Randidly descended upon Tellus and was greeted by light rain. A grey sky stretched as far as his eyes could see. He took a deep breath and looked upward, hoping that the small drops could briefly cool the uncompromising furnace of emotion that caged his heart.

His emotions did begin to shift. But Randidly wasn’t sure if the grey mood would be a good thing or a bad thing.

Before he followed a trail of significance that led back to Helen’s mother, Randidly sat on the low hills South of Hastam and watched children playing in the mud. His memory of his time on Tellus was still incredibly sharp; the geography was just as he remembered. The bones of this place had not changed. The main ‘settled’ portion of Tellus looked like a thick c written in hill and plains, with the bottom portion stretching and widening more than the upper half.

The Central Domain, which had been the final bastion against the wights during Randidly’s previous stay, was located in the thickest and largest bottom portion of that c. By the end of that Second Calamity, only Hastam was safe from the marching forces of the Wights.

Besides, this particular hill had witnessed of great personal import as well. It was here, on this slope above the Hallat River that he had first discovered the flexibility and power of Engraving.

He had created a grand pattern that had drained the power from the puppet-like Wights which were assaulting the city. And yet, Randidly only had that inspiration after he had watched dozens of fellow spear users fall underneath the Second Calamity’s deadly blitz. Mud and sweat and blood had mixed in a thick putty beneath their feet. They had stamped that cruel mixture into an uneven battlefield. And now…

A child shrieked as one of her companions managed to splatter her face with a thrown mudball. The victim scooped up two vengeful handfuls of ammunition and charged her giggling assailants. Further down the slope, on a more stable stretch of ground, an old man was guiding ten teenagers through basic spear forms. When one of the students made a mistake, the old man slapped the back of their calves with a bamboo stick and reprimanded them in a sharp tone.

At the base of the hill, a road had been created alongside the Hallat, leading to a dock/ market about a kilometer East of Randidly’s spot. Despite the rain, the wind would occasionally carry snippets of laughter over from the market. The sound traveled well because all of the trees on this side of the river had been cleared. Their absence made the familiar vista appear strange to Randidly’s eyes.

So he twisted and looked up the slope. That place on top of the hill where he had bitterly buried his fellow-spear users had been surrounded with an imposing stone wall and filled with neat rows of tombstones. Now a very reputable cemetery existed there Randidly watched as several young spear users kneeled before the entrance and paid their respects to the sacrifices of their predecessors.

He couldn’t help but wonder but how difficult it was to be buried in that location now.

Savoring the cool tingle of raindrops on his skin, Randidly turned and looked back down at the banks of the River Hallat. His other senses spread out over the surrounding countryside. Without the spine-tingling pressure of the Calamity, Tellus was developing. Hastam had swollen to twice its original size and possessed three new residential districts around the massive fortress that Randidly remembered. Brightly colored Spear Style Tassels fluttered from the walls. Beyond that, Randidly could feel a dozen new settlements across the surrounding plains, as the people of Tellus reclaimed their land.

Even more off-putting than the growth was how different the air felt. Randidly opened his mouth slightly and shifted his tongue from side to side. Part of the difference was the presence of Randidly’s Aether filtering into the new planet in the Alpha Cosmos, but the spirit of Tellus was not as he remembered it. The pride was still there; that probably would take hundreds of years to be shaken. But it was the kindness that had really seized him and forced him to sit down on this hill.

Kindness was not a word Randidly would have used to describe either of his prior trips to this planet.

The Tellus that Randidly had visited twice was a world that was teetering on the brink of running out of fuel. Each individual had to fight and prove that they deserved access to energy, to advance the grand cause of the species. Without a potent enough image to demonstrate your worth, spear users and Styles were trampled and used as fertilizer for others.

This new world… is much softer. Heh, what would you think, Shal, if you saw it? Did you see it? What your efforts had created...

