FIEF DETAILS

Fief Name: Starspire

Fief Purpose: Celestial Observatory (Mixture if Astronomy, Astrology, and Magic Channeling elements)

Fief Layout:



-Floor 1: "Public Face" Floor (i.e. Reception desk, offices and conference rooms, a drawing room for entertaining and receiving guests, etc.)
-Floor 2: Barracks and Jail (There is a small jail here for enemies of the fief or trespassers, but this is not commonly used. The majority of the floor is split up into residential, administrative, storage, and training areas for fief-guards and it also acts as a buffer/gauntlet protecting the upper floors from unauthorized intrusion from the lower floors and the path to the third floor is through a gauntlet on this floor).
-Floor 3: General Storage and Servant Quarters (Fairly self-explanatory. This floor also has supplemental kitchens and prep areas to help the 2nd, 5th, and 7th [for Starling] floor's function. But its main purpose is to store general supplies for the fief and house the servants).
-Floor 4: Archive and Library (A repository and library of findings from the observatory functions of the fief, but also houses other types of books as well as has a wing for books about magic and mysticism. Has some quiet study spaces as well, along with other spaces for researchers and other staff to confer in when they need to deliverate about their findings and projects.)
-Floor 5: Dormitory (Residential quarters for higher-ranking personnel like astrologers, arcanists, theurges, etc but also has some chambers set aside for trusted important guests)
-Floor 6: Chamber of Wonders (i.e. has a font for channeling magical energy through the 7th floor into mana crystals for rituals and storage, has a storage vault for magic items and mystic paraphernalia, and has magic-related practice and work spaces).
-Floor 7: Star-Chamber (Has an orrery and other fixtures that track the movements of the stars, other celestial bodies, and also fluctuations in the void, in magical patterns, etc. Has a central oculus-style dome on the ceiling that can be opened to the sky above or closed and sealed shut, and also an oculus in the center of the floor that can open or close that allows access to the open sky from the 6th floor when the channeling font is trying to gather power from celestial currents and conjunctions and moons and so on. There's plenty of space for mystics and astrologers to work here, as well, although a part of the floor is sealed off to act as Starling's personal quarters as well.)


Fief Servants: Servants are humanoid dolls in butler suits and maid outfits animated by minor anima spirits that are grateful for the chance to become embodied. Soldiers are lesser moon and star daemons drawn to Starling's celestial affinity. Higher-skilled servants are shadows of arcanists, astrologers, and even some theurges and shamans that were left behind from other worlds that were conquered and devoured by gods, and whose essences were slowly fading in the Void. These shadows were barely clinging to life and existence, and are being given a second chance at life and animation through Starling's eri-given divine sphere in exchange for fealty to the fief. They are literally shadows of their former selves right now, but perhaps as Starling grows more of their essence can be restored?
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:29, Wed 07 Sept 2022.

One of Starling's two main "Selves" appeared here, at the top of his spire. The ceiling occulus had opened up to reveal the open sky up above, which itself was swirling rather chaotically between his Stormseering and now air aspects. But also the overall churning of the over-realm Bastion itself with its fiefs. The nascent demi-divinity considered, and decided he needed to take time to practice more of his new powers.

Walking past a few of the shadows and shades that were beginning to form there like his tower were some rendition of the Lost House, Starling headed down to the 6th floor to explore a bit. He then found the channeling font, and reacting to his subconscious will the occulus there opened up connecting to the seventh floor, and thus to the open sky above. He saw the clouds stirring and swirling, and the  rumbling of stormy lightning in the distance, and he wondered something. [Feng Shui] had revealed a fundamental mystical truth to him previously, that all magical flows had a potential to be reversed. And this revealed the existence of Rain Dancing as the inverse to Lunar Magic. and so he decided to try and discover that tradition now that in his other self he was beginning to grasp the feel of real Lunar magic.

Starling began channeling magic and gathering mana using [Lunar Magic], but rather than condense it into a spell he stopped half-way and began to practice reversing the flow of the energy. Instead o f reaching out to the watery side of shamanism, he instead attempted to reach out to the shamany-side of water. And began to reach upward to the clouds above.

Starling attempts to practice and discover [rain Dancing] using [Feng Shui] to reverse the flow of [Lunar magic].

