Mrs. Hamilton took a deep breath before she pushed open the doors. Her hands rested lightly on the carved wood. A single ripple spread across her mind that left her inner self completely placid. Her newly acquired Level 70 Skill, Poise of the Dappled Lurker, meant that all of the worries she felt from Donny’s sudden message became only background noise.

She was untouchable. Her mind clicked methodically onward.

Opening the doors, Mrs. Hamilton walked through into Donny’s office with a confident expression. The young man was pacing back and forth in front of his purely decorate bookshelf, fiddling with the metallic invitation that Donnyton as a whole had received that allowed them to bring fifty people to Randidly’s birthday celebration.

“What happened?” Mrs. Hamilton asked as she glided forward to stand at his side. But while she was looking at Donny’s emotional state, she also peeked curiously down at the invitation card. As she had been on a small vacation for the past two weeks, she had heard about the invitation but not seen it in person.

It was only this morning that she arrived back in Donnyton.

As advertised, the metal was a shimmery wonder of construction that possibly could have been used by Xiang Le to subdue an assassin. Of course, Mrs. Hamilton also wondered if the rumors were true and it had been strong enough to withstand a full-strength blow from Donny. A quick mental prod from her image reassured Mrs. Hamilton that the peace of metal really was solid enough to endure even an empowered attack. Idly, Mrs. Hamilton wondered how Randidly kept making better metals.

When Donny just shrugged helplessly, Mrs. Hamilton frowned. “Is it the guest list? Is Lyra causing trouble?”

“No, everything’s settled. Transportation and the interim government are set up. Everyone’s been briefed on the emergency scenarios you outlined,” Donny shook his head. “It’s just…”

Mrs. Hamilton simply raised an eyebrow.

Donny sighed. “It’s a birthday right? So… what sort of present is Donnyton going to give Randidly Ghosthound?”

For a second, she cocked her head to the side and gave Donny a look asking if he was being serious. When it became clear that he was, Mrs. Hamilton rolled her eyes. “Donny, is that really why you called me here so desperately? We can just give him…”

But then Mrs. Hamilton started to think about it. What sort of gift should they give Randidly? Although the official connection between Randidly Ghosthound and Donnyton had been very publicly severed in the most recent challenge to demonstrate the power of images, the debt that Donnyton owed to Randidly was extremely deep. Most of the residents who have been in Donnyton the longest gossip about Randidly Ghosthound like proud grandparents. He was part of the culture of the Village.

And since it was the first birthday that Mrs. Hamilton remembered Randidly celebrating, they obviously should try to give him a good gift. Something that showed their appreciation of the bond between Randidly and this Village.

In addition to the emotional weight, there were political ramifications to consider. Mrs. Hamilton had no doubt that other Zones would use this opportunity to try and earn favor with Randidly by providing lavish or unusual gifts. And although Randidly probably wouldn’t even notice the efforts, there would be an invisible competition for who could bring the best gift.

Donnyton should have an advantage, from all the time they had spent with Randidly, but…

...what sort of thing would Randidly want as a gift…? By the end of her train of thought, Mrs. Hamilton was frowning deeply.

An especially challenging question, considering the fact that the party was to be held in four days.

*****

“Mister Ghosthound,” Wolfram began as he adjusted the glasses on his three heads from left to right. Their necks bobbed slightly during the motion. “It is extremely difficult to put the finishing touches on the venue when you have insisted that the central ballroom’s floor is entirely done by yourself. With only four days left until the event, to finish preparing the many ornate details on the decorations-”

“I believe I’ve already made my opinions about your insistence on the… quality of the decorations clear,” Randidly said with a wry curl of his lip. This was a case where he humored the requests of Tatiana but was ultimately ambivalent about the details.

Wolfram’s central head gave Randidly a reproving stare. “How can your majesty be sufficiently conveyed without at least a few frescos on the walls? And obviously the pillars need to be hand-carved. Besides, how can you expect the venue to function as a commercially viable business if the main ballroom is without any redeeming feature?”

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Inwardly, Randidly rolled his eyes. No wonder Tatiana has been so antsy about what sort of floor I’m making for the ballroom; you’ve been wondering if Kharon can still use it as a concert hall after I’m through with it.

But I can guarantee you that people will visit the venue just to see the effects of the floor that I create…

Out loud, Randidly admitted, “No, you’re right. The process has taken longer than I thought it would. I had to consult with Neveah to figure out some of the details for the Engraving that I wanted to make. But I promise that I’ll have the floor prepared and installed tonight before midnight. At that point, you will be free to put whatever flair you want in the ballroom.”

