Oh, that's a good question! I'm not sure what a power for helping you do the things you know you need to do would look like... depending what you mean by choose the right thing to do, I think Soundtrack could help with that, but if I try to imagine a power for helping you choose the right thing after you know everything Soundtrack can tell you, I imagine something almost like Backchannel with yourself, instead of with someone else... that could be a really useful power, actually.

For getting to know the right people, there's a few that might help:

Name: Popular - Cost: 3 ☐
Wherever you go, you develop a reputation fast. The sort of people who you'd like to have as fans tend to hear about you and be impressed. You may not make an impression on mainstream society at large, but you'll develop a following among the people who best resonate with your style.

Name: Friends In Low Places - Cost: 3 ☐
You make friends easily among the lowest echelons of society, the underdogs and underworlders. Moving and acting in these circles is intuitive and natural for you.
Name: Friends In High Places - Cost: 3 ☐
You make friends easily at the highest echelons of society, among the rich and powerful. Moving and acting in these circles is intuitive and natural for you.
Name: Friends in Strange Places - Cost: 3 ☐
You make friends easily in small isolated communities, among those who may be scorned by mainstream society for their differences or may just be so obscure that mainstream society mostly hasn't heard of them. Moving and acting in these circles is intuitive and natural for you.

Hmm. The Friends in Places powers look like what I was thinking of, for meeting people. All three would be more expensive than anything else so far, though. And you really need all three, because you always find allies in the places you least expect, so if you didn't take one that's where you'd meet someone who would help.

For doing what you know you need to do, I was more thinking of ...

Being able to do things even though you're scared, or even though you're being pressured, or mind controlled, or suspended over a volcano.

These are, now that her story is starting, all more or less equally likely, in her estimation.

Hmm, well, this one should help with some of that...

Name: Iron Will - Cost: 2 ☐
(Requires Closed Book and Indelible)
You are immune to all forms of mental illusion, alteration, interference, or control. Even extreme torture, extended solitary confinement, advanced brainwashing techniques, and so on cannot touch you. You can be lonely but not cripplingly lonely. You can be upset but not traumatized. (You can choose to allow specific effects like communicative telepathy on a case-by-case basis.)

That looks like the right kind of thing. What are Closed Book and Indelible?

Name: Closed Book - Cost: 1 ☐
You're immune to any supernatural, pharmaceutical, or other effect that would let people directly read your thoughts or feelings.
Name: Indelible - Cost: 1 ☐
You're immune to any supernatural, pharmaceutical, or other effect that would let people directly alter your thoughts or feelings.

Emily thinks about how well that matches what she meant.

"... of the railway. Emily?"

"Um."

She glances at the board and takes a wild guess.

"1840, Mrs. Mount, although construction was planned since the early 1830s to supplement the new rail networks in Massachusetts and New York."

Luckily, this seems to be satisfactory.

She tries to get back her train of thought, but it's vanished, so she asks a related question instead.

You said the points are a measurement of the Spirit's power, how much it takes to do something. Does that mean that a single power that's tuned to do exactly what I mean is better, or is building something that's like what I mean out of the powers on the list better?

Either of those can turn out to be better, depending on what you want and how close it is to what an existing power already does. Sometimes something is tricky to build and I can only come at it from certain angles, and so the existing power is the closest I can get to a new power that would be very similar; but sometimes there's lots of room for variants around an existing power, or the new power fits nicely into the space around the old one, or the new power is just plain new enough that there aren't many existing powers like it anyway.

Huh. Okay.

So I think that Iron Will (and the others) is almost what I meant about doing what you know you need to do, but it's missing ...

She tries to figure out how to put her feeling into words.

It's about people trying to stop you, not about you stopping yourself. Or.

How would you add a power that ... gives you the strength to keep going, instead of making the things not affect you? Because that inner strength could be more ... general, I guess.

I'm sorry, I'm not explaining well.

I think I see what you're getting at! I'll think about how I might build a power for something like that.

Okay! Thanks.

She rearranges her thoughts so far into a list.

Being — Dragon Fairy Elf Witch

Knowing (skills) — Anything You Can Do

Knowing (people) — Friends in Places

Knowing (situation) — Soundtrack

Having (things) — Pocket Dimension

Doing — Custom power kind of like Iron Will

Choosing — ???

And that gives her another burst of inspiration.

Recovering —

Remembering —

(Recommended reserved points)

... that's 34-ish points. What am I missing? Swordsmanship, obviously, but that's a skill. Oh!

Going —

Does Recovering mean the kind of thing It Gets Better is for, or something else?

Here's that power for using Backchannel with yourself; I think it'll work well for thinking through decisions:

Name: Roundabout - Cost: 2 ☐
(Requires Backchannel)
You can invoke Backchannel with yourself. This can be a big help in understanding where your own thoughts and feelings are coming from, and in coming to an internal consensus.

Okay, so that's 6 points total, which is on-par with the other general powers on her list.

She flips back to re-read the description of Backchannel.

So the idea is that if I'm having trouble making a choice, I can see what really matters to me, and that makes it easier to make the right choice? I guess that sounds pretty good.

It sort of lacks the certainty of some of the other powers, but ... maybe that's the point. There's a best way to wield a sword, but there isn't always a single right thing that's best to do.

She goes back and fills in "Backchannel + Roundabout" under "Choosing".

... and that means that now she has to answer the notebook's question about It Gets Better. She flips back to read that one too.

It's a useful power. It's clearly useful, and it is what she meant by recovering, really. But she just ... she doesn't feel good about it. Why...?

Can you lend powers out early? Like, could I maybe try Roundabout out and then give it back before I make a final decision?

I can only give you your powers all at once, plus the unrealized potential of unspent points. Are you having trouble deciding whether you want Roundabout, or having trouble deciding something else?

Aaah the notebook is too perceptive.

I don't know how to feel about It Gets Better. It does sound like what I meant by recovery, but it's not ... it doesn't really feel like the other powers. And I'm not sure why.

Well, would you like to talk to me about it and try to figure it out?

Or you could try to talk to yourself about it even without Roundabout.

Or both!

She wiggles her toes, thinking.

It's like ...

The phrase that pops into her head is "narrative tension", which ... oh!

It's easy to believe that someone can be a dragon. It's hard to believe that they're guaranteed a happy ending. It's just ... if It Gets Better were the kind of power people could have, where is the risk of the unhappy ending?

Of course I want a happy ending. We always want happy endings. But if you can never really be truly defeated, if your adventures never have the risk that you won't come back ...

It just doesn't feel real. And that sort of undermines the rest of the powers, right, because people don't get powers like that. "Everything will always be okay, and you don't really need to try" isn't a real thing. It's something that you say to tempt the protagonist to abandon the safety of the path—

Emily slams the notebook closed.

She needs to talk to her parent.

The rest of the schoolday passes quickly in a blur of classes and nerves. The bus makes her feel sick, jolting her as it weaves back and forth across town. She can't even read, so she just squeezes her eyes closed and waits for the end of the journey.

Her parent doesn't get home until 4:30, and she passes the time reading Stardust.

When her parent gets home, they say facts about their days to each other until they're in sync again. It takes a lot longer than normal.

"... and so it's not even because of anything, right? She's saying that the Spirit chose me, but why me? You always want to make someone feel special if you're trying to trick them, right?" she babbles.

Her parent looks over from where they're preparing dinner.

"... I didn't want it to come up like this, but I should probably tell you the story of how you were born."

"How I was born?" Emily asks with confusion.

"I met your other parent in my last year of Divinity School," her parent explains — which they have told her many times before. "What I didn't tell you is how you were conceived."