Randy stared blankly, unable to understand what was going on within the wagon. They followed the hand to an arm, then to the smirking face of the guard with the red-orange goatee. He towered above Randy, loosely holding a bloodstained dagger with the tips of his fingers in the other hand.

“She’s not my kid,” Bethyl said weakly. Clearly lacking the strength to look up. Her head lolled sideways. “Just…. A responsibility.”

The guard waved the bloody dagger lazily. “Alright, whatever. Sorry kid, but- oh, you brought breakfast?”

He scooped the bacon out of Randy’s hands and stuffed two of the strips into his mouth. He talked with his mouth open, nudging Randy back with his hips and lifting the last piece as his expression brightened into pure pleasure. “Hey Bets, you want some breakfast? Getting me Skill Levels must be hungry work.”

Randy stumbled backward, still unable to process the blood and the casual denial from Bethyl. The guard closed the door in their face. Randy’s lungs didn’t seem to work, leaving huge and hot gulps of air stranded in their throat.

Randy stepped down from the wooden steps, feeling dizzy. So much blood had pooled on the wooden floor beneath where Bethyl had been pinned. All they could picture was the guard, hunched over like a pig, lapping at the life-giving liquid. Their emotions began to surge at that image, making Randy’s entire body tremble.

Randy felt the Skill activate, but there was nothing that they wanted to do about it. It was too much, all of it. It would be better if they could rip away a portion of what they had seen. If they could just cleanse everything, leaving the area spotless and pristine. If the Skill would rip away Randy too-

Congratulations! Your Skill Thirst of the Charcoal Predator (L) has grown to Level 101!

Randy’s eyes were glazed as the ground beneath their feet began to lose its color. The air felt heavy and thick, as though inhaling it expended more oxygen than it restored. There was a weird ringing in their ears and everything swirled together.

The world felt like the damp clay that Randy found in the hills. Their hands mushed and pressed, squeezing all of the details together-

Congratulations! Your Skill Thirst of the Charcoal Predator (L) has grown to Level 139!

The crackling of curled emerald lightning finally brought Randy back to true awareness. Their face twisted in horror; several meters around where they sat on the ground, the red-brown dirt had been leached of all color. It was a stark and monochrome circle of grey, a throne of unassuming bland.

Above their head, the small cloud being spun, humming with power. Randy’s Skil scraped and scraped, continuing to rush around and activate like a wild horse shown a thin strip of daylight. Thirst of the Charcoal Predator demanded more and more, pressing against the world and somehow stripping everything away. It took the color of the ground and it sometimes took the flavor from the bacon and Randy suddenly became horrified that it would strip away those beautiful emerald lightning bolts around the small cloud. Even this strange being that took pity on them would be crushed by Randy’s presence.

Yet despite Randy’s fear, the Skill was relentless in its attempts. It pulled-

And pulled and pulled and pulled, sucking down the power and life that flowed out of that small cloud. Yet even after several minutes passed, even after Randy’s vision filled up with notifications about the Skill increasing in Level, even after the Skill grew tired and stuttering, that thirst no longer able to suck so constantly, the cloud was unaffected.

Randy collapsed backward on the ground and the cloud released one last hum, that sounded much like a dismissive sniff.

*****

When Randidly’s awareness came back to his body on top of the volcano, he was surprised to find that he was not alone. Neveah stood nearby, watching him. She wore a fluttering sundress with a matching parasol, small drops still rolling down to the edge from her stoll up to the volcano top.

“What an interesting child,” Neveah spoke softly. “That ability… have you thought much about what exactly it does?”

“Based on your question, I assume you have some insight,” Randidly replied. “Beyond its surface resemblance to Entropy.”

Neveah rolled her eyes. Then her expression softened. “Well, considering the similarities between the two of you, I don’t blame you for being distracted. Her power, now become a genuine Skill with a powerful foundation for an image, erases and isolates things that aren’t ‘real’. But that distinction is important: what is real? Intelligent life derives a lot of its ability to function at a higher level, even before the System arrived, from its ability to believe in things that aren’t real. Countries, religions, predictions about the weather and the economy. This Randy is, in a way, a nemesis of intelligent life. But it depends how they learn to use that Skill.”

Randidly considered that. He compared the feeling of shouldering the suction of her Skill with the drain of entropy and was surprised to find that they felt different. “I can sorta see what you mean. But then why does her ability sometimes suck away color?”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Isn’t color just perspective? It’s the brain interpreting light wavelengths.” Neveah shrugged. “Her Skill removes the brain’s ability to make interpretive distinctions. Fascinating, yes? It would be interesting to use the Skill in different situations and to see what would vanish and what wouldn’t. But that’s not why I’m here. There is a problem with the Patron of Feathers. It looks like her sickness is worsening.”

Randidly frowned. Several long moments of looking at Neveah made his frown deepen. He could clearly feel her unease, prickling against his skin. “...we are Soulbound, Neveah. What aren’t you telling me?”

