This post is for outlining stuff if I get stuck, to get me back on track.
Smaller Changes
Cut "one could say opalescent" altogether obviously.
There's got to be room for a un-ionize/unionize pun somewhere in this book. Possibly in Kamadhenu's line of thinking since the Opalescent use ionized gems.
Prolonged uncertainty is missing a quote mark. Same deal with emerald exposition.
Obviously there's some redundant exposition in the third vision as well -- ungulates, horses for example.
Make lady vulcan's reference to Clotho being Nat's mother more subtle -- it does actually get revealed in that last vision.
Slightly to your left, Kamadhenu (because of how directions work)
One of Fisher's jobs super early into the book should be "cleaning the eleg tank" or whatever, as very early foreshadowing. This is extra good because it looks like a shortening of "elegy" which fits the theme of Wake Chambers.
The Leviathan (and its chamber) should have hydraulics or something to fit it into the water theme.
Rename agate hook to skyhook and also sprinkle in additional electrician terms (I think there's already a wire stretcher)
Lean more into the modern world satire angle as well
The amethyst thing should be more Bismuth's idea -- there's a good piece of internal dialogue that hints at this already but it should really be entirely his idea + more internal dialogue to lead up to this. Idk if the sapphire thing should be more his fault too, but will want to explore.
Alter the "induct you into the cause" scene to set Fisher on his path of finding something valuable at any cost. He's already like that but it needs to be hammered in more so his Descent makes more sense. Obviously, Fisher's actual character arc conclusion should be better too.
Additionally, his death should tie in more to Bismuth's overarching desire to go into the dark wilds -- maybe not his fault exactly but he should be more culpable or something when he has the opportunity to find fisher and can't.
And then tie that line of thinking into Bismuth trying to save Nat/etc from Lady Vulcan.
Definitely should cut down on the amount of sapphire exposition -- timelessness and morphing are really the only important bits. Everything else can be gleaned through context.
Plant emerald on the good opalescent and don't mention why they're good at all -- the readers can just figure it out.
If the marrow just eats people who've died, wouldn't the original crew be retrievable once the transceivers are up? Honestly it probably hurts the Behemoth too much so maybe a couple that look like Atropos could return when everyone is unlimboed.
Give Fisher a stronger motivation for pulling the sapphire out.
Lady Lachesis staying behind is a plot hole. I mean, this whole Ziz Saday section is being rewritten anyway, but still.
The Seering helm should be a bit more complicated to adjust or Tom would've just shown Bismuth how to work it. Also, explore this to make sure this is accurate when it's used elsewhere, etc.
Lady Clotho doesn't reassemble after tourmaline is found either. Honestly it makes more sense to just say that the group reassembles or something. -- same as below
And on that note, Lady Clotho shouldn't return or be the one to talk to Tourma. --idk though, needs more exploration than just a note
It needs to be established somewhere that the Opalescent have really good memories -- a lot was taken out of the Lachesis scene. Could throw a line into the last vision as well.
Maybe hint towards Lord Osiris's wake node being near feldspar very early into the book.
Lady Clotho should be the one to say that the yak district is a coherence to Guildlaw II, not Kamadhenu. More speaking lines, and a chance to argue against Guildlaw II makes sense.
Antheia laughs more heartily not genuinely when King Corundum calls him an idiot
The plot hole of Lord Antheia saying the knowledge of Eldrits rooms us all is an excellent place to put his visceral reaction to Atropos and the other Transcendent and all that backstory there (like how they limbo and descend people seemingly at random but in reality to feed the Behemoth)
Damn, dammit and hell -- I think I've mentioned this issue already. Having them as progenitor loan words does make a certain amount of sense.
Change "sick game" to a reference of jarmo.
Maybe "my and your status as descendants of the original crew" -- it needs to refer to the opalescent as a whole, not the three figures seated in the vision.
Re: capitalization, I think the best strategy is capitalizing things that are feared -- Limbo, Descent, Eldrit, Opalescent, etc. While normal everyday things aren't -- kyanite, ameth, reacher, drillor, etc. Job titles like Pathfinder, Seer, Wakeworm, etc should also be capitalized.
Why was Fisher bred? I mean it can be a permanent mystery but Lady Lachesis shouldn't think he's bred for sociality if he wasn't. If he's some Antheia experiment, she would likely know however. But then so would he when he met him. Explore.
One idea for the Behemoth chapter is to make the Opalescent who are more far gone *turn into* eldrits as the Behemoth controls them more and more. Or something. That whole chapter really needs to be longer since it ties the opalescent plotline in with the Eldrit one and the Descent one and just becomes pure nightmare fuel.
"Bullet-shaped". Honestly the descriptors might be a problem more generally.
I like how innocent Bismuth is -- it really makes the horror/dystopia stuff hit harder. Should probably lean into it more. Fisher is kind of the same way, which is probably why his Descent is as haunting as it is.
It needs to be super clear that both the jewelworm big projects (which I think needs to go to Tom since Manflight is getting cut) + the opalsmith big projects are both going into the Leviathan. Idk how to approach that yet though. Maybe some more description of the leviathan down in the garden -- its golems + its (insert jewelworm thing here). An issue though is that it would seem to be unfinished when released -- maybe it's just a matter of adding more and more segments, which could be worked into this description as well. Having lady Vulcan complain about her Segment not being done in time + the leviathan explicitly mentioning segments and same deal with the jewelworm projects makes the most sense
In the wakeworm exposition area, people being confused around maps is based on the og outline. Also, probably quite a bit of the exposition here needs to change.
Alter the opening a bit so it's as alien as possible from the outset, relatively easy to pick up, etc. obviously need to cut down on a lot of the exposition.
"The size of a watermelon".
There's a lot of exposition that just answers a question *I* have that should be weaved back into the book in a relevant section (or done via showing). Why Seering helms are necessary comes to mind.
Consistent use of the verb/noun forms of Seer (Seering, Seered, etc). I like the flexibility but I want to make sure it's consistent. Also characters that aren't Bismuth should use a variant first ideally.
Use of the word hell -- I guess it's okay but it's a bit out of place in a fantasy world without a defined religion.
On a related note, Bismuth uses "Pathfinding" and "Seering" interchangeably. Which is fine in his conception of what both of those are but I might want to make it a bit more consistent.
Guildlaw and his wife were going to find more chairs, but the longchairs are in storage and the house is using buckets -- should explore it i guess.
The dark wilds seems to have natural permaxanth. That's fine, but I need to make sure I'm consistent here -- the lakes and nursery use them as a light source.
I think there needs to be more focus on how Fisher's death has affected TQOS. There are moments with Feldspar that indicate that, but not as much with TQOS, which leads to her action of moving the menders into the mesh.
Feldspar and Fisher's absence should be noted at the gathering.
Feldspar does indeed know about Ziz Saday but he heard it from Lachesis, it's not because of "how long he's been around". Maybe alter it. Could also maybe be subtle foreshadowing for them being opalescent memories.
Fisher's description of the grand burrows is wrong -- it should be jewelworm to Mosser, passing close to the garden as well. Idk, will really need to work on the map.
Come to think of it, why is the Nexus underneath Mosser or yak districts? Will want to revisit that as well.
Kill edible bats. Honestly, the diet is pretty limited and should remain as such -- mushrooms, yak dairy, moss, fish, dark wilds/garden plants, ayrag/kumis. Yak meat on gratitude.
The Mosser district should be serving mossfruit wine, not unweaned ayrag.
On that note, should probably replace low grapes with mossfruit unless mossfruit already exists in the list.
Why are nat/Guildlaw/etc getting paid for a quarter day if they work half days? I mean getting paid every quarter makes sense but like it needs to be put into the text somewhere.
On a similar note, why wouldn't guildlaw go to the gathering if the other two did? Are they always there, or was it a reaction to their son/TQOS? probably worth exploring during character edits. Honestly it does make sense that he isn't aware of the cause despite his heritage. Might want to explore that in the G2/g3 interaction.
Why is Wolframite at the Gathering? The shovelers are almost all there and she was going to go out with them so it's plausible but I might want to explore that angle a bit differently.
Bismuth should be completely illiterate -- there's a couple spots where he may already see his name (at the beginning, the ward form and the free ward form). Also check for "lettering" or "words" in case I'm very wrong. He isn't though -- see the stemweft book and the grand book of the night
Jarmo is a good outlet for climax foreshadowing. The fact that you can win and still lose is great lmao.
How does gratitude day normally work? There's a hell of a lot of people that give ameths and saphs to their patrons, but in the existing draft there's no infrastructure for moving them around, collecting them, meeting with low worms, etc. Maybe lord Antheia can bring it up when he rails into Stemweft.
Task completion and clocks are super weird. I'm thinking that mechanical eyes have a lot to do with the lack of normal timekeeping.
On that note, should maybe determine how the mechanical eyes / jade / slate / amethyst ring systems work exactly. I do have some idea.
Make sure Bismuth's vision of the Garden while in the Leviathan chapter (as well as a vague encounter with it during the Gracious one) actually matches what it looks like during the climax. Whichever one has more description should be used, or both combined.
Some of the characters early on are way too happy-go-lucky about the dystopia despite their roles later on -- Fisher talking about what an honor it is to be killed by Gracious comes to mind.
Some other tarot card references would be nice -- TQOS is obvious. There's also a Tower near the end. Fisher could be a knight of rods, Kamadhenu could be a king of cups, Feldspar an ace of coins.
The OG meaning of myth-sibling is better. Kamadhenu needs to say something else.
Drop Columbia, that's such a weird addition to the myths. Do something Greek instead, also IDK what role she's even playing in the book.
The ending is too happy -- I don't think the transformation of Fisher should be instant. Also obviously diving into what becomes of the different characters is maybe a good idea or showing surface life more, etc.
The opalescent name drop should be equally as subtle as the worm one -- it should definitely refer to the substrate, but it's a bit on the nose right now.
C Elegans doesn't replicate, it reproduces, or some other useful sciency word.
The amethyst ovals need a name and also it isn't clear if the ameths are being used -- fieldspar's communication with tom thing hints at it but it's less clear later on.
The range is also an issue -- Fisher didn't know messages could be sent that far away but that's kind of required for later sections or any part of the city of make sense. Could probably just cut these pieces of exposition and be done with it.
