Notes after chapters, this week.
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Chapter 44
Theo was glad he had the statue work as a distraction, because he was furious with himself. He had a literal wealth of sublime materials, three gems that he would have killed to acquire not long ago, yet he still hadn't put together his singularity.
So far he hadn't spoken about it to the others, a recourse he was reserving for if he really came up short. In the meantime, he was finishing off the corner chamber of his corporeal wedge, the room that he'd been planning for his statue ever since he came up with the blueprint. He'd already set up the chamber with supporting materials for it, so now he just needed to fuse the statue with the rest and make final adjustments.
The statues really were perfect materials, like microcosms of the rest of their essence. He wondered if it would be possible to construct a soulhome entirely out of them and rejected the idea, since he suspected the effect would taper off, similar to a Nine Worlds Feast. But if someone used the same techniques with multiple methods, like sublime portraits or sublime mosaics... it might be possible to create a truly formidable "art gallery" blueprint.
Voidiamond, bloodruby, soulsapphire. The three gemstones called to him from where they rested in the center of his soulhome.
Any one of the three could make a strong singularity, and he would force himself to make a decision if Nauda and Fiyu finished their work before he came up with a solution. The problem was choosing one would mean wasting the other two, which would hurt after spending so much time and effort to acquire them.
Since his Corporeal chambers were filled, the bloodruby was the most likely to be wasted, so there was an argument for using it as his singularity. He still had an open chamber on his Ethereal side, so it was easy to think that the soulsapphire would go over there. Or he could always just place one in his basement, yet... too easy, unsatisfactory, lazy soulcrafting. There had to be something better.
Instead of banging his head against a problem he clearly wasn't thinking about the right way, Theo went back to the basics: the emotions he'd been experiencing years ago when he first redesigned his soulhome. The concept had been fundamentally based on astronomy, then he had gone in the direction of a singularity thanks to how miserably black-hearted he felt.
That no longer described him entirely, and Theo wondered if his soulhome was becoming inconsistent... and then he remembered what the Caretaker said. His soulhome didn't need to constantly be a snapshot of his current state, it represented all of him, including his history. So if his first cube was based on the principles of early misanthropy... where did that leave him?
All of that sounded great in his head, but it didn't provide any answers. The truth was that he hadn't entirely abandoned that darkness, or embraced any specific ideology. If anything, he was accepting that he was a lot of different things.
"Theo?" Nauda shifted over to sit beside him and he cracked an eye open. "Can I intrude?"
"Stuck anyway," he said as he emerged. "What is it?"
"I almost have a chamber done, but I'm reconsidering our old blueprint designs. Physically, this floor would include a lot of internal organs, but we agreed that the design didn't need to model it exactly. Mightiest legs in the Nine Worlds, remember?"
"Heh, right. I take it you're trying to work out your statue chambers?"
"Yeah. The thing is, I think modeling some organs might be a good idea. Especially ones like the heart: there are so many potential rooms that could embody my heart, and they'd be best placed on that floor. Fiyu and I were talking about interesting ideas for, uh, entrails."
"Believe me, I actually want to talk about local views of internal anatomy." Theo shook his head as he ignored tangents for now. "You may be right about later floors, but I think we can solve this via soulcrafting fundamentals. You have life and death towers up to this point, right?"
"They fuse on my Authority floor, but they're still differentiated." Nauda frowned as she considered what he said. "You're saying I need to think about what those different flows are leading into?"
"Not only that, how will future floors flow down into this one? If you do soulcraft a heart, I assume it will be something that pumps cantae through your entire body, so how does it mesh with the other designs?"
Nauda sat there for a time, then slowly began to smile. "Maybe this will work. We make the statue chamber the spiritual crux of it all, since it's a representation of absolutely everything. I can carve channels to the life and death towers, then fuse them in myself, but I can also transfer energy to and from the heart above."
"That could work." Theo nodded appreciatively. "Good way to blend the different elements of your blueprint, if you can pull it off."
"I think I can, thanks."
"There's something else you're neglecting: you really should open up your basement. You don't need to carve it rooms to get the cantae boost, and it would be easier with Fiyu's foundationstake."
"Yeah, fair point." Nauda started to walk away, then paused. "You said you were stuck?"
