Sorry for the delay on posting this.
This is copied and pasted, with only a little format adjustment, from one of my notes files. It's a mix of recording what I actually wrote and planning for what I intended to write. There could be some small discrepancies on minor points, but everything major should be accurate.
Day 1: Arrive, befriend Purple, get to Erlen, befriend Amber, learn that magic is like programming.
Day 2: High-tail it out of Erlen in haste, chase begins, get to Trillen, teleport to safe-ish wilderness.
Day 3: Cast first spell, find cave, Tornay/Darmelkon team up, begin soul structures.
Day 4: Carlos finishes mana redistributor (debugger), Tornay/Darmelkon catch up, confrontation and suppression cuffs. Bluff nobility.
Day 5: Royal Assessor arrives, sorts things out, gives C&A 5 days to finish soul structures.
Day 10: Teleport to Crown Court in Kalor City (capital of Kalor nation), souls inspected, declared nobles, visit academy and meet Trinlen.
Day 11: Learn some new spells, fix some issues, discover exploit, teleport to Dramos, talk with Mayor Stelras. Ressara and lanky dagger guy introduced. C&A develop to 2nd compression.
Day 12: Relaxed casual date, while Ressara and lanky dagger guy's associates try to spy on them. Sightseeing in Dramos, return to inn, fix 2 of 4 remaining synergy links, fail the last 2 (for now), warned by mayor about hostile interest, start developing to 3rd compression. Ressara officially registers interest to join C&A.
C36:Day 13- C&A finish developing to third compression. It takes most of the morning.- C&A try last two synergy links again, with greater development plus intellectual knowledge of spell. It still fails.- C&A talk with guards and plan expedition into Wilds.- Scout Man is keeping an eye on C&A.- Esmorana is maintaining her stink reservoir.
C37:- Carlos asks why (besides incognito) to refuse Ressara. Convo with her, she draws attention to guards' soul disguises.- Carlos makes retargetable levitate spell while they walk, heading out into Wilds. He shares it with Amber as concept via bond.- A wild animal gets spooked by a bad smell carried by the wind.- Carlos asks about any dungeons near Dramos.- Another/more animal(s) getting spooked.- Unknown other noble confronts C&A.
C38:- Hostile convo between Carlos and Jamar Tostral. Guards & Amber join in, and it escalates.- Carlos notices strange tingle (actually weak vibration) in his feet, initially dismisses it, keeps coming back to it.- Carlos activates "re-lev" spell under his breath, initially targeting himself with lift reduced to 0.- Carlos realizes the ground is shaking moments before a big beast charges toward them. Lorvan blocks it.- Noble attacks to take advantage of distraction. Fight starts, Carlos uses re-lev to disable her.- Full stampede comes through. Ordens pulls Amber to ground and covers her, but Lorvan can't disengage. Carlos lifts himself, but runs out of mana. Carlos is trampled, along with other noble and her guards.
C39:- Esmorana and party discuss. Scout Man couldn't hear without risking being noticed, but confirms Carlos died (plus what they believe was a rich non-noble). They mention they should stay out of town a while so the timing of their return isn't suspicious. Scout Man goes back in disguise to observe what consequences develop.- Amber and guards investigate and discuss. They find little, but Amber is sure Esmorana's behind it, and she's PISSED.
C40:- They return to Dramos, go to mayor, demand confrontation.- Purple notices bond with Carlos lapsed, asks Amber. He mentions he's made comprehension aid, working on introspector/debugger, not sure he'll need traps with how well treasury is protecting him. Will ask Carlos for advice on soul plan.- Sconter notices Carlos respawned naturally in Dramos. He's not visiting, he's moving in to stay.- Carlos respawns.
C41:- Amber and guards come find Carlos, are relieved he respawned where they hoped he would, mention mayor is arranging a meeting.- Esmorana and party receive emergency signal from mayor, and are surprised and confused. They speculate C&A are causing trouble.- They arrive to find C&A waiting. After some confusion and explanations, they are glad about the truth of C&A, and reconcile.- They're concerned about the other noble, however.- Brief cut to other noble demanding revenge from her family.
C42:- Carlos and party finish discussion. Carlos asks for knowledge, a favor, or long term service, and gives them a week to think.Day 14- Carlos redevelops to 3rd compressionDay 15- Carlos discusses with Purple what he wants, suggests smart home.- C&A go to swarm dungeon.
C43:- Delving the dungeon, Ordens handles swarms, Lorvan focuses down the big stuff.- Talking with Purple while delving. Discuss differences between P and this dungeon, what P wants, and inter-dungeon relations.- Guards treat the dangers casually, freely talking with C&A while delving about benefits of dungeons and what would help P.
C44:- They reach the core, and Carlos tries to communicate, but dungeon is hostile and refuses all overtures. Wish and leave, only.- Wish for more practical knowledge of spell keywords and spellcasting or design techniques.- Wish granted, combined with teleport away. Infusion of knowledge causes major headache as side effect.- C&A develop about half way to 4th compression.Day 16- C&A realize that the knowledge they gained was about doing things with raw mana manipulation, not incantations.- C&A level up to 4.
C45:- Carlos thinks about all the issues they have and solution ideas, plans some details of building up Purple to be a smart school.- Carlos considers terminology about compressions/density, lack of English words past "thrice", and decides to use "level".Day 17- C&A head out for multi day trip to level up.- Carlos asks about mechanics of draining mana from large area. Lorvan explains about mana wellsprings. Hints about second stage.- Jamar Tostral scene showing more of her personality, and hinting at a plan to permanently remove C&A.
C46:- Amber POV, asks about mana wellsprings and noble heirs.- Purple POV, makes automator, automates noticing important things happening to C&A.Day 19- Haftel (and party?) talk with Ressara about C&A. Hit squad arrive in the background.
C47:- Ressara cautiously investigates hit squad. Their attention diverting wards are on their levels and specific equipment.Days 17-20- (In narration) Carlos tries disabling reflex improver, finds it was already helping with trying to automate mana absorption.- Absorption/development montage. C&A level up to 9.- C&A ask about what happens if they reach orichalcum rank. Answer: Crown pays more attention, closer oversight, must keep it secret.- C&A fix the last two synergies finally, introspector reports upcoming "synergy unification" at level 15.
C48:- C&A think and speculate a bit about synergy unification, and head back to Dramos to check in with Haftel, Ressara, etc.Day 21- C&A travel remainder of yesterday plus all of today to get back to Dramos, arrive late at night, leave messages to meet Day 22.- Lorvan POV guarding on night shift. Thinks about what he's observed of Carlos, shortcomings of relying on equipment for mana sense, dependence on enchanters guild to make it, signal he's sent and how investigator hasn't come yet.- Ordens POV, similar but focused more on Amber.- (Off page) Hit squad hired by Tostrals abducts C&A, puts them in anti-divination transport, heads toward wellspring area to permakill them - They get past Crown guards by exploiting an intentional flaw in the guards' (and maybe all similar Guild-made stuff?) enchanted gear. Foreshadowing for future enchanters guild plotting.- Ordens has weak mana sense and momentarily senses something, but dismisses it because equipment reports nothing happened.- Purple's new "notice immediately when something's up with C&A" automation kicks in, but he doesn't know what to do.Day 22- Ressara notices in the morning that C&A's souls in their room are fakes.
C49:- C&A wake up despite spell trying to keep them asleep, and start trying to figure it out.- C&A discover telepathic bond is unavailable, but don't investigate why yet.- Ressara frantically tells guards, they check and are shocked. She picks up aura trail, but it's faint.- Lorvan & Ressara follow aura trail while Ordens tells Haftel, etc., and they join.- Haftel sends Esmorana to tell Stelras, then he and Ordens question innkeeper.
C50:- Esmorana flies to Stelras. Narration describes how it actually works (which is not simply wind blowing her around).- Purple is trying to think of how to help, maybe with a new soul structure that he has mana ready for.- Stelras retrieves the Carlos house plate. Purple doesn't react fast enough to make a bond and talk, but sets automator for it.- Aura trail dead ends, and innkeeper's info about hit squad is not useful.- Guards use divination equipment with Carlos's mana from the house plate, but it's blocked.- Lorvan tries to send a signal to report insurrection (which should get immediate response from royal family), but the secret backdoor in his gear prevents it while falsely reporting success.- Ressara notices brief existence of attention-diverting ward around the deceptive non-action.
