Abyssal Road Trip

Amdirlain’s PoV - Barren Demi-Plane

The sheer unbroken darkness was a smothering weight as they hovered high above the bedrock of the Demi-Plane.

“Dark in here, isn’t it?” breathed Sarah.

“Ha ha,” snorted Amdirlain. “We’re not in a book and you’re not death, thank you.”

“I enjoyed Terry Pratchett’s sense of humour,” replied Sarah. “Not all of that series grabbed me, but most were fun and quirky. I expected you to shift us to Foundry, or will you open the gates from this one?”

“No, I intend to sort out one and see what impact my improved Resonance has on the process,” said Amdirlain.

“I can keep myself aloft,” advised Sarah. Releasing Amdirlain’s hand, she floated away and, when clear, transformed into her Dragon form. The psionic energy in her mind lit up her faceted scales in a brilliant burst of red.

“Do I give the experience to my older classes?” asked Amdirlain. After considering the Intelligence gains provided by levelling different classes, she shifted her experience allocation.

With an idle flap, Sarah sent herself off in a big loop around Amdirlain. Her left wingtip remained pointed at Amdirlain despite the large circle required by Sarah’s flight in the gigantic form.

Amdirlain didn’t start immediately but extended Resonance out to its limits, and in the near silence of the barren Demi-Plane, she got it to brush against the planar boundary.

The initial melodies were those to thicken the bedrock and lace it with metallic veins. Glaring imperfections drew Amdirlain’s attention as the melodies rippled outwards, and she halted the songs in a stumble of notes.

Lifting higher, she reduced the scope of the music and sang to the bedrock directly below her. This time, even as Amdirlain took in the imperfections, she continued to sing. When she completed the song, the ground sounded settled into the tones that Amdirlain had expected, but a tight frown wrinkled her face.

“Problem?” rumbled Sarah.

“I can hear imperfections in my pitch,” sighed Amdirlain. “It’s a distracting rasp magnified by all the notes.”

“Your ability to measure the accuracy of your pitch has increased,” offered Sarah. “It reminds me of a story about car manufacturing and part tolerance.”

Amdirlain lifted her brows sceptically. “Oh?”

“Now, I don’t know if the story is fact, but it’s what I remember. This car company got a trial shipment of parts from a new supplier after World War II and set up an assembly line using their parts. I don’t know if they were sure they’d fail, wanted to point the finger back to the factory, or didn’t want to risk parts causing issues with other vehicles. When the first car came off the line, a QA tester took it for a spin and drove it around the track without an issue, yet couldn’t shake the feeling something was wrong,” said Sarah, and she changed her course from a circle to a figure-eight centred above Amdirlain.

“Bad parts?”

Sarah waggled her wings but kept her figure-eight going. “The guy parked it in the lot near the track and got in another car to go back to the factory, and on the way, the problem struck him. The car manufactured with parts from the old supplier rattled, and he couldn’t remember a car he’d driven that didn’t rattle. When he returned to the factory, he started to measure parts and found that all were right on specification, not only within the tolerance for the part but every part he measured was exactly right.”

“The old parts were within the tolerance requirements?” asked Amdirlain.

“Yep, but they had fractional differences that were enough to cause the rattle despite the older cars being fine to drive,” said Sarah. “They contacted the new factory and asked them what they’d done with the parts only within tolerance, not wanting to get stuck in the same situation if they ordered more parts. Their reply was simple: we sent you all the parts we made.”

“That could be an urban myth,” proposed Amdirlain.

“Potential for urban myth aside, I think you’ve got a tolerance issue,” said Sarah. “The notes are close enough to provide the effect you designed them for, but now you can hear the slight variations. From what I remember, those variations used to frustrate Ori. She’d complain about white noise inside the early choirs, distorting the creation of stars and planets. Instead of a yellow sun she’d end up with an orange sun, or an atmosphere with the wrong proportion of gases.”

“I’ll need to tighten up my projections,” said Amdirlain.

“Proper form, not speed, young one,” quipped Sarah.

“Fine, yes, the speed will come,” huffed Amdirlain, and she began again, taking the Demi-Plane’s construction a layer at a time. She focused on her performance, mindful of hitting the notes precisely.

The duplication of Sarah’s playground was a more complex Demi-Plane than those in the series that she’d last created in mere minutes, but it wasn’t why it took hours to complete. The growth of the Demi-Plane caused a saturation of themes in her mind that thrummed through her skull and smashed against flesh. Still, Amdirlain held on, only begrudgingly lowering Resonance’s sensitivity by shades of degrees at a time. Melodies that she had learned to compress to the bare essentials, she sang in full. Each orchestral piece was held and supported, lessening the physical toll it ripped from her flesh, but the number she sustained strained her awareness; burdened as it was with the growing details of her surroundings. As the work progressed, it forced Amdirlain’s hand, and she retracted Resonance’s reach, singing the melodies by rote to targets out of its reach. In the end, she only held Resonance out to her previous maximum of a hundred kilometres, with a higher quality of perception. The plant life and animals moving below them mugged her with mental body blows before she completed the last piece.