Wolfram glanced up at the sky meaningfully. The two were standing in one of Kharon’s parks, surrounded at a distance of twenty meters by the mulling forms of people who had meetings with Wolfram and then quite a few others that just seemed to be trying their best not to gawk over at Randidly himself who was standing there.

Because if Wolfram truly meant to meet with all of the gathered people, Randidly felt quite a bit of sympathy for the ogre.

It was noon. Randidly did some mental calculating on his own pace of tile creation and grimaced. He wouldn’t be able to start the finishing touches on the Engraving until some of his mental energy recovered. Aether and Nether needed to be woven together to achieve the effect Randidly wanted, and the process was extremely exhausting. Even now, he had something of a headache, which was why he agreed to meet Wolfram in the sun-drenched park.

Being out in nature helped slowly calm Randidly back down to his base state. The warmth on his skin was rejuvenating.

“...well, a large portion will be finished by midnight,” Randidly elaborated as he scratched his head. “Your people should be able to begin work then anyway on a significant portion of the main ballroom.”

“By your leave,” Wolfram bowed and then turned slightly away from Randidly and gestured for whomever individual with which he had his next meeting to approach him. The man in question saw Randidly standing there casually and looked with wide eyes at this unexpected chance. After a frozen moment, he quickly made up his mind and stroud purposefully forward with his eyes locked on Randidly.

Shaking his head, Randidly activated Chimerica Avoidance to the limit and then took a step forward. Space itself seemed to part for him as he crossed his way through the crowd, out of the park, and off of Kharon itself.

Congratulations! Your Skill Chimeric Avoidance (L) has grown to Level 237!

Continuing to move quickly, Randidly blazed a trail quickly through the mountain range which had been renamed the Nordawns in honor of the homeworld of the ogres. On his journey, Randidly didn’t make any effort to avoid the ogres that were settling the area, but he saw very few communities of ogres setting up buildings as he skirted the highest of the Nordawns and headed West. For whatever reason, most of the population had made a beeline for the tallest peak and were slowly carving that epic mountain into a veritable city.

Still, Randidly had only come out of Kharon to work because of space; no matter what image reverberations he produced, no one would get wind of what he was up to until he finished working on the floor material.

It only took Randidly about twenty minutes to arrive at his work zone he had casually made yesterday. From the way that Randidly didn’t encounter any monsters at all in the last minute or so of travel before arriving, it seemed that his images that were still dissipating in the air above the quiet mountain served as a powerful deterrent.

Randidly landed next to the quarry he had created and then hopped down to the pit below. There, laying out where he had left them, were about eighty of the two hundred tiles he needed to make in order to cover enough of the flooring to satisfy Tatiana’s demands. The tiles themselves were black and sparkling, with notes of emerald hidden in their depths. Because of the presence of Nether in the Engraving, the lines of Mana couldn’t be seen; they simply looked like plain black tiles. An unadorned and mundane series of black tiles.

They were stacked up like obsidian plates in four piles that reached the height of Randidly’s waist. Just these had taken him three days of concentrated effort to make, although most of that effort was researching and experimenting with the Engraving to get the right effect. The actual Engraving had been done in two hours this morning: exhausting but manageable.

With a small smile on his face, Randidly reached out and placed a finger against the top tile of one of the piles. A ripple of light spread out from the spot that Randidly’s finger touched, quickly running through all of the touching tiles. It was difficult to see exactly what was going on because the tiles were stacked on top of each other, but a rich supernova of light seemed to seep out from the pile on which Randidly had placed his finger while the others remained inert.

Chuckling, Randidly withdrew his finger. Seems like these are going to work. Still gonna take a bit of time before I recover the mental energy I need to finish the job, so in the meantime…

After cracking his neck, Randidly created himself a root chair with Absolute Grasp of Yggdrasil and then settled down. His time thinking about Ignition Essence over the past few days had been not as productive as Randidly had hoped, so now he focused on a different, more established image to refine this time: Yggdrasil.

In a very relaxed way, Randidly allowed his image of the World Tree to spread out from his body. The golden roots sank into the surrounding ground. The trunk swelled and darkened as it reached toward the sky. Emerald leaves sprouted and waved lightly in an imaginary wind. The whole valley soon began to pulse with the ambient life that Yggdrasil possessed.

But Randidly didn’t focus on the life. No, he let his attention wander to the dark spaces in Yggdrasil. To the quiet cracks underneath the groaning branches. To the deep shadows and the many-limbed creature that skittered through Yggdrasil’s boughs. It opened its mouth and breathed silently, greedily absorbing the wild energies of the air.

All things have a price.

Congratulations! Your Skill the Implacable Price of Exodus (M) has grown to Level 207!

…

Congratulations! Your Skill the Implacable Price of Exodus (M) has grown to Level 219!