Amdirlain’s PoV - The Exchange

The exit from The Exchange was identical to the others Amdirlain had used. The flight of stairs descended to a square black room, where a pressure change made the sealing of the route behind them known.

Leading the way, Dagrastûr stopped at the chamber’s midpoint. “Easiest if I open a Gate, but I’d prefer if you’d renew your protections first.”

Though the assorted shields had barely begun to fade, the fact he wanted them at full strength got him an appreciative smile from Amdirlain. Recasting the five of them was done in half a minute, and when the last renewal settled, Dagrastûr opened a Gate. The threshold framed a view of a valley sloping down towards a forest seething with a sick overabundance of life that Amdirlain had seen twice before. While only once in the flesh, Orhêthurin’s memories of it had seemed vivid and disturbingly real.

Night shrouded the Plane, its black sky filled with bleak-toned nebulae, giving the appearance of unblinking alien eyes that glared down. A predatory menace crawled up along her spine, and Amdirlain caught a hint of Tiamat’s song, but it was only one within the mix of powers. Memories of domains spanning multiple planets and systems speeding outwards beyond the nebulae rose unprompted. Their ever-expanding separation meant their light would never reach where she now stood. With a quick look at the structure ahead of her, Amdirlain opted to lock down Resonance’s range to a mere four hundred metres. She was prompted not by the primordials’ songs but by her aversion to the Plane’s music with its slithering and oozing tones.

Some three hundred metres down the valley wasn’t the massive fortress that Amdirlain had imagined. With thousands in the Cloister, she had pictured a large structure, not a tiny fort formed of brown rock that jutted a mere hundred metres from the valley’s wall. The design was an odd, three tiered wedge; along the top of each tier were lines of ballista-type weapons. Behind them, Amdirlain could catch glimpses of Fallen. None were even close to Human; they had exotic forms with snouts and maws, scales, fur, or slime, representing scores of species, yet all kept careful watch.

Where the Sisterhood had gone for a giant castle that remained upright only through magic, the Cloister had focused its magic entirely on securing the building. The wards reaching out from it formed a dome above the fort, and Amdirlain could hear them reaching far underground.

Amdirlain couldn’t make out the dread whispers Orhêthurin had followed to the cave mouth, but the location’s song niggled at Orhêthurin’s memory of the path’s creation. Its layers of warding and a hidden network of tunnels had stamped Order into the place’s Chaos. Overlaying the location, the regimented music of the fortification dominated the region’s melodies.

“It seems orderly. Is that a theme with the Cloister?” enquired Amdirlain.

Dagrastûr shook his head and stepped through the Gate ahead of her. “And you say that without a hint of distaste. No, it’s more about balance, though ‌we’re balancing it against the Plane’s Chaos, so I can understand why it feels orderly. It is the nature of the path and has affected our perspective; the Cloister seeks to have a balance between it and its members. We must weigh the freedom to find and walk our paths against the duties owed to the Cloister and the support we give each other.”

Amdirlain transformed into her Wood Elf form once she’d stepped through the Gate. The autumn hues a challenge to the overly lush forest at the valley’s far end. Ignoring the weight of Dagrastûr’s considering gaze, she sought more details from the place’s song. With a strange silence between them, she offered a distraction. “A tripod provides the greatest stability. Your mix has the order, the individual, and the collective members. Is that triad why the fort has three tiers?”

“No, not at all,” denied Dagrastûr, and he let the Gate close. “Though I find it interesting that you look for meaning beyond the surface. Do you do that a lot?”

Amdirlain smiled and turned the question back. “The Cloister has been around for a long time; customs and architecture can tell a lot about the inner nature of an organisation. Does it look much at the members' motivations?”

“The better we understand others motivations, the better we can aid their progress back to the light,” responded Dagrastûr. After motioning towards the fort, he slowly started down the valley and beckoned Amdirlain to follow. “They’ve seen our arrival; it's safe for us to approach now.”

“If it's not prying, why have the fort set up this way?” prompted Amdirlain, and she walked alongside Dagrastûr. “It’s very different from any fortification I’ve seen in the Abyss.”