He sighed and explained his quandary, in part hoping that talking through the problem out loud would make the conclusion obvious. No such luck, as he only confirmed that the problem was obvious. Nauda could follow the design issues, but she wasn't going to be able to hand him an easy solution.
"I don't know what you need to do," she said slowly, "but can we solve it the same way? With soulcrafting fundamentals, I mean."
"How so?" Theo asked, narrowing his eyes.
"I get why you formed your first cube around a singularity, and you don't need more people to tell you that it was brilliant. But what's your goal with the second singularity? Is it just to do the same thing at a higher tier?"
That question was all it took: Theo's eyes widened and he just stared into space for several seconds. She was right, he was thinking too small: the singularity model had worked so well that he was trying to copy it, to repeat what had already worked with more power. But that was short-sighted; of course the spherical flow was still the right design, but that didn't mean he needed to copy every element.
"You look like you have-" Nauda cut off when he raised a finger, then smiled wryly and moved away. "Alright, have fun."
Back in his soulhome, Theo picked up the three sublime gemstones again and they no longer looked like a puzzle with too many pieces. No, he hadn't been ambitious enough, just like when he had first begun considering his second cube. He'd been too focused on repeating a singularity when he should have been aiming for a new astronomical object.
A binary of singularities. It was so obvious now that he thought about it.
Casting aside the voidiamond, which had seemed like such an obvious choice, Theo realized that he had two gemstones perfectly aligned with his Corporeal and Ethereal chambers... and he was going to choose both. He spent a while madly testing cantae flows, trying to figure out the optimal way to build a sphere around a rotating binary.
The optimum orientation for his current floor would be to have them rotate on the horizontal plane, but he rejected that as shortsighted. Better to have them rotate on a 45 degree plane, just like the Immortality Conduit he was planning. First he considered having them rotate in exactly the same arc, then he changed his mind and flipped it: corporeal and ethereal would rotate between the two sides, each empowering the other. Not just a perfect symbol of the floor's symmetry, a chamber that could help mix the two without harming their advantages as distinct sections.
For a while he just tried to figure out the obvious stupid mistakes he was missing, but didn't come up with anything. The binary would create a less stable sphere, which would have been a major problem for his first sphere that focused on techniques, but the second sphere was designed to enhance him. It only needed a stable overall pattern, not regular changes during combat.
When he finally picked up the bloodruby and soulsapphire, Theo held his breath and imploded them, wondering if his soulhome would crack apart again...
Instead he found himself staring at a pair of black holes, rotating around one another. Unlike real black holes, one had a red corona and the other was blue, creating an intense purple in the center. He considered trying to somehow work that into redshifted and blueshifted light before discarding the idea. They could be a little fantastical because he didn't need them to be perfect representations of real singularities, especially since he wanted these two to have a permanently stable orbit.
Part of him wanted to go back to Fithe that instant, maybe even have a rematch with Jazin despite that probably being a bad idea. When he looked to the other two, he saw that they were still in the middle of important work. His conundrum, which he had been afraid would delay them, had actually proved easier to solve than expected.
Given the excess time, he began making further changes to balance everything out. The most notable was that the felinesolar, which had served well in the central chamber, now needed to be moved. After considering trying to work it into another chamber, Theo realized that he was neglecting his basement. The felinesolar would be a great method of reworking other sublime materials to play better with others, so in a surprisingly short amount of time he had it installed alongside his feast chamber in the basement.
But there was always more soulcrafting to do. Theo went back to pick up the voidiamond, which had been left out... but it was still a good match for him. Come to think of it, if he placed it inside the etherealprism, he might have just filled his last chamber on the other side...
~
Tunneling with the Slescans had proved to be a game-changer, and Homez still wasn't sure what he would have done without them. They had not only tunneled out to rescue trapped civilians, they had constructed a more permanent tunnel between the Blacksilver compound and the central arena.
The conversation there had been productive, and there were some contestants who were glad to work with House Blacksilver. More than with the Asplundat Movement, he was ashamed to realize, but he could set that aside. What mattered was that they still had fundamental problems of the enemy threatening from all sides and preventing overland evacuations. No one on either side could come up with a solution to that, and it was the most Homez could do to persuade them not to appeal to Raythe.
As they traveled back through the tunnel, Homez looked to his Slescan allies. The beetle who led them was named Bluepetal, and though he couldn't speak out loud, Homez felt a strange kinship with him as they planned the tunnels together. Perhaps the Movement had more in common with insects than he thought, and that was no insult to him.
