They spent a couple more days in the Imperial Hall, waiting to see if anything would happen to the Tower.
Sophia went over the options she had with her team during the down ti. She knew she didn’t have to choose imdiately, but this was a good ti to think about it and there was really no reason to wait.
Scion of the Towers and Cliff’s Host got a lot of discussion. Sophia was pretty sure that they were both powerful; Cliff’s summons were extrely helpful. The problem was that she planned to travel outside the Broken Lands, where the “in range of other Towers” clause wouldn’t apply. She also planned to advance past the fourth upgrade; there was no reason she couldn’t make it to the sixth like the first Emperor or even higher. In that case, the difference between “base functionality of Kestii Tower link” and “current functionality of the sapient tool Cliff” would be very important. If Cliff continued to improve, Scion of the Towers would be far more powerful than Cliff’s Host, and Sophia fully expected him to improve quickly.
There was one other differentiating factor that played into Sophia’s opinion of the two Abilities. Right now, Cliff managed the summons. If Sophia picked Cliff’s Host, she might have to do that. She already had enough trouble tracking what was going on when she was made of floating feathers; adding summons that she had to control would probably an that she wouldn’t be able to fight using her own Abilities at the sa ti.
Right now, neither Ability was important. The Pri Feat already gave Sophia what she needed when she was close enough to the Kestii Tower. That wouldn’t always be the case, though, so she had to think about what she actually wanted. If she was willing to relegate the summons to a supporting role, providing transportation to others or the like, Cliff’s Host would an she always kept the Ability. If she wanted the summons to keep fighting with her after she went through a Gateway, she needed to pick Scion of the Towers.
She didn’t know if she’d be able to keep anything when she actually went ho. She hadn’t kept anything the Voice gave her; only the skills she’d completely learned for herself stuck around, along with her physical and magical developnt. If going ho was the sa way, none of the choices mattered, so maybe it didn’t matter that Scion of the Towers was only valid within range of a Tower. She wasn’t sure Cliff’s Host would work outside that range anyway.
Directed alteration of her Anchor, Signature, or Grand Talent was surprisingly easy to dismiss. If it were before she ford her Grand Talent, when she was still struggling with the aning of “plu,” it would have been helpful, even an easy pick. She’d surmounted that, though, and was really pretty happy with what she had.
Stimulated developnt of a Cardinal Facet, on the other hand, was tempting. It would let her move smoothly into the fourth upgrade. Sophia was worried that it might be a trap - an unintentional one, but still a trap. Each of the upgrades built on the previous ones and deeply affected how her Sphere worked. Who was to say that she’d get a choice that was good not simply in power but that fit with what she wanted to do? On top of that, who knew if she’d end up missing out on sothing that would help her grow in the future?
If it were the Wanderer offering, Sophia would probably accept. He definitely seed to know what he was doing and take their interests into account. Both Sophia and Dav were able to move smoothly into the third upgrade partly because of what the Wanderer did with the wisps from the Hand’s Broken Sword. He’d laid the path out as clearly as he could as well as setting them up for success with the Spheres he offered.
The offer wasn’t from the Wanderer. It was from the Guide, who made absolutely nothing clear and saddled Sophia with Cliff without asking. Sophia wasn’t really upset about carrying Cliff around for so long, but she was definitely still annoyed that the Guide didn’t ask. She didn’t trust the Guide to give her a choice in the matter.
The physical and magical alterations couldn’t be dismissed out of hand. The problem was simple: she couldn’t think of anything she wanted to change. As much as she sotis grumbled about not having a good secondary magical Affinity, she now had a way to work around that in capturing attune mana. She hadn’t yet figured out how to use that mana in anything other than a magical strike, but she was certain she’d get there eventually; casting spells with all sorts of different mana types was within sight, even if it wasn’t within her grasp. Changing her Affinities at this point would only make things harder.
Physical changes were similar. She’d achieved most of her goals; she could fly, and fly long distances. That ant she didn’t need wings. Unless the Guide was going to hand over at least the sort of extended shapeshifting ability that her father had, Sophia wasn’t really that interested in changing who she was.
An expanded Shield pool was nice, but it was purely defensive and it was expanding a resource Sophia had never run out of. Running out of Shield would be bad, but she did have a bunch of other protective Abilities. It seed unlikely to matter, which put it out of the running.
Increasing her Body or Core sounded better to the rest of the team than it did to Sophia. The cost for increasing it was in Thread now instead of Wisps, but it was still far lower for each of her Body and Core than it was for anyone other than Dav. It might be useful, but it wasn’t going to be Sophia’s choice.
Sophia dismissed expanding her Attunents without even thinking about it; she wasn’t using all of the Attunents she had, so why would she need more?
It took Xin’ri pointing out that she made Attunable gear and that it might be more than just extra Attunent slots that got Sophia to take a second look at the option.
