The further I descended, the more difficult breathing became and the hotter it got, but most significant of all...
The better my [Cycle] grew.
The density of elements so far down was incomparable to the outside, and neither shortness of breath nor feeling too warm would stop me from seeing this descent through.
Because now that I didn't have to worry about the encroaching cold, along with the massive increase in elements I could pull into my [Cycle]—though a large part of that increase consisted of foul elements—I had finally achieved a kind of balance in my battle against hunger.
All it took to get there was to never stop descending, regardless of how absurdly warped the final path I took turned out to be.
Not like I intended to go back up anytime soon.
Not when such a perfect new refuge existed for me to occupy and make mine, without anyone to fight for it.
Thus inspired and [Guided], I plunged ever downwards with renewed liveliness.
Until, with one pipe network transition, I stumbled into a pipe filled with hot, heavy, and nearly unbreathable air that I instinctively recognized to be...
To be...
My salvation.
The reason I was [Guided] to enter this tower.
I curled up on myself and pulled.
The air was so charged with elements that I didn't need more than a breath to reach my pulling limits.
Then...
Then, I held onto what [Guided] told me to and expelled everything else.
Over...
And over...
And over...
And slowly...
Slowly...
Ever so slowly...
I felt the hunger gnawing at my being begin to recede.
I was winning.
It was only a matter of time.
Time, which I now had in abundance...
Just like that.
All this suffering I had endured.
Just like that.
I closed my eyes, the thrill of victory coursing through my body and telling me to finally let go.
But no.
Of course not.
[Guided] chided me at the mere possibility of daring to think that in such an environment.
If I wanted to celebrate, I would have to do that in another pipe.
This sudden turn of events felt so unfamiliar and contrasted so greatly with the prior misery that I couldn't help a smile from forming on my face.
I survived.
◇ ◈ ◈ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◈ ◈ ◇
How easy it was to forget about all the suffering I had endured when [Guided] returned to its busy self and relentlessly kept urging me to practice the fundamental truth of [Exertion].
Maintaining and perfecting all facets of my [Cycle].
Carrying out as many intense [Exertion]s as the energy I extracted from my [Cycle] allowed.
Refining my [Perception] and elevating my [Insight]s whenever the opportunity arose during my unceasing exploration of the pipe networks running through the entirety of the tower...
There was so much to do, so many [Exertion]s to carry out, so much to look forward to now that I had cleansed all the vile hunger from my being.
And after experiencing so much, I was more than willing to put in the [Exertion]s required to shed my powerlessness.
Whether I was [Guided] to explore pipes filled with burning air, urged to wade through liquids that left me defenseless, or directed to voluntarily pull sickening elements into my [Cycle], I was willing to push through it all.
All so that when the next crisis dawned, I would be able to tell myself...
I was ready.
◇ ◈ ◈ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◈ ◈ ◇
Something was happening.
Not in the outside world, though.
In me.
I felt it.
I knew it was coming.
I knew it like I knew the pipe networks coursing through the tower.
One moment I felt weak, the next I felt like I could punch through metal walls, and the one after that I suddenly pulled a massive amount of elements into my [Cycle] without noticing.
It was like I was losing control of my body, and it had worsened by many orders of magnitude since I last woke up, leaving me feeling like I could explode at any—
Aspect Advanced: [Exertion] (Tier 0) ➞ [Exertion] (Tier 1)
Something exploded.
It was so violent that for a blink of time, I envisioned my body bursting open as it failed to contain whatever was happening.
Then all was well again, as a pressure I had never realized I was holding was released, leaving my body feeling lighter than it ever had.
Actually... it went much beyond that.
I felt better.
So much better.
What just happened?
It didn't feel like I had formed a new Aspect.
I immersed myself in the subtle awareness I only now realized had briefly preceded this tremendous change, delving deeper and deeper...
[Guided] (Origin)
[Exertion] (Tier 1)
[Cycle] (Tier 0)
[Insight] (Tier 0)
[Perception] (Tier 0)
Until I stumbled back onto that same sense of existence from which I could parse my Aspects with some effort.
Only, when I endeavored to do just that, something odd happened.