His [Illuminatio] pinged in warning, but Starling pushed through it. It wasn't just reversing flow, it was a reversing orientation. [Lunar Magic] spread 'out'; [Rain Dancing] drew down from somewhere above - not spatially, but dimensionally. Left, right, turn, backstep, rock forward, side-step, left-right-sway - he was standing in place, he was fixed in place. The steps were notes, the notes were butterflies. Butterflies that brought the rain.

Stirling shook his head. He had grasped the idea of it, of 'drawing down the moon'; it wasn't quite right, though. That a Lunar term. The rain was always there; it was always raining. He had just to hear it. Had to step between the drops. Had to welcome the gift of rain, dance with the storm.

His feet ached; his shoulders were tight. There was such a thing as too much rain. The same rain that saved the harvest could destroy it. [Rain Dancing] was a dangerous and mercurial magic.

[Rain Dancing LVL1] acquired.

[10 XP spent. 305XP remaining.]

Starling felt like he had discovered some open-secret fundamental truth about magic. That the magic was not just able to have flow reversed but orientation as well. Using Lunar Magic as a baseline was only natural, for while it wasn't his innate combination as a godling it was an innate type of magic for him racially speaking.

If Lunar magic was the watery side of Shamanism, then Rain Dancing was the Shamanic side of water. It was very different from Lunar magic, but yet...it has shamanic and watery elements that defined Lunarian native magic. With this realization, Starling suddenly unlocked [Rain Dancing]!

Starling accepts the xp expenditure, and for it to be added to his char sheet.

He wanted to try his new magic out. While Lunar magic certainly had the ability to broadly be shamanically useful, Rain Dance held a special potential to be more deeply attuned to Water than most other magics. So so he wondered about the waters that surrounded the outskirts of the Player Character Fief-dominion. The Rat or the goat...one of them he recalled interacted with the water, so it wasn't totally metaphorical. So what was it? Was it bounded? Was it normal water or figurative water? Did their collective dominion-cluster correspond to some physical place in the "real world" void like how the old House and the red moon and that weird planet did?

And so Starling went down the Spire, and to the base of the tower, and then out to the outskirts of the fiefdoms, where it was all surrounded by water. And he clapped his hands together once loudly as mana invisibly gathered, while his aching feet began to...stumble into a dancing motion that suddenly become more and more fluid and graceful! It was like he was doing dance dance revolution for the first time, and was bad at it, but then instinctive knew where to put his feet and once he stopped hesitating started unnaturally getting better and better at at until he was scoring 100's on the dance pad.

And so he danced at the shores of the outskirts of the fiefs, and beckoned the waters around him and before him, but also to the swirling clouds in the churning skies up above them as he used [Rain Dancing] + [Feng Shui] and attempted to commune with waters of the fief-dominion, and try to learn ore about them while establishing an elemental rapport.

Nothing happened.

Not for a long while.

Not until his hands cracked and twitched; not until his legs collapsed beneath him and his head pounded. He wasn't expending mana; with only one level in the art, no spell he could cast would affect such a large area.

As Starling collapsed, he flopped onto his back coated in sweat. He gazed up into the sky;

the sky gazed back.

The starry sky was no more. There was only deep, crushing blackness -

His [Illuminatio] talent plumbed the depths, parting the veil of the -

[Illuminatio] pushed further, past the veil, past the redaction -


[Corruption has advanced to 4. Evolution Path: Listener-in-Light unlocked.]

It was dark. Beyond dark. Starling felt weightless . . or at least his head did. His body felt normal. He tried to vomit, but couldn't. He couldn't speak; he couldn't even feel his tongue. He couldn't hear anything either. Couldn't smell anything, taste anything.  He could feel his body, could feel the ground beneath him, could feel - rain. He could feel rain all over his body, but couldn't feel any rain on his head. He could feel it . . somewhere strange. He could feel the rain beneath his head. Beneath his - he couldn't feel his face. He reached up to feel his face, but one hand just met the other.

[You have lost your head.]

Starling's senses grew vast. Impossible, even. He tried to dance and commune with the waters of the non-place their dominions lay with, but couldn't quite grasp it all. Not with the basics of the art he had just unlocked. But when he focused his efforts, then the sky began to gaze back at him as he gazed at it.

Then the moon was looking at him, from its eye, while its star-scales glistened in the void-skin of outer space.

and then he recalled a saying from Earth: that if you gaze too much into the abyss, the abyss will gaze into you in return.

