Wish upon the Stars chapter 1122 (Patreon)

Sorwen and I were not staying close together, so we decided to stop at a local park to have our conversation after getting our room assignments. I was almost vibrating with the need to ask question, but I knew that seeming too eager was likely to backfire. Sorwen didn’t know me, and if she thought she had leverage she could decide to use it. So I just forced myself to look relaxed as we walked together.

Finally, we arrived at the park and I sat down on the edge of a fountain, glancing at the higher dimensional woman without saying anything until she took a seat herself and shot me an amused smile. “So, you have questions.”

Apparently my attempts to play it cool weren’t going to work, but I decided it didn’t matter at this point. I got straight to the heart of the matter. “Mythcrafting,” I said simply. “Dean Gibbons said the school is based on it. I’ve never heard the term before. Is it something we don’t have access to here?”

She shook her head. “No, you have it. You have to. It’s an integral part of the Ascension process. It’s just hard to…how to explain this? It’s like someone asking you what air is. You can TELL them it’s an invisible substance that sustains the body, but without knowing how it works they won’t really understand. Mythcrafting is something everyone learns, though how much you understand varies. I suppose it’s easier to start at the beginning. Or maybe the end. Do you know what Worldforce is?”

“I do,” I nodded. “It’s the substance gods use to fill their realms. It can be infused into divine artifacts and gives them their power.”

“That’s…technically accurate,” she allowed. “But it’s not really relevant to the question. I asked if you know what it IS, not what it does. Based on your response, I suspect you do not. But it is important in this case. You know what Mythology is, of course.”

“Obviously,” I nodded. “It’s the force that composes stats. The finer and more detailed power that makes up everything about an Ascendant.”

She beamed. “Much more accurate, yes. This is important because the path of Worldforce begins with Mythology. Or rather with stats. As you know, from the very beginning of an Ascendant’s journey, they need to learn to use stats. That’s what skills are. You can combine them and reshape them but you need the stats to make them work. At higher levels you learn to more delicately craft skills, rearranging stats to form complex mechanisms.”

I nodded, because that was all obvious, and she continued. “But you probably noticed that the higher you climb, the less useful skills actually are. Techniques become the bread and butter of higher level Ascendants, and the mechanism for utilizing those is very different.”

“It’s more intuitive,” I acknowledged. “Emotions and imagery are important to techniques, as opposed to delicate structural engineering.”

“That is incorrect,” she denied. “It is more accurate to say that you aren’t CAPABLE of delicate structural engineering. The creation of techniques is the manipulation of Mythology in its purest form. Or, in the common parlance of the higher planes: Mythcrafting.”

I frowned at that. “That’s…wait, that doesn’t make sense. I do that already, and I do it all the time. I mean, sure it’s useful, but my ancestor based his whole empire on a skill, so it’s not like mythology is just qualitatively better. Learning to make better techniques would be great, but I don’t see how it’s like…linear. They’re just different approaches.”

“They aren’t,” she assured me. “And I can tell you that for sure. Do you remember where I started this explanation?”

“Worldforce,” I said immediately. “How are they related?”

She grinned at me. “Qualitatively. See, the process of Ascension isn’t just random and pointless. It’s delicate and complicated, but at the end of the day, it’s an evolution. It’s a growth mechanism. Start with an ability to get you used to stats, introduce skills that let you alter said ability, learn to condense and refine those skills moving into Paths, and then step from those Paths into techniques.

“Stats are the largest and most cumbersome delineation of force for an Ascendant,” she lectured. “Mythology makes up those stats, so learning to manipulate stats is learning to manipulate mythology. Eventually, the training wheels come off, and you learn to make techniques using mythology in a more basic form, and THAT transitions into authoring pages in a Chronicle, which teaches you how to more delicately craft with Mythology by letting you rewrite pieces of your own legend. Something you can FEEL on a visceral level.”

That made sense. It was a lot more cohesive than it had felt when I was DOING it, but I hadn’t exactly taken the traditional road to get here. “And Worldforce?”

“Worldforce is the next step,” she clarified. “Mythology is created by the thoughts and opinions of others. You can weave it together however you like, but techniques are still heavily informed by recursion. Contrary to the way it sounds, Worldforce isn’t spatial. Not inherently. Worldforce is a unique force that you create from different mythologies. A special crafted energy that belongs only to you. Mythology is the legend of a person. Worldforce is the legend of a WORLD.”

I frowned at that. “Wait…so it’s just like…a technique but stronger?”

“Worldforce is…you could consider it a template,” she clarified. “Once you form your Worldforce, which can be done at Demigod, recursion ceases to be an issue. All the renown that pours into you homogenizes with your Worldforce and becomes a part of the story YOU want to tell. It seeps into your realm, watering it and helping it grow. In order to MAKE Worldforce, however, Mythcrafting is essential.”

“So all the gods have to be doing it?” I asked angrily. “And they just never mentioned it?”