“It’s about maximising the number of weapons that can fire at anything approaching while minimising the frontage they have to attack,” explained Dagrastûr.

Amdirlain took in the mounting of the weapons and nodded. “If you were flush against the cliff wall, you wouldn’t be able to fire upwards.”

“We look to find a balance,” confirmed Dagrastûr. “Sometimes one does things you’d prefer they not to gain the advantage in another arena. Demons tend to attack what they can see if at all possible. They'd chop through from every direction if we built solely into the cliff. I’d caution you not to stray too far from any escort until you earn your pendant; otherwise, the wards will object to your presence.”

“You’re not like I expected another Fallen to be,” offered Amdirlain.

Dagrastûr slowed and glanced her way. “You show little of the emotions many of those new to the path display. Mood swings are often violent, and yet I’ve only caught some grief and sorrow from you once. I’ve followed the path for an aeon and intend to follow the Eldest’s example.”

“And what is that?”

“Some of us remain to guide those that come after,” explained Dagrastûr. “I’ve nothing to return to, so I remain to help others regain the light.”

“You couldn’t return to your previous position?”

Dagrastûr gave a bitter laugh. “Certainly not. The one I once served doesn’t accept the return of those who’ve given in to corruption. She likes only the purest of light within her Domain.”

“How do you know?”

“I saw another rejected before my fall. That same one pointed me to the path after learning of my fall; enraged at first, I didn’t listen,” admitted Dagrastûr.

“Where is she?”

“She now serves one more accepting of those whose journey has kissed the darkness,” Dagrastûr replied, an edge of steel cutting an undertone in his voice.

“Given the elven appearance you choose, if you are talking about the Summer and Winter courts, there are other Pantheons,” noted Amdirlain.

“Perhaps, but then I doubt I’d feel as if I had succeeded,” explained Dagrastûr, and he glanced towards the eerie nebula-filled sky. “There is never a sunrise on this Plane. The glowing patterns in the sky are eternal. Many say they feel as if something watches whenever they are in the open.”

Amdirlain almost left his subject change alone. “The path lets you choose to remain?”

The question earned a pleased smile from Dagrastûr, staying away from discussing pantheons as it did. “Yes, it lets one know their progress, and a woman’s voice asks if you wish the light once you’ve balanced your evil. Do you have questions before we go within?”

“How do you coordinate things if there isn’t a need to share a name? Or is that only until I become a member?” asked Amdirlain.

“Even afterwards, only share with a minimum of beings; we’ve lost members to corruption before now. I choose to represent the Cloister at The Exchange for two reasons. One, I’m confident in my ability to resist being summoned and two, because I’ve multiple home planes. Anyone summoning me would pay the price for nothing if they meant evil,” declared Dagrastûr, the edge in his tone hinting of personal experience.

“Priests of a foul Deity summoned me into a mirrored circle at one point,” admitted Amdirlain.

“What did you do?”

“I used a vortex of energy; it killed me, and with the circle’s collapse, them as well. A friend found the temple’s site and said there was only a pit left behind.”

Dagrastûr threw his head back and laughed. “I had meant the summoning materials and injuries suffered from your opposition. How many of the black priests died?”

“Black priests, that’s an interesting way to refer to them. No way to tell for sure, mirrored circle and all.”

“Yes, of course,” acknowledged Dagrastûr, and he started towards the keep. “I unleashed a Spell solely to kill me; perhaps I need to learn some spells that will linger past my death and expand beyond their boundary. Were you just freed from a Planar Lock?”

“Interesting question,” demurred Amdirlain.

“You’re not the only one to have experienced such. Though I only ask as it would explain why your associates spent years hiding your existence from us. Otherwise, it seems they were allowing us to think the crystals were their scheme so that they might profit,” explained Dagrastûr. “You have also continued to ensure you don’t need to share your name.”

Amdirlain nodded but tried to mislead with a fact. “True, the pieces are obvious. After being locked to a single Home Plane, one gets paranoid.”