And gaze into him it did! He held the growing affection of 5th dimensional abyssal beings, and the intrigued interest of the spirits and the anima, and the rain danced along his skin as it was drawn to him like the moon draws the seas.

And his head was now gone!

He panicked for a moment. For several, really. He couldn't breath, or scream, or vomit even! And so his lay there, soaked in rain and living in existential terror 1 second to the next. But then he realized...the seconds kept passing! Which meant he wasn't dead or dying. and panick turned to relief and no small amount of confusion.

How in hell was he alive? He had no head, but yet...he wasn't suffocating. Nor was his body being filled with water despite feeling rain ont he top of his neck, where it just...bounced off an invisible barrier. And of course, his neck wasn't gushing a geyser of blood like some decapitation movie.

Was he now a seeker with a lantern head? He felt the pre-requisites of an evolution unlock, but he needed more spheres from their godly enemies to reach the next stage of his growth. But what did he do now? He somehow could sense his surroundings...perhaps with [illuminatio] or spiritual sight or something else. But he still didn't understand what was happening.

And then he realized, he needed to stop, calm down, and think. If he wasn't in pain or dead and dying, he could afford to stop and think and try and understand his new reality and revelations.

Starling attempts to use the [Appraise] skill combined with [Feng Shui] and [illuminatio] to try and understand more about what had happened to his head.

He also tried to understand what happened to his ribbon armament, which was mostly wrapped around his head although some parts draped down to his shoulders like a scarf.

He used [Rain Dancing] in a more narrowly focused application that would be easier to channel and control, and tried to use it to provide more info about his head and his new condition, and any boons and banes it provided, if the above assessments were lacking.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:33, Tue 13 Sept 2022.

He got Nothing back.

Not - not the absence of information. He got [Nothing].

Nothing [Void-Type Armament]
Soulbound, Cursed

A lack of anything, where your head should be. Be rid of it at any cost.

Grants the bearer dreadful power over the memory of others, at the cost of the bearer's own senses.

There was once a boy who was summoned to a fantasy world as a hero. This was all he had.
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:40, Fri 16 Sept 2022.

Starling sighed. Or he would have, if this self of his had a head to sigh with. It was more a purely mental sigh.

However, despite learning [nothing] about this, he suddenly realized that this was better than nothing. Yes, [nothing] versus nothing. In then realized that, according to the fantasy-physics of the new world they inhabited that [nothing] was actually something after all, and something meant it had the potential for manipulation after all. Just...he had to think outside the box.

The fact he was even capable of thought and feeling, albeit not sight and hearing, was circumstantial evidence that [nothing] was something. Now HOW this was all possible was beyond his knowing, and he chalked it up to wonky fantasy-physics while instead focusing on what he did know and what he could do in the here and now.

He also got a very useful, albeit subtle, clue when he began to examine his [nothing]. And that was that his ribbon possibly turned into a different type of armament, from ribbon into [void type]. He wondered if he could now use weapons in combat, but that was the least of his worries as learning how to be practically functional under these conditions took precedence.

And then he remembered something as he examined mentally his [void type] armaments. He was now more than "just" a [Lunarian]. He was now technically approaching divinity as the [Prince of Void]. And he supposedly had domain over the Void itself (Storms+Air). With this in mind, he wondered if he didn't accidentally force-evolve his ribbon into this weird void-type armament, and if what could be a curse to most could actually be an asset and a manipulatable one at that him as the [Prince of Void]?

This gave him a sudden feeling of hope, because it meant that there was a possibility that his cursed armament could be turned into a blessing instead.

Closing his non-eyes, Starling began to try and meditate on his nature as a godling. Especially on his nature as the [Prince of Void]?. He also mediated more on his Void Type [Nothing] Armament, and how he could begin to "govern" or "have domain over" Void as the [Prince of Void]. To be a Prince over something, he had to not only have a connection over it but some sort of mastery as well. Did this mean he merely had to discover some new sort of magic, or was there more to this godling Void-domain stuff? Perhaps more like a Sacred Art of even something more profound...like a whole different metaphysical system than the anime's "normal baseline" one?

Starling uses [Appraise]+[Feng Shui]+[Illuminatio] to try and inspect his [Nothing} Armament as best he can.

Starling attempts to use [Appraise]+[Feng Shui]+[Illuminatio] on HIMSELF to try and learn more about himself.