C51:- Everyone waits for Crown response, but nothing happens. Ressara asks about attention-diverting ward.- Ordens scans Lorvan's gear. She finds nothing wrong, but a few even smaller attention diverters activate in both guards' gear.- Lorvan expresses skepticism, says he doesn't know how anyone but Enchanters Guild could do it, but willing to consider options.- Fastest other contact method relies on periodic teleport check-in for paperwork. Next scheduled check-in is 4 days away.- Ordens takes Ressara to check perimeter of Dramos, while Lorvan waits just in case. Adventurers go to wait for alert.- C&A manage to counteract sleep spell and trick its feedback, and turn their attention to other things.- C&A discuss lack of rescue, why captors didn't teleport them (requires willing targets).- C&A consider suicide to respawn, and find a spell preventing that. Also examine details of box.- C&A figure out some details of the box's wards, including sound muffling, and blocking their personal mana (and divinations).- C&A notice they're in a level 10 area, and it's been steadily rising.
C52:- They deduce permakill plan and start active absorption.- C&A have tender bonding moment, Carlos being supportive and comforting while Amber cries and panics.- Amber casts light, and Carlos gets embarrassed about seeing how little she's wearing (bed clothes).- C&A experiment with speeding it up, discover active repair while overclocking absorption doesn't work, but they can partially emulate dungeon effect of pre-calming the mana. x2-3 speed.- C&A get the faster absorption to be reflexive, so they can do it even while sleeping, and go to sleep.- Ressara found nothing. Esmorana starts wide area search sweeps around Dramos, but doesn't expect to find anything.- Someone among captors (Black Blades) notices absorption speed, wonders who the fuck these people are! Brief convo scene.Day 23- Morning, Stelras (POV) returns the plate to the secure vault, and Purple takes the opportunity to bond him.
C53:- Stelras and Purple talk.- C&A frantically develop to try to survive wellspring area mana density,. Also prep many levitations.- C&A discuss discovering new keywords. They try for some ideas, but fail.- Stelras calls party, asks about best divination and soul structures expert they know. They fetch Ressara.- Ressara talks with Purple, suggests soul structure to locate bond partners, with specific details for beating wards.- Purple laments he's not sure if he'll be able to fix it back to Carlos's plan afterwards. Ressara asks what he means, doesn't he know it definitely won't be possible? He explains debugger.
C54:- (Offscreen) Purple makes Ressara's suggested structure (Ressara makes her own debugger later!), finds C&A.- Carlos considers artificiality of incantations system, discovers `help`.- C&A hit second stage, drop to 1% absorption.- C&A decide to focus on learning spells first, not devising more soul structures.- Carlos finds effects to teleport his magic/mana, and to perceive light/sound through his mana.- Teleport-like mana connection bypassing the box's wards lets Purple talk with Carlos again.
C55:- Party charges to the rescue.- Big fight. - Carlos asks for description of a suitable escape spell via Purple. Lorvan tells about Sight Gate. - Carlos considers trying to flatten all the BB, but he and Amber together can't focus on that many targets at once. - Guards hang back out of concern over equipment sabotage. - Esmorana strikes first, starting with terror tyrant scent, then literally blowing away most of them. - Guards force bubble C&A. Carlos asks, and it allows outbound spells. - Flying lightning user (leader of BB) starts fighting back, and Esmorana has to focus on him. - Carriers of the box are buffered against the winds by its mass, and a few others also resist.
C56:- Fight continues. - Haftel gets a surprise strike, then starts tk buzzsaw daggers. - Noralt breaks metal gear and reinforces her own, smashing through skilled opposition. - Sconter gets sneak attacks from stealth repeatedly. - BB lieutenants get some hits in too, but are clearly losing. - C&A try to help with levitate bug. First few tries fail because they run out of mana instantly from the target resisting. They start charging it up with targeting a tree stump. - BB leader calls lightning strike from above, letting conductivity guide it to negate Esmorana's dodging. - Esmorana falls, knocked out by lightning. - C&A switch their charged-up buggy levitates to pull down BB leader, and it works. - Amber catches Esmorana with another levitate before she hits the ground. - Haftel's daggers get zapped and conduct the lightning back to him. - Sconter's stealth backstab fails against area static field. - Noralt breaks through at first, protected by metal armor conducting the lightning around her, but he flies beyond her reach. - Lorvan steps up, determined to risk equipment backfire sabotage, but Carlos says he's not done yet. - Carlos uses anti-levitate to drop BB leader out of flight. It takes a LOT to overcome his resistance plus upward flight force, but it works. - Force bubbles flicker while he's amping it up, then pop and dissipate entirely. - Guards' gear stops working, and other spells too. The sleep spells fall apart. C&A also can't cast new spells. The feeling of wrongness is both very strong and strangely distant. - Adventurers' abilities are still working fine, though. Noralt tackles BB leader. - Carlos realizes the bug pulled mana from the incantation system's infrastructure, and he pulled out so much that it stopped working in the local area.
C57:- C&A and Lorvan approach subdued BB leader, who is the only one still conscious. Two others are alive.- BB surrender. Leader reveals name, Captain Granlan, says he wouldn't oppose the Crown, and agrees to cooperate.- Ordens takes Esmorana out of system blackout area, heals her, and she flies everyone to Dramos.Day 24- Royal investigator comes for the rotation agreement issue, is completely surprised by the abduction news, and reports it.- Princess Lornera Kalor (third child) comes to hear about it in person and see the new nobles who managed to save themselves so cleverly.Day 26- A letter from Darmelkon shows up and calls in his favor, asking to help Kindar become noble.- Trinlen arrives (on the same teleport, coming just behind the messenger with the letter) and comments about making things interesting after the last few (surely boring) weeks.
B2C1:- C&A talking with Trinlen. They tell him the main events, but hold back some secrets. He's disappointed about missing it all, and about not getting to do his graduation prank because they sent him early, but excited for the future.- They discuss when to start teaching and what topics to focus on.- Trinlen rants about loose terminology and explains distinction between aether, mana, and essence.- Discussion about essence brings in a refresher on soul structures as an incidental tangent.- Trinlen goes to get settled.- C&A discuss how much secret stuff to tell him.
B2C2:- Discussion about Kindar and what to do with him, pros/cons of Darmelkon's request.- Lunch in mayor's home, and discuss psychology, feelings, and how they don't want to be bullies.- Some hints of attraction/romance during conversation.- Decision to give Kindar a provisional chance.- Declaration that Amber's been making plans.
B2C3:- Discussion with C&A and Purple of Amber's planning process and the plans she made.- Top priority is their personal safety, preventing another abduction.- In the short term, they've already done what they can: moved into mayor's mansion, Purple is ready to alert people, adventurers and Ressara are on call, two special emergency beacons for Crown aid, and guards.- Can't reinforce security wards because Enchanters Guild (which they don't trust) has monopoly on the secret of how to make enchantments actually work (it's about hooking up and activating the power supply).- Carlos pointedly waits for invitation before entering Amber's room.- Long term can be summed up as "become more powerful." It encompasses most other issues, however.- For most things, need info first.- Decided to start lessons with Trinlen before finishing `help` catalog.- Purple has successfully dismantled and replaced the soul structure for tracking C&A despite wards.- Purple traveling is much less of a hardship than before because of having many soul structures now.- Mention that investigation of mercs and "rotation agreement" are handed over for the Crown to handle.- Brief scene of Princess Lornera interrogating Captain Granlan about who hired him for the abduction. He doesn't know, by design of his hiring process, but may be able to find out eventually.