[Exertion].
It changed.
It grew.
It expanded.
It encompassed more.
Aspects... could do that?
◇ ◈ ◈ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◈ ◈ ◇
This direction was...
No way.
Was [Guided] mistaken?
No way.
I doubted [Guided]'s arrangements all the way until I crawled to one of the safe exits of this pipe network, and the reality of what I was being urged to do stared me right in the face.
This was one of those horrible rooms filled with noxious gas, hot enough to singe hair, dark, and filled with pipes twisting and turning in all directions, which the rare few giants I had seen visiting them called conduit hubs, and...
I was presently being [Guided] to enter a certain pipe located prominently on the other side of where I was, one from which dark fumes blacker than the surrounding darkness emanated.
Pipes like that led to only one kind of network.
The kind that served as the exhaust of paste furnaces.
There was no way...
My body betrayed me, and I started making my way towards my certain death before I realized it, always keeping close to another pipe I could jump into if a giant were to arrive.
Then, before I had time to ponder this unthinkable development further, I was right below it.
This...
This was madness...
Already, before I even got through the entry, which I knew to be one of the most disconnected, as it was obviously designed to serve merely as remote access for performing some sort of analysis of the paste furnace's exhaust, it felt like I was staring at death.
The smell, instantly causing me to feel light-headed.
The heat, rendering the task of keeping my eyes open impossible.
And when I seized its edges in preparation to lift myself...
"Hisss!" I hissed involuntarily, having been perfectly aware of what grabbing the burning edges of such a horrible pipe would do to my hand.
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Yet...
[Guided] was unremitting in its directions.
I was to enter and... endure.
Endure the heat.
Endure the air.
Endure the pain.
For the first time in a long, long while, I truly hesitated.
Could the fundamental truth of [Exertion] be stretched to this level?
If I endured...
How far would I have come?
Ultimately, I never truly had a choice, did I?
I clenched my teeth and decisively grabbed the edge of this paste furnace's exhaust pipe.
It burned.
I hoisted myself up.
It burned.
I took a breath.
It burned.
My everything wanted me to withdraw, to put a stop to this insanity.
Not [Guided].
Hence, I persevered.
Because I knew deep within me.
Compared to the hopelessness of slowly starving to death.
Compared to the misery of being confronted with the ever-encroaching cold.
This was nothing.
The stubborn will that animated me...
It burned much higher and more vigorously than this.
◇ ◈ ◈ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◈ ◈ ◇
I knew what it was, and yet I could do nothing but wait passively for the moment the pressure naturally burst.
At least I could comfort myself with the fact that one of my Aspects was on the verge of advancing.
Even if I didn't know which one.
I had my suspicions, though.
Suspicions born of the fact that my [Cycle] was only growing more and more unstable as time passed, and that despite my attempts at stabilizing it and knowing I should be able to, everything I did only ever ended in failure.
Again, there was nothing I could do but wait.
Even my most zealous [Guided], otherwise always keen on pushing me to my absolute limits for no other reason than it could, was uncharacteristically silent, merely urging me to carefully move through the tower's pipe networks to visit locations I knew to be connected to rooms where plenty of communication took place.
That was it.
I was just [Guided] to stand there, waiting for all manner of words and sounds to reach me, then attempting to decipher their deeper meanings, all while staring fixedly at the absolute darkness enveloping me, aiming to pierce its veil of secrecy.
"...believe it? 'nother shift and I'll..."
"...down on their luck..."
"...another sightin' of rust..."
"...no more caravan dare... make the journey..."
"...heard of 'nother hunting expedition..."
Or in other words...
I was practicing my [Insight] and [Perception] Aspects.
And probably [Exertion] too, to some extent.
If I correctly understood the principles that governed what could be considered [Exertion] or not, that was.
Immersed thus, time passed, the pressure only mounting...
Aspect Advanced: [Cycle] (Tier 0) ➞ [Cycle] (Tier 1)
Until it finally exploded outwards, once again filling me with a sensation of my body being ripped apart by titanic forces I couldn't hope to rival, forces that made me feel insignificant, only for nothing to actually be happening.
