The only positive aspect of the training was the sun. After a day of work, D’min could collapse on a stone and simply bask in the warm radiation from the heavenly body. The biome of the Dungeon was swampy, which meant that the experience was sticky and humid, but anything was better than the winter that gripped Expira.

“You, javelin user,” D’min’s eyelids fluttered and he sat up. Around him, the other exhausted Lizakh were already standing. The Savior looked at him with hard eyes. “Get up. Break time is over.”

The Savior seemed to possess an entirely different understanding of what they should be able to accomplish. Her training methods were brutal and violent. For the weaker warriors, the Level 55 Horror Sludges within the Dungeon were more than enough to push them to the brink of death. For Yn’ulk and another veteran warrior, the Savior trained them personally, setting them to strenuous physical activity between spars.

After only two days within the Dungeon, D’min wondered if it would have been better to just give up and drown himself in the calf-deep water of this Dungeon. His scales were broken and oozing blood in a dozen places. His muscles felt like worn cotton. His javelin had been shattered within the jelly-like body of one of the monsters.

Yet he was improving. Inexplicably, he had gained more Levels and Skill Levels in the past forty-eight hours than the prior year. During the lecture portion, as the Savior talked about the importance of images, D’min genuinely felt himself making some progress.

He confided the strange, surging sensation in his chest to Te’Leto, one of the other warriors that came along with the Savior. The older Lizakh had grunted. “You are probably light-headed. Monsters such as us cannot develop images; we can only have meaning by providing tribute to the Patron of the Sun.”

However, after a long pause, Te’Leto continued. “...but I have to admit that I have felt strange stirrings within myself. Could… could the Savior truly be sent by the Patron of the Sun to change the fate of the Lizakh?”

She has nothing to do with the Patron of the Sun, D’min thought, but he was too exhausted to correct the older man. Instead, he kept his thoughts to himself as he considered the figure that the Savior claimed to follow, The Ghosthound.

*****

Randidly methodically sketched out the desolate cities and the fallen, scaleless Lizakh that lurked within the talon fields after they succumbed to corruption. Then he filled some secret warrens with their rotting dead, as their poisoned, scaleless bodies eventually failed. As he worked tirelessly on the details of the inner area, he could feel those meaningful changes spreading slowly outward.

Congratulations! Your Skill Grand Perspective (R) has grown to Level 170!

The greater the shift within the middle, the more the periphery benefitted without him having to even lift a finger. The current changes were small, but he gradually felt the way that an image possessed internal integrity. His adjustments were small steps in preparation for the larger alteration that was looming in front of Randidly.

Soon, he needed to step onto the corrupted field that currently served as the sword’s sheath. Sharpening the core meant more than all the foundational detail put together.

Still, Randidly wanted to do a few more things before heading toward that final and vital portion of Claudette’s image. First, he went back to his Path screen and spent the two hundred PP to complete the Determined II Path. Again, he received nothing for the two hundred PP spent, which was a bit harder to stomach than last time.

Not that I really need more Stats, Randidly thought sourly. But to really get nothing for my troubles...

Congratulations! You have completed the Determined II Path! Your adventures have seen you rise to great heights, yet even though your power dwarfs most opportunities, you still take care to investigate. As you proceed through these small Paths, you find little of interest or use to you. But there is meaning to the choice to investigate every possibility. Your dedication is noted.

Branching Path! Although you have made some small discoveries about yourself, there is no sudden epiphany waiting for you at the end of this Path. Would you like to collect an extremely small reward now or defer the reward for later?

Randidly chose to defer and was slightly surprised that he received a different benefit for waiting: he was given +2 to all Stats.

Humming to himself, his focus turned back to his Path screen. He released a sigh of relief. Determined III only costs three hundred PP. Although I don’t know if I can reach the end of this series of Paths right now, hopefully, I can earn some more PP through this process with Claudette.

And then I get to cache in for a long-awaited reward.

Randidly summoned the Visage of Obsession and allowed his consciousness to be absorbed by his Fatepiece. Within the spiraling staircase world, he had a physical body, although it was just the shape; he couldn’t really feel any of his limbs. So he moved and descended five-hundred fifty-five thousand, five hundred and fifty steps. During the long, spiraling journey, he felt himself tingling in anticipation and briefly focused on that sensation. Cold is about suppressing sensation but exposed to the worst sorts of cold, one will naturally hope for warmth…

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

He filed that insight away as he reached the next shadow barrier. Mrs. Hamilton greeted him once again. “Welcome back. You truly are quite studious about quickly descending into your obsession this time. Heh. This price… it is something you have long been expecting. By continuing through this layer of shadow, you will lose your ability to freely take breaks.”

Randidly pressed his lips together but said nothing. Instead, he felt a certain sort of relief. Considering the ponderous amount of shifts that Randidly still needed to accomplish within Claudette’s image, and how much effort it had taken him to generate the small flaw in her sword that currently fueled his changes, proceeding further along the Visage of Obsession was almost a necessity.