"I wanted to ask," Homez began, "how does Slest handle-"
His words were overwhelmed by the ground above them being torn apart. Homez caught only a brief glimpse of an enormous titan club tearing through the earth and he had already moved, his stone armor forming around him. He instinctively threw himself over Bluepetal, blocking as much of the rubble as he could.
When the avalanche was over, their tunnel had been torn open and a titan towered over them. At a glance, it didn't seem like anyone had died in the collapse, but that wouldn't last long: the titan was pulling back its club for another swing.
Homez threw himself against it, slamming a spiked shoulder into the creature's massive chest. It stumbled back, and he could have won alone... but it wasn't alone. There was one of the Tymetronese soulcrafters moving onto its back, pushing bone tools into the demonic flesh.
In that moment, maybe he could have stopped them. The enemy was only an Authority, and Homez had handled titans on his own before. But when he started to move, the Tymetronese soulcrafter hurled a golden sphere at him, and Homez froze.
When it struck his chest, the sublime material tried to sink into his soul... and his soulhome rejected it. All the work that Homez had done to recover, especially his plans with Navim, had rendered him immune to the Tymetronese slavery seals. And yet the feeling of that heavy liquid on his chest and touching his soul overwhelmed him, bringing back so many horrible memories...
And so he hesitated in the critical moment, and it was too late: the apprentice demonweaver connected with the titan and began controlling it.
Just when Homez thought he had lost the battle, something streaked in from the side with shocking speed. Four weapons flashed in quick succession, tearing through the demon's back and severing the bone tools. He identified Krikree as she broke them in two, but he was taken completely off guard by a beam of gray cantae that tore through the demon's chest.
That finally pushed him to act and Homez leapt into battle as well, attacking the Tymetronese Authority. When further golden spheres splashed harmlessly off Homez, the enemy retreated. Krikree tried to pursue, screeching and brandishing weapons, but the enemy managed to escape.
Most likely that had bought them enough time to get everyone out of the tunnel, from Bluepetal to the civilians they'd been trying to help evacuate. Homez was about to join them, but he abruptly had Krikree on his chest, gripping his tunic and staring into his eyes.
"Theo-sister where?"
"He's in Noven, preparing to come back," Homez explained. "Uh, weren't you caught in the weirkey fracture? I didn't think you had a Fithan weirkey, so how-"
"Krikree explain!"
She let go of his tunic and skittered away, then Homez saw the source of the earlier beam of gray cantae: there was an Arbaian hovering near the tunnel, of the spiky crystalline type he didn't know. Their crystals were a rich blue, but the ghostly eyes that hovered within glowed an eerie gray. Krikree didn't seem to care, rushing directly up to the Arbaian and patting its crystals.
"This Katir-thinkgem, help return. Krikree scouts Arbai, has adventure, finds new friend. Now help beetles and beetle-beetles fight."
"Your world is curious." Katir's voice spoke directly into his mind, as chilling as its appearance. "I am not invested in your conflict, but it seems worthwhile to follow this one for a time."
That might not be much of an explanation, but Homez realized it was all the explanation he was getting.
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Chapter 45
Though Fiyu had soulcrafted enough bricks to finish her fifth floor a long time ago, she was only now finishing construction and beginning to concern herself with the floor-level details. The trouble was, there was no way she could complete her design for an Ethereal Floor, not in the time that it would take her companions to soulcraft significant advantages for themselves.
That meant that she needed to consider the basic principles, to find some transitional state that would allow her to help the others without hindering her progress in the future. And so, even as she continued finalizing her walls, she turned the design over in her mind.
Her fifth floor would be separated from the others, building up highly saturated cantae that could be spent in a transformation. Cantae from the first four floors would flow directly into three pipes, which spiraled through her fifth floor in the same arc that her staircases had on lower floors. Those pipes would leak cantae into the Ethereal Floor until she activated the transformation, at which time the flow would reverse and the enriched cantae would flood through the rest of her soulhome. It was an elegant design, connecting her Ethereal transformation to every other part of her soulhome despite the inherent need for separation.
She understood many of the other details as well. Unlike her other floors and ceilings, which met at right angles, she carved the stone into curves, so that her cantae could flow in a circular pattern, contained until it entered the primary spiral. The only difficulty had been figuring out the exact balance of her three different stones where the walls met.
