Jump 323: Ar Tonelico

Jump #323: Ar Tonelico
>Temperance, reversed: Lack of restraint and self-control. Losing one's cool.
>Age: 734
>Location: Rhaplanca
>Identity: Reyvateil Origin (-1000)
Wait. My name is Vielia? This... doesn't seem right.
>Drawbacks: Standout (+50), Amnesia (+200), Enemy (+200), Human Supremacist (+300), Unstable Nuclear Triangular Loop (+300)
Joy. I'm in charge of a tower that is in a perpetual state of crisis, I have a habit of looking ridiculous and embracing it because being old means being eccentric, I don't remember any life before this one, I have a faction trying to wrest control of the tower and take control of me directly, I believe that reyvateils are there to serve people, and if something does not change in a very short time period I'm going to die, the tower's going to go dark, and five million people are going to be without power, without magic, and quickly without anything else they need.
Mistakes were made.
>Song Magic, Install Port, Stripper-riffic, Powerful Emotions, Hardened Cosmosphere, Tower Connect (Free, Origin)
At least I get a good package of magic to work with. It's just a damned shame that I'm unstable, and while I'm suddenly manifesting new abilities that I shouldn't have, I haven't got a damn clue how to use any of them.
>Song Science (750, Origin)
I need to know how it all works on the back end. What sort of administrator would I be if I did not?
>Creative Composition (450, Origin)
I've been doing this long enough that I should know how to optimize my work for efficiency, a definite necessity. Doesn't hurt that I can replicate other effects this way as well.
>Songstone Composer (Free, Origin)
Raw materials are handy, of course...
>Linkage (Free, Origin)
Spiffy power armor. I like it.
>Orgel of Origins (200, Origin)
>Tower Seed (Free, Origin)
I've got to take my tower with me, don't I? It would be silly to do otherwise.
>Companion Import (0)
Good thing I have a solid core crew that I can rely on. This place would fall apart without them.

Though it's interesting how on day one they were asking whether I'd awakened. I assumed they were talking about the changes to my cosmosphere and the abilities I'd manifested, though only a handful of them seemed to propagate to the reyvateils. But no. A fantastic story was spun. Travel between universes. Magic and science beyond imagination. Voyages to the depths of space, to the innermost soul. It was a fascinating story, and they were even able to produce otherworldly artifacts to collaborate their outlandish claims.

It meant absolutely nothing to me. I had a job to do and I would do it.

If it meant so much to them, I promised to let them do as they please as long as they fulfilled their duties. In the meantime I tried to reduce the draw of the tower as much as possible in order to preserve what power I had, in the hopes of extending the tower's lifespan for a few extra years.

In time, they left the tower through unknown means. I'm not sure of the details, but one of them returned with something unexpected. A means for the reyvateil to live longer - Diquility. Resources were dedicated to studying and reproducing it, and it was found that the Reyvateil within my tower had better health and projected longer life. If I did not throttle down their power, they'd survive the same lifespan but could channel more power (as though it could be spared). If the power was still restricted, they could enjoy a human lifespan. A lack of airships meant a lack of travel to other towers, but contact was at least established sporadically with two due to the... companions, they called themselves... being capable of flight. And high-speed flight at that. As it turned out, Diquility was able to help me as well. My lifespan would not be extended indefinitely, but... well, I had a vested interest in reproducing it and any possible variants.

A few years after all of that, the first of many airships to visit docked with our tower. We learned of Harvestasha, and opened communications with them as well. With the differences in things... well, it was encouraged for trade routes to become established. And it wasn't as though I didn't have the resources to put toward our own. It gained us valuable resources and data that we didn't have, and as a result... well, some of my companions took to diving my cosmosphere. And being that I wasn't just a normal reyvateil and am a part of the tower, well, that's... not a trivial task. And yet, as they did it, I started remembering bits and pieces of the past. Places from other worlds. People I'd never met here. And eventually, just bits and pieces of home.

It changed absolutely nothing. I still had a job to do.

And when things started going to hell, both on my towers, and on others, I did my best to hold down the fort. A faction tried to stage a coup on my tower (and the reyvateils, who had been taking Diquility, were given a wide open throttle to use whatever power they needed - sure, we exist for humans' benefit, but I'm not running Asimov's laws and oligarchy would benefit no one). It was dealt with. Allied factions struck out against other towers... and I sent my reyvateils to help with them as well.

My companions were the spearhead that helped deal with most of the issues that we were given leave to deal with, and... in the end, once this jump ended, it seemed that I was strictly the support here. It was their story, and they all had their roles to star in.

Amnesia, though. That really is something that rubs me the wrong way. Yet it keeps happening.