembering how I took joy in victories that cost others their lives, I find it hard to accept. Yet, in those lives, I can still find worthwhile endeavours. Should I reject it all?”
Amdirlain started to object, only to stop.
“How old is the realm?” asked Kadaklan.
“Well over forty billion Earth years. I’m not sure exactly how much more, ten to twenty, maybe more,” replied Amdirlain.
Kadaklan whistled softly. “Your original life. Was it a short one?”
At least he’s not hitting me with riddles, but he’s making me think about things.
Though she wasn't sure where he was taking the conversation, Amdirlain still answered. “No, Orhêthurin lived from before its inception to about half a million years ago.”
“And in all that time, she achieved nothing worthy of respect?” enquired Kadaklan, and he raised a hand to wait. “I’m enquiring about your life, but it is only fair I share some of mine.”
She leaned forward to get her drink and found her tail wrapped around her forearm.
“In this lifetime I was born an animal, a magical animal, but still an animal,” continued Kadaklan. “I was born in a nest on the side of a volcano. My parents would take turns to bring us food. Fish mostly. We hadn’t yet learnt to fly when a mated pair of shadow tigers found us. In the aftermath of that attack, my siblings were dead, along with my mother and my father gravely injured.”
“That’s terrible,” whispered Amdirlain. “If you weren’t flying from the nest yet, how did you survive?”
Kadaklan went distant, and he raised a hand and swooped it down. “My father had returned just before they killed me, and his flames burned the surrounding air. The male tiger spun and struck out, pulling my father down before he could dodge. However, his flames flared far higher than my mother had managed, and he finished the injured pair.”
“You lost your whole family?”
“I thought he was dead among the thrashing tigers, but they’d thrown him clear. That breed of tiger is Yin-aspected. When they stilled, I saw him approaching, his wing broken and bleeding badly,” continued Kadaklan as his gaze refocused on Amdirlain. “I was a fledgling. I didn’t know my father would heal with the dawn, nor that my mother would be reborn in flame. My siblings weren’t so lucky; they were too young to be reborn that way. Anyway, I saw him struggling and didn’t wish him to die.”
Amdirlain nodded. “A moment of crises?”
“Exactly. It fueled my awakening. Amid all that death, I remembered fragments, ironically, from one of those soldier lifetimes, where I’d mainly used Ki to take lives. As in that life, I still knew about treating wounds and occasionally used Ki to heal. It was a flash of light in my mind, and I chose a way to heal. The next thing I knew, I was kneeling by his side as a Human boy. Guided by the memory fragments of that moment of enlightenment, the Ki I could muster was enough to seal his wounds.”
“How did your father react?”
“That is a longer tale, perhaps best kept for another time,” said Kadaklan. “I shared this part simply to show the memories from previous lifetimes are the pearls of wisdom within our Soul. It is up to us how we use them now, but we gained them through that lifetime’s struggles, a part of our journey towards enlightenment. Even if it is hard work to accept what we don’t agree with, we cannot change it.”
“Are you looking to be my therapist now?”
Kadaklan snorted. “You no longer need me as a doctor, hopefully as a friend. I’m just sharing the insights of my experience. However, I’m only young and perhaps not doing so correctly. I should give you riddles and let you think about it yourself.”
“What’s the sound of one hand clapping?”
“A good question. Let me know when you find the answer,” replied Kadaklan.
Her tail swished around, and Amdirlain forced a grin. “Contemplation depends on the frame of reference. I can hear one hand clapping.”
“Then you have not heard it; you have heard your mind,” Kadaklan rebuffed. “And you are trying to change the subject, but it has already gone far afield.”
The fragile smile vanished, and Amdirlain whispered. “I’m not Orhêthurin.”
Smiling, Kadaklan’s gaze lit up. “You do not control something by rejecting it. You do not accept something to control it.”
“That makes sense,” replied Amdirlain.
“Then I’m not a good teacher; just as well we’re simply speaking as friends,” countered Kadaklan. “Orhêthurin is a piece of the foundations of your life. Given the length of life she lived, it is a sizeable piece. Is there nothing from her memories you see value in?”