As the experience flooded into her, what had become an unmanageable tidal wave of information that had strained her ability to take it in became as automatic as breathing. The notification came with the last rush, and the details hummed in the background of her mind, now just needing her to focus on the details in an overall picture instead of trying to collapse into a distorted mess of data.

[Crafting Summary (Category: Biome fundamentals)

Grouped by type

Self-sustaining continent-sized biome (small) x1

Inland sea biome (small) x1

Bonus elements:

Narrow band of megafauna x1

Narrow band of Jurassic period fauna x1

Colossal magical creature breeds x2

Total Experience gained: 10,205,910,025

Olindë: +10,205,910,025

Olindë Levelled Up! x112

True Song Genesis [G] (8->10)]

No note from Gideon? Are they okay?

The gauge in her levels was a surge of vitality and more.

She pushed the Power’s reach out to the thousand kilometres it allowed. Amdirlain marvelled at the crystal-clear perspective for three sustained beats. However, as the pressure of absorbing it ramped up, she pulled her awareness back to a mere three kilometres. The Mana flows around her flexed and shuddered with the expansion of her Mana capacity; as she automatically started syphoning in the surrounding energy. A few quick songs bolstered the ley lines, and Amdirlain held still to wait it out. She could feel other changes going on, but ignored the ripples within her True Form and glanced at her Profile to confirm the outcome of the level surge.

Working to keep the notes under tighter control certainly made a difference.

My Endurance is just shy of nine thousand seven hundred, my Intelligence is at over seven thousand one hundred, and my Charisma is just over eight thousand. I hope that doesn’t come back to bite me. My magic rating nearing ten thousand is quite the change that should smooth out the effort of singing and is a step towards achieving Bahamut’s advice.

Still, it’s marvellous the difference a couple of thousand points in Intelligence makes to handling Resonance, even if my Willpower is suddenly out-levelled by three attributes. My Strength and quickness are lagging, but I feel tank-worthy with nearly ten million Health and a Defence that should be over thirteen thousand if I set the spare points into Willpower.

Though putting the spare attributes into Intelligence to extend the utility of Resonance further was tempting, she dumped the lot into Willpower. Though it caused a proportionally slight jump in her Defence and Melee Attack Power, the result still earned a smile. Satisfied, Amdirlain closed her Profile.

‘Lots of dinosaurs on this Demi-Plane and an inland sea? Did you make another playpen?’ projected Sarah.

“If we’re going to have over a hundred dragons calling the monastery home, I figured I should give them somewhere to stretch their wings and hunt,” replied Amdirlain. “As I’m fairly certain you wouldn’t be inclined to share yours.”

“No, it’s my territory,” rumbled Sarah, and her words sent herds distant from the shadows of her wings racing further away.

“I doubled my magic rating,” chuffed Amdirlain. “Should I make another and see how the creation goes?”

Sarah transformed back into the silvery-hair male Elf and appeared beside Amdirlain. “What did you level?”

“I poured the lot into my Olindë Class,” admitted Amdirlain. “Not the most carefully considered decision I’m aware, but it promised the biggest jump in Intelligence, and I shoved the spare attribute points into Willpower. I feel clear-headed again.”

“Oh?”

“I’m going to ask you a serious question,” cautioned Amdirlain. She nearly winced at the grimness that speared upwards in Sarah’s theme. The awful notes prompted Amdirlain to hurry on. “What form do you prefer?”

Sarah laughed. “My Dragon form.”

“Well, it’s great for a backrest but awkward for hugging and holding hands,” said Amdirlain. “I’ll admit I hadn’t considered the situation from that perspective. I got fixated on the male Elf or female Human issue.”

“Instead of considering that taking a tiny bipedal form is a compromise no matter the gender?” questioned Sarah. A smile lit up the sapphire gaze, and strong fingers brushed loose hair behind Amdirlain’s ears. “It is much easier to touch you in one of these forms.”

“Yeah,” said Amdirlain, and she flushed as Sarah’s fingertips caressed her cheek. “Though you said you wouldn’t flirt?”

The caress stopped, and Sarah pulled her hand away. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

Amdirlain playfully waved a reproving finger at Sarah. “You’re a very naughty Dragon. You used to embarrass me by talking about the BDSM interviews you had with clients about their likes. What about how you used to check in for their consent constantly?”