Should probably explicitly name the Behemoth. It's hard to tell where -- I really like the way that chapter turned out where it doesn't explicitly explain anything.
More clocking up / clocking down references I think -- people wake up synchronously.
Rework the phrases "our worm lives" and "worm lives" in a few more times in various contexts, particularly before the midpoint since that's the new book title. Don't open with it though -- ideally the blurb, book title and book opening are all doing completely different things.
TQOS's description of the Bismuth name and its use in wiring should subtly hint towards his eventual set of powers or role (I mean it should be easy -- both Pathfinders and wires go along lines)
Drop king corundum's gene sisters comment, I like Tourmaline a lot more, she should be the source of it. It's also hinting at that templates thing so it might be the basis of that piece of exposition too.
Make sure she's introduced as The Queen of swords as her full name so the dialogue tags make sense.
Make damn sure I haven't said Lord Corundum anywhere -- the temptation is strong.
Make Stemweft iv female. Should be easy enough, particularly since gheechef's chapter is getting deep sixed.
Word usage mannerisms from character to character -- "gems" vs "crystal" vs "jewels" for example. Same deal with smelters vs smiths, contractions are more obvious. Marrow transceiver vs wake chamber. Will want to heavily explore the various dialects.
On that note, there's some interesting things happening in the gathering -- Kamadhenu is sometimes referred to as Sir, sometimes Great Lord, etc -- one of the times is a jab at Antheia.
What are the entrances to the dark wilds like? Gates or fences? Also why is Antheia not surrounded by watchworms?
Maybe change ruby/Antiruby to some other red gemstone/crystal -- it's the only one in the system that does what you'd expect. Carnelian or garnet seems reasonable.
*Why* did Feldspar rescue Fisher? Will need to explore that kind of thing a lot more during draft 3.
I need a deeper understanding of how the Mesh works -- emerald can maybe regulate incoming Uncertainty while the Longfin manages the outgoing kind. Idk though. And why do they turn the local Uncertainty up at the Nexus? Etc. Just needs more thorough explanation overall.
What the hell is the foundry? Specifically I mean. There are other forges too.
Semicolon usage. Similar problem to ellipses -- some uses of the semicolon just feel wrong despite them being different sentences (the short ones).
Bismuth needs to first wake with a *very* vague dream of Ziz Saday. That's evidently key to the ending and his character arc now. I was thinking something to the extent of "light and greenery", which is echoed a bit by people in moss robes that are glowing.
Cut any crystal not relevant to the plot in some way -- jade is cool and all but it's pure worldbuilding and I really like the way the crystals have become essential parts of the plot.
Lady Clotho will understandably want to know what's become of Nat and Wolframite. I think I can maybe get to that in the Gathering chapter since Wolframite is present, but I don't want to ruin the pacing in the first draft.
The yak district should have greenish rocks or something because of the emerald presence.
Every depiction of Clotho and Kamadhenu (that have color) need to have Emerald close to their heads. Also Antheia, but I think that's a separate point.
Surely Bismuth knows what leaves are. Tread carefully.
I need to make the high uncertainty areas of descent land really bad mentally. I think that should really be a second pass thing but it needs to get done or a big chunk of the plot is a giant plot hole.
More work on the Leviathan chamber once it's clear what the Leviathan actually is (the outline is hinting towards it being a giant mechanical dragon).
Nix the bit about Antheia knowing answers but not being able to speak them -- that's the domain of the Transcendent and the conflict there will actually inform that chapter. I guess alter it instead so it's a Transcendent secret that Antheia is bitter about. Same deal with descending subversives (I can't tell you why I'm doing evil stuff).
More attention should be placed on how the area near the Ziz Saday is a field, to sort of tie into the word's etymology.
I need better terms for the wake chamber and the wakeworm room. I'm not using any of them consistently and they sure do come up a lot.
I probably already have notes for this somewhere, but there needs to be *way* more references to subversives and just how bad the conditions in the city have gotten. Really want to play up the dystopian angle so the the cause stuff doesn't seem to come out of nowhere.
All references to gardens should refer to the Opalescent one. Rename anything else via a thesaurus accordingly.
Ellipses capitalization is inconsistent as all hell and I don't even know what the correct way is.
Character eye color should be based on dominant crystals. Will need to really tighten that up.
Fisher's description of Cerberi is super awkward. I mean he himself is also super awkward, but it's a bit much.
On that note, I don't really need "yote" as a word. Yotesister can still breed coyotes though.
Match the lifenut to some kind of poisonous nut. Also kill off TQOS's exposition on toxic plants since it gets revealed in vision #3. Honestly I do like the name, it's the description that should change, maybe to the horse chestnut. It still needs to be something hard to crack open though.
Don't capitalize Perfect. This isn't DBZ.
Consistent spacing of "quarter day", "sixthday", etc.
I should be extra careful between kyanite and sapphire (and all their effects). Kyanite is of course cyan and shouldn't ever be described as blue.
Even with manflight being removed it needs to still be obvious somewhere that knights are gender-neutral.
Maybe some explanation is in order for why Feldspar can make Bismuth a free ward without being a king. It's probably just because he has that kind of pull still, but I should maybe explore it a bit -- Tom could make him a ward and he isn't a king either.
When I make the permalap--> Antiruby change, there's a set of them in fieldspars storeroom. And also presumably cooling the ayrag in guidllaws but.
Obviously, earlier foreshadowing of blue being associated with Descent. Not by Fisher though or he'd recognize it when it happens.
The Leviathan chamber should have walls/etc of solid obsidian, which Fisher would notice -- it would add to his incredulity and sort of inform the chapter title since I'd like to largely keep the rock theme.
The lakes gate seems like a plot hole given where the lakes are. Honestly I just need to spend more time on the map.
Should probably cut the bit about Bismuth being able to see into people's minds from afar unless it's actually used. Him doing that locally isn't a big deal since the Opalescent can.
Time is kind of weird in general. 7-day gratitude/judgment weeks work, but what are months? Years?
Somewhere in the fishing scene, Fisher should refer to muckworms which are literal worms.
Obviously, handle descriptions better (like Nat/etcs descriptions need to be reinforced when they become characters). There isnt nearly enough reinforcement.
More internal dialogue as well.
The money system is based on both ameths and saphs. "Ameths" is a good shorthand, but there needs to be more reference of blue rocks mixed in or something. It needs to also be very clear that both ameths and saphs are going to the Opalescent (and ultimately, the Transcendent). Can be wildly inconsistent otherwise since it's largely just a name for money. Do a search for "ameths" here; way too many existing references.
Does Seering require powered amethyst? The geode suggests no but the crowns suggest yes. There are some spots where Bismuth Seers with just the crystals too, so it will need some work I think.
Lightworms also need a bit more expository detail but not to the extent they were detailed in the cut chapter. Could maybe just incorporate them into the crystals vision with some smaller hints here and there.
The fact that the Garden is the remnants of the Ziz Saday ship needs to be hinted at more strongly in both the Atropos flashback and whatever part of the book actually goes into the Garden.
Damn, apparently there's only one reference of Ascending (getting one of those fancy Opalescent bodies). It'll be in the Kamadhenu vision I think but I need some more stuff peppered around. It's some good stuff when paired with Transcend and Descend.
Cut depictions of Bismuth's race altogether. He glows, that's good enough. Also someone else should reveal his purple eyes (probably Nat). Doing a search for "olive" or "my skin" will cut secondary references.
I like the idea of there being mushrooms or something in Bismuth's Seer visions -- something that hints towards their underlying reality of the Behemoth. Will probably need to explore it after I actually build out the Behemoth scene.
Dammit, swap Bismuth's descriptions of coyotes back to dogs, I forgot that was a plot point.
Why isn't Fisher using his Slate in the Leviathan Chamber to navigate? Ideally it doesn't work but I don't remember if I put that in there or not.
Eld doesn't use Lady Lachesis' titles.
Why am I describing Wolframite twice?
On that note, the first introduction of Seering happens here so I can't just get rid of Lady Lachesis using the Uncertainty to seer easily. Also the initial explanation doesn't fit the new lore.
TQOB needs a new name. Might want to look up other characters as well -- I mean Feldspar and Fisher have been influenced but those seem okay. Make TQOB a tarot card.
Make the mesh-mad cloth "unusually green" or something. The emerald microdose is what's giving it the anti-Uncertainty effects. This is the kind of thing that would just appear as descriptive on a first read-through but make way more sense after the crystals vision.
Kill the mirror scene altogether -- it should be Nat that reveals that Bismuth has purple eyes. Much better all around.
There needs to be a potted plant somewhere called a Snag (or something similar) that's heavily branched/tendriled so Bismuth has a very subtle frame of reference for the Eldrit encounter. Maybe Yotesister could water it -- earlier is better though.
Kill off Anonymous/Ego Descent, doesn't fit in well with the lore and honestly there's no reason for it to exist.
Lady Clotho would have had to have been Descended pretty recently -- just enough time for Lady Lachesis and Lord Antheia to finish the Bismuth project.
Bigger Issues
Maybe combine Gratitude Day and Judgment together -- this cuts down on the exposition and also makes the day of Opalescent judgment have more impact. So every six days you pay rent and crimes get punished. Easy. Need to be careful with the timelines and lore here and stuff if I'm combining the two. On a similar note, it can just be a normal 7 day week.
I need to do a run through the entire book and make sure nothing is being seen in third person that Bismuth couldn't plausibly see.
While I definitely need to clear out the excessive amount of exposition, Bismuth being extremely curious is a big part of his personality -- Lady Lachesis mentions this. Also his inherited memories are unusually absent so this makes even more sense. Could maybe lean into it more with all the questions and characters telling him to shut up, but then also providing exposition where appropriate.
Consistent capitalization -- the "the" in The Queen of Swords, Ameths, etc. titles in particular are a big problem.
Chapter 5 has been erased, so they all need to shuffle down. This will probably happen a lot honestly -- I'm going to just keep the numbering as-is so the reverse outlines make sense. Besides, they'll probably have names by the end.
Timelines. Good god.
I need to figure out the exact mechanisms behind Opalescent Seering -- how do the Opalescent do it? Is it genetic? Do they need the crowns? Where do purple eyes fit in? Is it because they're covered head to toe in jewels (this would definitely make their name make more sense)?
Similarly "mesh madness" is kind of a big plot point but there's a bunch of Uncertainty situations (like with Eldrits) that don't cause anger. Needs some work.