Was it really all my imagination, though?
I reserved this line of [Insight]s for later, as the relief of [Cycle] advancing was swiftly overtaken by [Guided] urging me to reestablish my [Cycle].
It was...
Easy.
So much easier that I reestablished my [Cycle] before I even realized it, and then pushed every facet of it further than I ever had before.
I pulled from much further away without straining.
I effortlessly held onto the beneficial elements.
I freely expelled the rest.
I was... so much better.
Better to the point that I completely believed I could sustain myself on much poorer air than before.
It was unbelievable.
[Exertion]'s advancement... had definitely not been that extreme.
Or maybe it was...?
Looking back at what had changed since [Exertion] advanced, I hadn't suddenly become able to lift entire boxes of metal scrap, but I most certainly started achieving much more between two sleeps than before...
No wonder, then, that I had been [Guided] to such a degree of [Exertion] ever since...
How fascinating.
◇ ◈ ◈ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◈ ◈ ◇
Pulling all the harmful and deleterious elements from the paste furnace's exhaust air felt like scouring my body with a wire brush from the inside.
This, by far, was the most painful sensation I had ever been [Guided] to inflict on myself.
Nothing came close to matching it.
Not having my whole body burned to the point that all my skin peeled off.
Not accidentally breathing torture liquids until it felt like I couldn't breathe anymore and would die from asphyxiation.
Not having my entire left leg broken into many pieces due to being at the bottom of a trash chute at the worst possible time.
I had no words to describe it.
It simply felt like...
Death.
Conceivably, because it was.
If I didn't have [Cycle], and if all those elements were introduced into my body...
I didn't dare to picture how painful a death that would be.
Without being [Guided] through the process from start to finish and only having to endure until I was told to expel everything, I couldn't imagine anyone else ever being stupid enough to subject themselves to such torment.
Tragically, I wasn't anyone else.
I was me.
Thus, I endured, writhing and twisting until my flesh ripped as my body fought a hopeless battle against an unending stream of scorching blight that would never cease until I was [Guided] to stop.
Because I was me.
Because I trusted [Guided].
Because if not now, then when?
Aspect Formed: [Tempering] (Tier 0)
The pulse born from the formation of a new Aspect was all but lost amidst the sheer agony of the ordeal I was undergoing, but that didn't mean I didn't feel it becoming an intrinsic part of my being.
The overwhelming pain lessened.
And [Guided] answered this sudden weakening by commanding me to advance deeper into the paste furnace's exhaust pipe network.
And because I was me, I complied.
◇ ◈ ◈ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◈ ◈ ◇
I arrived just in time for the workers' break.
"...ain’t just rust no more... it’s spreading..."
"...said supplies ain’t comin’..."
"...swore I heard something movin’ in the pipes..."
More of the same.
Urgency.
Worries.
Concerns.
I didn't dare to miss a single bit, still remembering the time I had learned of an upcoming maintenance operation that could well have proved to be my end if I hadn't known to avoid the area ahead of time.
"...used to be just lone abominations... now it’s something else..."
"...foreman says keep workin’... like we got a choice..."
"...my brother was... haven’t seen him since..."
When the workers' break ended, signalled by the strident sound, it was similarly my cue to move once again, this time towards a pipe junction where I could hear those in charge of those same workers talk about anything and everything.
"...they say the rust moves... when you ain’t lookin’..."
"...caravans completely stopped... we’re on what’s left..."
"...didn’t last a single shift... killing them..."
"...heard scratchin’... like it knew I was there..."
"...this town ain’t right anymore..."
Again, more of the same.
Something had been going wrong for a long time now, but as of late, it was rapidly picking up speed, and all I was hearing about now was how it was slowly ruining the town.
The cause wasn't clear, however.
I heard mentions of caravans having stopped, of supplies dwindling, of rust abominations being in a frenzy, of hunters dying in droves, but nothing concrete yet.
Not that it really mattered to me, did it?
Whether disaster struck the town, whether the paste furnaces were extinguished, whether the tower suddenly crumbled, I had always strived to better myself ahead of the next crisis.
And I felt ready.
