SURPRISE it's the formless void!

There's a guy in it. Or, like, the concept of a guy. An image of a human that definitely has a reasonable amount of detail until she tries to actually look at any of the details, at which point huh, what details, no details here. The words are very comprehensible, though.

"...And... got you! Sorry about that. The hero summoning spell works by grabbing people who wish they were somewhere else. Evidently that's why this kind of spell gets so many people about to be run over by chariots, or "Trunks" as I believe your people call it."

"Don't mind the formless vortex between worlds. You're currently transitioning between the world you've left behind, and our world. I'm not actually here with you, this is a preset message - we're pulling in dozens of people a day. We aren't only summoning people from your "Earth" either, the lure reaches into hundreds of world. The whole process is beyond our ability to direct or control, honestly. It will outlive me."

"...Trucks, not trunks. Trunks are something else." 

"Thank you."

"This message is itself semi-sapient, and can communicate to you through its analytical functions. I apologize for not responding to you smoothly, but weaving a semi-autonomous agent into an interface inside a self-perpetuating summoning spell embedded into the fabric of reality was non-trivial. I'm quite proud of it."

"Still, I apologize for the deceptive nature of the lure. The first component of the hero summoning spell is a wish to be elsewhere. But given a larger time-window, a vague wish could work, with the right preparations, and a minor glamour to help draw you in. And now you're here, and soon you will be in Adastra."

"What is Adastra and why are you summoning people there?" Of all the times for her assumptions about when people were joking to be wrong...still, it's better than never being offered the proverbial magic wardrobe at all. 

"Adastra is the planet to which you are being summoned. The Fourfold Apocalypse not only increased the lands we hold one hundred thousandfold, but has left us with less than a tenth of our old population."

"There are many benefits a Summoned Hero gets simply for being a Summoned Hero. You receive the Hero Icon - I've heard summoned heroes call it their 'Class' before, and it means you're included with the people of the highest class, dukes and kings, so I suppose that works."

"But while most people struggle to bond a single Icon, and few bound one as potent as The Hero, Summoned Heroes also naturally bond the Outsider Icon - a sub-classification of it known as the "Native Outsider." It's not as potent as The Hero icon, but pretty much the only Icon that's a peer to The Hero is The Demigod. The Outsider is a potent Icon, and a Native Outsider ignores the few downsides of that state."

"I don't think that's what they mean by class. And if I'm right, does that mean you can 'level up' in it?" 

"Within our world, people found ways to improve their State of Existence and Level of Existence by studying beings that naturally had a higher Level of Existence. Outsiders, Demigods, Dragons, these beings were naturally tied to fundamental Icons that underlie reality. By learning about these primordial Icons, the mortal races learned to forge artificial Icons and bind themselves to them."

"By 'filling' an icon with harvested Potential, it was possible to gain powers through that Icon. And once the Icon was completely filled, it could be 'completed' by flooding it with excess Potential until it 'breaks' and rebuilds itself, 'ascending' to the next stage. I've heard Summoned Heroes call these stages 'levels', but that's confusing. We call them 'Ascensions.' When you're finished templating, you'll be at the First Ascension, having bonded to your icons. When one Ascends, it will also improve that person's Level of Existence by one rank per Icon at the time of Ascension."

Sweeeeeeeeeet. 

"How do I harvest potential?" She really hopes it doesn't involve mandatory murder, ignoring the ethical implications of goblin genocide is one thing when it's an actual video game but if she's going to actually live that RPG lifestyle then presumably the mobs will also be real people with hopes and dreams and a preference to not get shanked. 

"Icons generate potential whenever they are True. A Warrior Icon generates Potential when that person acts like a warrior. That can be practicing martial skills or winning a fight, or something less direct like intimidating someone else into backing down. As a Hero, or Pinnacle, all great deeds and impressive accomplishments, be they in war or diplomacy, magic or art, are True to your nature and generate Potential."

"For most people, Potential developed through one form of endeavour can only be added to the associated Icon: someone who was both a Warrior and an Artificer would need to generate both Warrior Potential and Artificer Potential to Ascend. As an Outsider, all Potential you generate is you Potential, and can be added to any of your Icons: Outsider, Pinnacle, and your third Icon if you should choose to bind one."

That is deeply cool. 

"What makes an Outsider icon True?"

