My mana burned like streams of fire-waters running through wooden channels. It thrashed like a leviathan of the deep, causing mana-water to roil in its wake. It struggled relentlessly, unwilling to move as I willed.

I/The Echo, even sculpted into the proper shape, wasn’t the skill’s natural host; lifeless stone and living stone were not the same. Far from it. That difference had meaning. One had far more power than the other, and that very same power required more power from me in turn. The living stone-scales resisted, asking for more and more from me to hold the [Little Guardian’s Focus] steady.

I gave it what it needed, holding desperately to [The Golem’s Echo] all the while. I needed to see if it worked. If I/The Echo could become something more. Something greater - a symbol of the Great Core’s power, even more than I already was. It would be the ultimate form of spite, a true severing of the hold that Mother had over…

The thought caused me to stumble on nonexistent legs, nearly forcing everything to come undone. The Echo flickered inside its shell of stone, caught between reality and unreality, and I finally found myself again within the gap. I wasn’t the Echo. I wasn’t the Golem. Tiamat had never been Mother. Not to me.

But to the Golem, she was.

I panicked for a moment, scouring my thoughts for signs of Tiamat’s meddling, barely managing to stop myself from pushing the Echo away in disgust before I realized what was going on.

Core Skill: [The Golem’s Fading Heart]

Description: A weakened combination of the Golem’s accumulated Core skills, warped by the touch of Time to hold a vestige of his memories and power.

Devouring the Golem’s heart had affected me more than I thought, and something about [The Golem’s Echo] made that effect stronger. Brought me closer to the memories I had absorbed as the Echo grew in strength and I fell further into the instincts necessary to control it.

But was that really a problem?

Though thinking of the blasphemer as Mother disgusted me more than anything, none of the thoughts that came with it had been positive. If anything, there had just been a new aspect of my hate - the faded remnants of the Golem, I realized. One of broken trust and long-brewed spite.

A grudge that I had no problems accepting. In a moment of decision, I let myself slither further into those thoughts that were both mine and not, keeping a careful hold on [The Golem’s Echo] and the growing mana-weave that was [Little Guardian’s Focus] all the while.

It was difficult, with the way that the bad-things above kept striking at my/the Echo’s scales. Distracting. Bits of stone sprinkled down at the occasional lucky blow; not enough to cause any real damage, but enough that it was hard to ignore. Every new crack and crevice meant that the [Little Guardian’s Focus] became just a little harder to use as my/the Echo’s form was altered from the perfection that it had been.

I/The Echo shifted slightly, wispy tendrils stretching out to gather more stone. I blindly softened and scooped the material up, hardening them into a jagged series of spikes that soared outwards and ripped into flesh. It was hard to tell where to aim, but there were apparently enough of the enemy above that my true eyes being buried under the earth hadn’t mattered. Something had taken the blow. More than one, even.

Experience Gained!

Experience Gained!

In another flurry of motion, the damaged stone-scales were repaired. I breathed a little easier as the strain of casting the [Little Guardian’s Focus] slightly diminished. Slightly.

My mana still strained, burning like fire through my fleshy body, but it was easier - and as the weave of mana and life essence that was the [Little Guardian’s Focus] layered itself over my/the Echo’s scales, the bewildering sense of connection grew further. More than ever, I felt as if I were in two places at once, in two bodies at once - one of flesh and one of stone, but each undoubtedly me.

Paradox/The Echo.

My stone body was more distant, not quite me in the way that the flesh was, but it was close enough to be strange. That sensation only grew as the [Little Guardian’s Focus] came closer to its final moments, as if the transition brought the connection between the Echo and myself closer to the surface; I could feel the mana pressing against my stone-scales, pushing deeper. I could sense the way that it forced change upon them.

It was glorious, and I almost lost my hold on [The Golem’s Echo] yet again.

When the light began to shine upon my scales of flesh from above, and the mental connection to the Echo/myself increased again, I knew that it was finished.

The [Little Guardian’s Focus] had completed.

The Echo-Focus was born.

A sudden memory, captured within an Ascended’s fading heart, accompanied its birth.

The Golem was dying, a tiny snake’s jaws opening wide around his heart. He couldn’t blame the little creature for it, even while Mother roared. Even while the sounds of chains rattled in his mind. She was angry. The Golem wondered at that.

Why should she be angry?

Mother was safe. The Golem was dying.

Her Creator was safe. The Golem’s Creator was dead.

Why should she be angry?

The jaws slipped around The Golem’s heart, beginning to close. His tendrils were gone, burned away by merciless flame. They wouldn’t regrow in time. The Golem was dying.

And through it all, Mother raged - not at his death, but at his decision. At him. At his choice to flee, rather than face the all-but certain death that she had commanded.

Chains rattled violently within his mind, the noise mixing with that of Mother’s rage.

The tiny snake began to swallow. The Golem was dying. Mother didn’t even care.