“She loved to create and sing. She’d work hard pushing herself but could get angry at anyone who didn’t meet her standards,” admitted Amdirlain. “What should I do then?”
“How can I say? It is not my Way you follow, and if you followed my Way, you’d be me, not yourself,” said Kadaklan. “What to you is the worst part? Is there anything in particular that makes you reject her so firmly?”
Letting out a deep sigh, Amdirlain grumbled. “She let rage and pain control so much of her life.”
“If that is part of it, should you not face it? If not, aren’t you letting her rage and pain control you too? It is in the past; why carry it?” asked Kadaklan.
“I don’t know-” Amdirlain cut off her reply to his string of questions.
Kadaklan waited for her to continue watching as Amdirlain played with her glass. “I hope I haven’t intruded.”
“You offered a different perspective, and you’re not telling me what to do,” replied Amdirlain. “I have gotten annoyed at people giving me instructions that I didn’t agree with.”
“I am only proposing questions for your consideration,” advised Kadaklan.
“Thanks for the clarification,” replied Amdirlain. “My rejection of my past life isn’t what is blocking me from becoming a Shen. My Fallen state blocks me from becoming a Shen, and it's a long story, but my curse meant I became Fallen. I’ve been told I must follow the Fallen’s Redemption Path to escape that state.”
“Your journey to the west?” asked Kadaklan.
Amdirlain laughed. “I’ll not comment on that allegory.”
“Well, you have a Dragon with you,” offered Kadaklan. “Perhaps you’re in the role of the boy priest Tripitaka, seeking the scrolls?”
Dragon is the horse. Yeah, and just no. I’m sure Sarah would…. no.
Kadaklan’s tail thumped against the couch in amusement, and he smiled gently. “You seem flustered. Should I continue?”
Amdirlain snatched her hand away from her ear. “What role do you see yourself in?”
Her suddenly firm tone made Kadaklan’s perk up. “Oh, I’m certain, wait, perhaps not. I have the aspect of a few. In past lives I’ve been the fool the monkey king started as and the glutton.”
“Never been the general?” questioned Amdirlain.
“My achievements as a soldier were all modest,” allowed Kadaklan
“How old is the first life you remember?” asked Amdirlain. “Did you come to this realm with the Jade Emperor?”
Snickering, Kadaklan held up his hands. “Hold up. I’m young compared to a fossil like Cyrus. All of my lifetimes occurred within this realm. I’ve only been an Immortal for a hundred years. You’ve changed the subject again, so I’ll stop offering my questions.”
“No, go on. It gives me something to meditate on, if nothing else,” said Amdirlain.
"Is that why you find appalling jokes and wordplay relaxing? It is easier than answering questions."
Amdirlain immediately nodded. "Absolutely."
“Do you reject being her because of that rage and pain?”
Amdirlain frowned. “Yes, but not just that.”
“Was she always that way?”
The joy she'd possessed in fragmented memories of creating the planar framework and initial solar systems came to mind.
“No,” admitted Amdirlain.
Taking a sip from his drink, Kadaklan set it down again and ran a finger around the glass’ rim. “There are so many Kuon, not to mention Zen riddles and parables that seem suitable, but I don’t want to flood you with them.”
“Share one,” prompted Amdirlain.
Kadaklan grumbled. “I’m not a proper teacher since you're setting me terms. I should be the one to burst you from the habit of logic.”
“What’s wrong with logic?”
“It’s used as a justification or rationalisation rather than achieving acceptance and understanding,” replied Kadaklan. “Fine. There was a master who held up his staff to his assembled monks. If you call this a staff, you deny its eternal life. If you do not call this a staff, you deny its present fact. Tell me, just what do you propose to call it?"
“The material of the staff has been many things over its existence, and will not remain a staff. Eventually, decay will take it, and it will rejoin the soil to feed another plant,” murmured Amdirlain. “It’s a staff only at this point on its journey.”