“From your motions, I wouldn’t have thought you’d only one,” observed Dagrastûr, smiling. “You need far more practice at misleading, young Am. It is a skill that is sometimes needed to get mortals to accept our help willingly, especially those of us who end up with unsettling auras.”

“You’re very open with your observations,” retorted Amdirlain. Though she knew at least part of the answer, she asked anyway. “Since I don’t need to share my name, how do the Cloister members keep in contact?”

Tapping the pendant at his throat, Dagrastûr smiled. “The pendants let us communicate with other pendant holders we’ve met. As you’ll learn, there are some limitations, but they are far more convenient than Message spells.”

“Do you have to run message chains to get in touch with someone in emergencies?”

“No, the Eldest knows all the members; you’ll meet them at the path’s start. Over time, we find there is less need for others' help to make contact,” explained Dagrastûr. “You keep glancing at the sky; is it unnerving to you, or is it from spending lots of time underground?”

His words had Amdirlain fix her gaze upon the path they were following. “Right. Shall we go inside? I’ve been worried about what it will judge me for since I learnt about the path. My apologies for procrastinating with so many questions. ”

“How long ago did you learn of the path?” asked Dagrastûr.

Amdirlain sighed. “Thirty odd years ago.”

“At least it wasn’t at the start of your Planar Lock,” consoled Dagrastûr.

Not wanting to correct him, Amdirlain nodded. “A hundred years would have been far worse; only after I got free did I realise how much worry it had added.”

When they passed through the ward’s perimeter without a sign of trouble, Dagrastûr signalled to one of the Fallen. When he lifted off the ground, he tossed her a grin that carried more than a hint of wild fey. “No door at ground level; follow me and aim towards the fellow with the orange-scaled torso and red tentacles so you don’t get too far away. Despite the fanged maw that splits his front, he doesn’t bite.”

He wasn’t close to the worse thing Amdirlain had seen or many of those she’d become. “How far is too far?”

“Good question. Double arm’s reach,” replied Dagrastûr, and Amdirlain moved close enough that she could put a hand on his shoulder.

Amdirlain spotted the fellow Dagrastûr had mentioned at the mid-point of the lowest tier, and their path landed them near a rack of Human-sized ballista bolts. While each bolt exceeded her Kopis’ enchantment, the bolts could only convey a magical surge once. It was an approach that avoided supplying an attacking force with ammunition to return their way.

As they resumed walking, most of those tending the weapons spared the pair only glancing looks. Among them, Amdirlain spotted most wearing a similar pendant, varying only in colouration. None were the clear transparent of Dagrastûr's, though several possessed a nearly translucent tint, most were opaque and included various colours and patterns. The harmonics from those stationed on the battlements warbled through notes both acute and worryingly sour. By the time they reached a secure corridor, taking them into the fort’s interior, Amdirlain hadn’t spotted a single humanoid Fallen.

“Do those on watch stay near the weapons in case of forces teleporting into the valley?”

“Why else? It has proven necessary in the past,” confirmed Dagrastûr. “Any experience with ballistae?”

“None,”

“Well, you certainly could get a training instructor, but perhaps joining those providing Spell support when you undertake guard duty would make more sense,” suggested Dagrastûr.

The passage took them into the mountainside, and Amdirlain could hear others casually chatting in ready rooms to either side. Most of the content of the conversations she ignored, though some voices contained the ready anger Dagrastûr had mentioned. She could make out a layer of protective wards within the stone beneath their feet that a tight staircase a few hundred metres into the mountain took them beneath.

They passed through several hardened doors in their descent before they entered a rectangular chamber with more weaponry focused on it. At the chamber’s rear was a large circular hole, and Amdirlain could hear it plunging towards the depths. Ignoring the weapons that concentrated on the doorway, Dagrastûr headed for the shaft and paused, waiting for Amdirlain to join him. Looking down the shaft, Amdirlain spotted runes that spiralled around it, dropping beyond her eyesight’s range.

Dagrastûr pointed downwards. “Step off together and match my descent.”