Chains rattled further, with a violence brought on by the deepest of betrayals, drowning out Tiamat entirely. The sound brought with it memories, each imbued with near-unfettered emotion. The death of Creator. The death of kin. And now, the death of Golem.

And it was all Mother’s fault.

The chains snapped. The snake swallowed. The Golem died, but in his final moments, his mind was his own again. The Golem died, but there were worse things than death.

He had lived through them.

I slithered free of the stolen memories before [The Golem’s Echo] could fade. Light filled the floor-crack in which I hid, spilling from the altered stone above my head. It was a strange and contradictory light; bright and dark all at once, the Echo’s stone-scales were pure radiance and consuming darkness intertwined, one fueling the other. [Illusion Spark] at work, but one far stronger than my own. Even my ore-flesh’s glow was affected, its light stolen away by the nearby Focus. I could have tried to fight against it, absorbing the light into my own reservoirs instead, but there was no need for that.

If anything, I wanted my ore-flesh’s light stolen. Its loss didn’t weaken the ore-flesh itself. It only made me/The Echo stronger.

I curled upon myself, mouth seeking tail, two abilities activating one after another. [The Snake That Eats Its Own Tail]. [Guardianlink].

My scale-flesh twitched, the remnants of wounds I hadn’t yet bothered to heal disappearing in an instant. Above me, I could feel the Echo-Focus more clearly than ever. It tugged at me. Beckoned. Elsewhere, I could feel weaker calls, coming from both nests of Coreless. Further away, but calling all the same.

Then, in a mental leap that I had only done with a [Little Guardian’s Totem] before, I threw my thoughts upwards. I looked through the eyes of a Focus. It might have been possible without [Guardianlink]; I had never tried to look through a Focus before. Regardless, it was significantly more useful.

Because the moment that my vision shifted, revealing a crowd of bad-things surrounding me/the Echo, I tapped into another of the abilities that the [Little Guardian’s Focus] had always granted bearers of a [Little Guardian’s Totem] - just in a more powerful form than the Coreless had ever attempted.

They didn’t understand the ability like I did, nor did they ever have access to a Focus strong enough for it to matter.

Around me, the light all but vanished, disappearing in an instant. Fractal lines of cold spread across stone-flesh, audibly crackling with the intensity of its growth, while a single spot of warmth kept itself unnaturally steady where I knew my scale-flesh form hid.

My stone-scale reservoirs filled, heat and light stolen away in an instant - and released just as fast.

Flames spilled from a maw of stone, draping over bubbling flesh.

Afterwards, crushing stone devoured those who remained.

Experience Gained!

Experience Gained!

Experience Gained!

Experience Gained!

Experience Gained!

Experience Gained!

Experience Gained!

Experience Gained!

Level up!

1 Trait Point Gained.

With the bad-things defeated, and my mind straining under the necessary focus that [The Golem’s Echo] required, there was only one thing left to do. Stone coils scraped across the ground, moving just a little bit to the side. When they found their place, tendrils stretched out, scooping up stone. Shaping it, forming a new statue in front of twisted coils.

Finally, with the strain mounting, I let my concentration lapse. Inside the [Little Guardian’s Focus], an ethereal Core disappeared, leaving its shell of stone behind.

I pulled myself free from the floor at last, controlling my scale-flesh once again, and slithered into the light of the now-motionless [Little Guardian’s Focus], only to stop at the tiny sculpture resting against its massive coils.

A Golem’s Heart. Broken Chains.

And above them, clad in shining scales of stone, a dead Ascended’s hope for retribution.

The thought-light flickered.

Name: Paradox

Species: Snake, Ouroboros

Major Title: [The Snake That Eats Its Own Tail] [Little Guardian]

Minor Titles: [Minor Mana Core] [Venomous Retribution] [Touched By Fire] [Ascended Seeker]

Innate Traits: [Venomous II]

Blooded Traits: [Paralyzing Venom IV] [Poisonous Blood III] [Illusion Spark IV] [Clinging Grasp III] [Sound Shaping VII] [Chains Of The Creator I] [Anticoagulant IV] [Constriction I] [Spore Puppeteer VI] [Ascended Sense I]

Resistances: [Piercing Resistance - Intermediate II] [Venom Resistance - Intermediate II]

Level: 56

Trait Points: 24

Core Skills: [The Endless Cycle] [Chrono Fire] [Verdure Parasite] [The Golem’s Fading Heart]

Lesser Core Skills: [Mana Manipulation XI] [Mana Venom XI] [Mana Fire VII] [Little Guardian’s Totem MAX] [Life Essence Manipulation VI] [Life - Invigorating Bite XI] [Life - Vitality X] [Life - Vigor III] [Life - Vigorous Spores IV] [Little Guardian’s Focus XI]

Level Rewards: [Traveler] [Mana-Life Conversion] [Guardianlink] [The Golem’s Echo]

Description: A growing Ouroboros, symbol of the eternal.