Transforming Transformative Trinket

To Ahsch's frustration, the logistics of a Queen leaving R'sath were infinitely lengthier than a mere middling royal. The departure and destination locations had to be prepared for her, a route decided upon and secured, guards assembled to protect Her Majesty, a few servants kept at hand should she need them, the list went on.

Therefore, their visit to the Church of Irzton was scheduled for late in the afternoon. A state of affairs that left Ahsch with nothing to do that was immediately relevant to the purpose of the visit. Which did not sit well with him, leading to another review of his status, specifically, of his own capabilities. Skimming through his magical options, he ended up frowning as he contemplated the Transformative Trinket Boon. He'd always intended to put off using it until he had multiple tens or hundreds of Magnitude to dump into the artifacts he'd make, but upon review, he wondered if that was truly worthwhile. The two major benefits of the trinkets were the stabilization of magical talent in youths, the Innate Magics they'd develop upon bonding with the artifact, and the creator of the artifact gaining the sum total of the wielder's mystic abilities upon the wielder's death - at the cost of consuming the wielder's soul.

Two of those Ahsch was more than okay with. The last one, not so much. It was an option, sure, but not one he ever desired to use - he'd taken the Boon as an easy means of creating 'divine artifacts' once he was established as a god. Powerful tools that those he trusted would be able to use to aid him. But the idea of using such an insidious thing, the constant knowledge that he could obliterate a soul to gain their power...

Absolute power corrupts absolutely, he reminded himself. That in and of itself made him not want to use it ever. But again, he knew that the temptation would always be there. But perhaps...

Focusing, Ahsch separated a sliver of his total Magnitude - one 'point' each of Throughput, Generation, Density, and so on. It dropped his Magnitude from the cusp of 20 to almost-but-not-quite 19 as he solidified the mystic energy into something. He wasn't too focused on what, just on the process itself, so he was a little startled when it was clearly a pair of ring piercings connected by a chain, with no visible way to separate any of the pieces.

He just glared at the sexual item in long-suffering silence, then sighed, and concentrated again. If he was capable of creating these trinkets, then perhaps... yes. Pulling on the bond that innately existed between the artifact and himself, he de-solidified the energy and reabsorbed the magic, regaining his Magnitude and destroying the object. Then he made another one, again focusing on the process of the creation. Could he detect the different parts of the magic that created the various aspects of its powers? Again, yes, he could.

Could he remove them? Change them?

It was a much more difficult question to answer. He'd developed new spells based off his Innate Spells before, but that was a matter of converting a spell to a spell. The closest he'd gotten to tinkering with a Boon was messing around with the spellified Boons he'd gained from his sister and others (though given Ariin and himself were the only ones who had Boons as far as he knew, he wasn't certain that referring the the passive capabilities he'd gain from others through Sexual Learning as 'Boons' was accurate). But that was, again, taking a spell and changing it into another spell.

What he was attempting to do was the same thing that Phashak had done - change a Boon in and of itself. And that was a completely different task.

Are you sure it is, Master?

Ahsch frowned at Mahat's interjection. What else could it be?

_While some are simple passive things, truths about how your body, mind, or soul work, others seem more like they're... access points to Innate Spells. Remember, usually such inherent abilities and effects are called Innate Magic, and only the parts that are actively acted with are referred to as 'Spells.' But some of your Boons, like Cleansing Light and this Transformative Trinket... you use them - or part of them - like you would an Innate Spell._

Ahsch considered that. He cast Mage Sight, then Float, then Spirit String. Then he created another trinket. Different, yes, but every spell was different. But fundamentally, Mahat was right: creating the trinket was more like casting an Innate Spell than anything else. Which meant he wasn't trying to alter the way a Boon worked - at least, not directly. If he could reshape the way he used the 'Innate Spell' part of Transformative Trinket, that would accomplish much the same effect. Though at the same time, it wasn't as absolute as what Phashak had done - while Ahsch was sure that, after enough time, he'd be able to replicate the effects of his original Dominant's Tithe, Phashak had totally removed it from his past and current capabilities. If he carried through with his current idea on altering his trinkets, he'd still be able to use it as normal, it would only add the capability to create the new type of trinket instead of the original variation.