When Amdirlain nodded, he took a step forward Amdirlain moved in time with him. The shaft descended directly down, yet at various distances, tunnels broke off around them. While some were for accommodation, libraries, and training levels, others led to complex traps. They’d encrusted most of the walls with runes intended to confuse and kill anyone entering the floors, but many reinforced the fort’s wards in a cylindrical pattern.

As they drew closer to the shaft’s base, the whispers she’d expected started. The death throes of the dying powers that had sought to usurp the Titan’s rule had been minor nuisances to Orhêthurin, but even at the current limits of her perception, they dealt Amdirlain forceful blows. Amdirlain turned Resonance off entirely rather than risk injury from their spite.

When they exited the shaft, they came down into the point of a tear-drop cavern, and Amdirlain saw what was waiting for them. It wasn’t the darkness from memory; instead, the natural cavern lighting revealed all the details. Around its walls sat alcoves engraved with many scenes: battle and compassion, killing or healing. In others, the images showed mortals receiving instruction in life improvements for hunting, foraging, or agricultural techniques.

At the far end, a True Song Crystal sphere that matched her memory was present, but so too was a figure from memory. Their very presence made the cavern’s vast, echoing interior seem tiny.

Its head connected directly to the shoulders, with a handful of finger-length tendrils nested in the middle instead of hair, each moving about independently to the others, tasting the room’s energies. Where before the tendrils had seemed simple strands of green flesh, now they’d become covered with cruel hooks that cut the air as if taking samples by force.

The being was still roughly reptilian in appearance, with the forward half of its body curving upward towards the cavern’s vast roof some sixty metres overhead. Three types of limbs appeared along the length of its body. The upper set were now barbed pincers that extended from the body around what would have been a shoulder joint on a Human figure that size. The next pair were in line with the middle of their ribs but were boneless cables of muscle that coiled tight against their sides, preventing her from determining their new range. Instead of the blunt stump ringed with eight thin fingers that had once been at their end, the fingers had transformed into solid curved claws. Level with those arms, three mouths arched across their chest, each a fanged consuming maw, now seemingly a wound in the red and bitter green scales. Four clawed reptilian legs were spaced out along the lower half of their body, and the body that had come to a blunt end now sported a long wyvern tail complete with barb.

Dagrastûr moved four steps towards the figure before he gave a respectful nod. A token of willing respect between colleagues rather than a duty owed a liege. “Eldest, I bring a candidate to walk the path.”

The ancient Fallen arched its body down towards her, the tendrils writhing in the air as it did so. Black pupilless eyes regarded her for a time before speaking. “She doesn’t come via the trials; I can see the protections sitting about her. Why do you count her worthy of trying without the trials’ tempering?”

“She’s aided the Cloister. The crystals that the Lómë provided to aid mortals were created and given to us through her planning. The Lómë contact, Roher, confirmed this is the case and asked us to lend her what aid we could,” explained Dagrastûr.

“Many have gained, but I’m wary of such easy successes,” countered Eldest. “What do you have to say about the crystals, candidate?”

“The plan wasn’t to provide a Fallen easy gains; it was for rescuing as many mortals as possible from the Abyss. Celestials might learn of the prisoners, only to lose track of the mortals,” explained Amdirlain. “Originally, the crystals were going to get issued to Celestial searchers, but it got suggested a Fallen would draw less attention in the Abyss. I didn’t care who did the work, only that the mortals weren’t left imprisoned here.”

The Eldest stared at her unblinking as it considered her words. “I’d be delighted to hear your words from one who’d walked the path for four or five millennia. However, many of our new candidates still struggle with obtaining such an attitude.”

“Everyone is different,” countered Amdirlain.

“Everyone is, but the patterns in the Fallen follow certain trends. Only a foolish hunter doesn’t ask why game signs show changes without reason,” Eldest stated.

“I won’t argue with your experience, but trends always have outliers. But I’ve enough looking to treat me as prey to want to avoid being predictable,” countered Amdirlain.

“Such as?”

“I’d prefer not to say, except I’ve enemies within the Abyss that I’m sure don’t favour the Cloister.”

“One can tell much about one from a being's enemies,” offered Eldest.

