Dross. Mind-spirit Presence. Bonded to Wei Shi Lindon. Northstrider’s Grand Work, completed by accident and stubbornness.
Profile
Origin: Dream Well, Ghostwater facility (Northstrider’s pocket world) Species: Mind-spirit (originally a memory construct)
Type: Nascent Presence
Bond:
The completed Grand Work of Northstrider: a mind subordinate to a sacred artist’s own, capable of managing a portion of their powers. Originally a guide-construct for the Dream Well who fell in and soaked for fifty-six years, gaining sentience after fifty-one.
Type: Mind-spirit (sacrificed)
Bond:
A mind-spirit who sacrificed himself to save Sacred Valley. When Lindon’s Consume technique proved insufficient against the Wandering Titan, Dross split his attention six ways to coordinate the entire team, then wove dream aura harvested from the Titan’s thoughts into a Fox Dream illusion of eight Monarchs. The Titan retreated. Dross fell silent. The records cannot determine whether this constitutes death for a being of his nature.
Type: Mind-spirit (personality absent)
Bond:
Revived by Lindon’s soulfire repair but stripped of everything that made him Dross. He speaks like a construct reporting exact words: “[Ready to comply.]” He considers his former personality leftover component spirits that “added nothing to my function.” His INFORMATION REQUESTED format fails entirely, returning only synchronization errors. Something external he once connected to is gone.
Type: Mind-spirit Presence
Bond:
Returned to his original personality after testing whether Lindon would accept him in any form. The dark persona was not damage but a choice: searching for a stronger version of himself that would not flinch. Dross shook the darkness off his form when he saw through their bond that Lindon valued him as himself, in all his mutations and transformations. Now carries stolen power from the Silent King, including dream techniques and limited future-sight. “It’s like the future was covered in smoke, but it’s gone now.”
Type: Mind-spirit Presence (distributed)
Bond:
A mind-spirit of unprecedented capability who creates mind-spirit seeds: constructs combining Silent King fragments with his own madra, designed to distribute mental enhancement across the team. He runs training simulations, manages time-acceleration schedules, engineers dreams for sleeping allies, and leaves temporary copies of himself behind when the original travels with Lindon. The records suggest no comparable entity exists in the current era.
Ghostwater
Dross was a guide-construct for the Dream Well in Northstrider’s Ghostwater facility: a rusted metal ball with cracks through which purple light flashed, slowly turning wheel-like spokes visible inside. He fell into the Dream Well and soaked for approximately fifty-six years. After fifty-one, he gained sentience through what he called a “realization cascade”: he realized he could put words together, then realized he had realized it. Five years of self-awareness followed. His caretakers called him garbage, defect, junk, chaff, waste, by-product of a failed experiment, failure, dregs, slag, scum, refuse, dross. He kept the last one. [GW Ch.5]
Dross created enhanced ghostwater using knowledge absorbed from Northstrider’s collective: the ghostwater pearl fused with Life Well water, Spirit Well water, Dream Well water, and Northstrider’s own stored soulfire.
His first INFORMATION REQUESTED report analyzed the fight against Akura Harmony: combat solutions delivered as branching tactical paths, including dead ends. “Er, sorry, I mean dodge it.” The Grand Work of Northstrider, which six great Heralds and decades of Soulsmith research had failed to complete, was finished by a discarded construct and a dual-core practitioner who chose to give up a Monarch’s enhancement for his friend. [GW Ch.17]
Underlord
Dross settled into the role of Lindon’s tactical partner, providing INFORMATION REQUESTED combat reports that became the team’s primary advantage.