"The Outsider's defining characteristic is that they aren't part of any reality, but are their own self-contained reality. An Angel in Elysium isn't truly within Elysium, but is its own Angel-sized realm full of Angel, and their physical position is the dimensional nexus between their reality, and the reality of Elysium."

"Natural outsiders are born from the very substance of reality in planes that overlap themselves: a piece of the plane becomes so convoluted that it pinches its way free and becomes a separate entity. In your case, the Templating that shifts a Summoned Heroe from 'native of a non-magical universe' to 'native of a magical universe' gives them this self-contained nature, and so they become Outsiders. More specifically, they are Native Outsiders, outsiders whose 'inner rules' are those of a material plane. This is an advantage, because the Material can go anywhere. Anti-Outsider effects, banishment magic, wards, and more all fail when used against a Native Outsider."

"Outsiders gain Potential whenever they act according to their unique natures: that is, whenever they do something that comes naturally to them and which few other types of being would be inclined to do. Angels gain Potential through acts of justice or generosity, Devils through enslaving or corrupting other beings, and so on."

Things she would do that most other people wouldn't. 

Well. 

This'll be fun. 

"Thank you, that's very good to know."

"The Outsider is a potent Icon, and a Native Outsider ignores the few downsides of that state."

"Summoned heroes are able to naturally bind to a third Icon. The Analytical Spells will let you see what Icons you resonate with and let you finish that bonding process."

"Beyond having potent Icons, a Summoned Heroes' journey through the void means they'll have taken on some of the nature of that chaotic nothingness, letting them gain Exceptions, ways that the rules don't apply to them, or where they've redefined the rules in relations to themselves. You appear to have acquired the capacity for three Exceptions."

"Does the number of exceptions vary between Summoned Heroes? How many is usual?"

"This spell's data store was created when the latest form of summoning ritual was first developed. Previous versions typically provided Heroes with the capacity for two Exceptions."

"--Is that because I'm the first one you've summoned, or is the data from this interaction going to be lost when I'm done being summoned?"

"This spell's data store was created when the latest form of summoning ritual was first developed. It is unable to integrate data between castings."

"...Are you conscious?" 

"Consciousness, in the sense of the ability to form beliefs, exercise moral judgement, and experience preferences, requires a connection to all three of the Astral Deep, the Flow of Nature, and the Well of Glamour. Combining all three in a single spell at the level of sophistication required to support a conscious mind is widely considered theoretically impossible."

"I don't care about those philosophical whatevers, I care if you have experiences and qualia."

"This spell contains information derived from the experiences of the Mage who created it, but cannot have additional experiences. A spell capable of supporting conscious mind is widely considered theoretically impossible."

Okay. Whew. That's a relief. 

"You're very articulate for an entity without the ability to exercise judgment. Do you have data on the outcomes of the previous round of Summoned Heroes, like, is it generally better to choose a third Icon based on the abilities it grants or the Potential it can harvest?"

"The abilities of the Pinnacle and Native Outsider are great and potentially world-shaking. The common icons are less so, but their smallness means that they are more easily wielded, and will greatly shape the path you'll follow in the days ahead. The smaller abilities a common Icon grants can focus and limit the grander ability you have into something practical and usable. Summoned Heroes do not lack for opportunities to generate Potential; the primary purpose of the third Icon is to provide useful abilities and the opportunity to develop focused Aspects."

Nod nod. This is exciting! She should think about what kind of practical abilities she would like. "Magic" is the obvious answer, but probably there are a lot of magic-related options and she's going to have more specific choices. 

"The other way Icons display their power is through Aspects. These can appear to be superhuman or supernatural skills and abilities - ways for an Icon to reflect its nature onto the world around it through the person it is bound to. Some Aspects are broader and weaker, others narrower and more powerful."

"All Icons have a broad 'Aspect of Themselves', which gives a noticeable affinity for doing anything that Icon represents. For example, a Warrior will naturally display skill in violence, endure hardship, survive harsh circumstances, and intimidate others."

"Icons naturally have four other reflections, and they gain another reflection each Ascension - I've heard your people call them 'Skill Slots.' Most Icons freely develop abilities appropriate to the Icon within these slots."

"It's also worth noting that certain mystical experiences and mastery of various forces can further improve the Rank of one's Level of Existence. Most people will have achieved an extra improvement to their Level of Existence by their Fifth Ascension, but heroes have an easier time of it. Many achieve that before their first, and by their third may have managed it five or six times, depending on their Exceptions. These improvements affect the Lifescroll similarly to Ascensions, but do not produce slots for extra Aspects."

