Two gifts already, both of real consequence. Ebner found himself quietly curious about the third.
But Lilith didn't produce anything. Instead, she glanced around the room and asked, with a small smile: "Can the protective rituals on this villa withstand a brief overlap with the Astral Realm?"
The Astral Realm? That place where authority and symbolism twist together into something more abstract than even the spirit world?
He thought it through, then reached out mentally and had Alvin Abraham Transmit in, temporarily merging the Bizarre Domain with the villa's existing wards. Only then did he nod. "It should hold now."
Lilith's smile didn't change. She made no visible gesture — and yet the edges of everything in the sitting room began to lose their definition. The long table, the sofa, the wall clock, every object in the room blurred at its borders, the whole space shifting in style from Courbet to Picasso in the span of a breath.
At the same time, a figure took shape before him, materializing line by line: a humanoid woman with smooth golden hair and an extraordinary, almost unsettling beauty — eyes firmly shut — who extended her right hand toward him.
"An Asmo?" He recognized her origin immediately. The relevant knowledge surfaced without effort.
Asmo were a race of Astral Realm beings. They took the form of golden-haired humanoid women of unusual beauty, and were known for their calm temperament, their benevolence, and their remarkable capacity to perceive and comprehend all manner of rules. In the divine kingdoms of True Gods, they often served as attendants or apostles to demigods and Angels alike.
Legend held that a traveler lost in the Astral Realm, if they earned an Asmo's favor and passed its trial, would receive the Asmo's own eyes as a gift — and be guided safely back to the real world.
The third reward is an Asmo? But just showing it to me wouldn't require a temporary overlap between the Astral Realm and reality. And there's something else — in my perception, this Asmo and I seem to share some kind of connection.
Before he could work it out, Lilith spoke from the sofa across from him.
"This Asmo is an apostle within the God of Wisdom and Knowledge's divine kingdom, and it is your third reward. One of the primary materials you used when advancing to Discerner was the Asmo's Eye — taken from this very being. That is the source of the mystical connection you're sensing between you. From now on, each time you enter the Astral Realm, you can call upon that connection to summon it, and it will guide you into the God of Wisdom and Knowledge's divine kingdom, where you may study the vast knowledge contained within."
The origin of my primary material, the Asmo's Eye. No wonder it keeps its eyes shut. But something still nagged at him. After I brewed its eye into a potion and drank it, there's still a living connection between us?
He asked the question aloud.
Lilith tilted her head, silver eyes catching the light with an expression that was almost amused.
"The Asmo are a rather singular race. When they voluntarily offer their eyes to another, it functions as a kind of investment. 'What is separated must converge; what converges must separate' — this principle holds even for individual extraordinary characteristics. Even if an Asmo's Eye is brewed into a potion and consumed to advance to Discerner, fate will eventually draw that material back to its source. The cycle may be short — a few years — or it may take thousands upon thousands of years. Time means nothing to the Asmo."
She paused, letting that sit.
"But once the Asmo's Eye returns, it brings with it the bulk of the knowledge and memories accumulated by the Discerner who used it during that entire period. The Asmo have no capacity for independent learning. This is the only way they grow."
Another pause, this one with a slight smile at the edge of it.
"As for the underlying mechanics of this ability — this fate-loop they embody — I genuinely don't know. What I can tell you is that this particular race was very likely created by one of your past selves."
She finished with a look that was pure mischief.
So the third reward really is from the God of Wisdom and Knowledge. He's essentially assigned me a personal guide and secretary for visiting his divine kingdom.
And Asmo... that name comes from DnD lore, from Astral Realm beings. Which means this one might genuinely be my fault.
Using the law of convergence and separation in extraordinary characteristics to engineer a "destiny" — did some version of me borrow the Wheel of Fate's power when creating this race?
That didn't quite sit right. The Wheel of Fate didn't seem capable of something that precise. Which meant that somewhere before the God of Fortune, some earlier version of himself had apparently also leveraged the Ring of Fate.
And then there was the grand promise he'd once made to the little snake, Will.
Ebner felt a headache coming on.
If Earth's barrier collapsed right now, I don't know what would happen to everyone else — but I'd be torn apart and devoured by whatever Primordials are waiting outside. What is this? There are Outer Gods everywhere across the stars, and Liu Bo seems to have antagonized roughly half of them without knowing it.
He gave himself a moment of self-deprecating amusement, then looked at the Asmo's outstretched right hand and stopped hesitating. He reached out and took it.
The faint connection between them deepened and solidified. A pact, fully formed.
The next instant, the Astral Realm peeled away from the sitting room. The golden-haired figure of the Asmo vanished with it.
The furniture, however, had not returned to normal. The sofa and everything else still had those blurred, abstracted edges, as though someone had sketched the room and forgotten to finish the outlines.
Ebner frowned. From wherever he was lurking, Alvin made a quiet wish, and the sitting room snapped back to itself.
· · ·
Southern Sonia Sea. Aboard the Dark Blue Avenger.
Alger Wilson hovered with his feet off the floor, suspended behind the captain's cabin window, watching the deck below and the distant swells beyond.
He had digested most of the Ocean Songster potion. Last week he'd filed a report with the Storm Church and exchanged accumulated merits for a Wind-Blessed potion, which he had since consumed successfully. Officially, his Sequence now stood at 6 — though he would have to digest the new potion from the beginning.
Maybe I could ask Mr. Tower for help — use the Unshadowed's ability to extract the excess characteristics?
But the Unshadowed extracts from highest to lowest. That would mean the Ocean Songster advancement was wasted.
He let the thought go. Redigesting wasn't a hardship. He'd managed worse.
He sighed and was about to head up to the deck to check whether his crew was still troubled by his "singing," when the world dissolved into endless grey fog.
A short while later, Alger offered his thanks to Mr. Fool and settled back at the table where his sextant rested, turning his full attention to what the Sun had relayed: the items that could be exchanged for a Sequence 1 sealed artifact from Silver City's mental domain.
A clean "Hunter" extraordinary characteristic.
Potion formulae for the Death pathway, Sequences 9 through 4.
The extraordinary material "Twilight Lion's Heart."
Any one of the three would complete the trade.
The Hunter was Sequence 4 of the Warrior pathway. Its characteristic was worth roughly as much as a Sequence 1 sealed artifact — but obtaining it was just as difficult. The Death pathway formulae were manageable at the lower and middle Sequences, but a demigod formula was another matter entirely. The Twilight Lion — he had never even heard of that creature. Possibly the primary material for Sequence 3 of the Warrior pathway.
None of them were easy. Still — the first two weren't entirely without leads.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
· · ·
Silver City. The chief's office at the top of the Round Tower.
Derick, freshly out of isolation, said his prayer to Mr. Fool and then returned to report to Colin Iliat: "I've passed your conditions along to Mr. Hanged Man. Mr. Tower has also replied — he says Mr. Grosselle will arrive in Silver City within about ten hours or so."
On his last trip to the World of Light, Derick had brought back clocks and watches, so Colin had a working grasp of hours.
He nodded, his manner thoughtful and deliberate. "I'll have someone retrieve one of our carefully preserved tins of wolf-fish. It's among the finest things we have to offer a guest who has come so far."
Derick's lips moved slightly, but he said nothing.
There was, after all, nothing in Silver City with more flavor than wolf-fish tins.
(End of Chapter)