Randidly sighed, his heart turning on its side in his chest. He felt like the greyness of the clouds was seeping into him. “It’s a good thing, right…? To have a stable environment to grow. To have a world that requires that fewer people need to die. So why…”

Randidly twisted his lips. I don’t want everyone else to go through the same trauma I endured. But this… it would be nice, I suppose, to see that others still carry the same scars…

Do you remember Claptrap, Helen? Do you remember…. Ah, what was my other spear attendant’s name…

All in all… we didn’t turn out very well, did we?

The rain began to fall quite a bit harder upon him, the drizzle growing up to become a downpour. The children dropped their handfuls of mud and began to run home, their ‘wounds’ dissolving and oozing off their bodies as they fled. The spear trainees didn’t have the luxury of cutting off their activity halfway, and the slaps of bamboo against flesh became more common.

Yet Randidly’s gaze drifted back to the kneeling individuals in front of the impressive cemetery that replaced the shallow graves he had dug. Some of those kneelers stood and ran back toward Hastam for shelter, but most stayed. Theirs was not an image of understanding, but it was definitely one of respect.

Randidly reached up and touched his palm to his chest. His skin was cool and damp; his clothes had been soaked through. Now I return, feeling bitter. Bitter because I failed and caused Helen to die. And meanwhile, these people can just…

“...they can experience uncomplicated joy. And that’s a good thing,” Randidly said out loud. His words were drowned out by the rain working furiously into the dirt to create more mud, but saying them helped him smother the bitterness in his heart. He stood and swayed, feeling the cool wind coming off of the river buffet his body. As the storm intensified, the rain slanted sideways and slapped against his face. Randidly raised his head and released a breath.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Even with the storm dropping as much precipitation as it could manage, the strong sense of joy wafting out from Hastam didn’t dissipate. This was now a peaceful city, as strange as that seemed to him and the ghosts he carried from his time on Tellus. Right now, his memories of fighting for his life against the wights had faded. He could sense that some of the distant outposts housed the images of powerful spear users who likely lived and fought through that war… but here in the interior of the Central Domain, something soft and sweet could grow.

Randidly withdrew his Philsopher’s Key and let the brass tip nose around through the air. Rain rustled the grass and splattered into the growing puddles around him. He quickly found a few threads of significance that let him find his target. He inserted the key into the air and twisted; he was glad that he left this place with the details obscured with rain, because the fact he could stand in a location that held such weight in his heart and not recognize it was not helping his uneasy emotional state.

Randidly stepped out of the portal into a rocky mountain path. He looked up to a sky that was not spitting down on him, but the clouds were still low and grey. Water dripping off his soaked clothes and onto the ground. Between the rocky terrain and those clouds, a powerful wind howled. Randidly turned and examined the surroundings briefly, then he began to walk further up the mountain path.

Below him was a fort, nestled on a ridge that had an unobstructed view of the surrounding mountains and the valley that led into the Central Domain. Apparently, Helen’s mother had followed the trailblazer’s East, settling up a small homestead on the rugged border between the Central and Eastern Domain.

The winding trail came up to an edge of the tree line and turned along the circumference of the mountain. Randidly followed that path for a while until he came to a small wooden gate. Some sort of grey domesticated fowl looked up from the task of pecking seeds off the ground, but only for a moment. Soon the half dozen birds lost interest and continued with their speculative pecks.

Beyond the small bird enclosure was a coop, a barn, and three houses. Randidly scratched his neck and then slapped his cheeks. Be your own Overseer. This was your responsibility. You need to deliver the news.

Of course, slapping his cheeks made Randidly remember that he had spent the last fifteen minutes sitting in the rain. Not that his Uncommon Metabolism would allow him to catch a chill, but looking down at his drenched clothes made him grimace. He began to wring out his sleeves as best as he could. Certainly hard to seem… official while soaking wet. But… what am I even trying to seem official…?

Randidly was still standing there in a daze and squeezing out water from his clothes when the door to one of the buildings swung open. Islinda moved out of the doorway, a basket propped up on her hip.

Their eyes locked immediately. The small, intense woman who had raised Helen had passed down to her daughter her dark hair and small frowns. One of those very same frowns wrinkled her face. Randidly’s felt himself trembling in that long moment of eye contact, worrying what he had to say to explain. But after a few seconds, the way the lines deepened around Islinda’s eyes revealed that she knew. Somehow, she knew why he was here.