Everyone needing to eat frequently is a giant plot hole.
Bismuth needing to eat repeatedly is now a giant plot hole. Should fix this in whatever way makes the most sense -- it's going to come up in the Mesh and also when Fisher picks Bismuth back up. Whenever the "do you have a slower metabolism" thing happens it's never explored again.
Weave the prophecies back in. Obviously hit them subtly. The Kamadhenu one can still be heavy-handed.
Build up more about how to survive an Opalescent encounter -- particularly the lack of reaction. It isnt obvious that this was done by the characters in the Lady Vulcan scene for survival purposes.
Do a deep dive into the crystal system and make sure it's represented accurately. Same deal with Seering, particularly the way the Opalescent use it, and mechanical eyes as well.
Seeing as Lady Lachesis formed a bridge with descent-land, the reveal that sometimes people come back from it needs to be paired with how this only started happening at that exact part in the timeline. Needs to be very specific ideally for extra foreshadowing impact. And thoroughly linked to whatever the notes become there. No one should've returned until that point, making Lord Kamadhenu's prophecy extra strange, but this would've confirmed that there was logic to it.
As my notes on the backstories become more solid, whatever exposition and other hints I have need to go through a thorough checking for accuracy.
Keep better track of the types of eyes everyone has and how they're used. I didn't realize Nat only had one metallic eye for example -- wouldn't that make her blind in the other eye? Idk if I can fix it; the whole Wolframite/Eld thing requires that she have another eye. Something to explore later I guess. Sometimes lights flash in all-mechanical eyes, other times they roll back, and Eld seems to only pull out her eye exactly once for horror purposes (though I guess the Gracious also do this later).
Whatever exposition survives the culling is likely riddled with plot holes, so be careful here. Natties having an advantage in the dark wilds comes to mind -- Nat sure didn't have something like that.
Bismuth hating how the Gracious/Opalescent work but not wanting to be at the center of doing something about it is a major part of his character arc, but I'm handling it really really poorly. I'm hoping it'll make more sense as I get deeper into the dystopian side of the major editing project.
I definitely need to fix the thing about pathfinders having some amazing destiny -- nat mentions it when first meeting Bismuth and iirc lady Vulcan mentions it to the queen of blades, so the queen of blades also maybe mentions it at some point. -- This is a bigger problem than anticipated. Will need heavy revision, probably via searching for "pathfinder" and going from there. I guess for now, just don't mention that lore point ever again.Can honestly table this and work the "pathfinder improves society" legend in the kamadhenu statue chapter back into the rest of the story.
Nat should mention somewhere how her brothers are all Seers too and how unusual that is, but maybe that's related to her Opalescent mother. Shouldn't be too much detail here, as more about her backstory comes up later. I'm not sure who the father is, and it's irrelevant; also her brothers are over in that district and they're irrelevant as well. The brothers didn't take the Descent of their parents very well and they're not really on speaking terms with Nat, I guess largely because of her friendship with Wolframite. Also this Descent event is a big reason why Nat is as afraid of the Opalescent as she is -- I mean everyone is, but she's particularly traumatized. -- Complicated. Not sure where this reference even is -- I think Tom mentions it rather than Nat. Fitting it into something Nat says would be complex because she'd have to make a full mention of her birth to a Disgraced Opalescent as well. Also now her name doesn't make sense because her brothers would also be seer natties. Maybe they just have the potential and the female thing helps or helped Seer Natty learn it from her mother.I don't know why this is even required; there's got to be better ways of fitting Lady Clotho in.
Some more work needs to be done on Lady Vulcan's description of the Golem, since it comes up later. Maybe she's going to model it into crowd control or something, though it's not clear how much the Opalescent know about the upcoming revolution. Can probably just deal with this once the golem chapter is actually written.
It should be way more obvious early on that the whole book takes place underground in a giant cave system. I think maybe the best strategy is for Bismuth to look up at the dark ceiling any time there's a scene change to what would intuitively be "outside".
Misc recatted plot holes
It's been established that Seering works just as well with a Seering helm (or sometimes just by virtue of being Opalescent), so cut out the bit about Lady Lachesis using the Uncertainty to Seer.
The newgrub immunity thing makes zero sense and also never comes up again, so nix it and all references to it (check for "immunity").
"Team Two Black Seventy" makes no sense. I mean maybe if teams are assigned based on whatever is happening that would work, but idk how many Menders there actually are. Also why the fuck are they doing rote stuff like fixing belts or janitor work?
How does Slagmover know Bismuth is working for the jewelworms later? Plot hole, change it.
Wolframite inviting Bismuth out to the Shovelers is now a plot hole.
Wolframite was created intentionally by Lady Vulcan to further humiliate Lady Lachesis. This sort of backfired because they became friends instead, but that might have a lot to do with Lady Clotho's meddling as well. Wolframite was created as a replica of Lady Lachesis before she became Opalescent, and her role was to have all the access and control in the Foundry that Lady Lachesis lacked.
Wolframite was originally going to be created fairly weak and crippled as well and maybe fairly unintelligent/etc to further cement that Lady Lachesis with all her superhuman strength still wasn't good enough to run anything.
Lady Lachesis was good friends with her Myth-sieter Lady Clotho, who like Lord Antheia was skilled in manipulating genes experimentally. Less good friends with their myth-brother Lord Atropos who basically invented Descent (I'm assuming he appears when the main cast gets Descended).
When Lady Clotho found out what Wolframite was going to become, she stepped in and made her genes normal so she could have some kind of life. She was already in love with the unnamed father of Seer Natty and like Lady Lachesis she had an appreciation for the low worms.
This made Lady Vulcan angry to no end, and is a big part of why she has as much enmity towards Nat as she does. She did eventually get her revenge but she had to wait, as Lady Clotho was heavily at work changing the breeding of various groups and was basically untouchable.
Lady Clotho and the unnamed low worm gave birth to Seer Natty. Lady Clotho was also in contact a lot with Wolframite who she felt responsible for in some ways, so Wolframite and Seer Natty grew up as sisters in some ways, though they didn't grow up together really.
Lady Clotho and the unnamed yakhand low worm (I guess he'll be named during the Descent sequence) were something like common law married -- they couldn't be actually married because the Opalescent don't approve of those unions but they're basically married otherwise.
Lady Clotho figured out how to induce Seering, and that's why Nat and all of her brothers were purple-eyed; something to do with inserting Opalescent/low worm mixed genes in, which she learned from her very rare relationship with the low worm and their natty offspring.
Lady Clotho and her unnamed lover were Descended, but not before she had done a lot of work for the Opalescent and also the Bismuth project with Lady Lachesis and Lord Antheia. Good prequel target for sure. They should definitely appear during the Descent sequence.
More on that point is that she was the architect behind Bismuth's Seer genes. Lord Antheia probably figured out how to combine it with Pathfinder knowledge (somewhat poorly given his lack of knowledge there). Not sure Lady Lachesis' role -- she's not really into genetics but heavily understands crystal power and general Uncertainty so it has a lot to do with that presumably. The overall goal of this project was getting Lord Kamadhenu back and making someone inclined towards this goal, but like obviously this didn't work particularly well as Bismuth is really reluctant to do anything about the Opalescent despite his *highly* subversive opinions. Blame it on all the mixed experimental breeding I guess.
Back to Wolframite's backstory
While Lady Vulcan wanted to use Wolframite as a means of teaching Lady Lachesis humility, her intelligence and physical ability was offensive and she disowned her for a bit, forcing Wolframite to get in bed with the Shovelers.
Her gemcraft knowledge (inherited from Lady Lachesis) was strong enough that she likes picking up gems or whatever. I guess that'll be explored when she goes out into the dark wilds.
Lady Clotho visited her frequently, and let her stay with her and the unnamed father, brothers and Nat frequently as well when Shoveler stuff didn't go according to plan, so Wolframite and Nat became close.
I'm guessing Nat lived in the Yak district and the father was some kind of yakhand. Would explain a lot about why Lady Clotho was the way that she was (all the subversive stuff there). And why Nat can drink as much as she does. Nat probably knew Guildlaw back then as well. Wolframite was living with Shovelers though so she wouldn't have known him until Nat and him became closer friends.
At some point Lady Vulcan had a change of heart (maybe when it became obvious how subversive Lady Lachesis was despite her punishment) and recalled Wolframite back into the fold.
Presumably Wolframite is the one who got Nat into the fold there, maybe with some prodding by Lady Clotho before she was descended. It's very possible that the Queen of Blades was one of her creations -- she's pretty weird from a breeding angle. Guildlaw probably joined suit at some point.
I'm not sure how Guildlaw and Nat got into Mending. Nat definitely started out as a low ingot pusher which is why she's so good at it. Lady Lachesis probably had a lot to do with it, and may have even felt somewhat bad for Nat because of what happened to her Myth-sister. She doesn't particularly like Nat but has Lady Clotho and Wolframite influences.
Guildlaw and Lady Lachesis have an interesting relationship. She's a big reason why he's allowed to Mend, and she has been trying to increase the influence of subversives in the employ of Lady Vulcan as a general fuck you. Having someone that connected to Knighthood would definitely help with that goal, but my guess is that she doesn't really like him as a person and sees him as weak. Unlike Feldspar, who she's very fond of, maybe at least partially because of how he handled her when she Woke (during the Wolframite event and after Lady Lachesis' disgracement death). I don't know if they'll ever meet during the story -- she's locked up at the Vulcan area but she'll definitely play a role in the revolution out of spite if nothing else.
Lady Lachesis may have loved Lady Clotho to some degree -- like obviously Lady Clotho is straight but there may have been something there. They're not related; Myth-sisters just has to do with Opalescent titles. Would explain some of her enmity towards Lady Vulcan despite Lady Vulcan literally saving her from Descent. And the mutual aspect of it (a good friendship if nothing else) would inform Lady Clotho's choice to risk everything to save Wolframite.
In any case this also means that Lady Lachesis meeting Bismuth wasn't an accident. She's half crazy but would definitely want to see how her progeny had turned out. Same deal with Lord Antheia, though they did meet earlier than he had Foretold. Bismuth going there was probably way more calculated than Feldspar had made out, making it seem like it was through Fisher and the Queen of Blade's connection. Feldspar doesn't know a whole lot about Bismuth but he visits Lady Lachesis occasionally and maybe saw something of her in the breeding orders for Bismuth -- that whole thing is very very quiet though.