Amdirlain shook her head. “One can profit from another's enemies if you offer them information.”

The tendrils that formed Eldest’s flickered about. “You believe we’d sell you out?”

“Dagrastûr said to be careful sharing a name; if a member falls further, I’d prefer my enemies not know I’ve found the Cloister. The wards prevent those coming here from teleporting inside to immediate safety; I’d like them not to be staking out your borders. Also, I don’t know any of you; I came seeking Redemption’s Path, nothing else,” declared Amdirlain.

“And so you have found it. By finding it, I hope you’ll see value in contributing to the Cloister’s ranks, but regardless of that, someday, return to the light. Redemption’s Path has existed for billions of years to let worthy seekers obtain that end.”

“How did it come to be?”

“That tale is one that many seekers work hard to earn. It is not a tale readily shared, because you are right: others have failed on the path before, and knowing its origin, I’ve found, distracts,” answered the Eldest.

“Failed? If it’s not rude to ask, what happened to them?”

“Various things, though it depends on the failure. Some failures it's possible to recover from, but other setbacks are not. When one slips, it’s important to examine your failing before attempting to push forward again,” admitted Eldest. “This is one facet of why the Cloister exists: to help each other find the truths we need. Many achieve destruction because desperation made them take undue actions.”

The Eldest moved to one side, giving Amdirlain an unobstructed view of the crystal dome. As per her memory, the archway at its base was an inky blackness held back by an energy barrier across its threshold.

“There is a short pillar within the darkness directly ahead of the archway. It's argued if it's a stand or plinth, as no one has ever seen its form, however, don’t explore the chamber. Immediately through the archway is a narrow path that leads you to a suspended platform. Those who’ve survived a brush with the platform’s edge say things tried to drag them in.”

“Anything else I should know?”

“The start of the path can be hard. Walk straight, ignore the voices, don’t jump if they scream, and you’ll be fine. Also, once you’ve encountered the obstacle in the middle, don’t take your hands from it until the judgement has ended,” informed Dagrastûr. “Worry not about what the path will declare; once you are out of the chamber, you can worry about redeeming one deed at a time.”

“I’ll try my best,” replied Amdirlain, and her lips twisted at her gut's sour churning.

The memory had shown her the plinth directly in line with the archway, and Amdirlain strode towards it, tossing around approaches to ensure she walked straight. Taking a balanced stance at the threshold lip, she willed the vines to retract away from her feet and slid a foot into the darkness. Beneath her toes, she could feel the smooth crystal she expected and nodded to herself.

“Don’t wait up,” quipped Amdirlain, and she slid into the darkness.

The whispers Dagrastûr warned about became audible when she crossed the inner threshold. For many, their words might have been impossible to understand, uttered as they were in tongues unspoken in the realm. There was no promise of great power for their liberation nor temptations offered for aid; instead, they spoke of their demise and offered to share their agony. The first scream from a phantasm remembering its death made her ears bleed, and bones ache from the impact but forewarned, Amdirlain had already locked her reflexes down. Never taking either foot from the floor, Amdirlain moved forward in sliding steps. She moved her front foot directly out and shifted balance before dragging the rear to form a T-shape between heel and instep.

As her hands found an obstruction at waist height, even with Resonance off, Amdirlain felt the plinth’s song dance along her Soul's surface but fail to dip within. The plinth’s music warbled a series of confused notes as it slipped and slid against the barrier of her Hidden nature before it righted itself. It didn’t cease but sipped from her mind and flesh. Events started to flash with brutal force, but none pre-dated her arrival in the Abyss.

Viper’s brutal slaying of the slavers got dismissed as the awareness within the plinth rated Amdirlain a hapless observer. However, the first Soul shard she consumed from a slaver froze its considerations. For a long time, the review tipped back and forth, distressed by her feeding on the Soul yet pleased by her soaking the damage in Ki’s purification.