“I’d do that for a customer, yet didn’t get your consent for an intimate touch,” said Sarah. “My apologies. Should I limit myself to holding hands and hugs for now?”

Amdirlain dropped her hand and gave a strained smile. “I can understand the impulse, but I need to draw a line while I get my head on straight.”

She morphed into her willowy human form, the silvery hair and sapphire eyes darkening to Sarah’s deep brunette and bedroom eyes.

“Would you limit yourself to Sarah or Dragon form while we’re at the monastery?” requested Amdirlain. “There was a real off-kilter feel to seeing you as a Male Elf.”

“And it’s cheating?”

“If I can’t accept you looking like Sarah...”

“That’s completely understandable given your preferences in life, and I’m not bothered staying in a male form,” interjected Sarah. “If it’s the memories of Ori, I can use a completely different appearance.”

“But I am bothered,” protested Amdirlain. “And it would eat at me and give self-doubt leverage, so I need to figure it out.”

Concern quashed some of the passion that had been blazing in Sarah, and she grimly nodded.

“Not going anywhere except if it’s on a trip with you, so take your time,” said Sarah.

“I’m going to make a simpler Demi-Plane if you’d like to come along,” offered Amdirlain.

Sarah mock growled. “Only one! I’m disappointed with your lack of ambition, young lady. Where has your work ethic gone? Gilorn will be so disappointed.”

“Bite me, bitch,” huffed Amdirlain. “I’ll decide my work pace.”

The playful quip caused another spike of concern within Sarah, but she still laughed and relaxed a few degrees when Amdirlain joined in.

The shared laughter echoed across the landscape that Sarah’s presence had emptied.

I’m not sticking my nose into her thoughts; as much as it hurts, I’m also not digging into her concern. I need to figure myself out, not accept a compromise that will let my self-doubts linger and fester.

“It’s about three in the morning now for the monastery, and Kadaklan shouldn’t show up for my lesson until seven or so,” offered Amdirlain. “I’ll make one of the initial levels of the training facilities and increase the amount of gathering challenges.”

Sarah nodded. “Scaling up the number of mining ones?”

“It just needs a little polishing for the local requirements,” said Amdirlain, her lips twitching as she fought the smile.

Sarah rolled her eyes and touched her cheek demurely when Amdirlain pointed an accusing finger. “What did I do?”

“You started the scale jokes, buster,” grumbled Amdirlain. “What’s with the eye roll?”

“I was merely giving my view of a facet of your sense of humour,” replied Sarah. “I guess that won’t be one thing you try to strengthen in case you make Primordial.”

Amdirlain lifted her nose in the air and stared at her haughtily. “My sense of humour is wonderful, thank you very much.”

“Says the lady who thinks Klipyl’s dad-style jokes and awful puns are cute,” rebuffed Sarah.

Her remarks got a dismissive wave. “Getting regarded as cute is a relative quality. It’s her progress and bubbly personality that I find adorable.”

“Oh, like that is it?” snorted Sarah.

“Yeah, they gave her the little sister vibes she needed to convince me,” replied Amdirlain.

“I’ll have to let Isa know that she’s simply not adorable enough to get taken in,” teased Sarah. “She’ll be heartbroken.”

“That’s okay. I’m sure Ilya will be happy to console her with copious amounts of sex and scare the local wildlife of Arborea into silence,” rebuffed Amdirlain.

Sarah’s laughter ended with a half snort as she tried to stifle it. “I’m going to tell her where your dirty mind went.”

“Please, like they didn’t telegraph what was going to happen,” objected Amdirlain. “I don’t know what it is that Ori put into the water in this realm, but I’ve ended up with sex-crazed bilge rats tormenting me. Ebusuku and Isa are chief amongst them.”

“I thought of a present you could give her,” laughed Sarah. “You know, as congratulations on the whole proper divinity thing.”

“Oh?” inquired Amdirlain. “I was considering a non-breakable bed. What did you have in mind?”

“A non-breakable house,” smirked Sarah.

“She’s already got that—the Domain turned a bunch of houses into True Song Crystal while I was feeding it Ki,” reminded Amdirlain.

Sarah’s brows lifted. “She hasn’t moved out of that simple house the dwarves built her?”

“Nope,” said Amdirlain, popping the word. “She’s still using it—fond memories with Gail having grown up in it and all the furnishings they’ve trashed between them.”

“To each their own,” said Sarah.

“It’s only simple to you because you like space to stretch out,” chided Amdirlain. “The Foundry lacks furnishings, but it’s got this big bed of coins and gems.”