The shortcoming was that she hadn't finished any of the individual chambers. They weren't simply supposed to store up cantae, they were intended to grant her specific additional benefits during her Ethereal transformation. And the truth was that she wasn't close to that yet, and in fact she didn't fully understand the precise details of how such chambers should be formed.
Her Stronghold floor was actually growing somewhat filled: she had the explosive stone to add power and the flickerflower to potentially enhance her incorporeality, for example. The trouble was, right now they only added power equivalent to another enhancement chamber, not fully saturated cantae. She had no idea how best to position them and only a general picture of how best to craft secondary materials to support them.
All she was confident about was that her soulcrafting of her statue had been perfect. Relative Guchiro had explained that she needed some chamber to gather the diverse elements of her Ethereal Floor and fuse them together, and she could not think of a better option than a statue that represented all of her.
So Fiyu had placed it in the center of her fifth floor, between the three pipes, and fused it into the rest of her soulhome. That part, she was entirely satisfied with. But beyond that? She considered trying to seek out Nifanos or another Ethereal Floor expert, but judged it was too late for such lessons.
No, she only had the principles that she currently understood. For some time she had been focusing on the bioluminescent sealant: once she completely finished polishing an interior wall, she sealed all the cracks between stones with this additional coating, which hardened to a nearly-invisible layer with only a ghost of the former glow. That would eventually turn this floor into a completely sealed environment where cantae would become more saturated.
Letting go of dreams of finishing her floor early, Fiyu decided not to apply the sealant to the floor or ceiling, so that her fifth tier remained connected to the rest of her soulhome. Even if she could finish, there wouldn't be time to fully saturate her Ethereal Floor anyway. At least this way she would be stronger than when she had left.
When her spiritual fingers grew too weary to work effectively, Fiyu reluctantly left her soulhome. She looked about, wondering what she could do aside from sleep, and was surprised to see Friend Nauda approaching her. Recently they had been so in-touch, yet now they were both tired... the possibility of potentially upsetting one another seemed all too likely.
"Did you break open your basement?" Fiyu asked.
"It was rough, but I did it." Friend Nauda held out the foundationstake in a trembling arm. "But now I'm exhausted and I need to catch up on sleep. Can I... rest with you? Is that alright?"
"Come here, Nauda." Fiyu gestured to the floor beside her and was pleased when the other woman settled down. "What about your other soulcrafting?"
"There's still more to do, but I'm getting closer. I just can't do the high precision work, not now."
"I am also taking a break, yet I... am not sure what to talk about."
"We don't need to talk about anything." Nauda closed her eyes, and for a moment her face truly did look exhausted. "Would it be okay to just rest against you?"
"Companions care for one another," Fiyu told her with a smile, "and that goes for all companions. And whatever else... I am so happy to be your friend, Nauda. Please, come here. You can rest your head on my lap."
That seemed to astonish Friend Nauda, but as far as Fiyu was concerned, there was absolutely nothing inappropriate about that. She could dimly imagine such a thing being improprious, but she could not imagine Friend Nauda attempting to take advantage. Her dear companion settled down, a bit uncomfortable at first, but when she settled her head onto Fiyu's lap, she relaxed.
Whatever else they decided about their relationship, this was good and right. Fiyu found herself spiraling into old thoughts, yet doubts about the possibilities between them seemed very light compared to the weight of Friend Nauda's head. Whatever else happened...
"I'm glad to have met you too," Friend Nauda said quietly. "Always."
Fiyu gently touched her hair, stroking it until the other woman fell asleep. She enjoyed the quiet moment, for a time free of thoughts, and might even have drifted into sleep as well. All she knew was that when she opened her eyes, she felt refreshed, and her companion was still lying calmly in her lap.
That was lovely... and it reminded Fiyu that she had yet to integrate the Siatan wakestone. It was supposed to provide an intense rush of cantae, which she thought could set off her Ethereal Floor. Even if she couldn't develop a saturated chamber, perhaps she could still use it to send a rush of new cantae into the overall spiral pattern...
Keeping one hand on Friend Nauda's hair, Fiyu returned to her soulhome.
~
If they had been able to hunker down and maintain their defenses, they could have eventually overcome the attack, especially now that Homez had rescued all known survivors. The problem was, Tymetron knew exactly the same logic, and they had some powerful levers to force their targets out.