B2C4:- High Lord Recindril Tostral spars with his heir, his first child (who happens to be male), training him.- Recindril is distracted by his concerns about overdue report from Black Blades about abduction. His son scores a hit that he shouldn't have because of it. They discuss.- Mention that Jamar will hate not being allowed to go back yet.- He contacts the next house in the rotation schedule (Golarn) and asks them to cautiously investigate.- Granlan POV, going over beginning prep/plans for royal investigation. Cover how they pulled off the sabotage, and why investigating it will be difficult.
B2C5:- Trinlen POV, excitedly explores suite at inn, looking for signs of the abduction.- Trinlen considers what little he knows about C&A's ability to "pull incantations from thin air" (mostly that it exists, and is in some way limited by complexity), and what that implies about what they need him to teach.- Fade out on Trinlen considering what to teach.
Day 27- Trinlen wakes up, receives letter of summons to the mayor's office.- Trinlen takes formal oath of service.- Trinlen introduced to guards, Ressara, Stelras, and all of the adventurers. He likes Sconter and asks for a demonstration of Sconter's stealth sometime.
B2C6:- Trinlen asks why Dramos and comments about Sandaras. C tells him to ask Stelras about Sandaras.- Trinlen goes to treasury, introduced to Purple. Guards left outside.- Trinlen freaks out, then wildly speculates. He thinks Purple is C&A's source of keyword knowledge.- Return to mayor's mansion for magic lesson. Trinlen tries to start teaching details, C asks for overview.- C&A explain what they need, and that nobles have a way to get more soul structures.
B2C7:- Trinlen describes advanced mage soul structure details. Spell activator, conceptualizer, controller, reinforcer, specialized mana manipulator, others he'd have to look up (general-purpose or hard to synergize).- Topic of bug exploit comes up (vaguely), Carlos warns Trinlen to drop it.- Mention that "affecting someone else's invested essence" is difficult.- Trinlen explains spellcasting limitations - complexity (example: pathfinding), dispelling, self-improvement.- Trinlen told to prepare incantation design lesson, use telepathy through Purple to check details.
B2C8:- Trinlen leaves, C&A call in Lorvan for (finally) full stage 2 explanation.- C complains about Lorvan's refusal to explain earlier, and how it made the drop in absorption rate a dangerous surprise.- C admits they probably would have made the same choices, but admonishes Lorvan to not withhold info again.- Lorvan accepts the order.- Lorvan explains second stage, emphasizes how most of it is just the same rules as before. - New structures start at level 0. - Amber explains that it's the mana pool, not structures, that determines safety in over-level areas. - Only need synergy with one part of superstructure. - Merged structure will not merge again (Lorvan doesn't know of the exceptions). - Fixing an incomplete merge due to a failed synergy requires de-leveling to undo the merge. - Dropping below merge's minimum level, with refilled slots, ejects and destroys structures at random. - Lists merge level thresholds for the tiers, up to level 43 for tier 4.- Amber enjoys seeing Carlos show excitement.- Introspector finds that limit on merging structures is available volume in soul sections. No details yet.- Why second stage is noble secret: Non-noble discovery is rare, spread of it is suppressed.- Carlos is Unhappy about the systematic suppression of important knowledge.- Lorvan cautions against probing into Crown secrets.- Lorvan insists that royal guard loyalty is "beyond question". This hints at loyalty soul structure.- Carlos asks about likely consequences of helping Kindar. Answer not in chapter.
B2C9:- Change of scene to Black Blades home base, in Oshendrin. POV Lieutenant Colonel Lendet, second-in-command.- Lendet reviews company finances, which took a big hit from lost equipment from the C&A fiasco.- Lendet gets surprised by teleport arrival (alone) of Granlan, who has money from Crown.- Report to client has already been sent, but very recently. Granlan rushes to abort the transport of it.- Granlan chases report with royal mage's remote help (via comm token), retrieves it before pending teleport.- Granlan briefs Lendet on job to identify ex-client, keeps Crown involvement secret, calls officer meeting.- Granlan wonders if C&A and Crown investigators are having as hard a time as him dealing with aftermath.
B2C10:- C&A discuss the lecture Lorvan gave them about helping Kindar. In short, new nobles = upset old nobles.- C&A discuss, not their next plans, but how to make those plans.- Carlos believes more 10-merges, and maybe even going above 10 in one merge, is possible.- Carlos talks about how brainstorming together from the start can cause good ideas to be missed.- C&A&P agree to brainstorm separately, take a full day to think in depth about details, and discuss tomorrow.- Scene change to royal investigator, searching for other noble scions illicitly powerleveling in the Wilds.- Royal investigator Bruman is in frontier town Fimmas, asking for rumors about rich young visitors.- He's coordinating with other investigators doing the same in other places.- Crown Mage Felton trying to find the sabotage. No results yet, Enchanters Guild is top/only suspect.
B2C11:- Amber considers the problem of how to bypass the merge limits, breaks down what factors prevent getting more- Can't add more after merge - debugger can do it, provided that synergy reqs are met.- Debugger already breaks one "rule", can other rules be broken by making soul structures to do it? Takes a note.- No room to put all the structures before merge - make room, use other room, force to fit, skip pre-merge.- Making room with soul structure fails experiment, soul just can't handle the strain.- Structures outside known possible (suppression cuffs), but she doesn't know how.- Forcing multiple non-unified structures into same slot also fails experiment.- Making merged superstructure directly requires enough allocatable essence.- Can transfer with debugger, which actually works, but that's not how the Crown does it because they don't have debugger.- Doesn't think of the actual solution of Crown (placeholder soul structure that transforms itself into superstructure).- Carlos focuses first on getting away with not holding back.- Soul disguise structure. Need to be careful and test.- Considers how soul structures feel like cheating, incantations feel more earned. Decides on IDE for magic.
B2C12:- Purple tries to brainstorm ideas, but doesn't really know how. He observes C&A to learn.- Carlos's process is largely spontaneous and depends on having a lot of knowledge. Amber's is more systematic.- Amber notices, admonishes Purple about privacy and asking permission, but also gives brainstorming advice.- Purple considers the factors that make him unique and useful compared to C&A, and drawbacks.- Being idle feels wrong, thinks about why, realizes the growth aspect of it.Day 28- C&A&P discuss their plans. C: soul disguise, themes, IDE. A: structure packing, improve spellcasting's strengths and limitations. P: Differences for his unique nature, don't leave mana idle.- Purple transcribes whole conversation into knowledge bank.- Planning trip into Wilds for ALL of them tomorrow, aiming for the wellspring.- Purple wonders about Kindar, who might be coming with.
B2C13:- Meet with Stelras, inform him about trip and authorize him (w/Lorvan consulting) to negotiate about Kindar.- Carlos tells Stelras to keep them updated about any news on investigations.Day 29- C&A&P and party depart into the Wilds, with Esmorana flying everyone. First stop is the other nearby dungeon.- Purple stays outside with Ordens, Sconter, and Noralt for protection. Ressara and Trinlen want to see the core.
B2C14:- They delve the dungeon (Level 12, in a Level 9 area), once again with OP escorts.- Lorvan explains that facing actually challenging things in a dungeon helps the dungeon.- They take their time and try to handle as much themselves as possible.- Dungeon is full of plants, many of them poisonous, thorned, etc. Nature theme with ferocious beasts, quicksand, etc.- Eventually decide they've done enough, and ask Trinlen to demonstrate pathfinding spell.
B2C15:- `Find Path` is a poorly written Best-First Search. Carlos mentally critiques it harshly.- The spell works, and Trinlen leads them to the entrance to the floor below, disguised as a hidden pit trap.- Bottom floor is straightforward with little of note, except the final boss, a 15-foot tiger.- Carlos orders Lorvan to intimidate the tiger, which works.- They enter the core room, and Carlos prompts Amber to do the wish.
B2C16:- This dungeon is calmer than Spiky, but still not friendly. Spiky was 3" tall, 5" wide. This one is 7" ovoid, green.- Amber takes the lead, and wishes for knowledge of how dungeons grow stronger, other than what she already knows.- Dungeon is confused about why she wants to know, but agrees. Shows that using living things and natural processes is more efficient than directly applying mana for the end result.- Also shows having specific areas dedicated to specific purposes, improving efficiency and effectiveness.- They rendezvous, and set up camp in a Level 12 area (limited by Purple's level).- Crown Mage Felton teleports into Dramos, scans for royal guards in the city, finds none, and asks to meet the mayor.