That was simultaneously a knife in the gut and a relief.

“...well, it seems like you walked directly through the storm to get here,” Islinda shifted the basket to her other hip. Her lips worried back and forth across her face, as though she wasn’t sure what to say. Then she huffed out a breath, seeming to notice what she was doing and growing impatient with herself. “You might as well come in. It seems like… we have some talking to do.”

Watching her move hurt more than Randidly had expected. Suddenly, all of the rough-edged habits that he had experienced from Helen were now in front of them, in their original form. Randidly licked his lips and opened the gate, unable to keep himself from inquiring. “How did you know…?”

“That girl would rather have died than bring you home to meet her mother,” Islinda waved her hand and turned back into the house. “And since you are here…”

Despite himself, Randidly snorted and followed. He was still quite damp, but at least he was no longer dripping.

The inside of the house was surprisingly quaint. Although Neveah had certainly made the conscious decision to settle down, Randidly’s Soulbound companion couldn’t hold a candle to the determined coziness of this house. The entranceway was lined with hand-embroidered Tassels, once of which belonged to Shal and Randidly’s original Style. He couldn’t resist reaching out and rubbing out the fabric.

Through the hallway there were several austere portraits in beautifully carved wooden frames. A young Helen scowled out of one tiny portrait and broke Randidly’s heart. Her hair was done up in a tight braid across her head, the sort of arrangement that meant her hair would not interfere with her training.

Helen’s mom noticed his lingering gaze. “Don’t blame me for that one. She wanted her hair like that.”

I know, Randidly thought sadly. Even then, she was driven.

Islinda left her basket on the kitchen table and brought Randidly into a dining room. She busied herself at the stove and soon brought Randidly a cup of tea. The cups were small and made of jade. Steam wafted off the surface of the warm liquid as both stared downward and organized their thoughts.

Randidly felt very cold and damp.

“Did she die fighting?” Islinda eventually asked. Randidly didn’t even need to think before he nodded seriously. Although he hadn’t witnessed her last moments, her posture clearly displayed how tenaciously she had resisted Commandant Wick.

But of course, Randidly knew that he shouldn’t share the gory details of the girl's demise.

Islinda took a sip of her tea. “And the killer? Have you handled it?”

Randidly instantly paled. Islinda gave him a long look. He licked his lips, but she raised a hand before he could answer. “Honestly, I can see the answer on your face. That powerful, huh. Well. I do not know you, Randidly Ghosthound. Despite how long Helen stubbornly clung to your side, she refused to talk much about you. But, I believe that I am an excellent judge of character. And looking at you now…” Islinda paused and tilted her head to the side. “...pathetic as your current state may be, you will not forget who harmed my daughter, will you?”

“No,” Randidly growled. “Of course not. She… the man who killed her did so to teach me a lesson. To her last breath, Helen protected me. Which is why I’m so sorr-”

“Let me stop you once again,” Islinda winced and shook her head. Then she released a shaky breath. “If you finish that sentence, I’m going to cry. And I don’t quite believe we are close enough for that, no matter what you were to my daughter. So for now-”

Islinda’s segue wasn’t even needed, because a knocking on the front door interrupted her words. The knocker didn’t wait for her answer either and instead directly pushed open the door. Two people walked into the entryway and then walked down the hallway to the kitchen. A young female voice cheerily approached. “Isa! We came back a bit early. You know, the monsters in the Eastern Domain- Oh! We have a guest?”

The young woman pulled up short as she walked into the room. The man behind her bumped into her back. Randidly recognized the young woman vaguely, but it was the man that caught his intention. Randidly frowned and fished for a name from his original visit to Tellus. “Is that… Roger… no… you are Bertram, yea?”

The tall, muscular man blinked at him. Then his bearded face split into a wide grin. “Randidly Ghosthound? Of the Spear Phantom Style? Well, well. It’s certainly been quite a while, hasn’t it?”