Feldspar and Lady Lachesis are definitely close, but if it's relationship it's a very secretive one given Lady Lachesis' disgrace and the general moratorium on Opalescent/low relationships. It would be interesting to explore it when they meet or communicate during the revolution sequence. There's definitely something there though. They have a lot in common too, both very good at their trades and having lost high positions in favor of nobler goals. Granted she's pretty crazy, though Feldspar is in his own way so it's a good match.
Given the threat of Eldrit Collosi as well as Eldrit intelligence increases last generation, a new breeding protocol was put into place to mix pathfinder genes more liberally and experimentally. This would kind of remove the need for me to cut references to pathfinder destiny, though it would still require some rewording and maybe payoff.
Lord Antheia was particularly skilled in it. It has something to do with reducing Uncertainty concentrations, which is where Pathfinding comes from in the first place (though it's a much older technology). This would explain what he's doing with the plants too. Somewhat.
In any case, both the Queen of Blades and Eld (and maybe Fisher as well) were based somewhat on the protocol. In the Queen of Blades' case it was done to improve Wilds knowledge mixed with Opalsmithing so that projects like Golems and the Leviathan are feasible.
In any case, while the Queen of Blades was definitely bred for management (and a lot of experimenting, hence her "projects"), the pathfinder mix is pretty imprecise so she has this romanticism towards pathfinders more generally since she sort of is one.
Eld was on a similar protocol, but the pathfinder thing made her feel the draw to nurse eldeer back to life. I need to explore this a bit more in Lady Vulcan's rant at her to be sure that it lines up right.
Lord Antheia's skill here was instrumental in the Bismuth project. In order, that's a Pathfinding mix provided by Lord Antheia, the Opalescent/low mix to append Seering by Lady Clotho, and a lot of the technical Uncertainty manipulating detail carried out by Lady Lachesis. I'm not sure who had the idea first -- all three of them are pretty subversive so it may have been a combining of separate projects. The ethics would've probably been a combination of Pathfinding morality mixed with Opalescent haughtiness so Bismuth would feel the need to do something, though obviously this didn't go according to plan.
The three who created Bismuth are two females and one male -- Lady Lachesis, Lady Clotho and Lord Antheia. I'm thinking Lord Antheia and Lord Atropos may have been lovers; it would add a lot of weight behind Lord Antheia's reasoning to turn revolutionary -- it's definitely one of the things that could come up during the Descent sequence. But this would also explain how Lord Antheia knew Lady Lachesis and Lady Clotho in the first place.
Why do the creators of the Bismuth project let their golden goose just walk around?
Lady Clotho is descended, and Lady Lachesis is pretty much a prisoner (and is half-crazy and has a lot of her own priorities) so this has everything to do with Lord Antheia.
Lord Antheia is basically fully Transcendent without the recognition. His Seering capability is unmatched. He knows full well that he has to be hands-off with Bismuth until his Foreknown meeting with him (during the night of the second day).
As for why he hasn't gone Transcendent, it has a lot to do with his changed moral scruples and some about how Lord Atropos turned out. Lord Atropos is fully Transcendent and sees how revolutions will eventually doom the world (this literally happens so he's not wrong, he just hasn't seen the full extent of it like Antheia has).
I'm guessing their falling out had a lot to do with the difference in their visions here, with Atropos going full tilt on enforcing the strict Opalescent order to prevent revolution and Antheia helping to foment it. Probably something that could be explored in the prequel.
Descent is evidently the missing link here. That and what Uncertainty actually represents.
The Behemoth
The Behemoth is an entity outside of time, and is the source of all the crazy/magical stuff that happens in the setting. It's a formless or unexplained thing that dwells within the terrain of the entire cave system setting and can manipulate things to its liking.
At the time the book takes place, it's dormant -- it still sort of exists there but most of its power is concentrated at "the end of time". It's been trying to regain power in the current time -- if it ever achieves this, that period of time will become the end of time.
Despite not existing in its full power in the present, it still has an influence on things (Eldrit Collosi and Eldrits for example, jewel effects more generally). Its body also forms the basis of the cave system, so while it can't do anything, it still exists there.
Uncertainty
Uncertainty is some of the power of the behemoth coming through. It is a process that manipulates time -- terrain can change for example because it could change over thousands or millions of years. Fungi can grow or shrink in various ways, physical objects can move around, etc. I don't really have to fully explain how all of this works, as it's meant to be super weird, but the main takeaways here are that it is a power of the Behemoth and it involves time manipulation.
Amethyst
Amethyst is how the Behemoth communicates with itself and everything else. It's sort of an Ansible sort of thing in general -- pieces of amethyst are sort of paired and act as one object.
In its physical form, pieces of amethyst can communicate with other pieces of amethyst or other amethystine sources. In an energy form, they're communicating with the behemoth more directly.
Since the behemoth is omnipresent within the setting and also exists outside of time, amethyst can be used to glean bits of the behemoth's vision, both in the present and in the future.
Seering
Seering is related to this, which is why people that can Seer generally have characteristic purple eyes. It's kind of a consequence of the way resurrection technology works, which I'm getting to in a minute.
Seering allows you to see things from the Behemoth's perspective. It's omniscient and you're not, so you sort of focus in on specific parts of it. More advanced versions of this will allow you to see into the future or past as well -- known as Grand Seering, and heavily related to those Opalescent known as The Transcendent.
Resurrection
People in this world are born with varying levels of energy-based amethyst, which can be paired with amethyst rings in wakeworm chambers. When they die, and a new body is formed in that ring (not sure how just yet), their consciousness transfers over via the amethyst link, and some of the amethyst energy goes into their new body to replenish it.
With a higher amount of this -- it's sort of genetic how much your body will allow -- you can Seer. The Opalescent can also Seer, but they've been specifically bred for it. I'm not sure how many natty seers there are.
Limbo
Limbo is a technique for getting a consciousness/body state to bounce around between amethysts rather than resurrecting immediately. There's multiple ways of doing this, so this isn't necessarily set in stone.
Sapphire
Sapphire in its energy form causes very high localized Uncertainty to the point where whatever has it will also exist outside of time the way the Behemoth does. It can't explicitly communicate with the Behemoth (that also requires Amethyst), but it can move through time in a similar way.
The fish, mushrooms and Eldeer all have this, so they're able to move around instantaneously, change form, etc. They're not moving through time, but they're manipulating it so that they can change the way they normally would be able to at a much much faster rate.
Eldrits work similarly, but have the added bonus of energized amethyst, which allows the Behemoth to manipulate them directly. Eldrits are able to turn crystals into energy. If they come to a piece of terrain high in both amethyst and sapphire, they sort of merge with it and that bit of terrain itself becomes under the influence of the Behemoth. Which typically hurts humans a lot more since it's solid rock rather than fungus.
Descent
Descent was the missing piece of this.
It requires giving a person an aura of energized sapphire. I'm not sure what the technique here is exactly -- it's probably some arcane Opalescent technology. In any case, once this is applied, they slip outside of time, and when killed, they'll resurrect at the wake node at the end of time.
This actually happened to Fisher by accident.
What are the Transcendant doing?
The Transcendant are collecting large stockpiles of amethyst and sapphires. Their goal is finding intrusions of the Behemoth in a high-uncertainty place known as The Marrow, and pushing them back outside of time.
The Marrow is a big crystal cavern at the lowest level of the Garden, and of the City more generally. It's very high in Uncertainty, so it has that whole "infinite size" thing going on. There's a lot of time shifting stuff that happens here.
The Transcendant use Amethyst to Seer to find Intrusions and also Seer into the future to see if they turn into the Behemoth or not. They'll then use Sapphire to slip them back outside of time and delay its entrance. They need a steady supply of both of these, or the intrusions will proliferate and the present time will become the end of time.
Becoming Transcendant requires Grand Seering something highly unlikely to happen. TOpalescent have varying levels of Grand Seer ability, but some of them can at least verify that some future event that you've Seered as your Act of Transcendance will occur.
The Transcendent themselves slip out of time via the Marrow. Not sure on all the details here, but they definitely reappear earlier in the world's history and such -- they're sort of timeless the way the behemoth is, and they're trying to fight it.
Bismuth's Visions
Bismuth's visions are the flood of Amethyst on resurrection. It basically gives him a Grand Seer vision. Idk why it's so specific and uncontrollable though -- the Opalescent inherited memory makes more sense there. Probably still needs some work .
Conclusion
This should be enough information to get a sense of how the next few chapters go (particularly Bismuth's next vision) and some lore that'll be useful near the end.
This will happen later -- I have enough now to finish the book until the end.
The dystopian/revolution stuff needs to play a much bigger role. There's a good bit, but not nearly enough. The cause in particular isn't foreshadowed in any capacity.
Fisher's friendship needs to play a much bigger role so his death is more poignant. Also need to figure out the basis of this character and what he actually spends his days doing -- why is it okay for him to ferry Bismuth all around the city for example? None of this makes any sense.
Bismuth's primary motivation is finding his place in the world. The Pathfinding/Seer plot thing ties into this but it presents a new problem because he doesn't want everything to rely on him. In any case, his motivation/etc needs some more work.
((Reintegrate with Pathfinding clearly working via integrated Emerald -- it's a filter for Uncertainty and yeah it produces green lines))
Pathfinding Lore
I evidently need to detail this before I can really dive into the Bismuth project and Lady Lachesis more generally.
Uncertainty, as mentioned, is largely time manipulation. There's a lot of weirder shit attached to it as well, but for now that's the gist of how it works.
Pathfinders are immune to the effects here -- they perceive the reality that isn't affected by the behemoth and its Uncertainty. The green line stuff comes out for them as well as it does for Bismuth, however it's tied to the path out or something. Some of Bismuth's Pathfinder stuff came out in the game he was playing with Wolframite whose name escapes me. A lot of solid breeding here.
Seers, meanwhile, have a closer connection to the behemoth -- they're able to see what it sees spatially and even temporally when they get good enough at it.
Mixing the two makes zero sense since they're opposites, as Tom mentioned.
Seers can't see outside of a bubble of their vision because of that Uncertainty static, while Bismuth can see a full and complete vision, with the Pathfinder stuff additionally forming a green-lined route.