She shrugged. “They’re probably doing it the same way you are. Instinctively. You’ll notice that there are far FEWER gods than there used to be in this plane? Less than a dozen over the span of millennia is a vanishingly small amount. That’s easily explained if there’s just a much higher talent requirement to get there.”

But that didn’t explain how Atlas hadn’t mentioned it. I was sure he had to know, being from a time when there were so many gods. Why hadn’t he…and then it hit me. Because he thought we already KNEW. These gods and overgods were talking about Mythcrafting like it was some basic knowledge everyone had. Atlas had seen me use complicated forms and techniques. He probably just assumed I knew what I was doing. It was like Sorwen’s oxygen metaphor earlier. There was no reason to just start telling someone how to breathe when you could see them inhaling right in front of you.

“Alright,” I said slowly, wrapping my head around all this. “So…Mythcrafting is about techniques.” That meant my talent was Mythcrafting. Had always been Mythcrafting. It was kind of frustrating to think about, but at least I had some idea what I’d been doing now. Hell, knowing THIS might be enough of a leg up for the WCP from the whole damned legacy. Not to mention learning how to do it. “How does this work then? Because techniques are like…easy? Anyone can do a technique for anything, right?”

She snorted. “Spoken like a natural. No. Techniques can’t just “do anything”. Mythcrafting works on Mythology. Mythology has certain attributes. I’m sure you’ve noticed that all your techniques have some kind of BASIS. You make them from skills, abilities, things you can observe. In order to create a technique, you need a combination of attributes that fit the effect.

“Of course, not all types of mythology work well together,” she clarified. “That depends on the myths that make it up. Certain stories are more deeply entrenched in certain cultures, and the mythology of those attributes takes to certain forms more smoothly. Fire is often associated with rebirth across multiple planes, and that makes things like phoenixes a good element to tie together flame and healing attributes. You can fudge it a little by creating your own story, of course, the more detailed it is the more compelling to the attributes involved, but ultimately, some combinations are just more effective. That’s what Mythcrafting is all about.”

I blinked at that. “That’s why we got the invite to this major,” I said with dawning realization. “People need certain kinds of Mythology to Mythcraft certain things. We have time attributes in our skills, which means we have access to time related techniques and, eventually, time related Worldforce.”

“That’s overstating it a bit,” she warned. “We have the POTENTIAL for time related Worldforce. But it’s a rare attribute, yes. Time related skills are uncommon. Collecting attributes is hard to steer or control. They’re based on your Mythology, which tends to take on a mind of its own, so unless you’re born with a time related ability, getting the attribute introduced into your stats is exceptionally difficult. Speaking of, where did yours come from, if you don’t mind me asking. Your ability is complicated, but I don’t think it has an inherent time attribute to it.”

I didn’t have any idea, not at first, but then I realized what it had been with a start and I couldn’t help but start laughing. She raised an eyebrow at me. “Diviner,” I chuckled. “I have a skill that lets me access powers from a videogame I grew up playing. My class was Fatewalker. It’s a hybrid of Monk, Rogue, and Diviner. One of the first Diviner abilities I got was an attack prediction overlay.”

It had been the earliest subskill DS Mastery had granted me, and one of my most useful in the early levels, but it had sort of fallen by the wayside. I’d gotten others, of course, and much more powerful ones, but something about knowing that my overlay had brought me here, had unlocked this path for me…it made me smile. Like a part of that old power was still with me, even after all this time. 

I made a mental note to track down the demon for the Overlay and talk to him about all this. I was betting that his involvement with this whole thing would be deeper going forward than any of us would have expected. He was only tier 4, which meant reincarnation would be easier. I couldn’t help but wonder if the fate adjacent demon had picked up something important without noticing it.

Sorwen was grinning too. “Video games,” she said in exasperation. “I don’t know whether to be horrified or impressed. Remind me to introduce you to my brother Winston. You would get along.”

I laughed at that, but my face quickly smoothed into seriousness. “Not that I don’t appreciate the help, and this has taught me a lot, but…why are you helping me?”

“This is going to be a complicated and difficult journey,” she admitted. “Having a friendly face around to help can’t hurt anything. Besides, your sister-in-law is an old friend of my ancestor. Us local factions need to stick together if we want to make it through this.”

I stared into her eyes for a moment, trying to see any deception, but Scent of Truth caught nothing. She actually meant that. I laughed and held out a hand for her to shake. “Alright then, guess we can look out for each other while we’re here. You know my name already, but it’s polite to introduce yourself to new friends. Shane Wyndham, at your service.”

“Sorwen Ard,” she grinned. “Though I’m not much into the servant thing. Nice to meet you, though.”

Laughing, we both stood up. The conversation was over, and I had learned quite a bit. Now it was time to head back to my room and figure out where the hell I wanted to GO with all this. I had a lot to think about, and I got the impression the decisions I made in the coming days would decide the upper limit of what I could accomplish in this life. I couldn’t wait to get started.