"What I was thinking of was something that had been non-sapient before being bound; I'm less uncomfortable creating somebody whose motivations center around me than altering an existing person in such a way."

"How would you feel about an entity that came into existence moments before being bound? I cannot cause new spirits to exist, but I could select a very young one, and more are coming into being all the time."

"--That could work, yeah."

"Do you have a decision as to the type of spirit, or would you like to hear more information?"

"More information, please." 

"On which options?"

"The Fairy, the Iron Fairy, and the Horror?"

"The fairy handmaiden is one of the fae, born to the Icon of The Fairy. A child of unreality fed on spirit till she became real, the Fairy was created for the purpose of assisting a more established fairy. You mentioned wanting a newly created spirit; for the fairy handmaiden, this would be the default case, as an older one would already have been claimed by someone else."

"Fairies are flexible beings. This one could become many things, but in the beginning she will attend to your needs through a mix of obeying orders and attempting to predict and provide whatever services will help you."

"The Iron Fae is also born to the Icon of the Fairy. They were the terror of the third apocalypse. I would bind for you one which has stabilized on a... human adjacent form, though none of them could pass as one of the mortal races."

"Iron Fae are tenacious beyond all sense, completely ignore the dangers of iron, and generally resist most forces brought against them."

"It's questionable how intelligent this thing is. Direct simple order should get through, but don't give it complex instructions or general goals that take it out of your sight."

"As for the Horror, the universe used to be... different. Not just ours, but most. The divergences between realities originate far back in time, and we've found echoes of their origins in an unknowable conflict. We've also run across survivors."

"Horrors don't bind Icons. They process potential and grow, but do not do so in a way we understand. They are highly intelligent, but their motivations are opaque. It's not that they won't answer, but that their answers are unintelligible."

"The universe you lived in, the universe I live in... they're all the product of their old war."

"Most sleep, but there are places where they stir, wake. Such places are... cursed."

"Be careful with this one."

"...I'll go with the Fairy Handmaiden." 

Out of all the options, it feels like the one least wronged by binding it. 

"Very well. Your current selections leave you with seven Gifts. Would you like to return to the question of bound Arcadias?"

"Yes please." It will be so nice to focus on something that isn't even a little bit slavery. 

"Your options are:

Brownies, a tendency for tasks to be accomplished around you as though you had done them but with no actual attention or effort from you,

Workshop, a reservoir of crafting-labor that can be turned into works of artifice,

Closet, a place into which clothes can be inserted and the same or different clothes extracted,

Gingerbread Palace, which consumes ingredients and can be used interchangeably as shelter and food,

Floating Library, which can gather information like a lake gathers rain,

Moon Road, a path from here to there through nowhere,

Path of Transformation, a moon road which carries you not to other places but to other forms,

and Arcadian Chaos, a shard of unformed Arcadia which can, with effort, be a less-real version of whatever you want."

"...Can you elaborate on Floating Library, Moon Road, and Path of Transformation?"

"A floating library gathers information, organizes it, and compiles it into books.

Passively, this Bound Arcadia can gather information like a lake gathers rain, being a metaphysical 'low point' that information flows towards. A book on a nightstand where you sleep, the gossip whispered across the street from where you break your fast.

More actively, the library can forge constructs of vellum and papyrus, ravens and rats and stranger things, and send them out hunting for information.

All bound Arcadias start out unstable, and gradually stabilize to full reality as they spend time in contact with your Cthonic Will. The stability of the library determines how faithfully it transcribes information. Low stability information can actually become memetic hazards, rhyme and riddles that are effectively cursed. You'll have to purge the library of everything it gathered before achieving stability, or else it will become an ongoing hazard. The constructs it makes also require spirit to become stable, meaning that this Bound Arcadia has a higher consumption of spirit, and will keep consuming it.

Your Ascension will affect the profundity of its information gathering methods, from things within your sight or hearing to begin with, to anything happening within a building when you stand in its shadow, to eventually anything happening before an image of you.

It also affects the constructs the library makes. At low Ascension they will be crude things, but they will refine as your ascension rises. Birds will fly, fish will swim, you will gain the power to see through their eyes, and more.

Your level of existence defines how well the library processes the information it has, how well it indexes it, and how easily it can compile it into the forms you wish.

Remember that its actions are your actions."

"Moon Roads radiate outwards from the Arcadia, tunneling into reality. Bound by the flow of the natural world, they come and go like the tides, sometime taking people long distance, sometimes shifting them forward in time. And sometimes taking them all the way to their Arcadia, from which they never return.

This bound Arcadia is one of the least altered in the process of preparing it. A path that doesn't exist, from 'here' to 'there.'

The stability of the road defines how sane the places you travel through are. Less stable paths have a tendency to eat people, or time shift them, or transform them, or... they aren't safe. Being an outsider protects from the more harmful effects, but not from general weirdness. It's not something you have to worry about long term, but be aware until it stabilizes.

Your Ascension defines how easy it is to 'find' a path, with the difficulty dependent on how watched and worked the area you're leaving from and returning to is (with the notable exception of places that are supernaturally yours). Places that "belong" to you in a magical sense are always 'unworked and unwatched.' There are wardings against this very kind of intrusion as well. Your ascension helps counter them. Higher Ascension also let your path be more divorced from reality and more completely avoid searchers and watchers. With a high Ascension, you could wander across an ocean without getting your feet wet and land in a crowded square without anyone noticing your arrival.

Your level of existence defines how greatly you may twist geography. Generally, the distance you travel doubles every 4 levels of existence. Higher levels of existence also allow you to open more paths, sending people on their way without you traveling with them."

"Used both in punishments and as part of the normal refinement process, in alchemy, and in a number of other operations, a Path of Transformation is a Moon Road that no longer leads anywhere. It is a path that moves not in space, but in state.

A powerful focus for many transformative effects, both of people but also of material. It will do little for you before your sixth ascension, but past that point is an invaluable tool. It is a tool of alchemists, artificers, and other craftsmen."

"...The Path of Transformation sounds...dangerous."

"Just so. At the sixth Ascension you will be able to use it to safely alter crafting materials, but traversing it yourself is best saved for, hm, the eighth? At that point you'll have a far better sense of your own abilities than I can provide as an advance prediction."

"...Yeah, I'll take the Path of Transformation." 

She's not sure it's a great idea but she's so curious.

"Very  well. Your current selections leave you with seven Gifts. Would you like to consider additional bound Arcadias, change any of your other selections, or finalize your choices and proceed to Adastra?"

(Another momentary sensation of being watched from a great distance.)

"This is the end? --I'll definitely take the library, then."

"Very well. Your current selections leave you with six Gifts. Would you like to consider additional bound Arcadias, change any of your other selections, or finalize your choices and proceed to Adastra?"