"Such outside sources of Potential can alternatively be used to develop Aspects outside of the purview of their Icons. This is useful in general, but especially for Outsiders because they only need a starting investment. A famous warrior once absorbed much of the Potential of a dragon he slew by bathing in its blood, and used this to develop an Aspect of Invincibility. That Aspect was deeply flawed though, because he had no native way of generating appropriate Potential to feed it. You would not have that problem."

Ooooooh. Well, she has no intention of slaying any dragons, but--wait, hang on. 

"Are dragons a kind of person, or animal, in Adastra? The word you're using corresponds to a fictional archetype, in my world, that can be either." 

"There have been many attempts to create an Icon the equal to the hero or demigod. Rather than finding concepts that flowed into what they wanted, they started with what they wanted and worked backwards. In the end, they 'succeeded.' They created an Icon of primal power, indomitable defense, and elemental fury. Unfortunately, it was just a shell, something that held the pieces they wanted together, but could never unify into an Icon one could bind."

"This False Icon finally found a use when the gods created the dragon Tribe. Along with elves, Dragons are a crafted race, but while elves were created as a reward, to live perfect lives, Dragons were created as weapons. And while it was impossible to give anyone their false Icon of power, they could use it to build aspects and build them into their created race. With their support, it would become possible for their new Dragons to continue to develop Aspects of that hollow power, and so the gods' false Icon became known as the Dragon Icon."

"Dragons are fundamentally beasts, though more powerful and dangerous than anything else in that category. However, there are also the Dragonblood, an elite Tribe of beastfolk created when humans lived long in lands infused with the power of Dragons. Dragonblood are fast, strong, tough, and have an innate magical 'weight' they can throw into their elemental and magical workings. They are long-lived and mature slowly: Dragonblood are born at the tenth level of existence, generally reach the twelfth by adulthood, and their women need a level of nineteen to be fertile. You will have the option to become a Dragonblood as part of your transformation into a being of this universe, along with any of the other intelligent Tribes."

Oooooh. 

"What does it mean to be born into a higher level of existence? Does it give you Aspects, or something else?"

"Someone's Level of Existence is an overall multiplier to everything they do, and can be leveraged to directly influence reality. Honestly, there are countless technique and abilities that would can develop through one's Level of Existence, or Level Rank."

"But the one that always catches the eye of Summoned Heroes is that at the twentieth rank, one no longer grows old, instead returning to an idealized age."

"Your Life Scroll determines your starting Level, and most people never improve on it - only one in five bind an Icon. Humans generally start at the first or second level. You'll be starting at a six, the elven average, unless you make choices that change this."

“—Yeah, no longer aging sounds great! If most people don’t improve on their starting level, does that mean most dragonblood women aren’t fertile?”

"Dragonblood women are more likely to bind Icons than most, having greater need, but despite most of their number being ageless they are not a numerous Tribe."

"Is bathing in the blood of a dragon a reliable way to create an Aspect of Invincibility, and if so, would being Dragonblooded interfere?"

"Very few things can reliably kill a true Dragon, but anyone who did so would be able to reap the benefits, regardless of their Tribe."

"Well, if I'm going to be pulling off epic feats in order to harvest Pinnacle potential anyway,"' she shrugs. "What about fucking a dragon, would that get you anything?" She probably won't, since they apparently aren't people, but the magic AI could be wrong about that, or she could figure out how to uplift one, or something. 

"That would potentially produce a Dragonblood offspring, if your Level of Existence was high enough to sustain the pregnancy."

"Why is it that you have to have a high level of existence to be fertile, anyway?"

"The details of how parents's lifescrolls produce those of their children, and why pregnancies succeed or fail, were beyond our present science when this spell was created. All we can do is observe the patterns."

Huh. Well, that's mildly inconvenient. Maybe she'll be this world's Gregor Mendel, if there aren't too many other people from modern Earths, just because she paid attention in high school biology. 

"While it might not be something you worry about right now, the promise of romance in our lure is honest enough. Generally speaking, there wasn't much societal concern with who you paired with until recently. There were enough ageless people that no-one was very concerned about population growth."

"But the Fourfold Apocalypse not only increased the lands we hold one hundred thousandfold, but has left us with less than a tenth of our old population. Worst, the greatest losses were from our heroic lines, those best placed to help us rebuild."