“Your Soul shows signs of a hard journey,” observed Kadaklan. “Did it travel other roads than those you might label as Orhêthurin or Amdirlain?”
Amdirlain blew out a slow breath. “Yes, but part of the damage you saw was because Orhêthurin mauled herself before she died; she wanted to be less than she’d been.”
“Do you think you can be kinder to yourself than she was?” enquired Kadaklan.
“I’m Amdirlain,” persisted Amdirlain.
Kadaklan nodded. “That is indeed where you are in your journey. I didn’t say you were not, but have you learnt nothing from your old lives?”
Sighing, Amdirlain closed her eyes. “Memories and understandings have come up that have helped me make sense of things.”
“Then perhaps it is something to consider,” said Kadaklan, “Is a person only their memories? Is not a person changed by new events?”
“I don’t have all of her memories,” objected Amdirlain. “Too many years are involved, and I worry they’d drown me.”
Kadaklan looked at her enquiringly. “Have you sought wisdom in them deliberately, or have they come to you randomly?”
“Sometimes, when I’m meditating, memories come up without looking.”
“Emptiness and lack of expectation leave us open to hearing without clutter,” agreed Kadaklan. “I believe I’ve given you plenty to digest, as you both like to put it. Are you going out tonight?”
“Dragons think with their stomachs, and Sarah’s a bad influence,” said Amdirlain. “I planned to start work on some demi-planes tonight.”
“Are you going to duplicate what you did here exactly?” enquired Kadaklan, the tip of his tail twitching with curiosity.
“Not exactly. I thought I’d give regions reasons to trade with each other,” responded Amdirlain. “Why?”
“There were some materials the teams were experimenting with in my absence that seem promising,” explained Kadaklan.
“If you’ve got samples and details of where we can find them, I’ll see what I can do,” allowed Amdirlain.
Tail twitching, Kadaklan grinned. “I don’t suppose I can watch?”
“Really?!” drawled Amdirlain.
Kadaklan briefly frowned in confusion before he sputtered. “That is not at all what I meant! Though I deserve that for pandering to your awful sense of humour.”
As Amdirlain started laughing, he continued. “I won’t tell Sarah you thought you needed to put on a show.”
Groaning, Amdirlain covered her face with both hands. “You’re both mean to me!”
“Turn about is fair play,” argued Kadaklan.
Crossing her arms, Amdirlain huffed at him. “You should remember the entire saying if you want to play that game, buster.”
* * * * *
The demi-planes may have possessed the same boundary, but the way she used the interior varied. The bone-dry heart of Australia was supposed to have possessed an inland sea between forty and sixty thousand BC. Since the demi-plane’s shape matched mainland Australia, Amdirlain gave her local godzillas a wading pool.
As her fingers danced along the energy’s string, Amdirlain held the lap harp lightly, letting voice and instrument entwine. The harp's soft sound added to her singing without being too powerful. Her primary purpose was practising what was useful to reinforce with an instrument.
The harp’s Life Affinity added zest to the sea grass sweeping out hundreds of kilometres ahead of her. The sea was already teeming with plankton and micro-organisms, and she added smaller fish species to the mix. Though the wind coming off the water swept her electric blue locks back, the sound still carried in all directions.
Seated on a nearby rock, Kadaklan hadn’t taken his gaze from the glowing waters that only half an hour ago had risen to lap at Amdirlain’s toes. While only the part of the theme reinforced by the instrument was audible, he still nodded in time to the beat.
Amdirlain stopped singing and stored the harp while the dinosaur-like beasts explored the coastline and sea.
“Thank you for allowing my presence. I should note that you’re rather skilled with your fingering,” Kadaklan said dryly.
Amdirlain turned her glowing gaze his way. “You want to keep it up?”
“Might I point out that you started it?” asked Kadaklan. “And you don’t have Jal’krin around to compose all your wordplay.”
“You think I need Jal’krin’s words to needle you?”
Kadaklan shrugged. “I’m sure I’ll get my foot in my beak enough. What training stage do you intend this plane to be used for? The beasts seem rather impressive.”