Wait for me, Helen. I’ll get revenge for you. After I fulfill this promise to Claudette, I will do everything I can to drag down Commandant Wick. For a brief moment, Randidly allowed his heart to flare with hatred, guilt, and grief that he usually kept suppressed. In his mind, perhaps all these volatile emotions would serve as further motivation to dedicate himself to Claudette’s image.

Almost immediately, he realized that he had made a mistake. All of the stillness he had maintained within his Soulspace ignited like dry tinder, filling him with surging waves of heat. The emotions were motivating, sure, but very quickly Randidly could feel his reason being suppressed by their violence.

Within Randidly’s core, the Grey Creature stirred and raised its head. He didn’t currently have a body, but he could see the Grey Creature, wearing his body, very clearly. Its lower tail lashed back and forth and its eyes opened. It peered through time and space with a grim certainty, parsing apart the various branching paths of the future to find the one that would lead to justice for Helen.

Congratulations! Your Skill the Grey Creature Witnesses Providence (P) has grown to Level 351!

Purple-black revelation energy swirled through his pupils as the Stillborn Phoenix resonated with the Grey Creature's desire. The still-developing shifts within the Stillborn Phoenix based upon Helen’s Depth of Horror seemed to quickly catch the contagious heat of Randidly’s emotions and set his soul to burning. Nether roiled and seethed; Randidly was a boiling kettle of need. Yggdrasil rose quietly behind the other two images, releasing calming pulses of aura to support their crazed determination.

Congratulations! Your Skill the Golden Roots of Yggdrasil (L) has grown to Level 371!

...

Congratulations! Your Skill Revelation of the Atramentous Threshold (T) has grown to Level 404!

Congratulations! Your Skill the Grey Creature Witnesses Providence (P) has grown to Level 387!

Then Randidly felt himself, surging at the core of a complex network of Aether and Nether energies, threatening to destabilize his own Enhanced Obsession. A part of Randidly urged himself to ignore the consequences and follow this sudden epiphany down the path of madness and vengeance. With this momentum, he could burn his way to Military High Command and tear down the edifice brick by brick. The imagined satisfaction from such an action filled him with wild glee.

For several long seconds, he wavered at the precipice, ready to give in to the grief and shatter everything around him.

Perhaps he really would have, and damn the consequences to himself, if he had not felt Neveah’s image projection Engraving strain and shudder underneath his weaponized Nether Weight. Suddenly, he recalled his promise to Claudette. Groaning, Randidly forced his Nether Core to cease its wild acceleration and quieted his images.

The emotions did not withdraw easily, but soon they had settled back into his Soulspace to simmer.

There were a few more dangerous ripples running through him, but Randidly schooled himself and focused on the staircase. The Mrs. Hamilton projection watched him with knowing eyes, but he ignored it. “Alright then, let’s get this over with.”

After Randidly had stuck his foot down into the oily shadow, Mrs. Hamilton spoke up again. “Not to spoil the surprise, but the price this time isn’t what you are thinking. Being connected to you makes it too simple to tease you. You aren’t being forbidden from resting; almost the opposite. You simply won’t be able to control when you rest.”

“What?” Randidly frowned over at the projection, but the thing just smiled at him and refused to elaborate. Feeling a strange sense of foreboding, Randidly allowed himself to submerge in the shadow.

When his awareness came back to himself, he immediately understood the snide comments from the Fatepiece; he had been put on a strict twelve-hour alternating schedule between working on Claudette’s image and resting. His face warped into a grimace, unable to understand why the Visage of Obsession would undermine his pursuit of his goal. Wasn’t the point of the Fatepiece that he could completely devote himself to a single task?

Congratulations! Your Skill Absolute Timing (Ru) has grown to Level 200!

Even more annoying than the mandatory, twelve-hour breaks was the fact that the clock wasn’t reset by the sudden arrival of the rule; he was already three minutes away from a forced break. This seems like such a fucking waste. Especially when I just experienced that surge of grief- The only reason I can think that the Fatepiece would do this is perhaps… perhaps finishing the Claudette’s image isn’t the goal its guiding me toward…

But even that didn’t make much sense. Rather than preventing him from working on the image, it was a poorly designed program to ensure that he had an adequate amount of rest. Randidly hissed in annoyance and wished he still possessed a body to kick the dirt. This just made the process more obnoxious.

Feeling that the time until his next break continued to mercilessly tick down, Randidly focused on his immediate surroundings. A few minutes wasn’t enough to accomplish anything large, but he viewed the ground and shaped the frigid topsoil to add texture. His mind flitted back and forth, laboring as much as he could. He was creating some small stretches of ice when the timer hit zero.

Immediately, his focus narrowed. The projected image world fell away as he was dragged into a fuzzy darkness. For a few seconds, he was horrified that he would be left in this isolated place for the entire twelve hours, but then his unconsciousness began to blur. Before he had a chance to be surprised, Randidly was asleep.

And because he slept, he began to dream.