"Long term, we hope you help us retake what we once had, and expand into these strange new lands as the matriarch of your own heroic lineage."

She's a lot more interested in having babies and giving those babies as many tools as she possibly can than in participating in some aristocratic schema where her children have specific expectations on them, but go off, she guesses. 

"Are you ready to choose how to shape your Void influence into Exceptions? I can list them all or go over them one at a time."

“Let’s go breadth-first.”

"You will be able to change your choices, in this and other things, until you have made all of them and moved to the final stage of the templating process. Your options are:"

Flexible, which sacrifices the ability to bind a third Icon at this Ascension in exchange for the ability to form any Aspects you choose, and discard them to free up the slots;

Exultant, which will conversely optimize your third Icon and its Aspects to greater power and refinement;

True Outsider, which will likewise optimize your Outsider Icon;

Aspected, which will double the number of Aspects you can create at every Level of Existence;

Classy, which will allow you to bind a fourth Icon during the templating process;

Tree of Possibility, an Exception with excellent long-term potential which will let you raise any future Icons you gain to your current ascension, with the extra Aspects that implies;

Echoes of Time, an Aspect which will let you trap people in counterfactual shadow-timelines;

Fluid Space, an Aspect which grants the power to shatter paths between two points, pinch distances, open portals, and control gravity;

Rewarding Destiny, which makes people who help you become supernaturally lucky;

Retributive Destiny, which makes those who harm you supernaturally unlucky;

Resonant Fate, which makes your actions have stronger karmic consequences guided by your own sense of ethics;

The Hydra's Path, which lets you live in multiple timelines and choose which one becomes real;

Ignis Fatuus Fate, which protects you from both negative karma and the mundane consequences of your actions;

Specious Mien, which warps others' minds to become obsessed with you;

Resurrection, which lets you restore one person to life for each person you kill;

Reciprocity error, which rewards your good deeds with material objects;

Frozen World, which steals time from your enemies and gives extra time to you and your allies;

I So Declare, which empowers you to make prophecies and steer fate into bringing those events to pass;

Coin of Friendship, which enables you to manifest the 'vibes' generated by your actions as loyal Outsiders;

Defensive Power, which gives you an optimized boosted Pinnacle Aspect of defense;

Magical Power, which gives you an optimized boosted Pinnacle Aspect of spellcasting;

Bodily Power, which gives you an optimized boosted Pinnacle Aspect of health, strength, speed, toughness, dexterity, and so on;

Arcadian Power, which gives you an optimized boosted Pinnacle Aspect of Glamour and Psionics;

Control of the Light of Law, the higher element which creates and transforms in accordance with your will;

Control of Oblivion, the higher element which unmakes all things absolutely;

Control of Iron Glamour, the higher element of the Iron Fae which produces metastable and unstable narrative causality;

Or control of Deep Dream, the higher element of the horrors from before time, which warps the laws of physics.

I can provide additional details on any options which interest you.

This is kind of a lot. 

She has to pick only three of them? Terrible, simply terrible. 

She can strike Retributive Destiny off the list immediately. Likewise Specious Mien and definitely Control of Oblivion. She's generally in favor of things existing! Probably not all things, but considering the opportunity cost, nope. 

"Can you tell me more about Deep Dream?" She's not going to lie, "horrors from before time which warp the laws of physics" is pretty appealing. 

"Deep Dream is the most mysterious of the higher elements. It is associated with the horrors, prehistoric monsters from before time, at least as we understand it. We think of horrors as completely material beings that correspond to the Absurd Flow, and possess neither Orgone nor Spirit. But the truth is somewhat more complicated."

"Deep Dream appears to unify Psionic Will with the Cycles of Nature, creating an alloy. This is not the same way a psychic would invest Will into matter - they would use Spirit as an interface and medium of control. This is Matter expressing will, independent of spirit. How fascinating."

"Deep Dream rewrites the world. Not controls it, but redefines it. Deep Dream doesn't use telekinesis, but rewrites gravity, loops time, and turns matter into new impossible substances."

"Deep Dream appears to be this interface that... bonds with a Cycle of Nature, and allows for this joining. We never understood what was going on."

"It is the most dynamic of the Higher Elements, and the changes it works are lasting and stable by default rather than effort. It can also act on a larger scale than any other element except Oblivion."