Still, having the option to get the parts he wanted while leaving behind what he didn't was worthwhile. The only question was, what did he want to do with it?

_Stabilizing the inherent magic of people is good; ditto the creation of Innate Magic and the other boosts to the wielder. The bond created between myself and the wielder is... more gray. It's good if I want to buff them or otherwise help, but again, the temptation to use it against them is high. Though that's probably another case of knowing when to leave things be and when I _need to step in. If someone's doing something that would reflect poorly on my Fate, I should stop them, and that bond would make things significantly easier. So it's just a matter of self-control - as though I wasn't needing that enough as things already stood.

_It's the last bit, where I delete a soul to gain the power, that I don't like. That's the part that has to change. But change into what? I understand the intended use of this Boon is to make artifacts that are used by others for them to gain power, only for them to eventually die and I inherit all their progress. But that was never really my intent with this. So instead..._ He considered what he had intended by taking the Boon; essentially, artifacts that he could give to those he trusted - or to those loyal to Enochiel - to give them a boost in their efforts to aid him.

He almost laughed. It was painfully obvious, once he thought about it. I could make trinkets to be talismans of my Thralls. At least, of the younger ones. Though that has several layers of... well, creepiness. He made a sour face at the idea of purposefully looking for younger people - young women who'd still be considered girls - to make his Thralls and develop into 'magical girls' as his bodyguards. I think that'd be considered grooming...

He had an instinctual 'knowing' as he examined the trinket creation that removing the bits related to stabilizing the magic in younger people would throw off a lot of what made the trinkets function. They were designed to be the sort of poisoned apple that almost every magical girl story used to make girls into magical girls, and those girls were usually young teenagers. Even with the more open approach Euphoria had about sex in regards to younger people, that was a line that was only crossed in very specific circumstances. Stella Celes was sixteen, for example, and was old enough to be considered a marriage candidate among royals. Ahsch didn't fancy treading the moral line around age-of-consent if he didn't have to - and considering all the other things he had to be careful not to take the easy way on, he didn't want to truly consider Enthralling younger women, not when sex was such an inherent part of who he was.

But at the same time, he recalled something about Office Lady saying that the stabilization of magic was similar to brains - and he remembered that brains didn't really stop developing until at least somewhere in a person's 20s. It would still have a slight 'ick' factor, but Ahsch was more comfortable thinking about using Transformative Trinket in the context of 18- and 19-year-olds.

Then his mind ran across another option. Could I merge the creation process with Entropic Revelation - the new version that's permanent, that is - to automatically age up the wielders? Although, that doesn't do anything about the problem of involving young girls, even if they're 'technically' old enough. He sighed. Morals versus useful is a fucking annoying problem to be dealing with.

Mahat giggled in his mind. You could always ditch the morals more and do what you want. If anyone you'd be interested in Enthralling would be someone who would be interested in being Enthralled anyways, taking a child and giving them a trinket that ages them up to an 'appropriate' age isn't exactly breaking your own rules.

Ahsch glared into the middle distance. You're playing with semantics and technicalities, and you know it, he growled. _I refuse to force my will and authority on people I don't need to do it to. Innocent children don't fall into the 'acceptable target' category, and almost certainly never will._

I know, Master, she replied. But keep in mind, should you become a God, mortal morals will inherently matter less to you. At that stage of power and reach, the squabbles of individuals will be almost meaningless, and you may need to make choices that affect thousands or millions of lives. If a war is going on, do you take direct action that sacrifices hundreds to save thousands? Or do you stand by and not direct the killing of hundreds of people, but allow thousands to die by your inaction. I believe it's called the 'Trolley Problem' back home?

Ahsch continued to glower. He knew she was right, but since it wasn't a problem yet - and was likely decades, if not centuries off - it wasn't a problem he intended to deal with presently. After all he was still - nominally - a mortal, which meant his morality and his reality still mostly lined up.