They spent hours talking through the options, and the sa problem kept coming up: Sophia didn’t really need most of the things Xin’ri could make. She could already fly and had armor better than anything Xin’ri could manage, while her Sphere wasn’t suited to using a weapon. The very first Sphere she had in the Broken Lands would have rewarded an attuned weapon, but Sophia almost never used the ones she had. She’d tried using attuned wands, but they really weren’t any better than what she could do without them.
That left protective trinkets, and the vast majority of those were already accounted for by her necklace … which wasn’t even attuned. It frustrated Xin’ri, because according to everything she knew, Sophia’s necklace wasn’t just exceptionally good; it was impossible. A protective item like that needed to be attuned to the person it was protecting. Everything else the necklace did was impressive enough, but at least it was theoretically possible. That wasn’t.
In the end, Xin’ri only managed to co up with a few ideas that were useful enough that Sophia was willing to sign up for them, and only one of those actually required an attunent. Sophia was flashy; she couldn’t hide her presence at all well. Xin’ri’s idea was to use Light magic to act as camouflage, as well as Sound magic to damp out the noise Sophia made as she moved. It wouldn’t be perfect and would require quite a bit of mana to keep active, but Xin’ri was certain Sophia had enough mana to make it work. She probably couldn’t manage to make Sophia invisible when she was flying, but if she could tint her wings with the colors of the sky instead of their normal tallic iridescence, it would help … as long as she could also hide the fact that they normally glowed. It was a challenge, but it was a challenge Xin’ri thought she could now et.
Sophia had managed to eliminate every single one of the options.
She sighed and went over them again, in reverse order this ti.
Expanded Attunents would have been great for Xin’ri or Jax and useful for Dav, but it just didn’t do anything for Sophia.
She could increase her Body and Core easily with Thread. It wasn’t a unique reward, unlike the other options.
An expanded Shield pool should be on the list. That was sothing she couldn’t easily get and her bracelet ant it would protect Dav as well as herself.
The only idea she had for a physical or magical change was proper shapeshifting, and she wasn’t sure if that would be a physical or magical alteration. It also seed a lot less important now that she could fly, so she decided it was less important than an expanded Shield pool.
Stimulated developnt of a Cardinal Facet was interesting, but she was a long way from the fourth upgrade and she was certain they’d manage to get through a Gateway before she got there. That ant she’d be able to talk to the Wanderer, and she had no doubt he knew how to reach the fourth upgrade. She was confident he’d set her and Dav up well for it, as well, so it ought to be an easy step. Between that and her lack of trust in the Guide, she firmly marked that option off her list.
Altering her Anchor, Signature, or Grand Talent was no more interesting than it was the first ti. She’d rather pick up a Cardinal Facet, and that said sothing. It was off the list as well.
That left her with the expanded Shield pool, Cliff’s Host, and Scion of the Towers.
What that really ant was that she had the choice between an expanded Shield pool now and keeping Cliff’s summons when she went through the Gateway. When she put it that way, then added in the fact that she expected to talk to the Wanderer soon after that, the choice was obvious: Scion of the Towers. Cliff’s Host would probably already be far less useful because she’d probably gain another upgrade or two before she tried to cross universes, if it even stayed with her at all.
It was a bit annoying to give up the expanded Shield pool, but there was no question: Cliff’s summons were more useful, especially since Cliff ought to be in control of them through the Tower link.
When she went to actually pick the Ability, she reread the description and realized that Scion of the Towers did not, in fact, say that it was going to grant her the ability to use Cliff’s summons. It looked like it might give her the “additional options” in other Towers and Challenges, instead, which was sothing she hadn’t even considered. It seed useful, probably, but she wasn’t certain how to rate it.
Your ongoing link with Cliff will allow you additional options when interacting with scenarios in the Tower of Kestii and all associated Challenges.
The Tower will support your link, enabling maximum functionality anywhere within the range of the Tower. This range can be extended by expanding the Tower or by conquering additional territory for the Kestii Empire and establishing nodal linkages for remote power transmission. Current range: Tower Shard, four to six mile radius from each nodal linkage. Planar boundaries may interfere with available functionality. Interplanetary functionality is currently disabled.
Derived Physical and Magical Alteration (heritable): Scion of the Towers - duplicates base functionality of Kestii Tower link while in range of other Towers
Sophia decided to put off the decision until they were back in Mazehold. If she could still talk to Cliff and have him summon monsters for her, Scion of the Towers was an easy choice. If she couldn’t, she’d have to decide if she wanted the actual functionality of Scion of the Towers or if she should simply settle for the expanded Shield pool. She could test the summoning while they went through the Maze, too; if it worked well, it would be a good sign.
When they walked out of the doorway that led out of the Imperial Hall, they found themselves standing outside the Maze. Before she could second guess herself, Sophia reached out to Cliff and asked him to call her Echo.
The sight of the small pale-feathered dragon was confirmation enough. Scion of the Towers was definitely the right choice.
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