The judgment at first wavered because she’d taken, yet provided an unintended gift. The Ki energy she’d used gave the Soul a better chance of seeking goodness in its next life. That she undertook the act to continue the pleasure of freedom from the Abyss decided the judgement. Having benefited from the Soul’s demise changed her state from a hapless observer to a beneficiary, so the death and outcome were on her head. With that judgement rendered, it extrapolated outcomes.

Amdirlain felt its ties reach out and information come back: the fate of the man’s wife and children, eventually sold as slaves with his failure to return. It was from his expected date of return the calculations began. Each sequence in the chain became abandoned once they confirmed they had exceeded a single separation from her act, but the path weighed each real outcome against what felt like a best-case scenario for his dependents' lives. The misery they’d suffered versus the happiness they would have possessed. With that calculation complete, an anvil of red weight and a cascade of black dropped onto her scales.

One at a time, its review marched through the hundreds she’d taken, giving her no mercy from witnessing their bitter ends. It simply ignored those who came out of it better because of a parent's death. The death of the priestess of Set didn’t cause even a droplet on her negative tally, and Amdirlain witnessed tens of thousands of projected lives improved by that death.

Because of her unflinching anger in dealing with the silversmith, he counted. No life showed a noticeable improvement from his best-case life span. Scores of women and girls would have been worse off if he had stayed alive. His best-projected outcome showed his violence escalating, leaving more damaged individuals in his wake before he started the killing, but that gained her no credit.

The games she’d played using the screaming of the souls to distract the sisters and yank Naz’rilca’s chain were another negative. That she’d taken enjoyment from yanking her Succubus tormentor off balance was the catalyst for the souls’ misery to weigh against her. It wasn’t a single set but rather the pain and horror each Soul had felt each time she’d yanked them from the Ki’s comfort. Like the other deeds, they weighed the scales down sevenfold.

The recount of them battered against the fortress of her willpower, and Amdirlain acknowledged she had erred by the plinth’s black-and-white rules. To it, enjoyment or anger while causing a Mortal or Soul pain incurred a cost.

Slaughtered demons it ignored, and those Lómë she’d freed from their imprisonment in their Nox forms, it simply judged had been the right thing to do. Her first time in the Necropolis it skimmed through. Nothing in that place of death on the first trip warranted a mention. Moke, and then prisoners she’d freed from the Temple of Set on her return to the Necropolis, got a nod for its rightness but no lightening of the debt. Fighting on the elemental planes were skipped over. It was finding nothing of concern to it in combat with the near-mindless elementals or the malicious fire giants. Back and forth, it tallied deeds with ruthless logic and the application of its rules.

With the thousands she’d freed from fates worse than death among the gnarls, it simply rated the activity a worthy action for a Celestial and moved along. The troops whose lives she’d saved from fighting the gnarls got a nod but no amnesty. After that, the millions of souls freed from undeath while harvesting for Usd’ghi went into a good bucket, earning her another proverbial pat on the head. The liberated souls had gone to Judgement, again with no credit because it pre-dated the start of her path.

The slaughter of Set's priests put thousands of deaths at her feet because she enjoyed smacking them down for the evil they’d wrought. But oddly, not for killing the priests; if they’d remained alive, they’d have prevented other innocent deaths. The only positive for many priests was their expected protection of villages and towns during the God’s War. That it ignored the further misery they’d have caused was a burr beneath her skin.

An aspect of Set’s focus was dealing with foreigners, so his early destruction tipped things against the Egyptian Pantheon. She barely escaped the thousands of priests among the like of Ra, Bast, and others dying being considered her fault. Due to too much uncertainty introduced by the years between events, she paid for those the priests’ original locations could have saved.

The hundreds of thousands of dead it could have laid at her feet by extending the separation chain one or two degrees shook her. However, that was not the rule, and projections ended when they determined the separation was too far along the chain. They did not give Amdirlain the details, but she felt trillions more permutations being executed and extended with Gideon’s knowledge of the people and factors involved.

Her execution of malignant spirits in the Maze wasn’t worth more than a brief consideration of her motives. Though it seemed to linger in quiet contemplation when she started purging the damned of memories and corruption, it finally skipped across the thousands she’d gathered and reset for a clean reincarnation.