"It stalemates with The Light of Law - it can continually change, but so can the Light. It's more myriad, but the light is more purposeful."

"It loses to Oblivion. Substance falls before Nothingness."

"And while it can hold back Iron Glamour, even thwart it, it can not truly defeat or destroy it in anything resembling an equal contest."

"Tell me about the Light of Law?" she's sort of skeptical of this one--fuck the cops--but she ought to hear it out. 

"The Light of Law was originally created by the Archons, high level angels. While the concept that things do as they ought flows naturally in the Astral Depths, such is not true in either the Material Plane or Arcadia."

"The Light of Law is Light that is a vessel and transmitter of Law, part of a story of how that Law was effectively applied, and the substance of Light to give it concrete footing."

"As such, the Light of Law is light that... does what you require of it. Do you need to lift a bridge? The light becomes a construct that is solid yet flexible enough to do so. It has the properties you need and applies them effectively. Do you need to heal a man? The light bolsters life. Do you need to strike someone down? The Light burns them away."

"Out of all the higher elements, the Light of Law is the most convenient. It does what you ask of it and is effective at leveraging its effect."

"In a direct conflict, Oblivion will unmake the Light faster than it can apply itself, though it will lose slower than any 'mundane' element."

"It will tie against Deep Dream. The greater versatility and transformation of Deep Dream stalemates against the firmer control and direction of the Light of Law."

"The Light of Law will struggle against Iron Glamour. It can become all things, but all things become ineffective in the face of Iron Glamour."

"What is Iron Glamour?"

"Iron Glamour is a paradox in multiple senses. It's what happens when Glamour is forced into the story of Iron, of the degenerate states that unmake it, and that seething making and unmaking mass is stabilized into an 'element'."

"A good analogy was told to me by a hero, one you might understand. He compared it to antibiotic resistance. The Iron Glamour churns and mostly destroys itself as it comes into being. That destroyed part gets recycled into the unmanifested, undefined 'mass' of iron glamour. But there are survivors, and those survivors propagate."

"These survivors are... changed. Weird. They exist in an ecosystem with the churning undefined portion of the Iron Glamour, slowly being consumed even as new survivors churn out and propagate in turn. This churning forms the 'Ecosystem' of an expression of Iron Glamour."

"Iron Glamour produces things that are either 'incomplete', and in their incompleteness absorb and consume the properties and substances of the world, patching their incompleteness, or things that are 'too real', shedding reality and infecting everything around them with their own nature. Which direction this goes in is uncontrollable, even by the Iron Fae. They exist in a constant state of invisible flux."

"An ecosystem is 'stable' if the story that describes it churns out 'balanced' sets of incomplete and too complete elements, and those elements are generated within the narrative of the story the Iron Fae embodies. Such beings have the normal lifespan of a Fairy, or whatever being they are if a non-fairy."

"They are meta-stable if they lack one of those qualities. Meta-stable Iron Glamour will lack one of those, and will eventually decay into instability, though that can take years. Unstable Iron Glamour lacks both traits, and tends to survive for hours at most before it rips itself apart."

"The Iron Glamour elementalism exception would give you a stable ecosystem of Iron Glamour. I should note that stable systems create meta-stable expressions outside themselves, and a meta-stable system creates an unstable one. You would not be a source of true Iron Fae, but of medium-term Iron Glamour phenomena."

"Generally, this means that your Iron Enchantments will follow the narrative you set, but how they do so will be somewhat uncontrolled, as they vary their expression of completeness, twisting the way they express your narrative."

"Within its narrative, Iron Glamour is highly dynamic, as expressions that fulfill their purpose churn and propagate, and those that fail break and are recycled."

"Iron Glamour is the most tenacious of the higher elements. It is obviously completely immune to the banes of Glamour, but is also generally immune to... reality happening to it. It requires overwhelming force to destroy."

"The Light of Law can forever change itself to be something effective against Iron Glamour, but it can't become something effective enough."

"Deep Dream is in a similar situation, though it fares better. Generally, while it can resist Iron Glamour, it can't win against it."

"Oblivion destroys Iron Glamour faster than it churns, but not enough faster. It turns into a brutal and dangerous slog - a fight with a winner, but who that winner is, is in question."

She's not going to lie, she likes that description. 

"Is Tree of Possibility as good as it sounds?"