Pathfinding works via Antiameth -- it absorbs Uncertainty or whatever it is exactly that amethyst is doing. It doesn't output anything -- that would make the power needs of the city way too easy to solve. Obviously it's a magic system so I'm fuzzy, but somewhere in all of this mess, Pathfinders are able to resist the temporal distortions. It would make more sense if they're illusory (amethyst promoting communication/vision and all that), but they don't seem to be. Will probably need some more work.
Getting Antiameth to play nice with Amethyst is really really tricky since they're opposites, and that's where someone like Lady Lachesis would come in. This also explains her Wakeworm connections (via the Feldspar thing) perfectly since resurrection is tied to amethyst. She probably helped build the nexus in the foundry -- a lot of amethyst there. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that her sins as an Opalescent were probably related to that. She has a very very close understanding of Uncertainty and how to manipulate it, which is why she's so useful at the Foundry's Mending processes. The amount of power the Foundry requires is absurd, and all those operations put out a lot of Uncertainty, which explains Section II. Honestly, this is still weak. I do have a good bit to work with though at least.
I'm just going to keep hashing this out until something makes sense.
King Feldspar ran the low worm wake nodes and at some point began an expansion into other areas of the city, with pairings and wiring and whatnot services provided by Lady Lachesis, whose craftsmanship there was unparalleled. They became close.
Feldspar is therefore the only wakeworm she trusts with the Bismuth project.
They're tightly connected and even have a forbidden relationship happening when no one's looking. The connection there though (and visits here and there for wakeworm maintenance purposes) are how the Foundry and wakeworm node are linked together -- it explains where Fisher's friendship with the Queen of Blades and Nat/Wolframite came from. He probably met Wolframite first, that would make sense since she hangs out with her wake-twin -- but Nat and Wolframite are basically inseparable.
I'm thinking Lady Lachesis' motivation for the Bismuth project is largely out of spite towards Lady Vulcan -- there's still some kind of punishment going on, and the Wolframite thing almost happened badly (but Lady Clotho stepped in on it), and she definitely has a problem with Opalescent/worm relationships ("abomination of genetics" and all that). She can't act directly against Lady Vulcan because she did save her from judgment (for her own selfish purposes), but she can be subversive subtly.
Lady Vulcan saved Lady Lachesis from judgement because of just how useful her wiring craftsmanship would be in Lady Vulcan's Foundry. Lady Vulcan is vying for Opalescent status and failing and it's made her extra haughty. She still knows when people are useful though, and while she'll humiliate and torture them she won't kill them outright. As a lower status Opalescent, putting them in place and gaining control is more important than punishing them.
Lady Lachesis is fully aware of this and while she appreciates not being Descended she still has great enmity towards her, particularly for the Wolframite thing, and even for the way she treats Nat. Lady Lachesis doesn't particularly care for Nat, but she cared about Lady Clotho a great deal, and that's her kid.
Additionally, Lord Atropos Descended Lady Clotho (since he sort of manages all Descents) and myth-brother or not, that's pretty much unforgivable so she's extra motivated to be subversive. It wouldn't have caused her to join the Bismuth project (since Lady Clotho was involved directly) but it may have made her take a more active role in it -- recommending the Feldspar wake node for example, and bringing Bismuth into the fold at the Foundry.
Lady Lachesis' Disgrace
Lady Lachesis was Wolframite once, or rather a version of her. They're very similar in base personality. But regardless, the point here is that she Ascended to being Opalescent rather than being born into it.
Given her origin, her "sin" would still be something related to the empathy she had retained.
I still have no idea what! Onto the next round I guess.
Lord Antheia and Lady Clotho both studied under Lord Kamadhenu -- it just makes sense. They're both highly skilled at genetics and also have that subversive bent.
Lady Clotho and the Wolframite I gemhunter-turned Opalescent gained their myth-names from Lord Atropos' patronage. A great honor and all that.
Lord Antheia and Lord Atropos became close as well.
Lord Atropos wasn't fully Transcendent yet but he was definitely on the Grand Seer level. He invented Descent quite a ways back and had been using it to pare off major subversive behavior that would threaten Opalescent rule and threaten to bring about the Behemoth -- I think he sensed that subversiveness was what would lead to its release (which is definitely true!)
The conflict between Lord Antheia and Lord Atropos came from Lord Atropos' Descent terms (and judgment in general) becoming increasingly authoritarian and unjustifiable, and Lord Atropos couldn't explain the behemoth thing because even mentioning it to the non-transcendent would hasten its release.
Lady Lachesis was messing around with something sapphire-related which threatened the behemoth being released (still not sure what), Lord Atropos caught wind of that and threatened Descent (which made Lord Antheia upset)
Lady Vulcan stepped in and got Lady Lachesis to work for her instead for her own selfish reasons and otherwise got her out of the Garden so she couldn't do any more damage. Lord Atropos agreed.
Despite her saving her from Descent, Lady Lachesis became more aware of Lady Vulcan's motives and the humiliation and isolation was getting to her, so she became more subversive.
To teach her a lesson, Lady Vulcan did the Wolframite thing. Wolframite would've been frail and weak but Lady Clotho stepped in. Lady Vulcan wanted revenge but couldn't do anything to Lady Clotho because of all her work on breeding protocols at the time.
The subversiveness of all three grew, and somewhere around here is where the Bismuth project kicked off in earnest -- the overall goal was bringing Lord Kamadhenu back, which both Lady Clotho and Lord Antheia had solid motivations for, and Lady Lachesis largely just wanted to spite Lady Vulcan and Lord Atropos by this point.
Some kind of (true!) Transcendent prophecy about an Opalescent being with a low worm bringing about the behemoth came out, and that caused the Opalescent to heavily crack down on those types of relationships -- the rule was that both parties would be Descended.
That was enough for Lady Vulcan to get her revenge because of Lady Clotho's relationship. She was aware of the one with Feldspar too but Lady Lachesis was still way too useful and the law would've punished both so she let it slide. So she got Lady Clotho Descended, which made Lord Antheia even more upset at Lord Atropos for Descending his own myth-sister and his close friend.
Lady Lachesis and Lord Antheia worked on the Bismuth project in secret -- the breeding contract had already been drawn up (with Lady Clotho's signature) but Lady Lachesis changed the profession bit on it to bring Bismuth into the fold of the Foundry and made sure the contract went to Feldspar. Lord Antheia also Grand Seered out the best outcome to get Bismuth Descended. Hopefully that makes some kind of sense when I get there.
I don't have to explicitly mention what it is, but it would be cool if I mentioned that it made Lord Atropos and/or the Transcendent upset. Definitely ties in. The subtler the better really seeing how early on it is.
Lady Lachesis was messing around with connecting to the wake node at the end of time -- her amethyst/uncertainty/resurrection knowledge is way way up there and she managed to succeed, which inadvertently caused a few people to return from Descent-land. Requires a large amount of saphs.
This obviously would've made Lord Atropos drop everything and threaten to Descend her.
Lady Vulcan stepped in instead.
I think the technique here is to make resurrection amethyst slip outside of time, pair it and then pair to the time-slipped one, creating that bridge. Something like that. It can't be done by crystal saph, it has to be energetic saph, and the only way to do that is via Opalescent strength, so Feldspar for example wouldn't be able to do it.
Super useful! It might make sense to have Lord Antheia abscond with a bunch of the saphs, throw Bismuth under the bus, etc and then later on have him create the link with Lady Lachesis' guiding -- this would also allow him to tell Bismuth wtf to do without being Descended himself.
The above flashback does also help solve another mystery -- how Opalescent (and the Gracious) are able to read minds. Since memories are just things that can be transferred and imprinted it makes sense that there'd be technology available to do that -- like everything else in that scope, it would be related to amethyst. It's probably a variant of Seering honestly -- seeing the event as it happened rather than accessing the memory directly.
Given this though, it seems obvious what Kamadhenu's new gifts would be. Shutting down the kyanite in Opalescent and the Gracious would *drastically* cut down their ability to win. Considering gifts is plural there might be things related to other crystals as well (the rubies that make flaming swords maybe? And messing with amethyst would be a huge game-changer for Opal intel).
Lord Antheia isn't evil despite doing more Seering than basically anyone else. I found a perfect solution here.
He should have a lot of Emerald on his person. Like he already is apparently, which is great, but there needs to be more. It's probably binding his hair and stuff -- nice aesthetic contrast since it's red. This does three very distinct things, depending on the level of subtext depth:
He deals with plants. So yeah on a purely surface level his emphasis on green makes sense.
He's heavily implicated in Pathfinding, which uses Emerald and produces green lines, so this shows his allegiance to that kind of thing.
All that Emerald is preventing his mesh-madness and might honestly be why his Transcendent abilities are so controlled. I'm not sure he's even fully aware of this. Prolonged mesh-madness probably isn't even theorized in Opalescent circles and I think I should honestly be really subtle about how it presents itself in the story too.
Honestly, Emerald might just be associated with Breeders in general -- it makes way too much sense why Kamadhenu and Clotho would've not turned evil as well. So it's a very unintentional effect.
This would kind of hint that Pathfinders couldn't become evil, which yeah that makes perfect sense honestly and explains why they become shovelers and subversives.
I'm thinking in the scene with the local Emerald, it should have a calming effect. It sort of is already, with Bismuth nearly falling asleep and such, but I should emphasize that more. Guildlaw should calm down a bit when he pulls it out or something -- and I mean that makes sense even without the subtext.
Tom shouldn't have any emerald anywhere on his person. I don't think he does, but I should really emphasize that fact to explain part of why he lost his goddamn mind.
There's only one battle at the end, so the various parts of both need to be merged.
There's some time left, so the Descent sequence actually needs to happen *first* -- that'll make the book wrap up quicker which is definitely a good thing at this point.
It does make sense for Antheia to descend Bismuth. Them *getting* descended is a worse option, so I guess I'll need to leave a note about Atropos not descending him for the good of all (an easy enough fix)
What's great about this is that there's exactly two flashbacks left, and exactly two needed.
Bismuth needs enormous mental fortitude to get through descent-land which I think will be quite a bit different and tie into the whole Uncertainty thing that I keep exploring. It wraps it up nicely.
In any case, he just didn't have that fortitude until now. Antheia was definitely testing it in their first (early) meeting. He sure does now though, or at least the seed of it.