Starling attempts to use [Appraise]+[Feng Shui]+[Illuminatio] on his new godling Domain [Prince of Void}.

Starling attempts to gather mana, but not of shamanism and water or Stellar magic like he normally would though, but Void Mana of (Storms+Air). This is highly experimental, and he uses [Appraise]+[Feng Shui]+[Illuminatio] combined with anything he learns from trying to inspect his Void Domain to try and see if he can "break into" (Storms+Air) Void type magic, trying to see if he now had some instinctual connection to the elements of Air and Storms?

---

[Appraise]+[Feng Shui]+[Illuminatio] have fused into [Query:]

---

Title: [Querent] acquired.

---

[Silent Liturgy LVL1] acquired.

---

[Affection LVL 3] acquired.

---

PM
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:51, Mon 19 Sept 2022.

[-> From Hall of Skye]

The tiny form of Sarolt scampered at their best speed out of Haloise's realm and toward the door leading to Starling's Spire. They were a fat rat moving on tiny legs, so they weren't very fast, but they did their best. Relatively speaking, they made good time! And time was very, very short. It had become a matter of life and death.

Starling sat on the shores of his fief, where the boundary met the waters that surrounded all the dominions. He was headless, but sat upright. His chest still softly expanded and contracted the same as it did when he breathed, and his flesh looked normal. However, he looked like a Headless Dullahan figure of sorts. And he was not really responsive to external stimuli.

PM

Sarolt called-out to Starling as they bounded at full speed through the Starspire fiefdom, little claws clicking against stone and slipping through wet grass. By some lucky miracle, it had not taken long for them to find Starling's still, headless form. Spotted from a short distance when they jumped up to look out the first window they'd picked. Sarolt had not noticed the missing head until they came within a few meters. The grass was a little too tall out here, so Sarolt had to stop and stand on two legs to see where they were going. When they finally did, their heart jumped into their throat!

"Oooookay... okay... that's... Jesus, Godhunter is fucked up." They sat back on their haunches and watched Starling's still body for a moment, thinking. "I know you said we don't have much time, but... after what just happened in the Ratworks, I think I need information and insight more than weapons. Especially the sort of information that Illuminato can provide. So, let's do this..." Sarolt flopped onto their butt and crossed their legs. "Okay, let's do this."

They concentrated on [Starling] and activated [Mimicry] to copy [Illuminato]. Heeding Starling's warning however, they make sure to not activate it and keep it suppressed in this version of themselves.

PM to Sarolt

Sarolt felt his left ear get pinched rather cruelly by an invisible force before the force abruptly stopped. There was no lingering pain, either, or wound. The a voice, from somewhere very, very close to that same ear.

"You are fortunate that we are so very difficult to perceive, little godling. We have it on good authority that you are an aspiring Daemon-killer. If you manage to transcend being terrified of their infants, the Daemons of the Void will welcome your hostility with open arms - their many, many arms."

Sarolt hesitated, but only for a moment. This was all still a bit too much, and it felt like it was in danger of spiraling out of control. Even with their recent victories, the outcome felt like it was teetering on a knife edge; like there were still some grand cosmic politics at play, and that their next moments were critical to how difficult their 'life' might be going-forward. How their relationship with the other gods would be defined.

Sarolt could thank Starling later, for now they needed to move, and the moment the mimic was successful, they were already on their way. The next destination was clear. Despite all the offers of help and aid, they knew that the next person they spoke too had to be one who had not yet spoken on the topic at all...

[-> to Ainsworth Tower]

Starling sighed at the woman.

PM

With some guidance from the entity, Starling got basic grasp of reality worked.

There were the four 'worlds' that Eri had described, and also a 'ladder' leaned up against the side of the inverted pyramid. That ladder was Time.

Time was a supramatrix - it spanned the 4th, 7th, and 11th dimensions. The 11th dimension was also the 0th dimension, just 'turned around and taped to itself', creating something like Mobius strip. Every dimensional matrix included two spatial dimensions and one temporal dimension. The Formless Void worked the way it did because it what 'upside down', with the temporal dimension on the 'bottom' of the matrix - 'regular' space was composed of joined two dimensional shapes that formed third dimensional forms, that were temporally connected via the 4th dimension. In the Formless Void - the 4th/5th/6th dimensional matrix - forms were built out of planes of time, and and spatially governed rather than temporally governed.