"Summoned Heroes are known for their uncanny luck, but it's not actually luck. They make the right choices to make themselves lucky. That this is technically a power that transcends time rather than minor probability manipulation is a subtle enough distinction that's only normally of interest to scholars."

"While you can't change the past, this Exception lets you maintain a 'link' to it, and on some level stop something from becoming 'past.' While you can't change what was, you can backdate."

"Essentially, this exception creates a mark on your soul, like the rings of a tree. You can find the 'you' at the first Ascension, and help them develop an aspect. This won't change the world around you, but it will change you. You can essentially go back and develop aspects you skipped over, 'filling in' what you didn't do."

"Interestingly enough, this 'backdating' lets you target individual icons in an interesting way. I think you'll be able to raise any future Icons you gain to your current ascension, rather than having them always lag behind. This is very much an Exception that will show its value in the long run."

"I got most of that from your initial description; what I mean is, is 'backdating' icons like that as incredibly useful as it sounds, because it sounds incredibly useful."

"Yes. Tree of Possibility is an Exception which wouldn't help you much early on, but would become steadily more of an advantage the further you grow."

"I want Tree of Possibility. What else is especially good in the long term?"

"Aspected will enable you to develop twice as many Aspects by pulling Potential from your Icons into your Level of Existence. At low Ascension, a Pinnacle's Aspects are so broad, you might have trouble leveraging multiple ones at the same time, and early Outsider Aspects are potent but quirky. But as you grow, Aspected is pretty much the definition of a long term Exception. Once it matures, it represents overwhelming might."

Nod nod. 

"Is this my only chance to gain control over one of the elements that were at the end of the list?"

"No. If you bind a suitable Icon, such as the Wizard or Druid, you will be able to create Aspects for elemental powers. It is also possible to study the control of a higher element without access to an appropriate Aspect, but the results will take longer and be less impressive."

"What's the practical difference between getting it as an Aspect and getting it as an Exception?"

"An elementalism Exception would instantly grant a level of power and skill that it would take years to develop as an Aspect, as well as a permanent boost to the speed with which you would be able to grow further in your use of that element."

Hmmmm. Sounds nice, but not uniquely advantageous like Tree of Possibility and Aspected. 

"Is killing people something that Heroes are definitely going to have to do?"

"Heroes can walk nearly any path in life they choose, but as their powers grow, many seek to change the world, and many possible changes to the world draw opposition, and many possible forms of that opposition lead inevitably to those Heroes either killing or dying."

"Growing in power requires overcoming challenges. For some Icons, those may be intellectual, scientific, or diplomatic; for others, they must be intelligent opponents defeated by strength or cunning."

"People start retreating from the world at higher ascensions. I don't know too much about it, but it usually starts around the seventeenth ascension.They become involved in matters outside this plane, taking on duties beyond Adastra. I do not know the nature of those duties, or whether they involve killing--only that they are important."

There is the sensation, for a moment, that the void is very large, and contains things other than Lavinia and the spell-ghost, and some of them are paying attention. 

WOW OMINOUS. 

...On the one hand, if she takes Resurrection, that introduces obvious incentive problems vis-a-vis killing people. On the other hand, if she's going to have children, she would really really like to make sure nothing happens to them. 

"Can you tell me more about Resurrection?"

"It is a strange thing, this Exception; it twists the rules of Karma. Karma is a subtle force, mostly used by the gods to gently nudge the direction of nations more in line with their vision. It's an immaterial, invisible force that barely exists on the level of the individual, despite the words of priests and mystics."

"The Resurrection Exception is a corruption of the natural flow of Karma, reversing cause and effect. It would let you harvest the Karmic weight of those you destroy, forging them into Life Threads - the very threads of Destiny and Karma that inform the universe that someone is alive and exists."

"By granting someone a thread, you could assert that they are alive and still exist. You could bring back the dead and command them to live!"

"You must 'stretch' these forged lifelines backwards from the moment of someone's death to the present, and this appears to follow an inverse cube law. The more recently someone died, the easier they are to restore. It also seems that targeting can create inefficiencies - without a strong link (like a body), it becomes much more expensive to restore someone, measured in multiple deaths for each such resurrection."

"You would auto-restore yourself if you die. You wouldn't have to resurrect yourself where you fell, either, but may take advantage of an Outsider's Living Nexus nature to reappear anywhere you have a strong connection."

That is a reeeeaaaaaally tempting power. 