Even with help from Bluepetal, Krikree, and others, Homez had only found and destroyed a single demonic artifact, so there were more demons every day. Alone they were weak enough, but the problem was that even without help from Tymetron, they would attempt to sacrifice into more powerful demons. One titan wasn't a huge problem without support, but if they got to the fourth stage...
"I think we should take one down." Nanjuma was a Tatian man who had joined them recently, and apparently he knew Nauda. "There are four titans in the area."
"But we know the Tymetronese are in range," Homez argued. "They could be trying to lure us out."
"They likely are, but they could be controlling two more and keeping them hidden from us. That would bring them to six faster than we could stop."
"Attack!" Krikree urged, which was her usual contribution to the debate.
Homez stood at the edge of the Blacksilver compound and looked out at the titans, knowing that his allies were right. Soulcrafters of middling strength started to dismiss demons, but unless they were fools, they knew that the jumps in power between stages could prove devastating. Four titans really was an unacceptable risk...
"Quick strike?" Krikree asked. "Kill one?"
"That would at minimum hold off their plan," Nanjuma agreed, and Homez realized that Krikree hadn't been talking to him. "That one is close... I start low, you go high?"
"Nanjuma-beetle good!"
Technically Homez wasn't in charge, so every Authority could fight as they saw fit, but he still felt as though he'd failed when he saw the two of them fly out of the compound. He was doing his best to coordinate, and his best wasn't enough. So many times when he should have urged them to be more aggressive, he held back... holding back wouldn't win them this war of attrition.
He left the defensive field, flying higher to watch as the others attacked. Nanjuma flew out first, generating a sphere of water around the nearest titan's leg. It immediately swung its club, shattering the cantae that formed the water, but that had only been a distraction.
Krikree hit like a bolt of green lightning, smashing into the titan's face. Nanjuma stopped holding back as well, sending a spike of water into it from below even as his body struck its leg forcefully. The two of them brought down the titan with remarkable speed.
But not far away, one of the Tymetronese soulcrafters was approaching. Homez realized that it was one of those who could generate golden lances, and he saw how it would go... he would watch helplessly while the attack swept out, hitting at least one of them, infecting them with the poisonous gold. His body trembled as he watched and remembered...
And somehow he was moving. Homez hadn't recovered from the memories of what had been done to him, but the idea of those things being done to someone else was intolerable. He intercepted the golden lance, smashing it aside and propelling himself at the Tymetronese soulcrafter. They were just another Authority, he could do this.
Without warning, a sword burning with dark flames shot through the air. Homez barely maintained his flight in its wake and the blade slammed into the Tymetronese soulcrafter's shoulder. Worse was that they all knew the source: Raythe Darkblade was tearing through the air.
"This one is mine!" Raythe grabbed the enemy soulcrafter and lifted her into the air, shaking violently. "Tell us where the Demonweaver is hiding!"
Homez sighed and began to retreat so that he wouldn't get pulled into it. Maybe the Tymetronese would attempt to rescue their comrade, but most likely they wouldn't. Raythe did what he wanted, ruining all plans in the process. There was almost no point in them even coming out here when a child with too much power could throw a tantrum at any moment.
"Homez-beetle!" The call pulled his attention away and he saw that Krikree was standing atop the titan's body, waving a weapon.
"Want to take down a second titan while everyone is distracted?" Nanjuma asked.
After a moment, Homez smiled and flew to join them.
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Some people were guessing along the right lines about Theo's next soulcrafting decision, but I don't think I saw anyone actually come to this solution directly. I aim for the "surprising yet inevitable" target with these things, so I hope it lands. ^-^
Now that we're a few chapters in, I think you see the format of this section. There's a question in progression fantasy about how allies can support the main characters even if they're not as powerful, and it has always struck me as the obvious solution that secondary characters can buy time for the main characters. Others apparently don't agree, because I feel like progression fantasy is short on this sort of thing. This is one of the "mildly unorthodox" things I had in mind for the conclusion of this book. I've had the characters do critical soulcrafting in the middle of battle before, but I don't want to overuse that. Hopefully people will find this an interesting tweak to the formula.
Oh, and are you wondering where Krikree was off-screen? I could have worked sections for her into this sequence, but felt like it was better as a more focused soulcrafting sequence. Instead she will get a short story that I'll run between books.