The Vakud existed in the 5th/6th/7th dimensional matrix. This matrix was much like the regular spatial matrix, with the caveat that 'space' was conceptual rather than actual. The concept of 'water' was very close to 'river' which was close to 'mountain',  but to go from 'mountain' to 'tree' you would have to go through 'gravel', 'sediment' - which was close 'river' - to 'soil' to 'root' to 'tree'.

Joined conceptual 'planes' created meta-conceptual 'forms' that were temporally linked via the 7th dimension, which was 'like regular 4th dimensional time, but sideways.'

The Vakud extended itself into the 4th dimension by exploiting its 'upside down' temporal nature to turn it's seventh-dimensional sideways 'time shadow' to be parallel with the 4th dimension after reflecting through the Void, creating the non-really-there silhouette that Starling could perceive when the Vakud wasn't either talking or moving. It could only reflect the shadow of one 'vertex' of its metaconceptual form this way at time, so it could only speak/hear or see/be seen or move/be felt one conceptual pairing at a time.

What this boiled down to is that Starling's head wasn't just gone, it was also possibly sideways or upside down. If Starling was a page in a book, his head would be a dog-eared corner.

It took a difficult feat of Intellect to feel the 'crease' and unfold the dog-ear, but Starling managed it. His head felt very strange - it was sort of like his body was on dry land but his head was underwater. While he had his head on 'straight', the related Armament was not in his inventory at all. It didn't go back to being his old face-wrap or cape; it was just gone, 'on the other side of folded time'.

"This...this is so weird!" Starling gasped aloud as he some how "unfolded" his head, and "slipped" it back into the material dimensional matrix. He gasped for air - real air not 5th dimensional conceptual air like he was breathing before. He didn't hurt him before- if anything his head felt freakishly at home in the 5th dimension where it had gotten "Stuck" in, but this new enlightenment about the nature of reality and dimensions was only nascent. It was the beginning of looking past the tip of the iceburg, and while his Lunarian side intuitively understood it and mentally was beginning to as well, his human side balked against it still.

He was so relieved to have his head back. Mind you, he never lost it but...yes it was both there and not there for a while. He probably scared poor Sarolt straight too, which was probably a good thing as it justified his actions to protect the others from corruption points. He had innate void affinity as a Lunarian. But the others didnt. He was scared they'd get hurt or die if they got stuck in the 5th dimension.

He turned to face the Vakud, whose affection for him seemed to only continue to grow. Weird leading the weird, he supposed.

"Ok that was REALLY fucking weird. Like traumatizing-level weird shit. I actually have no idea how I'm NOT traumatized right now, and only merely annoyed and now relieved. I lost my fucking HEAD there for a bit!" Starling said, his words shifting between english and unspeech.

"I want to thank you for the extra pointers, by the way. You definitly made it easier for me to get the hang of this rather than sit here for days trying to intuitively get the hang of it." he said to her greatfully.

"But seriously...what the hell is going on? Just staring into the figurative and literal abyss shouldn't be enough for me to start shifting dimensions. I'm obviously changing. Changing into WHAT I have no fucking idea yet. But I'm able to get my head to shift between dimensional matrixes, which means it's theoretically possible for me to shift my entire body into other matrixes. And guess what that's NOT normal, Vakud-Lady. I suspect this sort of thing would actually harm my friends." he said.

He then inspected himself a bit, and continued.

"Yes...I'm definitely changing into something else. I think all this crazy corruption stuff and dimension folding caused me to unlock a freaking evolution. I'm gonna hunt a god and then turn into something else Called a Listener-In-Light. Do you know what the hell is actually up with me? From day one I've been different from the others. I've had strange Lunarian abilities, and this weird ribbon raiment thing. Which apparently doesn't appear on my status sheet except I can sense the damned thing is still tied to be across folded space-time somehow." he said.

"I don't even know how the damn thing is gonna work going forward. I might need to shift my head into higher dimensions to access its void properties, or maybe it's here with us right now and just doesn't look like it. Because you know it's a void-ribbon now and for someone like me the void is actually a tangible concept."

He considered.

"By the way...do you think it's possible for me to see into this dimension while my head is in a higher one?"

Starling thanks the Vakud for her guidance, and also asks her if she knows more about how he's been changing, and if she knows more about what's going on with his void-ribbon armament, and if she thinks there's a way for his head to see into this dimension while in a higher one?