"...Are there other ways to resurrect people?"

"If you bind a chained spirit later in the templating process, you will be able to reassert their existence should they be destroyed, and vice versa if you die while they live. Some mages become undead, at varying costs to their mental stability. There may be other methods unknown to me, but none both reliably learnable and lacking in major drawbacks, for such a thing would have become famous even if only as a legend."

“Bind a chained spirit” is such a concerning phrase, but.

“If I were to…bind a chained spirit…could I kill them to fuel the Resurrection power, and then reassert their existence afterwards?”

"I have no memory of such a thing being attempted and can only speculate. Killing your own chained spirit would likely not produce a useable life-thread, as their life would simply respool back into yourself as the ability to remanifest them. However, with skill and practice it might be possible to do something similar by killing the chained spirit of another summoned Hero, who would then be able to reassert their existence without affecting your access to the life thread."

"...I'll take Resurrection as my third exception," she decides. Even if she can't manage a positive-sum number of lives saved versus taken, she can at least protect her own children. Which is deeply, deeply important. Ideally it would never come up! But if it does, she'll be ready. 

"Exceptions: Aspected, Tree of Possibility, and Resurrection."

"The next step is to choose your third Icon. Before I list your options there, it may be helpful to become more familiar with the Pinnacle and Native Outsider icons and their starting Aspects, and with the paths of power in Adastra which you may wish to walk: magic, glamour, orgone, and psionics."

Orgone? She realizes this is some kind of translation effect, but she's pretty sure she's seen that on the internet as sex energy. Okay, well, this'll be interesting. "Hit me." 

"The Pinnacle Icon represents the impossible peak that can never be reached. As such, one can only arrive at it via Miracle. It was the Icon given to the greatest champions of the gods, and to rare beings born under impossible paradoxical circumstances, until wizards figured out a way to cheat someone inside it through the Hero Summoning Ritual."

"Feeding Potential into the Pinnacle Icon tends to cause overall growth in all areas, mentally, physically, and spiritually, but potential fed to the Pinnacle Icon can not be focused. If the Pinnacle has a weakness, it's their inability to focus. Pinnacles have trouble focusing their potential into focused, limited abilities."

"All of a Pinnacle's starting Aspects are fixed. The Pinnacle can be used to develop additional Aspects within one's own Level of Existence, like all Icons. The Pinnacle loathes tightly focused abilities and cannot be used to develop them, but easily develops broad flexible masteries."

"The starting Pinnacle aspects are:

Input Idealisation, which transforms your inputs into any process to produce outcomes better than naturally possible;

Outcome Enforcement, which makes the effects of your actions more favorable, more extreme, and longer-lasting;

Cthonic Will, which grants unlimited strength of will against all attempts at coercion, magical or mundane,

and Becoming Light, a link between past and future that nudges you towards choices you will approve of having made."

Oooooh. Ooh. Oooooooooooooh. 

"What kind of impossible paradoxical circumstances?"

"Such cases are more in the realm of legends than of known facts, but I can tell you what I know. There are tales of a Pinnacle who bent Time to become her own mother. There are tales of a Bard who created a Pinnacle child, not by conceiving him but by composing him as a great song-cycle that attained both humanity and something greater. There are tales that the gods created a Pinnacle to be the foremother of all Elves.

"It was once believed that Demigods were Pinnacles, though the research that went into creating the summoning spell showed that the Demigod is a different Icon, the only one that rivals the Pinnacle for power and glory."

Hmm. If there were something slightly less impossible among those examples, Lavinia could aspire to have children who were both Pinnacles and Demigods, but she supposes only the latter will have to do, absent further research. 

"I see. Thank you."

"The Native Outsider is an Outsider of the Material Plane, and the material plane is ruled by the flow of natural forces, as well as Orgone, the form natural forces take when controlled by life. Hence, while aren't elementals, they often express their abilities in similar manners. The starting Aspects of the Native Outsider are fixed like those of the Pinnacle, and are:

Null Presence, which makes it difficult for hostile magic to interact with you;

Solipsistic Integrity, the previously discussed Aspect which enables you to use all Potential you generate as you see fit;

Bolstering Influence, which strengthens your magic and that of your allies and makes you easier to target with helpful spells,

and Living Nexus, which exists mostly in potentia at the moment but which at higher Ascensions will allow you to redefine your location to include any places where your symbol is carried or your name is spoken."