Lord Kamadhenu is aware of the effect that emerald has on mesh-madness. This should play a role. No one else is though -- Lord Antheia knew that it helps with Pathfinding and Uncertainty but wasn't clear on that point.
The ultimate source of both mesh-madness and the Opalescent changing is the Behemoth. In that first death vision, it's described as a being of pure anger, so it makes sense.
As mentioned previously, both amethyst and sapphire are related to some aspect of it, as well as Uncertainty, which is tied very closely to Sapphire.
So acute exposure to Uncertainty will cause mesh-madness, while prolonged exposure will cause things that are more permanent.
This also explains the madness that comes from being in Descent-land. Uncertainty levels there are mostly at their peak.
Strength of will certainly helps -- Lady Vulcan was very strong, so she's managed to keep a lot of her merciful nature, even if it really doesn't look like that on the surface. It's under the guise of her using people, but like TQOS stated, there really is a level of good under everything.
Emerald also helps, but it only does so much.
Opalescent fears
The transformation isn't purely madness -- you sort of just become more and more the Behemoth over time and lose more and more of yourself.
The dark wilds are full of Uncertainty. Not necessarily enough to cause Mesh-madness, but there's a constant amount of it due to the presence of gems.
One side effect of mining so many gems out there (and structuring society on finding them) is that it cuts those levels down, making the outside safer. This allows the City to expand slowly. The gems still exist in concentrated areas (like the Mesh), but there are ways of containing their Uncertainty (the panels in the Longfin for example).
In any case, the Opalescent aren't purely afraid of the Behemoth, they're also afraid of completely losing themselves to it. So they'll stay far away from concentrated sources of Uncertainty, including the dark wilds.
Lord Antheia
Lord Antheia is somewhat immune to these effects. There are several reasons for it:
His association with plants has it so there's lots of emeralds on his person. This has helped stave off a lot of the problem. He isn't aware of this.
His strength of will is pretty high. He's been subversive for a very long time, working behind the scenes against the Opalescent as they slowly lose themselves more and more to the Behemoth.
As mentioned, Lord Kamadhenu's new gifts are things that cripple the Opalescent and Gracious. And it's related to gems, particularly the anti- versions of them (which I should remove all existing references to but then foreshadow *very* subtly -- maybe via Antiruby being used to cool things rather than Lapis? That's kind of genius. It leaves that bit of useless exposition in but it actually serves a purpose now. Also, Kamadhenu knowing about it actually makes a lot of sense since it keeps ayrag and milk cool for long periods. He probably just applied it to its logical extent in Descent-land.
Anti-gems basically do the opposite of gems. They require negative Uncertainty to form, and existing ones will transform slowly as well (including if they're embedded in a person).
There are a few areas of the City that have negative Uncertainty. Kamadhenu's district makes a lot of sense -- areas the Opalescent don't want to wander into because they'll start to lose their powers. It also happens in the dark wilds here and there and Descent-land. It has a lot to do with low amethyst/sapphire concentrations deep under the surface and the high presence of emerald.
Going back to the Kamadhenu district, this makes way too much sense -- it explains why the guilds there have so much power. It isn't just by-laws. Why there are so many Knights. And Kamadhenu not turning evil. And why anti-ruby would've been discovered in the first place. I should insert some kind of reference in there to sort of hint at that actual reality. Same deal with the Mosser district -- the soil is rich in Emerald, which explains the characteristic bits of emerald in the cloth (a higher quality version of moss) and the Mosser Knights, for that matter.
In any case, the little area that Kamadhenu lives in (and the other Descended eventually find their way to) is one of those negative Uncertainty hotspots. There's a lake there, with fish, but it isn't blue and the fish don't change. Fisher should be there obviously (though far older). Wake nodes at the border between negative Uncertainty and high Uncertainty (people arrive in the ones in the middle of the ruined City, but can be paired to that other set for death / opt out purposes.
Here, Lord Kamadhenu has been learning more and more about how to create Antigems -- layers of emerald rings for example. When they leave Descent-land they can't bring the Antigems with them but they *can* bring their knowledge of how to create them very quickly with them:
Antiameth -- this would cripple the ability for the Opalescent and Gracious to Seer.
Antiruby -- this would prevent the Opalescent for making their hands turn into ruby as well as keep the Gracious' swords from erupting into flame (the presence of Ruby should definitely be in their swords, that's something I need to change).
Antikyan -- the biggest one. This would keep them from moving very fast and being extremely strong. It cripples Gracious flight as well. Could disable Burrows as well if they need to.
Antisaph -- this would prevent them from growing spikes, healing the flesh they touch for further torture, healing *themselves*, etc. I think it should be clear somewhere (probably the crystals vision and some tidbits here and there) that sapphire is responsible for regenerative capabilities. It's a very low dose though. Antisaph is pretty dangerous though because of the Behemoth, so Lord Kamadhenu should caution its use, even if he can't reveal why. Besides, antikyan and antiameth are the main useful weapons.
The plan, I think, would be to mass produce large quantities of Antigems, form them into aerosols, and create specialized ranged weapons that shoot them out. Aerosols would coat the Opalescent and Gracious and weaken them considerably. With capture of their Wake Nodes thanks to Bismuth, the good side has a chance of actually winning this thing. Granted, golems and *particularly* the Leviathan are game-changers.
One more long-term goal would be to rebreed the Opalescent to have Emerald in their body, much like Bismuth. This would improve their Seering capabilities quite a lot, but more importantly it would prevent Behemoth influence and slowly begin to undo some of the damage. I don't think they're going to just turn good again at the drop of a hat -- it will take time.
The dust form of xanthite puts out light if exposed to heat, sort of hinting towards how glows and Lightworms work. If I wanted to keep the Euryphasia colossus piece of exposition, that would be the explanation there. I feel like it would get covered in the crystals vision though.
Everyone in the entirety of the world is formed from one (or more) of the progenitor templates -- the original crew of the Ziz Saday. Their ethnicities are all over the place.
By storing the og crew's genetics in the W.A.K.E. network, the DNA of any particular member of society can be reconstructed -- they're either a direct clone of one of the crew members or they're some kind of natty blend between several.
Various things in the genes have been tweaked -- an effective adult age, physical strength and stamina changes, etc. Each of the original templates has been split or combined into various branches.
Creating a genetic clone is easy -- there's a kind of organic slime. One cell is tweaked to whatever the template in question is (all of this information stored in the WAKE network), sapphire makes it propagate through time, eventually forming a human body. This happens very quickly in real time but quite a lot of time passes from the sapphire frame of reference.
Getting the person to be anything other than a baby is trickier. For the time being, they're sort of just aged Natties along some template.
Memory transfer via the Marrow
The other function of wake chambers was already known by this point -- some variation of it existed even prior to discovering amethyst, which eventually supplanted it.
In the amethyst process, brain activity transmits through amethyst to the marrow and then transmits back while the clone is still forming.
Inherited memories are sort of like partial brain scans and builds on the technology that Marrow Transceivers work on. Impartial memories that come from things that have been Seered are also in play. This doesn't work in the Kamadhenu flashback, but it could maybe appear elsewhere (or just be completely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things)
Another development was to pass Seered visions into that same system.
Opalescent memories are sort of just flashed in when they get their new bodies (known as Ascending).
This is no longer a vision, but it'll be fairly useful in the Descent chapter(s).
People have bits of the magical crystals embedded inside them. This has already been established with Amethyst / purple eyes / Seering but it goes deeper.
If you embed Xanthite in a person, they glow. So finally I have a good explanation there. Embed more and you get a Lightworm. I should maybe make Lord Corundum's eyes vaguely yellowish to subtly hint at this. Assuming he survives the cut.
Embedding Kyanite, meanwhile, will give you more movement power, and this would explain the superhuman strength and speed of the Opalescent and Gracious. This would tie Kyanite neatly into the plot as a whole as well, rather than purely being a worldbuilding thing.
The Transcendent are using The Marrow so they don't explicitly need sapphire, but it might help a bit honestly.
In any case, this particular vision should cover things like that. It should maybe be still somewhat subtle around the role of amethyst and *particularly* sapphire. Will want to approach it delicately. I also don't want this vision to be purely exposition -- it should have an impact on the plot as well.
I also just realized that Emerald filters Uncertainty and Pathfinding creates green lines. That's almost too perfect. It would also explain how you could mix it with Seering -- amethyst and emerald aren't opposites, even though they do opposite things. In fact, emerald's "regulation" effects really make this make more sense -- Bismuth's emerald is regulating his Amethyst, allowing him to Seer in a targeted and controllable way. Also anti-meshmad cloths are made from green moss. All of this is just way too perfect.
"Opalescent" probably has a lot to do with the sheer variety of ionized gems in their bodily substrate.
If he works for Feldspar, he can go later that night.
While working, he thinks the gracious/opalescent are a problem.
While working, he feels completely useless.
He learns how to Seer and feels less useless.
Lady Vulcan temporarily strips him of the desire to alter society.
Also at the Foundry, Nat and Wolframite offer to go out with him.
The Tom thing makes his Seer thing become more important and because of the Lady Vulcan (and the gracious on the way there) thing he's scared to do anything and scared for his life as well.
He goes out to the dark wilds and finally feels at home and like his Seer thing is useful for something other than saving the city, but Fisher dies.
He's still scared by stuff but the Eldrit encounter and losing Fisher changed some stuff (this needs to be explored more I think)
Fisher dying sets off feldspar and TQOS character arcs, which leads to Lady Vulcan threatening limbo on everyone.
This switches Bismuth back to wanting to do something, and he's a whole lot less scared.
Lady Lachesis' words propel him to Lord Antheia, particularly since everyone else is limboed. I need to play up his general isolation more and maybe make Lord Antheia more his idea, though idk how.
Lord Antheia gives him the descent/Kamadhenu task, which gives him some relief because fighting the opalescent is out of his hands now, and while he's there he rescues fisher -- this is all pretty weak and confusing. I feel like he needs to use his attraction to the dark wilds here more as well; descent works with the same concepts after all.
He's helpful at the gathering too but once everything's set in motion he feels useless again.
Pathfinding to the surface makes him feel more useful, but I'm handling this pretty badly. Getting Lord Antheia to prod him into it isn't great. Additionally, he needs a reason to go into the garden and then the marrow as well -- going to the garden could just be him running away from the Leviathan. There aren't anywhere near enough people going to the marrow either (I mean that whole chapter is absurdly short anyway).