Sarah winked slyly. “See, that’s a proper house. You make it seem like you’ve taken a vow of poverty.”

“Material things just don’t do anything for me,” admitted Amdirlain. “They’ve never been the source of my happiness. I wanted a home on Earth as it was the dream of stability and family. It was a dream I’d bought into, even if I needed to adopt or foster. What I need to figure out is: what brings me the most happiness here?”

“Jumping to the self-reflection?” inquired Sarah.

A bashful smile appeared, and Amdirlain nodded sheepishly. “Shocking, right? I could put off trying to get my head on straight or I can press on. Friends, helping people, creating things, music, martial arts, improving myself. Magic and psionics were fun in different ways, and tossing spells is cool, but I’m not sure either brought me any happiness.”

“You made friends in Xaos but you ran out of there pretty fast,” noted Sarah. “Were you worried you stirred up the populace with Femme Fatale?”

“Concerns about Femme Fatale aren’t why I ditched so fast, as I was managing it. Finding a fix for it on Qil Tris was just a fortunate coincidence. I could say it was the danger the Eldritch represented to a planet, but although it was a big reason, it wasn’t the only reason,” confessed Amdirlain. “I feel the main reason I ditched Xaos so fast was I based myself there while torturing Torm’s remains.”

Sarah hissed. “You didn’t say a thing.”

“I would have thought the reason was obvious,” said Amdirlain.

“Were you worried days spent there would have rubbed the open wound?” asked Sarah, clasping Amdirlain’s hand in hers.

“I didn’t give it a chance to twist that way, I just chopped off the possibility,” said Amdirlain. “It wasn’t even a conscious decision. Self-protection mode flared, and I had a foe to beat bloody, so I jumped out of there. It might seem a shallow reason, but there were other factors.”

“Yngvarr and Alfarr followed you there,” said Sarah. “And Livia.”

“Torm was a big part of Livia’s life, but I met her first. Yngvarr and Alfarr were a big part of what I was avoiding,” sighed Amdirlain. “The four of us had battled foes in Limbo.”

“Guilt?”

“Fuck yes, then I felt that I’d gotten a long-term friend of both of them killed—worse than killed,” spat Amdirlain. “I can accept now it was his own choices that screwed things up. Yet I put him in proximity to those possibilities.”

“Do you think they see it that way?”

Amdirlain shook her head. “That just made it worse. Accusations give you something to struggle against.”

“Or drown you by providing more sources of self-doubt,” countered Sarah.

“Yeah, okay,” said Amdirlain. “Some days, it was a mix of both churning away beneath my Mental Hardening. Anyway, I’d been on Qil Tris for a couple of years, and the grief over Torm had eased enough that I could stop and realise why I’d done it. Master Cyrus, Livia, and the updates from others let me know things were going well, so I didn’t need to rush back. I always had just intended it to be this base of operations to take a breath at before the next foray, and with it having become a potential source of pain, I stayed away.”

“Are you going to keep them at arm’s length still?” asked Sarah.

Amdirlain shook her head. “We can further link Nolmar and the monastery’s work. I’m sure Yngvarr won’t object to exchanging arcane knowledge with the Dragon teachers.”

“I think you can twist her arm,” drawled Sarah.

The reminder of the gender change Amdirlain had facilitated stirred more questions about her inability to let her previous restraints go.

“I take it you’re not looking to teach magic as well,” said Sarah.

“Certainly not. Unlocking affinities is the only contribution I’ll be making there,” said Amdirlain. “I’m not concerned about the slow growth in my Wizard skills, they’re fallback contingencies. As such, though, I’ll close some of the gaps.”

“Oh?”

“Inscription and potion making,” said Amdirlain. “If I’m helping out local mortals, I’d like to leave them behind skills they can leverage to improve their lives. Now, my Mana pool is still filling up, but I will hop to the next Demi-Plane and create a simpler one, so I’m not quite so strained following shifts in the notes I need.”

“I know one of your focuses that seems to bring you pleasure,” Sarah offered. “You’re always looking to improve things, and it's obvious when you’ve gotten them an outcome you like for someone who's been really struggling. You seem to gain a radiant glow.”

“I do?” questioned Amdirlain.

Sarah nodded reassuringly. “Enjoying improving someone’s life isn’t bad, but it makes it hard for you to let other people clean up their messes. I can see the effort it is for you when you know you’ve done enough, and it’s time for the other person to step up. Whenever you say it’s time for them to clean up their own mess, I get this feeling that you’re gritting your teeth and sitting on your hands.”

Amdirlain laughed. “I so don’t.”

Sarah shooed her away. “Enough pretend. Didn’t you have something else planned?”

