PSTH: Chapter Forty-Three

There seems to be a strong dislike for bugs in the Pre-Arrival cultural artifacts that we have been able to dig up. There are people who advocated for the extermination of mosquitoes, records of people screaming at the mere sight of a spider, and the tiny insects seem to have possessed some ability to interfere with their technology – though given that essence destroyed a large amount of it, we’re unable to figure out the why or the how of this. And while I’m certainly not advocating to simply allow the mass transmission of diseases or anything of this sort, these extermination campaigns are practically the paradigm of the short sighted, self obsessed, self destructive behavior that would invariably give rise to people like the Obsidian Kings…

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History lecture at Slate University, 395 Modern-Era

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Over the course of the next several days, we worked on the spiderweb principle with River’s help, learning to see the insubstantial layer of essence that helped hold the spirit together and define the interactions. When I eventually learned to see into the web, I understood why it was called the spiderweb principle. Thin strings of ousia rushed through every part of my spirit, connecting to my body, where my biology began. It was as if hundreds of spiders had worked together to create a three-dimensional pattern in the rough shape of a human body. 

Within my Primals, it was rather different. There was the massive weave of tens, maybe hundreds of thousands, of strings of ousia that made up the spiderweb. It reached deeper, past the surface and into spiritual organs like the strangely box-shaped section that connected the anima and ousia pools. That part was comparable to River’s essence, but where things were different was in the biological aspect. As beings of pure essence, the form that the webs made instead connected back together to create a sharp, distinct pattern of manifest essence.

I had always known that rarity was an artificial construction. Unlike levels, which were simply a count of how many layers one had on their core, rarity was just a general measurement. There were things like Caracoals or Apaturegius, for whom the complexity and power of their ousia weaves outstripped their effective rarity. But actually getting to see it was rather interesting. 

The weave of a Kirow might have been made up of thousands of strings of ousia, but it was still straightforward. Straight lines, simple patterns, basic connections. Conversely, Zale’s pattern was more like an artistic sculpture mixed with a demented puzzle. I’d seen a few recreations of the absurd messes of wires and tiny, borderline microscopic components that were used in pre-arrival technology, and this honestly reminded me of those. It was no wonder that he was so powerful when his gift was removed. 

Scales and Hex were both somewhere inbetween. Scales’ pattern was definitely limited right now, filled with a handful of connections that didn’t go anywhere, but it should improve as he reached his second battle form, and reach even further with his third. Hex seemed to be on the high end of what was – usually – considered uncommon territory. 

Though I’d developed my ousia sight, I had to limit my usage. This was a layer of reality that I wasn’t usually supposed to see, after all. It was almost like an x-ray: one was no issue, trying to live in an x-ray chamber was a bad idea. Only here, it would damage my sense for essence, rather than giving me cancer. Maybe over-exercise was a better analogy, but that had its own issues. It wasn’t as simple as just relaxing to heal it, so it would be a metaphorical sports injury? Whatever analogy I wanted to use, River had us limit how long we kept our ousia sight active each day to only three hours. General wisdom was that was the soft lower limit. Most could keep it open for four or five, but not everyone could, and pushing your limits wasn’t the best idea. 

Of course, just because we only spent a few hours actively looking at ousia, that didn’t mean that we weren’t doing anything. River hadn’t been lying when he’d said there were tons of ousia remapping patterns available online for humans, Primals, and even other things like essence beasts or plants. Even filtering down through public records for ousia maps that were compatible with a Felimalio left over three dozen options that I had to weigh against one another. Some of them were simple, but capped out at rare, meaning that if I ever wanted to help push Hex to a higher rarity, I’d need to undo that pattern, then start over. I eventually removed all of those, and instead focused on patterns that were more difficult, but could reach legendary – at least, if we put in the work to bring it through all of the stages. 

In the end, I settled on a split pattern. Hex leaned naturally to having a lot of powerful anima for her spellcraft, rather than strengthening herself with pneuma. What pneuma empowerment her shell offered was primarily focused on speed. This pattern would also primarily rework the ousia connections around her anima, helping concentrate it and expanding the size of her pool, but it would also help improve her speed and physical strength a little bit. Laurel settled on a pattern for Beak that was almost exclusively improving the efficacy of her Kirow’s strength. It was a common enough pattern, as it had been used by a Regent, turning the bird Primal into something that could eventually go claw to claw with even some of the most powerful physical brawlers. To reach that level of power, it would actually first require shifting the anima-pneuma ratio. Kirows were naturally an even fifty-fifty, but this design utilized a seventy-thirty split focused on pneuma. 