Just like the faint, indistinct pressure slowly building up deep within myself indicated.
I wondered which of my Aspects was about to advance...
There was no way it was [Tempering] and [Guided] had decided to increase my [Tempering] [Exertion]s further... right?
Right‽
◇ ◈ ◈ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◈ ◈ ◇
It was [Perception].
It was undoubtedly [Perception].
The fluctuating darkness was a telltale sign.
Being thoroughly swallowed by it when I lost my ability to make out the vague shape of my own arms wasn't a nice feeling.
It was even less so when I lost my ability to barely peer through the darkness while I was making my way through a pipe network filled with revolting liquid.
Providentially, [Guided] found this situation just as precarious and hazardous as I believed it to be, and I eventually settled down like I had when [Cycle] advanced.
"..."
Or I tried to, but my [Perception] Aspect opted to take advantage of this opening to make me reacquaint myself with the sound of silence.
Not that it lasted long.
Aspect Advanced: [Perception] (Tier 0) ➞ [Perception] (Tier 1)
Accompanying the detonation that coursed through my entire being as [Perception] advanced, the darkness denying me sight of the world retreated as if purged, leaving behind the strangest of familiar sights.
I knew those pipes like I knew my own body, and finally getting to make out the slightest visual details of what they truly looked like, details I already knew all about, having learned them through touch...
It felt unusually gratifying.
As for the omnipresent faint background buzzing of voices that I could now hear despite this not being a shift break period...
That would take some more time to get used to.
◇ ◈ ◈ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◈ ◈ ◇
Drifting into wakefulness, I opened my eyes, pushing back the omnipresent veil of darkness and... just stared at nothing for a moment.
Something... felt different.
Different in a way I couldn't explain.
A way I could only experience.
A sensation of wellness...
Of comfort...
Of safety...
It subtly felt like all of those at once, while being none of them...
How intriguing.
Ultimately unable to comprehend this strange feeling, I let myself be subsumed by [Guided] and stopped dwelling on what could simply be a lone occurrence of an amazing sleep.
Or that's what I did until, on my way towards the bottom of the tower, right when I was [Guided] to exit a pipe and step into a dimly lit room, this feeling that had previously eluded me was suddenly magnified many times.
I froze.
And somehow, I understood what this feeling was about as I gazed at the dim light giving colors back to the world.
"Darkness..." I muttered with my tiny voice for no other reason than to voice my surging feelings.
Darkness.
I didn't want to leave it.
Because...
Because, in truth, I had long since ceased to be scared of it.
Because I now lived in darkness.
Because I woke up in darkness.
Because I went to sleep in darkness.
Because darkness offered me the protection I needed to hide my powerlessness.
Because while I remained in the dark, away from the light...
Nothing could get to me.
Aspect Formed: [Darkness] (Tier 0)
Unlike every other time I had formed an Aspect, this one occurred without seeming to cause anything.
No pulse of power, no surge of understanding, no sudden ability to interact with darkness, simply a slow, ambiguous realization of what had been true for longer than I intended to admit.
It also became apparent that forming an Aspect wasn't always as involved a process as I believed it to be...
Or maybe I was still missing something.
It wouldn't surprise me if I were.
The world was still hiding so many of its secrets from me, after all.
In the future...
In the future, I would uncover them all.
Or in all likelihood, I would be [Guided] to uncover them.
In the meantime, I had to satisfy myself with what secrets I could presently uncover from where I lived.
Such as...
[Guided] (Origin)
[Exertion] (Tier 1)
[Cycle] (Tier 1)
[Insight] (Tier 0)
[Perception] (Tier 1)
[Tempering] (Tier 0)
[Darkness] (Tier 0)
This mysterious truest expression of my very existence and sense of being, to which all my Aspects, whether my Origin Aspect [Guided] or all the Path Aspects that came after, bound themselves.
It was truly a mystery why all the giants working in this tower never elaborated much on that facet of reality when it was so obviously significant...
Oh well.
I had all the time in the world.
Or until I outgrew those pipes, something that was becoming more of an impending issue than I was willing to admit...
And my wings, too, were growing to be very much of an annoyance...
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