Randidly couldn’t imagine that a story that ended with you slumbering underneath the shadow of a fake and warped significance singularity and on top of an abyss had gone very well.

His eyes took in the peaceful expression on the real Solomon’s face and his mind tried to grapple with what had led him to this point. He tried to imagine what it would be like to give up almost half of the seconds in a minute to a Penance. Then he shifted toward understanding how the mechanism that enforced the Penance would work. He examined the soft lines of the linens that lay across Solomon’s physical body. Then Randidly considered how and how much benefit you could extract by using a Nether Penance like that.

He had said that he burned brightly. He wondered how far Solomon Rex’s light had pierced through the darkness.

In the end, he decided to change the subject. The almost glittering sensation of chilliness continued to radiate through his skin from where he handled the Penance. “Did you know that Don Beigon attends to make an attempt on the Pinnacle?”

“Ha! Yes indeed. Quite ironic, that such a conservative man would make the decision to fly in the face of the status quo. But the way his wife die certainly left a mark. And I’ll tell you one of the Don’s secrets; I know the moment that he intends to use as his springboard.” Solomon’s eyes flashed. For a few moments, the purple was light enough to glow in the dimly lit shaft. Randidly reflected that the combination of that piercing gaze and the emotional resonance probably meant that Solomon’s light had shone far, indeed. “The Moment he will use… is the time when I wake from this extended slumber. And can finally claw my way out of this place.”

Despite himself, Randidly’s lips twitched. “Is he fleeing from a debt from you too?”

The two of them exchanged wry grins. A vision of Don Beigon’s dramatically aggrieved expression floated between them, a testament to how difficult it was to dislike the Don through his charm. He played a character and played it well. Likely, it was part of some Skill, but it was difficult to stay mad with how reassuringly himself he was.

In the Don’s hands, even honesty becomes a weapon.

“Well anyway, thank you for coming to visit,” When he spoke, Solomon’s expression became quite serious. He glanced upward, not at the giant sphere housing Pine but beyond that at the shaft. “Although I have to say, you’ve cut it pretty close. Time is essentially frozen down here, so close to his main body. I recommend you take some time to stabilize yourself here before you return. Try and discover your other Authorities, familiarize yourself with the Penance, see what you can do to strengthen your image. And have a plan for when you leave to get Tier III citizenship as soon as possible. Otherwise, you won’t even see them sharpening their knives around you.”

Randidly tilted his head to the side. “Time is frozen? So your situation down here-”

“My slumber has been a bit extended due to that, yes,” Solomon shrugged. “Mostly I’m hibernating, so it’s not like I notice. In the end, I simply dare not sleep away from Pine.”

Something else occurred to Randidly. He frowned around, briefly scanning the lines of the massive Engraving that sipped at the ambient energy Pine’s dream world created. “If time really is so slowed here, then how can Pine fuel the Nexus with his energy?”

Solomon’s purple eyes flashed with something akin to pride. His tone was filled with reverence. “That just demonstrates the depth of power that Pine releases. His vigorous energy flows were actually a problem in the early Nexus; that’s why the first two Cohorts devolved into such a chaotic series of factions. The power he released was too much to even attempt to control. Later, he began to accumulate significance and the power tapered down to more reasonable levels. At this point, most of the problems that the Nexus are experiencing are because the energy we’ve had to work with has been steadily tapering off.”

This time, Randidly didn’t stop himself from looking up at Pine. Because he could logically understand Solomon’s explanation, but it was difficult to believe it. He ignored the tingling in his hand and spread out his senses to feel the movement of ripples in the surroundings. Randidly could feel the power pumping out of Pine, vaguely. Much of that was masked by the Engraving that covered the divide he stood upon, yet he could feel the vaguest sense of it. The ripples felt distant.

Massive, but distant. Similar to the way it was difficult to know how far away you were from a truly towering mountain.

As Randidly focused, he began to panic and almost immediately withdrew his attention. A ripple so massive it could flatten him shook the surroundings.

Even with his quickness, he couldn’t avoid that roiling, subsonic hum of power. Randidly swam briefly through a yearning that burned in every direction. Being a part of that wave transported him. Emotion replaced space and was a whole new dimension of agony/desire. Life couldn’t exist, but that was because everything was life. Everything burned and shifted and grew and shrank, devouring each other and being devoured, a whole life cycle of thoughts and actions and drive, pushing constantly at the edges-

An orange, endless, seething-

Randidly came away trembling. Solomon gave him a sympathetic look but said nothing. That brief brush had contained a seething infinite of burning power. In a way that nothing he had encountered rivaled, Pine was an engine that drove them all.

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Randidly pressed his eyes closed. Even Elhume has someone more powerful than him, huh. So that… was what a genuine glimpse of the Shallah feels like…

When he had recovered, he spoke again to Solomon. “Thanks for the information. I think I’ll head up a bit from Pine, but take your advice and spend some time training down here. Will you be conscious if I come back with questions, or…?”

Solomon seemed amused. “You don’t trust me near you while you train? Good. The Nexus is that kind of place. But feel free to come back whenever. I’m just a wisp of will. Considering that you possess enough Nether to alter the flow of significance, I’ll likely react to your presence. If not, just shoot Nether at me. I’ll be up in a second; old battlefield instincts die hard.”