B2C17:Day 30- C&A start helping Purple finish his synergies. Trinlen helps and discovers lack of security access controls on knowledge repository.- Carlos explains details of proper information security to Purple, who implements them with automator.- Ressara has made introspector and debugger (calling them soul self-examiner and soul self-manager), and is astounded and excited at how fast being in Purple's domain lets her absorb aether (x4 normal)- Felton teleports into camp, seeking Ressara to help examine equipment sabotage. She demurs, and Carlos intervenes.- Carlos points out problems with Ressara helping and offers that he'll copy her soul structure and then he and Amber will help.- Felton asks to stay while waiting, Carlos asks for answers to magecraft questions in exchange. Felton agrees.- Trinlen finishes all remaining synergies at once with a prank. Automator is set to let a bonded person with sufficient access (which he has) to update stored designs in knowledge repository, and to trigger upgrading/updating existing instances of those designs. He updates a mouse monster design into a miniature imitation of Lorvan, with miniature imitations of his gear and some minor enchantments. He includes some behavior patterns that are satirical caricatures of Lorvan's usual seriousness.
B2C18:- Carlos asks Lorvan why he doesn't use his knowledge to go above platinum rank. Lorvan answers that his loyalty to the Crown forbids it because of how it would provoke the aristocracy to rebel en masse.- C&A start new soul structures, first is soul editor. absorbed = .1 + (.01 * absorbed), absorbed = 10/99. Base time 5 hours, x9.9 = 49.5 for structure-specific efficiency with 2 structures, one of which is above-level.- Purple's x4 speedup still leaves 12.36 hours. Would shift what's absorbed by existing structure, but they're not in high-enough-level area for that. However, mana absorption from use also contributes. It's much slower for advancing to the next level (months instead of hours), and they haven't been using their soul structures very much anyway, but the 2^15 (32768) conversion factor to level 0 overwhelms that. Soul editor finished in just under 3 hours by transferring and decompressing the essence for it from the existing structure, and the only reason it took any meaningful time at all was the need to imbue the design intent into it and its shape.- More new structures follow, focusing on soul management theme (includes several new things that collectively substitute for introspector and debugger). 5 Done today (soul status inspector, soul activity monitor, soul editor, adaptive soul optimizer, soul disguiser).- C&A talk with Sconter as he cooks lunch. Topic of hunting monsters comes up, they say they need a better array of spells. He offers to assess when/whether they're ready.- Purple levels up every 2.5 hours, taking 22.5 hours to reach level 12. His physical crystal grows with each level.- Ressara has made introspector and debugger, and late at night levels up to 6. She's excited about how incredibly fast she's advancing, and reflects on the reasons she never tried anything remotely similar before.Day 31- Purple's at level 12 by morning (2 and 1/3 inches tall), so they break camp and move. They don't go very far, just level 15 area for Ressara.- C&A work on next soul structures (synergy finder, synergy applier)- Stelras contacts C&A about Darmelkon's offer for helping Kindar. He's offering an enchanted item crafted from a dungeon core (valued at 100 mythril, capabilities unknown) on completion, plus 10 mythril, proxying for Enchanters Guild, and Sandaras's spellbook up front.
B2C19:- Amber is 1000% gung ho about getting Sandaras's spellbook, but Carlos is wary about whether it's genuine. Stelras relays what Darmelkon has said about how he got it and why he believes it authentic. Most of it is magically locked by an encryption spell, the information actually stored in the spell itself (though no one knows that detail).- C&A accept the offer, but declare Kindar will have to wait for when they can help him without slowing down their own development. They send Felton to transport the book to them.- Ushler, undercover investigator from House Golarn, comes to Dramos, as prompted by House Tostral. He finds news about a visit from a crown mage, and that it's the latest in a series of crown servants visiting.- C&A have the book, and aren't ready to tackle the puzzle of its lock spell.
B2C20:/- Ressara, mortified about slowing them down, obsessively focuses on aether absorption all day, reaches level 7./- Purple reaches level 15, and unifies/merges his soul structures./- C&A finish 2 more structures (soul hardener, training scaler), back to 100% absorption efficiency (situationally 90% because 1 structure is too high-level)./- Purple starts on his own soul disguiser, etc. He works overnight too. At first he's stuck with the slow aether absorption, thanks to the superstructure merging at the bare minimum of level 15 with nothing to spare, but development via mana absorption kicks in, and the x32768 multiplier for decompressing to level 0 overwhelms its relative slowness./- Progress of stuff finishes too late in evening to want to move again today.Day 32- Move to level 16 area, power-level new structures. Level to 1 takes 3.02 seconds, level 12 in 2 hours and 26 minutes total, level 15 in 7 hours and 50 minutes total, level 16 in 10 hours and 20 minutes total.- While leveling the new structures, C&A study the non-locked spells in the book./- Transferring some essence from older structure to finish leveling the new ones up to 16 would take more essence than it actually has available.- Old structure still at level 15 absorbs level 16 aether fast enough to super-charge making more new structures again./- Ressara reaches level 8 mid-afternoon.- C&A focus first on refilling slots to boost absorption efficiency, mind improvements this time.- Carlos suggested a multitasking/multi-threading structure as part of mind enhancements.- C&A make 2 structures at a time, then 3 at a time, and finish all 8 very late at night./- Purple finishes his 9th soul-focused structure in the middle of the night, getting closer to catching up.
B2C21:Day 33- Carlos reflects on how his new parallel minds multitasking works, with constantly shared memory and self-identity.- C&A discuss how normal structures finish leveling up faster. They could skim off essence to speed up the supers, but that's not sustainable, and slowing down later could make Lorvan and Ordens suspicious. They settle on skimming off essence for making new superstructures, and keeping the advancement rate at what it will long-term be limited to.- C&A discuss that the next merge point, for 8 structures, is at Level 19, and they don't want to wait that long to continue setting up their foundational soul structures. They'll have to test their soul disguiser's ability to conceal when they work around the normal limits.- C&A initially think to ask to borrow royal guard detection gear from Lorvan, but then ask Felton to give them an initial look at the gear he's investigating instead.- They play around with it and banter a bit. Their luxury tent, loaned by Stelras, has a toggleable sound-blocking enchantment, which Amber doesn't understand the purpose of until Carlos explains it.- Detection gear shows stage 2 advanced (meaning they've made use of the freed up slots), tier 10 and 9 superstructures, 8 normal structures, level 16, mage- Carlos turns to the problem of preventing Felton from catching on.
B2C22:- Carlos cautiously broaches the topic of house secrets, and using them without royal agents observing, and is pleasantly surprised when Felton just asks how long he should stay away and whether the royal guards should leave too.- Carlos checks the general-purpose magic detection, and it adds notes about active absorption of ambient mana (not using "aether" term) at ~400% efficiency (due to Purple), lack of resistance to it from Purple.- First, they test disguising as 1 tier lower, and it works. Then they try all-basics, and it detects the disguise. They add their already-planned soul scan falsifier, taking essence from other structures to make it Level 16. Adding it to an existing superstructure is more difficult, as they need to focus sufficiently on all of its synergies at the same time, but with parallel minds they pull it off. It works. They remove disguise to see if the change is detected, but it isn't yet.- Noting that they're almost done with level 16, but Ressara's not quite done with level 9, they move to a level 17 area.- Carlos examines arrangement of merged structures in detail, considers that volume is limiter, thinks of sphere packing.