“Demi-Plane creation,” huffed Amdirlain. “Yes.”

“You’re letting yourself get distracted,” noted Sarah. “Why?”

“It’s disconcerting having heard how badly out of tune I was,” allowed Amdirlain. “I’m surprised Roher didn’t say anything.”

“You can ask him next time you speak to him,” said Sarah. “Did you notice it with Resonance-Lord?”

“No,” replied Amdirlain.

“Then maybe it is an element of the Prince tier evolution kicking in,” proposed Sarah.

“That’s a possibility. Right. Time to stop procrastinating. Are you coming along?” asked Amdirlain, and she waved to the surrounding landscape. “Or did you want to try out this playpen?”

“I’ve got mine,” laughed Sarah. “I’ll come along.”

The shift to the next Demi-Plane placed them back into darkness. With no ley lines or living beings to influence the Mana that had soaked through the plane’s boundary, it rushed into Amdirlain’s Mana Pool. Pain Eater warned of the sting from the energy influx, but it rapidly faded as her pool reached equilibrium with her surroundings. Before Amdirlain began, she stretched Resonance to its limits and let it brush against the planar boundary. The energy flux shifting in through the Demi-Plane’s membrane set wild notes dancing across her awareness. Chaos turned into ordered patterns of Mana that reinforced the Demi-Plane’s existence and waited for something to draw upon them.

The sturdy notes of the bedrock slid from her lips, and Amdirlain carefully adjusted their pitch through the substrate of the energies they carried. The landscape grew towards them one layer at a time while Sarah hovered in the air beside her. When the soft topsoil was prepared for plants and snow covered the mountain peaks, Amdirlain landed and danced in time to the next pieces.

The soft earth shifted between her feet, but her dance smoothed the song’s rough edges, providing an organic feel to the sharpest notes. Desire intensified within Sarah’s theme, and the heat of her flush carried into Amdirlain’s movements. The mild songs suddenly roared along her skin, and Amdirlain raced to keep up. A sapling rose from the soil ahead of her, and Amdirlain smoothly stepped into the air to avoid getting tangled in its branches.

A twitch of Sarah’s lips had Amdirlain’s laughter spilling out, the lively sound infesting the music that thrummed from her flesh, adding energy and an exuberance she hadn’t felt in the songs before. Rather than halt, she continued the piece before she flowed into the next. Even though her laughter was contained, the sense of it in her awareness continued to infuse the songs. When she was finished, what should have been a landscape of earth tones was awash with vivid colours: bright pinks, soft oranges, and brilliant reds were just the start; the sky was a sparkling sapphire hue, and the sun a gleaming friendly yellow. Purple clouds unleashed shining cyan showers. The plants were covered with exotically coloured leaves and had grown two or three times their average size.

“Whoops,” giggled Amdirlain. “Looks like I upended the colour palate.”

[Crafting Summary (Category: Biome fundamentals)

Grouped by type

Self-sustaining continent-sized biome (small) x1

Bonus elements - Training Challenges:

Low-tier gathering challenges x3,715

Low-tier combat challenges x1,546

Tier one to five monster zone biome x1

Total Experience gained: 1,067,500,000

Olindë: +1,067,500,000

Olindë Levelled Up!

True Song Genesis [G] (10->11)]

The crafting notification doesn’t indicate anything wrong, but the plants have alien hues. Baby slimes, goblins, kobolds, various non-intelligent monsters, and wild creatures. That should ensure the rawest novices among the students have to mind their steps without overwhelming them.

“Do you think the gatherers will identify anything?” asked Sarah. “It looks like you were tripping on LSD, or a hippie mugged you and upended their shirt into your brain.”

Amdirlain pouted and spun in a circle with her arms outstretched. “But it’s so pretty!”

“It’s bright,” muttered Sarah. “But I don’t think it’s an example you want to show to Livia.”

“Maybe not,” agreed Amdirlain, and she winked at Sarah. “I’ll give my brain a break and let the giggles you caused subside.”

“I caused!” exclaimed Sarah. “You’re the one that almost danced face-first into a tree.”

“Sapling,” corrected Amdirlain with a smile. “I was a little distracted by all the details, but I’ll be able to calm the colours down.”

“Maybe sort it out after your giggle fit is completely gone,” proposed Sarah, and she spun a disc across her fingers. “My turn to drive.”

“Fine,” chimed Amdirlain.

The Planar Shift delivered them to the monastery’s edge, and Amdirlain caught the six melodies awaiting them in her courtyard.

“Six visitors at once. I’m privileged,” said Amdirlain.

“Who?”

With a grin, Amdirlain teleported them both.