“After talking to the Patrons, we believe that the reason the situation has changed is the flow of time within the Alpha Cosmos. There is… some tether between the Patron of Feathers and a distant location. A binding that I haven’t been able to make heads or tails of; its more sophisticated than even some of the core lessons that Yystrix left for us. And just like a Dungeon, the time dilation of being down in the bottom of the Shaft is slowly weakening that tether.”

Randidly chewed on his cheek as his eyes narrowed.

Neveah continued to speak. “In a way, even though her condition is deteriorating, this is a positive thing. Now at least there is a likely way to help the Patron of Feathers to recover: by taking her to that location.”

Randidly’s senses, tuned with his frequent interactions with Nether, quickly locked onto the whirlpool of significance that was the Patron of Feathers. Her weakening soul burned with a deep amount of connections, some so light and airy that his trained senses couldn’t follow their connections. But, as Neveah had indicated, now that he knew that one of her weakening connections was killing her, it was easy to find the culprit.

“Let me guess,” Randidly tried to keep his voice light. His eyes glittered as he raised his head and stared up at the sky and through it, his vision piercing through the edge of this isolated universe and going to the Nexus. “The place this connection leads… is somewhere in the Tier 3 Citizenship Zone.”

Neveah nodded. Randidly’s mind drifted back to Solomon’s serious face, a projection standing next to his sleeping self, as he warned Randidly that he had attracted the attention of old beings that lurked in the highest towers of the Nexus. That he needed to be prepared when he returned to the Nexus.

“In addition to reminding me of the value of the information the Patron of Feathers possessed regarding Elhume,” Neveah said quietly. “The Patrons of Blades, Abyss, and Sun, urge you to consider that she was their dear friend. They don’t want to lose her, not like this.”

“What sort of timeline are we looking at? How bad is the deterioration?” Randidly asked. The clockwork gears of his mind worked, weighing the possibilities. That regal portion of Yggdrasil spun around him, adding weight to his bearing but also grounding him. After the clash with Wick, he left the Nexus for the chance to grow. At the moment, he had no confidence that he could return and survive if Devick changed her mind and wanted retribution for her son.

Because while he empathized with the Patrons, he also had responsibility to the whole of the Alpha Cosmos.

“Right now, we aren’t exactly sure. We just noticed the shift.” Neveah responded. “But from what Lucretia has said, the damage shouldn’t be permanent if the time that the Patron of Feathers remains apart is only between one and three years.”

Randidly blinked. One to three years? “Well. That’s not as bad as I feared.”

After chatting a few more ancillary matters, Neveah left. Randidly looked over the three-part island and took a deep breath. He had come to train and he was definitely making progress. But he had several goals and hadn’t thought too deeply about how many he needed to accomplish before he felt comfortable returning to the Nexus.

However, those distant goals had been replaced with a timeline. The life of a Patron hung in the balance, perhaps even a key to the history of Elhume and the Nexus, an explanation of the sudden shift in attitude toward Pine. Some truth about the strange confrontation in the shadows of the Nexus, one side headed by Elhume, the father, and the other by individuals like Solomon Rex, who wished to protect the strange life on which they all relied.

Randidly pressed his eyes closed. Already, he could feel significance stirring. Having a looming threat tightened the spin of Nether through his body. He had been making improvements in his various areas, but he knew he wouldn’t improve enough at this rate. He needed to press the gas down, to feel the thrill of necessity by his side.

Continue with the idea I’ll leave the base of the shaft in time to save the Patron of Feathers, Randidly told himself. Figure out the rest later. For now, I need to train.

So Randidly threw himself into the same tasks and time began to flow past. He created Nether Patterns, he refined his images, he pushed through the Hierarchy of Burden, he plugged himself into the grand Nether Ritual.

At the same time, the world spun around him. He helped the strange child Randy develop their powers and comfort Bethyl when her wagon was broken into and stolen and the Ulysses and his two guards left in the night. He simply provided money through Takeyhands as Randy grew more proficient with cooking.

To the point that people began to purposeful make a stop at that strange corner of the badlands on their journey, curious about the genius child chef.

Randidly ignored Delilah creeping onto his island, sneaking around the periphery and talking to some of the trainees, trying to figure out a good gift for him. He ignored the preparations for the tournament, where the strongest of Expira gathered together. He ignored the jibes thrown at Heiffal and his group by arrogant humans who thought they refused to participate in Expira’s tournament out of fear.

He even ignored when one of those arrogant individuals proved to have some genuine clout to back up his words and defeated Isabella Cortez of Donnyton to win the tournament. He didn’t listen to the challenge shouted by the man, using his bloody hands to heft the tournament. When no response came, the man mocked the name of the Ghosthound.

Randidly also turned a blind to a massive Frost Dragon Spire Prince stalking that young man until he left the island and then viciously thrashing him.

Training consumed all of his focus. With the pressure of the weakening Patron of Feathers and his own feelings of inadequacy, he could push himself to his very limits.

Then, About eleven months after Neveah came with the news, something finally distracted Randidly enough that he paused in his training; he had earned enough PP to trigger his next Tithe.