B2C23:- Add another (11 total), tier displayed changes to 10 with a question mark. At 12, tier displayed changes to "11+?" with a note about it being an anomaly. At 13, "Royal". They disguise it back to what it was, and the display changes back.//- Ressara finishes level 9 and also level 10 by night.//- Purple starts on multitasker, then other mind enhancements in parallel.- Surface layer levels up at the same time.- Superstructure is taking much longer than normal structures to level to 17, because it's absorbing the same amount of aether but needs many times more. C&A reason that, since the superstructure is the bottleneck/limiter on their rate of advancement, and their disguiser is working, they can go ahead with making all superstructures.- C&A start rebuilding a normal structure into a complete tier 13 superstructure (mind theme). It takes until late at night to finish, but it works.Day 34- It's been a week since the crown investigators started looking for noble scions illicitly in the Wilds. The Crown arrests them all simultaneously, and calls each house to account individually.- They also know that the Tostrals are behind the abduction of C&A, but want to see how the rotation agreement thing plays out a bit before taking action. Tracing the exotic item suppliers is not yet done, however.
B2C24:- C&A&P level 17 w/ 3 supers (original, soul, mind), but supers are level 16, Ressara 10. They move to level 19 area, skipping past level 18 zone.- Ressara's still feeling guilty about slowing them down. Amber reassures her it's ok, they actually need more time per level than she does due to stage 2. She firmly resolves to catch up asap anyway, reaches level 11.3.- C&A&P advance at 1 superstructure per day, which they can manage to do using only 2 of their 3 (for now) minds, and 3 levels per 4 days.- Today C&A make the IDE superstructure. Briefly describe all the pieces.- Felton says it's been 4 days, so when will they be ready to help analyze the sabotage? He incidentally informs them about the mass arrests. C&A reorder their plan, moving the Casting theme later by 2 superstructures, moving up Perception and then Analysis. They tell him tomorrow evening/night or the day after.
B2C25:- Late at night, Amber insists on trying out the newly completed IDE. Carlos hastily makes an intuitive definition of a new language, and they examine Light and Find Path with the new language, which is considerably more concise and requires indentation.Day 35- C&A&P level 18 w/ 4 supers@17 (original, soul, mind, IDE) at start of day, Ressara 11.3. Zone is level 19 already, so don't need to move yet.- Felton impatiently starts collaboration on sabotage analysis project. C&A confirm that the attention diversion wards are present, react to their currently-too-weak-to-matter mana sense, and are extremely small-scale.- Felton asks how house secrets change the best way to teach them.
B2C26:- Focus on lessons helped by not having to move today (or tomorrow).- Felton teaches basics about runic enchantments, and expands a few of the armor's enchantments to be easily readable. The sabotage is not in the expansion, but by this point he expected that.- There are a few words in some enchantments that are Enchanters Guild secrets, which mages haven't figured out because no one outside the guild knows either how to pronounce them correctly or a sufficiently precise definition of what they do. They're for multithreading and coordination of threads.- Felton tests their ability to read incantations blind on one of those, and they get it perfect. With the correct pronunciation now in mind, his understanding of the word from context is close enough, and he learns it.- C&A learn a useful loadout of combat spells, and try it out in sparring with Trinlen. He beats them easily several times by exploiting vulnerabilities that come from the differences between them and the royal guards that the loadout is designed for.
B2C27:- Trinlen points out that this set was designed with the assumption of a highly robust, strong, and speedy royal guard wielding it. Carlos says this doesn't explain everything, and Trinlen asks Lorvan to give a critique.- Lorvan explains that the types of spells Trinlen uses have major limitations that make them unsuitable for royal guard gear. The most major reason is that they require a spell-control soul structure to use properly.- After lessons and sparring, Carlos ponders that some of the words / syntax he read from those enchantments are not present anywhere in `help`.- Kindar, frustrated by the delay, writes out his soul plan and gives it to Stelras to pass on.Day 36- Felton relays news of the arrests, and says the Crown advises that they hide out for a while.- C&A consider how to conceal their aether absorption, and come up with the idea of Purple making the absorption appear to be happening at the location of a decoy absorber - and the only suitable decoy they can think of is Kindar. They contact Stelras about him.
B2C28:- Kindar POV. He's teleported to C&A's camp and warned to stay inside a marked circle where Purple is lowering the aether level to the highest that won't harm him.- Kindar has a soul plan focused on melee combat offense. He's made some ignorant assumptions and added 2 structures motivated primarily by his ego, and he doesn't understand the importance of defense.- Carlos questions Kindar about his soul plan details and has him fight some monsters Purple made to demonstrate the importance of defense.- Amber does not directly involve herself in helping Kindar.//- C&A&P level 19 w/ 5 supers@18 (original, soul, mind, IDE, perception) SOD, Ressara 12.7. Need whole day for supers to catch up.//- Another day staying in place.//- Remember level 19 is the tier 8 unification point, so taking some extra time ostensibly for new structures but actually for superstructures to catch up makes sense.- Word has spread among the noble houses about arrests for rotation agreement activities. They start planning. House Golarn distributes a report about what their investigator discovered about the Tostral vs Carlos incident's aftermath.- Lord Tostral is keeping the details of his involvement and the Black Blades secret, and a POV scene reviews the late and very uninformative report he eventually got from them.- Carlos tells Kindar to make an "essence siphoner", a nerfed-via-over-specialization variant of his soul editor.
B2C29:Day 37- C&A&P level 19 fully w/ 6 supers (original, soul, mind, IDE, perception, understanding/analysis) SOD, Ressara 14. Go to level 23 zone.- Kindar level 5, added essence siphoner and aether absorber to reach mythril rank. 9 structures for max absorption 45%. Has 27 of 36 possible synergies, for actual absorption 36%. 6.94 hours per level gained, or 3.456 levels per day.- Felton helps transport Kindar to the new site with a pair of teleports, but insists on more focus on helping him.- They're near the rescue site, where Carlos caused a power outage in the System 14 days ago. They scout the place. The System is recovering there.
B2C30:- C&A examine Sandaras's spellbook again, and conclude that they're at too much of a power disadvantage (level 19 vs the spellbook's level 40+). They have a tender moment and compliment each other.Day 38- C&A&P level 19.75 w/ 7 supers (original, soul, mind, IDE, perception, understanding/analysis, casting) SOD, Ressara 15.3. Stay in level 23 zone.- Kindar level 8.5.Day 39- C&A&P level 20.5 w/ 8 supers (original, soul, mind, IDE, perception, understanding/analysis, casting, controlling) SOD, Ressara 16.7. Stay in level 23 zone.- Kindar level 12.- Many nobles, led by High Lady Balon Briston, go together to the Crown to complain about being barred from the only way to quickly level up their scions to the point of being able to survive a wellspring.- They are received by Prince Patrimmon Kalor, 2nd child of the king, in a court for airing noble grievances. However, he considers it as being for grievances against each other, not against the Crown, and harshly rebukes them.Day 40- C&A&P level 21.25 w/ 9 supers (original, soul, mind, IDE, perception, understanding/analysis, casting, controlling, empowering) SOD, Ressara 18. Stay in level 23 zone.- Kindar level 15.5Day 41- C&A&P level 22 w/ 10 supers (original, soul, mind, IDE, perception, understanding/analysis, casting, controlling, empowering, connecting) SOD, Ressara 19.3. Stay in level 23 zone.- Kindar level 19.- All slots have superstructures, but 1 is the original, which they want to overhaul. They do so.- Princess Lornera confronts House Tostral about the attempt at assassinating Carlos. Jamar unwisely mouths off about it, and the confrontation turns violent. Lornera craters the house and takes the heir (Recindren) hostage, but leaves their wellspring's protections intact.
B2C31:- Lord Recindril Tostral respawns and starts leveraging the event to rally more nobles to the cause of overthrowing the Crown, plus revenge against C&A.- He initially punishes Jamar for her deception and for provoking the Crown, but then sends her after Carlos, thinking it will be a fruitless wild goose chase that will keep her out of the way.Day 42- C&A&P level 22.75 SOD, Ressara 20.7. Move to level 29 zone.- Kindar level 22. Tier 7 unification, leaving 7 empty slots. C&A instruct him to make 5 structures that each synergize with the strength drainer and intimidator. He does so, and they merge, making 2 Tier 7 superstructures and 8 empty slots.- They seek a location with good hunting grounds nearby for combat practice while in reach of Purple's domain.- Purple expands his territory greatly this time, and C&A sense more of the scope of it with their bulk sensing structures.