Him going *into* the marrow makes a certain amount of sense -- that would really hammer out both the Behemoth and Transcendent plotlines and he'd have a reason to do that (un-limboing his friends), though his ability to do that is less clear -- he can definitely Pathfind to limbo, thats been established. I could probably work with that angle and the worldbuilding some more. Theres also the issue of the marrow moving people through time.
Lord Atropos' issues can still come into play -- un-limboing people is making the Behemoth hungry after all. And again, it's unclear what the ameths and saphs are doing.
It forms a tunnel to descent -- established in both the feldspar vision and Bismuth being descended. And makes that name make more sense too.
It's where people go when they're limboed.
People also go there in between death and resurrection -- limbo is just a more permanent state.
It's vaguely timeless -- entering it is how the Transcendent move through time.
It doesn't make spatial sense either -- it's impossibly tall, tunnels form down despite going sideways (maybe related to the weird gravity in the mesh -- it's similar)
It's tied to Eldrit mouths -- they resemble it in some way and considering they're controlled by the Behemoth they're likely related.
My idea where those tunnels go elsewhere makes a lot of sense -- that would explain what Eldrit mouths *are* -- they're pulling matter into the marrow. They're impossibly long in the same way. Eldrits are probably Behemoth feeding mechanisms.
Linking them to Seering makes a hell of a lot of sense -- they could be like portals to different places (or even times). Seering is therefore just marrow vision. Could even call it that in a dialectical Opalescent sense.
Kid Atropos did mention that it's easier to Seer in there -- I mean if you're seeing out tunnels it would be a lot easier.
So I'm guessing those tunnels can go to different times as well, and that's how the Transcendent work -- I'd need to change the "you can only go back if you know you're going back" thing, but I mean that vision is getting heavily reworked anyway.
Obviously, Descent is where things have completely collapsed and the tunnels move around in a random-seeming way (they aren't though; rangers are connected to the Behemoth and can navigate them and know when they switch).
The marrow is intimately connected to both amethyst and sapphire -- amethyst works spatially and sapphire works temporally. The tower is made up of ionized versions of both.
I'm thinking Eldrits should sort of pull in matter the way a black hole does rather than just have endless teeth -- that's kinda cliche. It should still be an endless spiral fractal thing though -- a bit like Descent in some ways.
The easiest way to think about the Behemoth is that it's an entity trapped within a cocoon known as the marrow that's trying to escape. It isn't really a physical thing, but that's a better way of thinking about it for now.
It basically wants to control everything that isn't already being controlled by emerald and sort of expresses that desire through a visceral variant of anger.
So it makes sense that the marrow is a sort of exploitative thing -- a means of using the behemoth's abilities while still keeping it trapped. It's made from ionized sapphire and amethyst so presumably there needs to be a consistent supply of that to keep it intact.
The tunnels it makes allow it to see things both spatially and temporally and this is ultimately the source of both Seering and Transcendence, though it's sort of a one-way mirror.
If the direction goes the other way, then it's a description of an Eldrit -- pulling matter to the Behemoth, using whatever materials are available with sapphire/time-alteration to cause change.
Somehow, having people in Limbo and Descent is a necessary part of keeping the Behemoth in check. I'm not sure how this works exactly, but they're both tied to the inner marrow.
The marrow itself is a timeless thing, which is how the Transcendent are able to hop around the timeline.
Untangling the Marrow/Behemoth/Transcendent puzzle
These are all intimately connected.
I think the Marrow pulls souls out of bodies rather than pulling in the bodies themselves -- this definitely adds to the horror aspect of Eldrits and makes more holistic sense as well.
Eldritch mouths are literally entrances into the Marrow. There's also a physical one in the middle of Ziz Saday -- probably a poorly controlled one that was placed there at some point by the progenitors and is kept in check (somehow) with amethyst and sapphire.
Seering is intimately tied to these "marrow tunnels" -- they're a window into a different place, or possibly time since the behemoth is timeless.
The behemoth wants to feed on human souls for some unspecified reason. Limbo is essentially where souls go in this world when their bodies die. I'm thinking that people that die up on the surface will also end up in limbo -- it's just some kind of attractor for human consciousness.
People that are in limbo aren't conscious, but they probably should be since consciousness evidently persists, so that's probably what the behemoth is feeding on, again for some unspecified purpose that might not ever be fully explained by intent.
Marrow Transceivers (or Wake Chambers) tap into the system here and pull out souls that have been limboed. This process uses amethyst somehow. Sapphire, meanwhile, is used to slip the c elegans substrate out of time so it can rapidly grow into a human form. I'm not sure how it knows exactly what to make -- it's definitely some form of high technology.
Considering that marrow Transceivers *also* create new humans though, from templates, then the template system is probably just in effect with rebirth as well. Though that doesn't explain how recovering muscles are tracked nor how natties end up in the system as well -- clearly some part of the information complex here is also stored in the Marrow, which makes entirely too much sense.
Descent is sort of like a deeper digestive tract of the behemoth. Entities here can be conscious for some unspecified reason. Atropos mentioned that both Descent and Limbo feed the behemoth though, so I'll need to explore it more -- maybe their lack of temporal existence is what the behemoth is feeding on here, rather than their consciousness.
The Marrow is timeless and doesn't really exist in a normal spatial sense either -- eldrit mouths are all entrances to it and it has infinite length. It connects very weirdly to Descent as well.
Because it's timeless and the spatialty also works weirdly, entering it from some mouth physically doesn't guarantee an exit. This would ruin the ending eldrit scene though since bismuth definitely entered the eldrit mouth physically. Maybe they're just tunnels *to* it the way Seering is. That would allow the Marrow scene to have branches that went to eldrit mouths for example and bismuth could watch as people were killed by Eldrits in various ways. Seering also creates branches out of it that move to different points in time or space -- Bismuth Seering inside the marrow would be very interesting since it would physically create a connection, not just mentally. Maybe a piece of amethyst flows through the tunnel as well. This makes way too much sense -- amethysts get paired after all. It would be extra weird if Bismuth Seered himself, or something in the Marrow (maybe Nat?) and then saw the amethyst move around.
That would also mean that temporal changes are associated with local sapphire as well -- the marrow is probably just a big collection of crystals, which is sort of the vision I had for it initially. Someone figured out how to tap into these processes here, probably by exploiting an Eldrit.
So anyway, the Marrow is timeless because the behemoth is (I'm not sure how they're connected yet). Physical exits go somewhere else entirely. This is how the Transcendent work -- they exit the marrow in their own past and thus overlap with themselves. This doesn't necessarily have philosophical repercussions -- paradoxes are perfectly allowed in Uncertain environments.
The Transcendent, however, do have a desire to maintain causality because paradoxes increase Uncertainty and make the Behemoth stronger. Presumably you could break even a Grand Seered vision but the Transcendent make sure that doesn't happen. And same deal with manipulation of Sapphire.
I'm thinking perhaps the Behemoth is tied more closely to Sapphire than amethyst, which is the Marrow's territory. They're definitely related and possibly the same entity, but there isn't anger in the Marrow itself -- Uncertainty is what causes that and therefore affects brains exposed too closely to it. Needs more work. It explains the behavior of Eldrits as well.
The Transcendent exist in multiple forms in the same time. Fulfilling an Act of Transcendence is how you become one of them, though evidently you have to also choose that -- Lord Antheia sure didn't, and he's definitely a Grand Seer.
While the Transcendent's goals are *heavily* influenced by the Behemoth, their original goal was keeping the end of time at bay. Their failure here has more to do with behemoth influence than anything else -- *of course* going authoritarian is going to cause revolt, and revolt is going to interfere with the Transcendent's work, but that's what the behemoth wants.
The physical marrow entrance is definitely where the Ziz Saday's hangar used to be. Something there enabled the creation of the exploitable marrow in the first place.
The best way of opening a marrow entrance would be exploiting an Eldrit, and the best way to capture one would be via one of the smaller ships down here. I'd definitely want to show all the old craft in the hangar/marrow chapter. Eldrits are tied to mushrooms for some godforsaken reason (I guess they're just more malleable and do better under sapphiric conditions, being a fast-growing fungus and all), so the marrow entrance would also have mushrooms around the periphery. It still needs to be a tower though because of the tarot connection there (also definitely makes sense given the existing lore).
I guess that means that the marrow entrance is some eldritch combination of a spaceship, mushrooms that are trying to reform an Eldrit and obviously the crystals that are dictating everything. I like the visual appeal of this, and it also makes a lot of sense. Deep Eldrits are harder to control than the mushroom type. And in the beginning parts of the world they would've been very close to the ship because the areas around it hadn't had all its amethyst/sapphire mined out yet (they have the most effect on Uncertainty).
If Descent robs you of your temporality, that's a really good target for the thing that Bismuth has to be strong for, not just one navigation puzzle. Fisher was around for two hundred years before he found the Kamadhenu area. Emerald obviously lessens the effect of the behemoth.
On that note, emerald would explain the grand tree's ability to pierce through to the surface world. Will need to take a look at that. Sapphire is still doing a hell of a lot though -- see the Dvalinn. There might be some symbiosis there where the Dvalinn provide sapphire for growth and the tree in turn provides food and shelter.
I like the idea of Bismuth wandering around for unknowable amounts of time before finding little emerald pockets to do his Seering trick -- and running into more problems along the way. It beefs up that chapter a lot and makes more sense. Maybe he's even a bit addled himself and that's why Fisher takes him to Kamadhenu. Fisher is a lot worse off though, so that plot point is still strong. Definitely ramps up the horror a lot more, and fits in better to my og Descent outline.
The Behemoth's main traits are its anger, its timelessness and Uncertainty (which itself is kind of a manifestation of the timelessness). The anger there fuels both Eldrits and the Opalescent.
The Marrow entrance is a branch off of the larger Marrow that's been heavily exploited for Seering and time traversal. I guess the tower would be inside of it rather than inside the Hangar more directly, and similarly the crystals would all be in there.
Seering and Grand Seering presumably ionize amethyst and sapphire directly, so there would need to be stocks of them which have been heavily stockpiled via rent.