“It’s a playpen for Sarah’s opponents. The bigger critters are just food supply for them,” advised Amdirlain. “I’ve had to load this place up with more challenging foes than found elsewhere, Sarah might want to wait for some to gain levels in order to squeeze out the most experience gain hunting.”
A few kilometres inland, she heard the first kaiju egg start to hatch; its instincts kicked in, and it was fighting a young carnivore in minutes.
[Crafting Summary (Category: Biome fundamentals)
Grouped by type
Self-sustaining continent-sized biome (small) x1
Inland sea biome (small) x1
Bonus elements:
- Narrow band of megafauna x1
- Narrow band of Jurassic period fauna x1
- Colossus magical creature breeds x2
Total Experience gained: 10,205,910,025
Ostimë: +5,102,955,012
Ontãlin: +5,102,955,012
Phoenix’s Rapture [G] (27->28)
True Song Genesis [M] (61->62)
True Song Architecture [S] (104->105)
Lap Harp [S] (126->127)
Note: You’ll have to get it bigger to pack more in. Unless you want a short-term killing jar.]
That strained my passive healing capacity. Even with that, I need a wider diversity of the large fauna, though it was worth more experience than the simpler demi-planes.
“What section are you doing next?” asked Kadaklan
“Since I know the planar limits and the landscape I had planned, I don’t need to move from one spot. At least, not given the size of the demi-plane. I’d need to move around if I was creating a full-sized planet.”
“That’s on your plan?”
Amdirlain shrugged. “Eventually, but not soon. The advantage of the demi-planes is I can set their base rules. Creating a sustainable planet-wide environment is tough due to weather patterns and atmospheric changes.”
“That makes these training demi-planes your training grounds as well,” commented Kadaklan.
“Yeah, and I need to scale up.”
“Can I make a suggestion?”
“A request or a suggestion?” asked Amdirlain, and she raised an eyebrow.
Kadaklan grinned boyishly. “Sarah and you have talked about your foundry demi-plane. What about a hollow planet?”
“The internal sun would be an issue, but I’ll consider it,” replied Amdirlain. “My first thought would be a slowly rotating lighthouse of positive energy, but I’ve used something similar here, so it's not a challenge.”
“A ring world?”
“That's even bigger, and the size is well beyond my capacity if you’re talking about orbiting a sun,” rebuffed Amdirlain. “Creating a new planet would be easier than a ring world; since I could take it a layer of crust at a time.”
“Yet it isn’t easier if you’ve tried it as a demi-plane first?” asked Kadaklan.
Amdirlain stopped. “Ok, that would be doable, but an enormous stretch. I’d have to handle it in sections. The first version would be the same false sky as these possess—a seed like this place, I can do hundreds in a few hours. What I’d end up doing then is more like the inner tube of a tire. Going from seed to a full-size planet would take time, months or years of initial work designing the songs.”
“What about creating it?”
“At present, years of work. The complexity scale from a demi-plane to a full-size planet is like a mite believing a twig is its entire world when there is a branch beyond, let alone the tree.”
Kadaklan hummed thoughtfully. “What about when you were journeying through life as Orhêthurin?”
“I haven’t recovered a memory of completing a planet, but she could create a sun in minutes. Besides the size and pressure, the nature of a sun is a lot simpler,” explained Amdirlain, and she lifted into the air. “Give me a little while; I'll utilise my aura to recover from creating this place faster. I’ve got a concealment centred on you, so don’t wander.”
Opening his mouth to protest, Kadaklan stopped. “Right, Primordial flames, not Yang.”
Amdirlain lifted higher, giving Kadaklan plenty of clearance before she ignited. The two increases in the Power’s level made only a marginal difference to its ten-metre radius. Even concealed, the energy made nearby animals flee.
Comments
Gopard
Thanks for the chapter!
Glenn Wright
She needs an average of around 249 to avoid Imperial Princess :) Taking her True Song prestige class earlier than that, means she'll have to push her prestige classes higher.
Luboš Hemala
What level is Am aiming for evolving? She gained over 50 during her whole excursion into Qil Tris.