B2C32:- Trinlen POV. He's guiding C&A on a hunting / combat practice trip and coaching them on tactics.- Sconter is along for the trip and demonstrates his stealth. It turns into a friendly rivalry with Trinlen trying to detect/locate him with spells.- Trinlen demonstrates some techniques using spells to take down a few beasts, while also explaining the factors that allow him to defeat beasts that are significantly higher level than him.- They also get a demonstration that some beasts are exceptions, and that going into above-level areas without escorts is dangerous.- Lorvan adds explanation of some of the noble-specific factors, and C&A observe how much stronger they are than Trinlen at the same level.- C&A learn Trinlen's spells just from observing him using them, and even improve one or two in impressively little time.- Jamar arrives to begin "hunting" Carlos, and is very frustrated at having to slow down to level herself up. She started at level 9, advances to 11 by end of day. Tier 8 adamantium soul plan with 3 missing synergies, including between the 2 excluded structures. 94% absorption efficiency, 10.64 hours per level, 1.7 levels per day at 18 hours per day.
B2C33:Day 43- C&A&P level 23.5 SOD, Ressara 22. Stay in level 29 zone.- Kindar makes 7 new structures (leg enhancement), which merge for 3 supers at Tier 7. He also reaches level 23.- Jamar level 12.7 EOD.Day 44- C&A&P level 24.25 SOD, Ressara 23.3. Stay in level 29 zone.- Kindar makes 7 new structures (core/torso enhancement), for his 4th and final Tier 7 superstructure. Level 24.- Carlos makes, demonstrates, and explains his improved A* pathfinding spell.- Jamar level 14.4 EOD.Day 45- C&A&P level 25 SOD, Ressara 24.7. Stay in level 29 zone.- Kindar makes 6 new structures (toughness/defense enhancement, will merge at level 26). Purple starts calibrating the aether he feeds Kindar to keep him smoothly advancing at the same level as C&A.- Someone hires the Black Blades to attack one of the weaker Crown loyalist houses. The Enchanters Guild supplies special gear to help, for the first time since the abduction of C&A. BB report it to the Crown.- Jamar level 16.1 EOD.
B2C34:Day 46- C&A&P level 25.75 SOD, Ressara 26. Stay in level 29 zone.- Ressara has difficulty coming to terms with having not only caught up, but surpassed C&A's level. She scaled back how much time she spends actively absorbing aether to merely keep pace with them.- Trinlen enters stage 2 with unification/merge of a tier 6 superstructure, leaving out controller and conceptualizer.- Kindar also merges his tier 6 superstructure, and makes 5 new ones (self-healing/recovery/endurance, will merge at level 32)- The Crown sets up an isolation room to block all remote signals and has BB put one of the special items in it. The item promptly self-destructs.- Jamar level 17.8 EOD.
B2C35:Day 47- C&A&P level 26.5 SOD. Stay in level 29 zone.- Jamar level 19 EOD. Tier 8 unification, 2 structures left out, 7 open slots. With ~5 hours left in her day before "normal" bedtime (she's making do with only 6 hours of sleep to catch up faster), she stays up late to finish 2 of her new structures. Her scouts report the extremely rapid absorption of aether C&A&P are causing, but she's frustrated that they're in a zone one level higher than she can safely go. She grudgingly acknowledges to herself that she's also not ready to meaningfully contribute to an attack against them; she needs to consolidate her stage 2 advancement and close the level gap.Day 48- C&A&P level 27.25 SOD. Stay in level 29 zone.- Jamar with only 5 structures is limited to ~7% absorption efficiency at SOD. She makes 4 structures in ~4 hours each, intentionally holding back on the final one in hopes of reaching level 20 and at least being able to strike Carlos's camp. Absorption efficiency (if one structure has no synergies) goes to 10% at 6 structures, 14.5% at 7, 22% at 8, 37% at 9, and 82% at 10.Day 49- C&A&P level 28 SOD. Stay in level 29 zone.- Jamar gets a report predicting C&A will move on soon and gives up on catching them right away. She makes the final structure of her second tier 8, which merges, and she makes 4 more new structures before sleeping. Goes to sleep with 2 supers at tier 8, 5 basic structures, 3 empty slots.- A coordinated simultaneous raid hits several Crown loyalist houses. Each raid delivers a message demanding that they switch sides.
B2C36:Day 50- C&A&P level 28.75 SOD. Move to level 37 zone.- The Crown dispatches squads of royal guards to protect each loyalist house and makes an example of a rebel house.- Jamar fills the 3 empty slots, merges her 3rd tier 8, makes 1 new structure before practically passing out.Day 51- C&A&P level 29.5 SOD. Stay in level 37 zone.- Jamar makes 4 new structures, leaving 2 slots empty.Day 52- C&A&P level 30.25 SOD. Stay in level 37 zone.- Another raid hits a few houses, but the raiding parties that manage to gain advantage over the royal guard squad get curb stomped by a prince/princess responding to emergency signal.- Jamar fills out last 2 slots. Tier 7 will merge at level 22, but she's only level 20. Absorption efficiency is now 100%, but the superstructures are lagging behind, so leveling basics to 21 takes 11.58 hours.Day 53- C&A&P level 31 SOD. Stay in level 37 zone.- The Enchanters Guild anonymously sends a bunch of teleport items, with a letter claiming fear of being discovered by the Enchanters Guild, plus signalling devices to call for aid, to ensure the rebels can all team up on the royals.- Jamar levels to 22, and tier 7 merges mid day. She makes 3 new structures, leaving 3 empties.
B2C37:Day 54- C&A&P level 31.75 SOD. Stay in level 37 zone.- C calls Trinlen in to help them figure out how keywords are missing from `help`, he solves the problem by accident just by doing the novice intro idea of using `paraminfo` on itself, thereby discovering the `advanced` option flag.
B2C38:- Ressara, now with introspector and debugger, enters stage 2 with the unification/merge of a tier 5 superstructure. As she has an introspector, she immediately knows that it happened. Mind effects inverter and illusion piercer remain. She has to make new structures to boost absorption rate enough to continue keeping pace.- Kindar merges tier 5, makes 4 new (sensory enhancement, will merge at level 43).- Jamar fills out empties, tier 6 will merge at level 26. She's level 23. Advancing level at average 76.0% base rate.Day 55- C&A&P level 32.5 SOD. Stay in level 37 zone.- Jamar level 25.Day 56- C&A&P level 33.25 SOD. Stay in level 37 zone.- Jamar level 26, and tier 6 merges mid day. She makes 3 new structures, leaving 2 empties.Day 57- C&A&P level 34 SOD. Stay in level 37 zone.- A more sophisticated raid has some groups draw out all of the princes/princesses and then immediately withdraw via guild-supplied teleport items, to make them unavailable to counter the real main attacks. Several loyalist houses get wrecked.- Enchanters Guild simultaneously raids the Crown's vault to steal tracking stuff for house treasures, framing the rebels with the timing of it.
B2C39:- The Crown starts seriously searching for the hiding place of House Tostral, who are well-known as the leaders of the rebel faction.- Jamar fills 2 empties, tier 5 will merge at level 32. Advancing level at average 70.4% base rate, 14.2 hours per level, 1.27 levels per day, let's say 1.3 per day including passive overnight. She reaches level 27.3.Day 58- C&A&P level 34.75 SOD. Stay in level 37 zone.- Jamar level 28.6 EOD.- Recindril successfully recruits many of the holdouts of houses that were reluctant to take a stand against the Crown. He uses the combination of both threats and demonstration that success against Crown forces is possible.- Crown mages successfully find and investigate the destination of the thief's initial teleport, but find traces of too many followups to track further.Day 59- C&A&P level 35.5 SOD. Stay in level 37 zone.- Jamar level 29.9 EOD.Day 60- C&A&P level 36.25 SOD. Stay in level 37 zone.- Jamar level 30 very early in the day. She orders the attack.