The two shook hands. After the tingling left in the wake of the Penance, Randidly was surprised by how warm and strong Solomon’s grip was. That, combined with the easy smile, made it difficult to dislike this strange and mysterious being, no matter what his daughter had done. He seemed almost the opposite of Don Beigon, using earnestness not out of a calculation but out of directness.

“Oh, there’s one last thing,” Randidly spoke after they parted. Something that had bounced around in his mind suddenly fit into place. “Do you know who the second individual to reach the Pinnacle was? The one who created Alymian?”

For a brief second, the will projection vanished. There was no other way to describe what happened: The non-sleeping Solomon Rex dissipated. And, based on the powerful emotional reaction that hummed through the air, what had happened was the equivalent of someone pulling a thread on a harp until it snapped.

It took a few seconds for Solomon to come back and his expression was still twisted with the force Randidly had felt in that emotional note. “Unfortunately, I’m not sure who managed to do that. I wish I could be of more assistance, but even I have some limitations.”

After the open and direct communication of the rest of the conversation, this reaction stuck out like the house that had left up its Christmas decorations through spring. Which led Randidly to one conclusion: Rex had finally lied to him. He knew who had reached the Pinnacle for the second time. Considering that he now shared responsibility for running that ‘vacation’ destination, it made sense. He likely was in a particular position to understand the details of Alymian’s creation.

But why would he hide it? Based on his emotional reaction, whoever had done so was an enemy of his. Or perhaps even he had reached the Pinnacle and that power had been stolen from him?

Ultimately, Randidly decided to store this sudden rejection away for later. No need to antagonize Solomon now.

Randidly walked across the divide a ways to get away from the undertow of Pine, not looking either up or down. Both wielded forces that even made the current Randidly wary. Then he pressed off, grimacing a bit as the pull of significance grabbed at his body without the divide’s protection. He forced himself upward, heading to the area with those powerful Nether beings right near the base.

After stabilizing his position and whirling his Nether Core to add some protective layers to himself, Randidly’s attention turned inward. Again, he had a half dozen activities he wanted to pursue: understanding the Penance, learning his other authorities, training his images, consolidating his understanding of energy flows, etc.

But Solomon spoke some sense. He had been bullishly focused on Wick for a while and had lost sight of his plot to bring down Elhume. To that end, he contacted Edraine and the Patrons for a meeting.

Randidly returned to his sky island above Kharon, which currently drifted around the crouched city above a chain of active volcanos. Sea turtles poked their heads out of warm turquoise waters, wondering where this new island had come from. He had Tatiana send up some freshly butchered meats and cooked and cooked, making a veritable feast for himself. The recipes were ones he had learned from Nrorce, which still made him feel somewhat strange. But considering their most recent interaction, Randidly had some hope that the old goblin was pulling things together.

For this meeting, the Patron of Blooms and the Patron of the Abyss didn’t attend. Both apparently were nurturing students in the Alpha Cosmos, which made Randidly feel slightly strange. However, he believed Edraine, the Patron of the Sun, and the Patron of Blades would be enough.

“The Patron of Feathers…” Randidly began when the group settled into one of Randidly’s many ornate drawing rooms. This one Tatiana had filled with tastefully carved wooden furniture.

The Patron of the Sun frowned. “Even with this Alpha Cosmos’s best healers, progress is slow. She possessed… a horrible sort of emptiness in her that seemed to have resulted from a large portion of her soul being devoured. Those wounds are not simple. Even now, we are unsure if she will ever recover.”

Randidly nodded. He was curious about what happened to her, but mostly because the Patrons seemed obsessed with her situation. With that one distraction out of the way, he turned to Edraine. “Have you thought about our plan to hurt Elhume? I’ve just spoken with Solomon Rex. Any information you have on him would be helpful, but he recommended getting Tier III Citizenship as soon as possible.”

“Solomon Rex,” Edraine sucked on her teeth. “What a nostalgic name. He was a military Commander, right? One important enough that even I remember him. As for the plan… well. After helping the Patrons escape and feeling Elhume’s ire, I don’t think the strategy of stealing his physical body is feasible. Would we be able to keep it from him, considering his martial power? We’ve been discussing other methods, but the best we can come up with is investigating that charm that the Patron of Feathers was holding. Whatever sort of weapon it is, it definitely has the chance to harm even someone of Elhume’s caliber. Other than that… well, if overthrowing Elhume was easy, someone else would have done it already.”

Randidly’s gaze flickered. With everything going on with Claudette, he had forgotten about the charm. Investigating it would be another way to spend time. One more item for the agenda. He reached up and cracked his neck. “Looks like I’ve got a lot on my plate then.”

“In terms of Tier III citizenship…” Edraine’s expression turned somewhat bitter as she looked at Randidly. She sighed and shook her head. “As hard as it is for me to admit, you should be the one that uses it. I believe I could still defeat you right now. But for how long will that be the case? In Elhume’s fist I saw a way to improve, but your speed of accumulation is ridiculous. We need two more Tier I tokens in order to make the III, but we have enough genuine articles. They can just be the more mundane variety, which we can buy if we head back to the Nexus.”

“So train for now, get Tier III citizenship when we head back to the Nexus.” Randidly released a breath. His skin tingled. Finally, some time to firm up my foundations.