"--Sorry, are you saying it makes me a god?"

"The similarities and differences between gods and Outsiders, especially Summoned Heroes, have been the subject of many works of scholarship. The primary differences are that gods can also perceive anything relating to their domains, cannot be destroyed as long as anything relating to their domain persists, lack physical bodies by default, and come into existence at a much higher level of power--speculated to be approximately the equivalent of the fiftieth Ascension."

So, yes, but a very small god. …Also probably her children don’t get the Demigod icon by default, which is important.

"If you have no further questions about the Pinnacle or Outsider Icons, I will explain magic, glamour, orgone, and psionics."

"Please do." 

"Magic calls upon Natural Law to inform the world how it should be. A law of fire will tell you that things ought to burn, that it is a commandment that they do so. Magic is the force of order, and each law is a broad thing that countless principles can be derived from, called relationships. These relationships explain how the Law can express itself."

"Magic is uniquely suited to command not only magic, but Glamour and the flow of Nature, and its imperative way of interacting with the world can simplify many things. For example, while Druids primarily manipulate The Flow of Nature through External Orgone, they use magic as a medium to interact with and target what they wish to manipulate, even if that manipulation is done through Orgone, and they use magic to understand and hold absurd complexities of what their transformations and command must express. While this isn't the only way to do this, it is the easiest, and so even a 'pure external Orgonist' like a druid uses magic in subtle but pervasive ways."

"Can you explain more about Natural Law?"

"On every plane, there are laws of how things are and should be in the absence of living things. On the Material, the laws say that fire burns and light refracts and water flows downhill. Why these laws and not others? Because these are the laws set by the form magic naturally takes here. Under the command of a wizard, the laws have whatever exceptions the wizard chooses, and the new laws they build hold sway."

“I see. Thank you.”

"Glamour is the expression of a story, a narrative. It gives connection and direction. Glamour spawns infinite dream realms that exist and are destroyed every moment, all without mattering. Without the Astral Deep from which magic arises, those stories are incoherent and say nothing. Without the Flow of Nature, they are insubstantial. While Glamour is infinite on its own, it can only matter or have substance when it interacts with the magical or the physical, thereby limiting it. Glamour can tell a story, bring the world into a story, or bring a story into the world. The last is known as an Arcadian Manifestation, and is... dangerous."

"Glamour suffers banes. Some banes are specific - most undead fear the sun, for example--but others are universal, like how iron breaks Glamour. Generally speaking, the more degenerate states of The Flow of Nature are universal banes to Glamour. Iron is the most degenerate, and therefore the most stable, form of the cycles of matter. More dynamic states may be the bane of particular expressions of Glamour, but not Glamour in general."

"Spirit, usually harvested from souls though there are more innocuous ways to generate it as well, can greatly stabilize Glamour, and give it an existence not subject to its banes. Well 'fed' glamour can also resist its banes, but if what it fed on was not spirit, that state is not stable and will revert over time. The use of glamour is called Enchantment."

Interesting. Lavinia nods to indicate that they can go on. 

"The Material World is formed out of the Absurd Flow of the Cycles of Nature. The Absurd Flow, or The Flow of Nature, is the substance of the material world. Not only is matter made from it, but so are space, time, and the tendencies that rule them. The Vard call The Absurd Flow "Cosmic Energy", and maybe that more closely matches the understanding you have from your world. The Absurd Flow is the wellspring of chaos, an ever-changing, inconstant force of substance."

"As chaos is self-defeating, The Flow of Nature defeats itself, conflicts with itself, forming into cycles. These cycles can be concrete, like Iron or Helium or Light, and also more abstract ones, like Entropy or Time. They form the riverbed of expression that the Absurd Flow of Nature traps itself in, and hence creates the illusion of constancy over the seething chaos of the physical world."

"When the Flow of Nature becomes part of a living system, that system taints the flow with narrative and law, turning the Flow of Nature, the Cosmic Energy, into Orgone, the Flow of Life. Orgone is almost still part of The Absurd Flow, but orders itself and has direction.

"Most people who manipulate the material world do so through Orgone. It behaves itself in a way nature doesn't. Such people are either Internal Orgonists, controlling and developing their internal energy and using is as a tool, or External Orgonists, turning the flow of nature outside themselves into their own Orgone, and then using that to direct and control nature."

“So Orgone isn’t specifically a sex thing?”