Natty Seers are some weird aberration that comes from Opalescent interbreeding with low worms. I guess Clotho figured this out and how best to exploit it. That part is still weak -- remember, Tom is a Seer too and he has nothing to do with Clotho. I guess it could be hinted that one of his parents is an Opalescent -- hell it could be Antheia, that would make a certain amount of sense. Still weak though. There are other Seers as well -- I guess the moratorium on Opalescent/worm pairings would preserve the mystery there.
This kind of thing means that Gheechef's book is pretty important for multiple reasons now even if she herself isn't. Putting the book in Tom's residence would make a lot of sense, particularly if Tom is himself an Opalspawn. He's definitely got some Opalescent tendencies. I guess his mother would've had to be a low worm for this to work -- unknown father and all that. Could give off some vague hints about his father being Antheia if that's even what's happening here, and would maybe explain more of his attachment to low worms and friendship with Clotho. Still weak though.
If I go that route I could replace his daughter with his mother. That would be a decent expository slot for the above. Again though, this may not end up happening. Honestly , could just put it elsewhere in the soon to be heavily gutted jewelworm block.
Again, what the fuck are the Transcendent doing? This is still the biggest issue with my existing notes.
They're trying to keep the Behemoth contained, but how is it trying to break free, and similarly, how are they doing that? Also how do amethyst and sapphire tie into that? And limbo/descent for that matter!
My guess here is that the Marrow entrance that they've created is lessening its influence. It's sort of exploiting the Behemoth's tendency to connect together areas that are displaced spatially and/or temporally by Seering and Grand Seering.
Special emphasis is placed on Seering and Grand Seering in the second vision. My original thoughts here were that these were a means to constrain incursions and since the behemoth is timeless, the Transcendent have to move through time to do this. They need Sapphire to push things back into the end of time and amethyst to Seer. This is quite weak for a few reasons though.
Given all the Marrow connections, it's likely that the Marrow is itself what's keeping the behemoth from arising. That must mean that Limbo and Descent are tied to the maintenance of it.
It does make way more sense that the Marrow is constructed rather than being a part of the Behemoth. Through making these notes, it's clear that there's a weird dichotomy between the two and it's more obvious that the marrow entrance is some exotic technology, so it makes sense that the Marrow is the exploited behemoth here rather than the Behemoth itself.
If the Marrow is constructed, then limbo is a part of its construction. This would seem to invalidate the "soul attractor" hypothesis, but maybe not. Maybe the souls the behemoth absorbs go to Descent instead and limbo just reroutes it into the Marrow.
After all, Atropos said that the *marrow* needs to feed. He doesn't mention the behemoth by name (though it'll likely come up in the second draft).
Limboed souls stabilize the marrow somehow. When Lachesis releases everyone who's been Limboed, this protection breaks and the full power of the Marrow gets under the Behemoth's control. Or something. Of course this would also imply that Seering won't work either anymore and the ending couldn't happen. And there'd be other ending problems as well.
Obviously, the "Seering Gene" no longer makes sense if the Marrow is where Seering is actually happening. Not a big deal.
I do like the idea of the Marrow being constructed. All of this makes way too much sense. Exploited Eldrits is particularly scary, and definitely fits into very early ideas of the Transcendent and Eldrits being connected.
I guess the timeline here would mean that it wasn't Antheia who released the mushrooms -- it would've been an earlier push. That's weak for a bunch of reasons though.
My original idea is that the behemoth "sees" via the crystals that sort of carry its essence. This fails on several counts though -- Seering works around emerald and obsidian, and the "portals" idea just makes way too much sense.
Since the Marrow is timeless, it would be accessible in Descent as well, and since Seering works down there there would have to be connections to the Marrow as well. But I guess it's one-way, with the Eldrits going the other direction. This is weak though.
This post will try to aggregate the various ideas above.
There's something known as "The Tower", which is something like the physical heart of the behemoth. It's definitely vertical and eventually leads to Descent in a physical sense. It is however also timeless, and Descentland is the end of time where all temporal and spatial realities just merge into something eternal (and surprisingly peaceful outside of the weirdness).
Eldrit mouths are branches that lead to the Tower. Could literally just call them "mouths" which is true in multiple senses of the word. These don't have the verticality that the Tower does and are based on Eldrit positioning.
Eldrits pull souls out of bodies and pull them into the Tower. They're then recaptured by the Marrow before they can make their way to Descent. This whole paragraph is highly important.
The Marrow is a permanent Eldrit mouth that has been heavily exploited. In addition to storing souls for later retrieval, it allows Seering and Grand Seering with the ameths and saphs within, which are ionized as needed.
These souls aren't conscious but they nonetheless allow the Marrow to exploit the behemoth's power and lessen its influence. Without them, the Behemoth breaks free.
Eldrits are intrinsically tied to their ionized amethyst, which mediates the formation of these mouths in the first place. The Marrow also does this but at the other end, which is why the Transcendent need a steady supply of ameths. These connections are controlled by internal amethyst common to Opalescent and Seers which tend to turn their eyes purple. Amethyst also exists in other low worms but not in the same concentration -- this instead just connects them to the Marrow allowing resurrection.
Something about Descent also lessens the influence of the behemoth. It probably again has to do with human consciousness. Everyone becoming Undescended is very very bad.
Pathfinding is probably the missing puzzle piece here. Something about it could lead to the surface even if the Marrow was disabled.
Another puzzle piece is why the behemoth attacked the Ziz Saday in the first place -- my guess is that the ionized mundane energy from the Ziz Saday had some effect on it -- this would also probably be the way the Marrow was created in the first place, via wires trailing from reactors or hangar ship reactors. This will need to be explored -- I do have an intuition that mundane energy is involved somehow. God only knows how the reactors work, but zero point energy would make the most sense for their longevity. Indeed, the Ziz Saday is still operational hundreds of years later without high technology so it couldn't just be fusion.
This expands on the two points mentioned in the important paragraph.
The Tower is a soul attractor, as described before. Anyone that dies for whatever reason just gets sucked into it, and it preserves some sense of their bodily state as well (how? Magic, probably, who the fuck knows). They then head towards Descent.
More than likely, they rematerialize therein without a Wake node. If they die, they're kind of in death bedrock so they just rematerialize again. So if this is true Bismuth wouldn't fall out of the Wakeworm chamber, and he'd probably be somewhere really weird too. This might also imply that Bismuth might die in that chapter and just resurrect from nothing elsewhere. He might get a vision of the Marrow construction too -- he didn't get a vision when he was Descended because he stayed conscious. Timelessness does that.
This would also mean that the progenitors are down here somewhere. There might be one in Kamadhenu's camp but he doesn't know anyone else for whatever reason. Could be *very* interesting to explore.
The Marrow reroutes this so they instead go there (unless they're timeless of course, that's too strong of an impulse or something. Maybe Bismuth feels himself being pulled that direction when he Descends but the spiral downwards is stronger). This branching would also have to be explored in the Feldspar death vision. I guess Sapphire preserves his consciousness -- it makes a certain amount of sense, after all if you're alive you'd wake up eventually and if you're timeless then you're always awake. One consequence of that is that you couldn't go unconscious in Descentland, which adds to the horror a bit. Bismuth passing out at some point would just cause sleep paralysis. Awful.
Another point to this would be making the Sapphire experience feel like Bismuth was the most awake he's ever been, in addition to the other weird effects. This would help account for the intensity of the experience. Could get even weirder if I wanted to explore it -- would he be aware of all his past and future selves? It's a short enough experience that I could dip into that without repercussions.
The Marrow
The Marrow, as mentioned, reroutes these "ghosts", getting them to bounce around the Marrow rather than the Tower. They're technically dead so they aren't conscious. I'll need to edit the two minute gap somehow, unless that's just the body reforming and resurrection is instant.
Zero point energy is involved somehow, not sure how exactly but old technology is either helping maintain it or created it in the first place.
Limbo is just death without resurrection. The Marrow makes sure that the ghosts go there rather than Descent. Turning the Marrow off would be catastrophic, so Descent is instead achieved via initial ionized sapphire which makes someone's ghost timeless. Ionized sapphire requires an enormous amount of controlled strength so outside of Opalescent or Eldrit meddling it can't happen.
I'm thinking that the behemoth release is more of a disaster than even it was before because it destroys the Marrow. That means Seering is no longer possible, though Pathfinding is still intact since that's doing something separate. Bismuth would finally have that actual sense of the world instead of his weird hybrid. And could probably see a path all the way to the surface. The purple in his clones' eyes could darken for added effect. Or not (I mean the amethyst is still there even if it's inactive).
Another big change here is that Bismuth would actually enter the Marrow at some point. My thinking here is that Limbo reversal has to be done manually inside by the Transcendent (who are always careful to keep the amount of ghosts in Limbo in check so the Marrow doesn't collapse). Since the Marrow is timeless, this is extra bad because there's no guaranteed exit. Whatever he does in there releases the behemoth. This needs to again be heavily explored before I make the edit obviously.
Since the timeline merges with Descentland, death is less consequential. And the tower is still an attractor regardless of where the people are on the planet. Could lead to really weird sequel territory since any other humans that died anywhere on the planet would end up underground.
Okay, so with the Marrow notes finalized, that still doesn't explain what the hell the Transcendent are doing. Keeping the Marrow fed is obviously important, and that tends to involve going inside it, so they come back out somewhen else a lot of the time.
My guess here is that it's quite unstable regardless of all of their interventions, and unstable in a temporal sense. There are various dangers -- the tower sucking out ghosts, the behemoth regaining control, the marrow collapsing, ameths and saphs running dry. Without Seering and Grand Seering (and time traversal) they can't control these issues. ZPE probably falters from all the Uncertainty. It still needs some work, but this looks like the right way forwards.
A certain amount of ghosts need to go to Descent as well so the pull isn't too strong. This still needs exploration but would explain some things.
The Opalescent should call Seering "Marrow Mouthing" to sort of hint at the stuff here that'll get revealed in some capacity later. Plus the Atropos/Marrow vision (which I guess needs to be revised now). If I needed more subtle I could go "Marrmouthing". Needs to be a later reference -- Lady Vulcan can just use the common term since she's addressing Nat's mind anyway.
Memory transfer is related to the Marrow somehow. Partial ghosts maybe? I have other notes around this point that I need to tighten up.
Foreshadow the foundry marrow transceiver a bit (maybe guildlaw saying it's a shame they didn't pair to the weird old one in the foundry, and then obviously not making that reference later on).