That matter, the review settled by focusing on her intent to make the souls earn a fresh start and gain a seed of wisdom about the opposition to evil.

The deaths of the prisoners in the first city were an expected hit. The bitterest blow was when the review hit the prisoners she’d enjoyed releasing from the Abyss. While battered, large numbers celebrated their freedom, yet so many returned home in physical conditions that made them a burden to their kin—years of torture having broken them in mind or body. Worse yet, were those that returned home diseased and tainted with abyssal energies; their arrival wiped out more than one village with outbreaks of disease.

One blessing for her was that it stopped the tally of extrapolated deaths from when her hands touched the plinth. The most heartbreaking were those who ended up in the hands of those who’d initially sold them and added significantly to her tally.

The process didn’t care if she’d done the right thing before starting the path, simply the existence of a Celestial should have been serving the realm’s good. It assumed all the good was from before the fall and thus only tallied the weight of the evil outcomes where she enjoyed the deed or had acted in anger.

When it at last ended, Amdirlain slipped and clutched at the plinth. She slowly dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around it to keep herself in place. Amdirlain retained a dim awareness of decisions that could have weighed against her that throbbed painfully, and only slowly faded from the back of her mind.

[Achievement: Catastrophic cluster fuck - missed you by this much.

Reward: Have a pendant!

Note: I didn’t make or apply the rules, and Ori almost made them far worse. The plinth is the arbitrator, I merely provide reference material and the simulations of outcomes.

Note: The plinth’s creation pre-dated the first Hidden. Hence it couldn’t link to your Soul, and I didn’t correct it. Let Ori’s deeds and those of your past lives lay where they are, shall we?]

“Was that a ‘Get smart’ reference, Gideon?” murmured Amdirlain. “Never mind, yes. Be smart about things.”

Staggering to her feet, Amdirlain felt as much as heard the True Song Crystal pendant that now rested against the skin of her breastbone. It had catered to her preference to have a longer cord during its creation. Hands still resting on the plinth—she’d been careful not to release it in case a second judgement occurred—Amdirlain reformed herself, facing the way she’d come. With her back to the plinth, Amdirlain set pride aside and floated forward until the cavern’s light returned.

“You were a while,” observed Dagrastûr. “I was beginning to get concerned you might have ended up in the pit; most don’t enter as fearlessly as you did.”

Looking down at her, the Eldest nodded. “It looks like you’ve got a lot of work ahead of you. Focusing on redeeming yourself one deed at a time is all I can advise.”

“How did you know?”

“Your crystal shows where you stand according to your last judgement,” stated Dagrastûr and motioned to her chest.

Amdirlain looked down in surprise; unlike the crystal at Dagrastûr’s throat, hers was an opaque scarlet hue with a lacework of black and green. The black formed veins of varying thickness showing a leaf-like pattern that reached into its depths.

Resisting the urge to curse, Amdirlain nodded. “What’s the worst you’ve seen?”

“A crystal looking like black stone is the worst on record,” offered Dagrastûr. “Red hues are for bloodshed, black for injuries to souls, and greens are for actions that cause the spreading of disease.”

“We only know the colours by piecing them together from the testimonies of our members,” interjected the Eldest, beating the question forming on Amdirlain’s lips. “Everyone asks.”

Dagrastûr nodded. “I did, and I asked how they knew. Mine was once that deep carmine with nothing else patterning it. Revisiting the chamber after you’ve accumulated deeds of redemption will alter its hue. Slipping past where you’ve begun will see the crystal vanish. If it's lost for that reason, the path won’t provide another, no matter how often one dares the darkness.”

“Best to be confident I’ve progressed before daring it again,” acknowledged Amdirlain calmly.

Eldest grunted. “For the darkness of your stone, I’d have expected anger at that news.”

“Where am I now does hurt,” admitted Amdirlain, momentarily touching the pendant before she absorbed it within her flesh. “But the most important thing is moving ahead, and from what the path showed, anger most certainly isn’t going to help me. I’ll channel my anger’s energy into constructive actions and try to avoid tantrums.”