B2C40:- Jamar's attack plan: Surprise attack from stealth. Each of her 2 elites engages one of the royal guards, aided by several lesser soldiers. She personally duels C&A.- Kindar as a decoy works, leading to her raiding party attacking him.- Sconter and Esmorana detect their approach and warn Purple, party, and guards. Purple asks to fight, and they settle on Ordens + Purple with the rest standing in reserve.- Purple informs C&A, and they suggest having Kindar fight Jamar. (left vague in chapter)- Jamar's group encounters Ordens, who gives a warning and demands surrender. They attack, and Purple sends forth a swarm.
B2C41:- Jamar's group encounters swarms of tiny monsters that coordinate with good tactics and use dungeon-enchanted gear.- Only 1 royal guard (Ordens) engages them, with Lorvan standing watch over C&A. Jamar's elites 2v1 her, but Purple's swarms prevent the rest of her troops from helping.- Jamar fights some of the swarm briefly, but Purple pulls the swarm aside and lets her through to fight Kindar.- Jamar can tell that Kindar is also a noble, but he's neither C nor A. She demands to know where they are. "Beat me and I'll tell you."- Kindar is 6 levels higher and has high specialization, but marginally lower tier, and focused more on defense than Jamar. Kindar's soul themes and tiers: Arms and offense skill 7, intimidation and draining 7, legs 7, core/torso 7, toughness/defense 6, self-healing/recovery/endurance 5, sensory enhancement 4 (not yet merged).- Jamar vs Kindar continues for a while, with Jamar getting in a few decent hits but nothing serious, while Kindar fights defensively to outlast her. His wounds close, scab over, and heal, while Jamar's don't.- Jamar is incredulous that he spent soul structures on healing himself, declaring it pointlessly wasteful because of healing items and spells, or in the worst case respawning. He points out that it's helping him win this fight right now.- Kindar starts trash talking her with how the fight is going, and her inability to refute his points cracks her resolve and confidence, letting his intimidation and draining superstructure start having a major effect.- Increasingly debuffed to hell, Jamar sinks into despair and denial, and Kindar kills her.- Purple and Ordens mop up the rest.- C&A successfully finish their first major enchanted item, a lower-level less-potent variant of a royal guard gauntlet, having not participated in the fight at all.
B2C42:- Ordens gives a critique of Kindar's and Purple's performance in the fight against Jamar.Day 61- C&A&P level 37 SOD. Move to level 46 zone.- Amber planned ahead for it, and wakes up early.- Lorvan and Ordens start absorbing aether. They warn they cannot guarantee safety here. They are still among the strongest beings around, but no longer leagues above everything else, and there is a chance of something stronger showing up.- Guards urge maximum stealth precautions. They estimate based on distance progression of level zones that this wellspring's level is in the low to mid 50s. The wellspring is close enough (within 30 miles) that it might be possible for its guardian(s) to notice them.- Adventurers also start absorbing aether (Noralt 38, Haftel & Sconter 39, Esmorana 40). They're unaccustomed to it, relatively slow, and nervous.Day 62- C&A&P level 37.75 SOD. Stay in level 46 zone.- Enchanters Guild sends new shipment to Tostrals, including something special.
B2C43:- Recindril ponders the implications of the (not yet revealed to readers) special item and makes plans.- C&A tell adventurers about second stage and that they can use aether absorption to fuel making new soul structures in reasonable time now. They also advise them about what soul structures to make.Day 63- C&A&P level 38.5 SOD. Stay in level 46 zone.Day 64- C&A&P level 39.25 SOD. Stay in level 46 zone.- Enchanters Guild provides tools specifically to help steal an especially powerful house treasure. Rebels use it as bait to lure a prince of Kalor (not Lornera) into a trap, where he is ambushed by dozens of high nobles. He is killed and respawns.- Scene from rebels' POV makes it clear they are not the real culprits behind the raid on the Crown's vault.
B2C44:Day 65- C&A&P level 40 SOD. Stay in level 46 zone.Day 66- C&A&P level 40.75 SOD. Stay in level 46 zone.- C&A find stagnant mana pool, kill/destroy its corrupted defenders, and use it to fix the sabotage on Lorvan's and Ordens's equipment.
B2C45:Day 67- C&A&P level 41.5 SOD. Stay in level 46 zone.Day 68- C&A&P level 42.25 SOD. Stay in level 46 zone.- Rebels steal another house treasure with Enchanters Guild support. Suspecting another trap, the 3 other Kalor scions come in a group to spring the ambush trap together, leaving only the respawned one behind in disgrace. Brenelle still gets killed. They retreat with her corpse.- Enchanters Guild steals the house treasure out from under everyone's noses during the battle, though no one yet knows who took it.
B2C46:- Lornera and Patrimmon converse about what happened, how, what it means, and how Elston will react. They incidentally mention they'll have to recover the stolen treasure later, revealing to the audience that they didn't take it.- Enchanters Guild quietly steals several other house treasures at the same time, much more stealthily.Day 69- C&A&P level 43 SOD. Stay in level 46 zone.- Kindar merges tier 4, makes 3 new (tactical/strategic insight enhancement, will theoretically merge at level 64).Day 70- C&A&P level 43.75 SOD. Stay in level 46 zone.- C&A decipher first layer of Sandaras's spellbook's encryption. It turns out to be notes on his version of an alternative language for spell design purposes.- Someone from another noble house (High Lord Trellion Corsa) notices that their house treasure is missing.
B2C47:Day 71- C&A&P level 44.5 SOD. Stay in level 46 zone.Day 72- C&A&P level 45.25 SOD. Stay in level 46 zone.- C&A fix the sample suit of royal guard armor that Felton brought with him.- From here on, must proceed with caution, and C&A&P MUST take on primary responsibility.- Guards estimate less than 30 miles to wellspring (it's actually ~20).- They debate having Purple dig tunnels underground to conceal their approach vs above-ground scouting to see enemies coming. Guards&adventurers say underground doesn't actually help much at this level.- Consider luring guardian(s) into ambush. Guards say best bait is absorbing enough aether for guardians to notice.- Sconter scouts physically, Esmorana via wind sensing, guards via gear, mages via spells.Day 73- C&A&P level 46 SOD. They've caught up with the royal guards' level.- Move to level 47 zone, but caution makes it later in the day.- King Elston Kalor has had enough of the rebellion. He announces that it is time to remind everyone of who the true power in this kingdom is; he will be in a specific spot in the open countryside at noon, one week hence, accompanied only by his 4 children. "Come challenge me, all of you together, if you dare. If not, cease this rebellion at once, on pain of soul death."
B2C48:Day 74- C&A&P level 46.5 SOD, 47 by evening.- Search for good ambush spot. Find one in level 48 zone, relocate Purple there but hide him.Day 75- C&A&P level 47 SOD.- Purple starts extending a line of his influence towards the mana well, pulling higher-level aether.
B2C49:- Carlos asks Purple about further details to investigate about pulling higher-level aether.Day 76- C&A&P level 47.75 SOD.Day 77- C&A&P level 48.25 SOD.- Purple reports they're draining aether from the area faster than it can replenish. He's having to reach farther.- They discuss and conclude the exponential slowdown that would result from trying to conceal it is a bad trade.Day 78- C&A&P level 48.75 SOD, reach 49 before fight.- Guardian notices and starts searching for them, throwing its power around. It's a dragon.
B2C50:- Guardian notices and attacks. BIG fight. Guards are completely outmatched, while C&A&P are finding it surprisingly manageable. Typical noble would have a really hard fight, needing great prep and/or high specialization advantage.- Guardian is a dragon. It eventually says something, and C&A&P understand it.
B2C51:- Dragon fights back, hard, until Amber finally resorts to an exploit-empowered crushing Force Bubble.- Dragon surrenders and demandingly asks how they learned that spell.
B2C52:- Conversation with dragon. It demands they tell how they learned the spell.- Dragon talks them into dropping the Force Bubble, after swearing Oath on his Flame to depart without contest.- Dragon warns against using the exploit and mentions the "Voidlands", then leaves.- C&A speculate about the Voidlands, and Carlos brings up that Ankalon (the dragon, full name Ankalondorithmal of the Silver Flight) mentioned Sandaras.- Lorvan interrupts (unaware of their silent telepathic conversation) to remind them to go and claim the wellspring.