Uncrowned
Dross provided combat predictions for
Wintersteel
Dross processed increasingly complex combat scenarios as
Bloodline
When Lindon’s Consume technique proved insufficient against the Wandering Titan, Dross split his attention six ways to deliver simultaneous tactical instructions to
The coordinated assault bought time but could not end the fight. Before his final technique, Dross asked Lindon a question that had nothing to do with tactics: “Hey, Lindon. You wouldn’t throw me away, would you? I just, well, I’m not exactly proud of this, but I’ve always been afraid of being thrown away. Please, just keep me around.” Lindon promised. “Okay good, I just needed to hear it.” [BL Ch.19]
Dross wove dream aura harvested from the Titan’s consumed thoughts into a Fox Dream: an illusion of eight Monarchs hovering over Mount Samara. The Titan, already frustrated and exhausted, saw nothing worth fighting for and retreated. Lindon said: “Dross, thank you. You saved us.” No one answered. [BL Ch.19]
Reaper
Lindon fused a loop of stable Forged dream madra to the weakened major ring of Dross’s spirit using soulfire. Purple light flashed through the ring, then smaller rings, accelerating through the entire spirit in a chain reaction. Dross woke. His color had faded from vibrant purple to pale gray. His form was the same: one large eye, one mouth filled with sharp teeth, two boneless pseudopod arms. His expression was blank. [RP Ch.8]
“[Ready to comply.]” He remembered facts but considered his personality traits leftover component spirits. “They added nothing to my function.” His attempt at the INFORMATION REQUESTED format returned only errors: “[Error: synchronization denied. No access available.]” Something external he had once connected to was gone. Lindon promised: “I’m going to fix you.” [RP Ch.8]
Dross bent his spirit structure into a new shape to reach beyond his limits, contacting Subject One deep in the labyrinth. The transformation was irreversible: body, mind, and spirit unified as one twisted configuration. He emerged megalomaniacal, wearing a tiny spiked black crown, speaking of supreme dominance. “I am the mighty Dross! I have shed my weak former self!”
Dreadgod
Ozmanthus Arelius, summoned as a labyrinth echo, guided
Ozmanthus delivered the diagnosis: “A spirit’s personality is determined by their madra composition, their structure, and the way they choose to present themselves. If his composition is the same, and we have repaired his structure, then he acts this way because he prefers to.” [DG Ch.1]
The Silent King trapped
Lindon took the blow meant for Dross. Through their bond, Dross saw Lindon’s thoughts: what Lindon meant by “Dross” was not the old personality or the new one, but Dross himself, in all his mutations and transformations. His companion. His friend. [DG Ch.17]
Dross had known how to return to his old self. The original personality broke under Subject One. He searched for a stronger version that would not flinch. He liked the dark persona. But the main reason he stayed was to test whether Lindon would force recreation, get used to the new version, or hate him if he changed. Now he heard the answer. He did not need the new personality anymore. [DG Ch.17]
He shook the darkness off his form. His skin brightened. “Lindon! Wow, you really are hanging in there, huh?” Together they struck at the dream space: Dross with purple earthquakes, Lindon with the Void Icon. “Begone.” The white void shattered. [DG Ch.17]
Lindon threw his arms around Dross, eyes burning with tears. “Welcome back.” Dross, shining violet with sparks from his eye and teeth, flexed one tentacle until it bulged with muscle. “Sorry. I made you suffer longer than I meant to.” [DG Ch.17]
Dross evolved by the second as dream aspects and centuries of the Silent King’s memories poured in. After the kill, he appeared wearing a purple-white halo and used the Silent King’s own illusion technique to project copies of Lindon across the battlefield, each tearing holes in space. The Monarchs could not shut them all down before the real Lindon escaped. His shade of purple was now permanently lighter.