Even with our help, remapping a Primal’s ousia the pattern took time, as reaching each additional step past where you began was increasingly difficult. In addition to that, the higher the effective rarity of the jump, the more difficult it was. A common jumping to uncommon was a lot easier than a rare jumping to epic, but the rare would only ever need to make two jumps, making a rare getting to legendary easier overall than a common getting to legendary. Time was another factor, as skill and experience were major factors, but even the most skilled people ever recorded still took time to do such delicate work.

There was a reason Vince hadn’t worked on the spiderweb principle seriously until his Primals had been nearing level one hundred. I probably wouldn’t bother to work on Scales’ or Zale’s weaves until I was at that point either. Hex was simply a long term investment, as she was currently uncommon. 

With all of the studying that we were doing, I felt my respect for the designers skyrocket. It was a good reminder that the general idea of complexity increasing power was only true when said complexity was actively beneficial, and complexity for the sake of it actually worsened the power of Primals. 

There might have been a massive amount of strands to potentially utilize, but they also were the fundamental basis for the entire spirit. They were the wires of a suspension bridge, and designing a template in such a way that someone could remove and reattach it somewhere else to shift to a more effective blueprint, all without risking damage to the bridge? It was impressive. What's more, even though there were a lot of them, all of them were used for something in the spirit. Even finding spots where they could be attached to improve their function without crossing strings, creating knots, or damaging the structure… 

Well, I knew that I’d certainly never be an expert in the spiderweb principle. It was too much for me, and while it was mildly interesting, it wasn’t enough for me to want to get a degree in the topic.

When we weren’t studying the digital templates or actively working on them with our newly developed ousia sight, we were mostly cultivating the ambient essence. That was an interesting new development for me. I’d cultivated ambient essence before, of course, but even the most basic training guides showed how to instantly allocate the essence as it entered the spirit. Each second essence sat in the spirit unallocated, it slipped out into the air. Sure, maybe back when magic had just come back, people might have needed separate stages for drawing in the essence and for allocating it, but we’d come a long way since then, and even the most basic techniques helped you automatically allocate essence to where it needed to go.

Primals didn’t learn essence techniques in the same way people did, just allocating it on instinct as they gained it in accordance with their natural ousia patterns, so it took both Hex and I some time to learn this new technique. Because in order to move the strings of ousia, one had to spend essence. Burning the essence that had been compacted into the spirit could damage the spirit, so we had to learn to draw it in, and stop allocating it. The unallocated essence just sat there, on top of my essence, but not a true part of it, like a layer of oil on water.

Thus, if we wanted to move a single string of ousia, we had to burn the raw essence we cultivated, rather than cultivating it into the spirit.

It was a lot of work, but as the days ticked by, Laurel and I began to make slow but steady progress. We didn’t just work, though. Doing nothing but working all the time, was a recipe for injuring the mind, body, or spirit. So after we’d spent our three hours of working with our ousia sight, we took a break for an hour or two to make lunch and wander around the forest before settling in for our studying for a few more hours. Then we would spend the evenings exploring, chatting, watching some downloaded videos on our augpads, or exploring the forest.

Occasionally Primals would emerge to challenge us in our wanderings, and both Laurel and I were happy to oblige them. One evening, River found a patch of wild blackberries. It was a bit late in the season, but with the cooler chill of the area, they were still surprisingly ripe, and they made for an excellent addition to breakfast. The morning of another day, I found a stream nearby where we would often take Scales, Zaza, and Zale to play, while Hex watched from a tree branch above, grooming herself, and the airborne Primals swooped overhead. Another evening, Laurel found an essence using plant, with three curling purple-blue flowers. It had originally been a mountain gentian, but it must have grown right into an essence stone, or something similar, and now the entire plant had been streaked with thin gray lines, which came to a head in the petals. Each petal radiated out raw essence. 

That had been an interesting night, as River and Laurel had both stayed near the plant to protect it, while I headed off to find the people in the stone cottages and contact the conservationists at Arkose. As a general rule of thumb, sending someone off alone at night in the woods is a horrible idea, but setting aside the folly of Gawain’s flash spell, I was actually very good in the woods. These weren’t my woods and marshlands, but I was able to find my way around without issue. Lisa Ruth showed up, leading a group of workers who specialized in the topic, and the whole area around the plant was cordoned off for study and preservation. Plants that used essence were far rarer than animals, people, or Primals, so Lisa Ruth was quite pleased, and reminded us that we’d completed her trial, and could challenge her at any time she had a free time slot.

As two weeks came to an end and it became clear that River was unlikely to find a Primal that he was going to hit it off with, we headed back into town. Our time in the forest had helped us make some good gains. Hex was now somewhere on the lower end of rare or very high end of uncommon, Scales was a stone’s throw from level sixteen, and Zale had gotten used to working alongside Scales while fighting his own essence. So it was with a sense of eagerness and trepidation that I signed up for my time slot. It was time to face Lisa Ruth.