B2C53:- Journey to wellspring - Uneventful – the dragon didn't tolerate close rivals, and everything is scared by the display of power in the fight. - Describe the wellspring – aether (Level 54) streaming up from somewhere far below - Carlos wonders how the dragon got to be 5 levels above the wellspring, and why it still cared about a wellspring below its own level. - Lorvan warns to not overdraw on the well – if depleted completely, it will not renew. - Some spots where aether is pooling and becoming stagnant.- Purple POV establishing at the wellspring - Start setting up a house. - Sense strange metal deposits underground, where aether flows thickest and slowest. They turn out to be some mythril and a little adamantium. - Lorvan mentions there might be some near the stagnant mana pool they cleared out, though likely just mythril.
B2C54:Day 79- C&A wake up in Purple's newly built beginnings of a house. He over-used stone, did hinges poorly, etc.- Leveling to 54, the wellspring's limit, will take 151 days after reaching 50, and doing 50 fast will deplete the area.- After breakfast, Amber suggests getting proper plates and some professionals to advise Purple on mansion-building.- Lorvan advises to teleport to Kalor City for better-suited crafters, and bring him to report on their success.- They bring Kindar to have his nobility made official, and go to get final payment (dungeon core item) from Darmelkon.- They'll have to schedule/arrange the scan for Kindar, it'll be a few days.- Nice to see nobles who aren't buying into that rebel nonsense. His Majesty will resolve the matter tomorrow, anyway.- They get mildly pressured to record full scans of their completed soul plans for noble patent (sort-of) enforcement purposes, but firmly refuse.- Kindar leads them to Darmelkon's agent while Lorvan reports (he'll meet them back at the entrance).- Agent has the dungeon core item ready, in a sealed and warded box, but arranging suitable professionals for the HQ building project will take a couple days.Day 80- The announced date of King Elston Kalor's invitation to challengers. The entire rebel faction comes, headed by Lord Tostral. It's more than expected, and Elston comments on that with a little trash talk.
B2C55:- Elston POV (narration calls him "the Crown himself")- Elston trash talks a bit more, pointing out a couple individuals he's surprised showed up.- Recindril calls him predictable, talks about what he could have done but didn't (crater the place), and unveils his first major surprise: a dungeon core relic from the enchanters guild (anonymously) that partially suppresses the royals' power.- Elston is shocked by the relic's level (higher than his!), and he sends Hinren and Lornera to find it while he starts killing.- Recindril manages to at least follow Elston's attacks, while Elston intentionally leaves him for last.- Elston racks up a body count, and his scions do too, each fighting separately on their own.- Hinren Kalor dies, soul-killed by a special squad wielding special weapons.- Elston starts going for soul-kills too.
B2C56:- Soul-kill squad targets Lornera next, but Brenelle spots the trap and saves her. She still gets badly injured, and Elston orders her to withdraw.- Soul-killing is more difficult and slows down Elston's progress in the battle.- Huge fight. The fourth Kalor scion is soul-killed, but numerous rebel nobles are also soul-killed, and the rest are clearly beaten. The other Kalor scions are fatigued, so Elston orders them to withdraw. Elston himself is hurt and significantly depleted by the end of it.- Lornera is unable to meaningfully fight, but stays long enough to witness what happens.- Supreme Enchanter Nyralis reveals himself and soul-kills Recindril when it seems like he might give up.
B2C57:- Nyralis tries to rally the remaining nobles to continue fighting against Elston, but they first try to flee, then reject and attack him instead. He lets them teleport out.- Nyralis declares he does not fear Elston, because his own power is built on items that can be passed down through generations, while Elston and the nobles must rebuild new power in each generation.- Nyralis attacks Elston. Brenelle and Patrimmon help Elston, while Lornera is still too wounded and watches.- Nyralis gains the upper hand, and Lornera calls for the royal guards and mages to help. Nyralis exploits the backdoors to negate them.- Lorvan and Ordens are the only ones who receive the emergency call, because Carlos fixed the backdoors in their equipment. Lorvan reveals that he knows Carlos and Amber have been concealing their true strength, and asks them to come with him.
B2C58:- C&A join the battle. They are hard pressed, still weaker than either Elston or Nyralis, but they can withstand what Nyralis can spare from fighting Elston.
B2C59:- Lornera sees C&A try a few more times to break through and fail, while Nyralis counterattacks and they dodge/block/neutralize each one.- Lornera wonders how they could possibly be countering everything so perfectly.- Carlos POV, showing him analyzing a new spell while it's being cast against them and devising a counter on the spot.- Nyralis concludes they can't actually harm him, but he'll need to focus on them to subdue them, and he can't do that while Elston's still fighting.- C&A figure out Nyralis's fake opening by their understanding of the spell's structure, and they try to warn Elston off. He disregards their warning.- Nyralis gets more aggressive. He baits Elston with a feigned opening, then puts spiked force barriers around and enclosing Elston. They use initial spikes digging into his armblades to grab on, with the feigned opening tricking Elston into committing to the attack too far to shake them off before the trap springs. The trap has subtraps built into it to get Patrimmon and Brenelle when they try to help break it.
B2C60:- Amber POV.- She's shocked at the Crown being apparently beaten.- Her soul structures nudge her out of stunned inaction.- Concurrent threads: - She tries to break the trap around Elston, but it's too strong. - She tries to teleport Elston out, but he rejects it with zero consideration. - She defends from Nyralis. - She attacks Nyralis again. - Carlos is more focused on Nyralis. - Bond with Carlos draws her attention to the suppression cuffs similarity. - She remembers how the cuffs work and guesses they're how Nyralis got 10 tier-10s.- Carlos tries to tamper with the cuffs, but is rebuffed.- Amber remembers how, when they fixed the royal guard armor, it involved replacing guild-kludged power sources with the proper system-designed way, and the enchantments had accepted that substitution really easily, almost eagerly.- She designs a power source with an attached backdoor off switch / inverter, and tries putting that into one of Nyralis's soul structure insertion items. It works.- C&A work together to hack the rest, plus his critical defenses, before Nyralis realizes what's going on, then trigger them all at once.
B2C61:- It takes more work to break the traps holding Elston&co, but with Nyralis no longer supplying more power, group efforts (including Purple) wear it down before long. Elston&co have soul wounds from it, however.- Afterward, Elston is wary of their power. On the spot, he thanks them and promises rewards, even suggesting the idea of marrying into the royal house.- The suggestion of marrying into House Kalor prompts C&A to realize they want to marry each other. They try to hide their reluctance from Elston, but he sees through it.- Elston hides his reaction, uncertain of having enough strength in the immediate aftermath of the battle to beat them.Day 81- Elston secretly makes plans, and schedules a meeting with C&A for the next day, ostensibly to reward them for their aid.Day 82- King Elston and his children have fully recovered, and he calls C&A to be rewarded. He announces their deeds, culminating with the observation that the power of their soul plan rivals the Crown, "and that cannot be allowed!" He attacks with a soul-kill move.- Princess Lornera blocks him.
B2C62:- He is astonished that she is even capable of defying him, since the royal soul plan includes the same "loyalty to the Crown" soul structure as the royal guards. However, while he interpreted it as loyalty to the person who is the current monarch, she interpreted it as loyalty to the institution of the ruling house, and she firmly believes that C&A are an opportunity to strengthen the Crown by recruiting/allying with them. They argue and fight, "I am the Crown!" vs "House Kalor is the Crown!". - Starts out about the merits, arguing points of usefulness, loyalty, trustworthiness, etc. - Argument of loyalty transitions into Elston commanding Lornera again. - Lornera refuses. - The two other surviving scions and all the guards and mages stand by, confused and conflicted about what their loyalty requires of them. - Elston states Lornera is incapable of disloyalty to the Crown. - "I am the Crown" vs "House Kalor is the Crown" - Argument punctuated periodically by Elston trying again to kill Carlos, and Lornera blocking him.- Lornera concludes that, for the good of the Crown, she must overthrow Elston.- C&A try to help Lornera, but Elston at full strength is too powerful. They teleport out, bringing her with them. End book 2.