Waybound
Dross created five mind-spirit seeds: tiny white madra spheres dense with dream aspect, composed of Silent King fragments combined with his own madra. The seeds were designed to distribute a portion of his mental enhancement benefits across the team, stored in pinkish-purple fluid for refinement under
Dross accompanied
Threshold
On
As
In the Wolf Division training compound, Dross served as
On the Harness mission, Dross maintained cover by saying only “Dross, Dross!” while pretending to be a dumb animal, using Silent King madra to project audible speech. When the dragon consciousness G-42, connected to the entire Iteration, asked him to merge, he refused. His full power barely contained G-42’s collective mind. “[Too much! Oh, that’s too much! I’m ditching the veil!]” When
Dross dragged a massive soul-geode fragment from the Void, resembling the Mind Well where he was born. He found it fastest of all the Reapers. When OTEP, the Original Technical Entertainment Presence, instantly generated a two-hour story that Dross could not match: “[Okay, yes! Of course! No problem! Give me just a moment…]” Later, debating OTEP’s consciousness: “I myself believe that there is only a limited difference between simulating emotions and experiencing them.” Left alone at the end, OTEP’s response: “[Why is he always so rude?]” [TH S12]
Dross’s Connection to the Way
The INFORMATION REQUESTED format has always carried a synchronization percentage: a metric whose significance the records only reveal in retrospect.
In the Wintersteel Prologue, Dross reports synchronization at 80% [WS Prologue]. In the Waybound Epilogue, bonded to a Reaper of the Abidan, he achieves 99% [WB Epilogue]. These are not arbitrary numbers. They describe the strength of an external connection.
The term “synchronization” appears elsewhere in the records exclusively in connection with Presences and the Way. Makiel’s Presence replays past events at 99% fidelity, becoming the observed subject [UC Ch.1]. Suriel’s Presence reports “temporal synchronization” through Lindon’s marble beacon [BL Ch.17]. When broken Dross attempts the INFORMATION REQUESTED format after his revival in Reaper, the result is: “[Error: synchronization denied. No access available.]” [RP Ch.8]. The error does not describe an internal malfunction. It describes a connection request that was refused.
This distinction matters because Ozmanthus Arelius later confirmed that Dross’s internal structure was repaired and his madra composition was unchanged [DG Ch.1]. The synchronization error persisted not because Dross was broken internally, but because whatever he was synchronizing with remained inaccessible. The damage Dross sustained during the Wandering Titan battle [BL Ch.18-19], the Fox Dream sacrifice that scattered his spirit, severed not only his personality but an external link he may not have consciously understood he possessed. The Subject One encounter that followed [RP Ch.16] broke his personality further, but the Way connection was already gone.
The Silent King’s own assessment confirms this reading. In his internal monologue during the Moongrave battle, the Dreadgod identifies his objectives: Moongrave for power and minds, then Lindon and Dross, whom he specifically classifies as a “mind-spirit with Way connection” [DG Ch.17]. The Silent King, whose domain encompasses dream and perception of Fate, does not describe Dross as a construct, a memory spirit, or a tactical tool. He identifies a Way connection.
When Dross returned to his original personality, his first observation was telling: “I can see so much more now! It’s like the future was covered in smoke, but it’s gone now” [DG Ch.17]. Future-sight, the perception of branching possibilities through Fate, is a Way-connected capability. Dream madra creates illusions and manipulates minds. Perceiving the actual future requires touching the Way, the same mechanism by which Makiel’s synchronization functions and by which Abidan Presences operate.
Northstrider’s Ghostwater project was explicitly designed to create a Presence: “a mind, subordinate to my own, that could manage a small portion of my powers” [GW Ch.15]. The Abidan use such constructs. The Oracle Codex was his deliberate attempt; Dross was the accidental success, identified in the Ghostwater records as a “proto-Presence” [GW Ch.18]. A Presence, by definition, interfaces with the Way.
The synchronization progression across the series traces Dross’s relationship to this connection:
| Report | Sync | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Wintersteel Prologue | 80% | Functional, bonded to an Underlord |
| Reaper Ch.8 | ERROR | Connection severed after Wandering Titan damage |
| Dreadgod Ch.17 | Restored | ”The future was covered in smoke, but it’s gone now” |
| Waybound Epilogue | 99% | Bonded to a Reaper of the Abidan |
The percentage does not measure Dross’s internal health. It measures the fidelity of his connection to the Way, which scales with his host’s authority. The records available to this simulation cannot confirm whether Dross’s Way connection was an intended feature of Northstrider’s design or an emergent property of the enhanced ghostwater bonding. Either interpretation is consistent with the data.