Randidly came back to himself gingerly, almost as though his consciousness had been swaddled in bubble wrap and shipped across the country for several days. It had been locked in the dark, protected and cushioned through the arduous journey to get here. Only now, at his destination, could it be safely removed and become prominently featured on the mantle once more. He blinked several times, his eyes crusty and gooey. His mouth felt dry and tasted awful.

He reached up and rubbed at his eyes in irritation, dried blood flaking away from his face. He flexed his stiff fingers, the knuckles popping back into place. His whole body seemed to ache. And he almost jumped when a voice spoke next to him.

“For the record, you would not have been able to do that without the presence of the Earth Golem Emperor inside of you. Even for your stubborn psyche, that was… foolish.” Randidly pivoted. Lucretia sat next to him, looking at him with an intense gaze. She uncrossed and recrossed her legs hanging over the edge of the stone pyramid and gestured to the ground around hdwim. “Also, you might want to clean up before someone else comes here- it will give the Academy students a real scare to see such a gruesome scene.”

Randidly groggily rolled his jaw, noting the additional crusted mucus and blood around his mouth and nose. He looked down at the ground. The series of maroon sprays, spatters, and dribbles on the stone top of the pyramid did look like a cross between a toddler tipping over a paint can to roll around in the remnants and a brutal murder scene. Made somehow worse by the perfectly stark bloodless handprints Randidly had created by staying so still for so long, both sides monstrous and inhuman, but the left characterized by lumpy digits and a too-thick wrist while the right had elongated fingers.

Growling, he waved a hand and unleashed a blast of annihilation from the Stillborn Phoenix, scrubbing away all the detritus of his extended training process. While he was at it, he peeled off the gruesome bloody mask he wore on his face; this he was happy to destroy without ever seeing it. It was, about that time, that Randidly saw the notification floating in front of him. And subsequently finally absorbed Lucretia’s words.

Congratulations! You have successfully completed your Fatepiece the Hierarchy of Burden! When you gain Levels, +4 to Uncommon Metabolism (Un) and Egg’s Illusory Plume (L)!

One of the original tools used to balance the Nexus, the Hierarchy of Burden has a deep history for this isolated universe. However, as more sophisticated instruments were developed and the focus on refining physical bodies fell away, the Hierarchies were all set aside as too dangerous or inefficient to utilize. However, sophistication doesn’t completely replace the original thrust of the tool.

Congratulations! Your Fatepiece the Hierarchy of Burden has been unlocked and developed new capabilities! Please experiment to find out its secrets.

In addition, two Fatepieces remain present in the universe! Please seek them out and complete your Fateset to discover your destiny as an Alchemist.

Randidly legitimately had to look at the notification several times, almost disbelieving what he read. He flexed his hand and produced the Hierarchy of Burden. True to the notification, its form had shifted; no longer was it a pyramid. It had flattened to become a floating square, with the red layer forming the small center, with each subsequent layer forming a rectangular band, ending with the ominous silver layer of possibility inundation.

Following an instinct, Randidly raised his right hand and pressed it forward toward the square. The small red central piece began to glow and slid backward away from his reach. As it did so, more and more pulses of electromagnetic force extended down his arm.

As he continued to stretch, Randidly hissed slightly. Right at the edge of that layer, there was an extra few levels of intensity to those snakes of crimson discharge. The Hierarchy of Burden trained the body to withstand the force, but now Randidly realized this was the real deal. He extended his arm further; despite an increase in the power, Randidly’s body could handle it. After stretching further, the next layer, light radiation, began to engage. The wider translucent band began to glow and retreat before his fingers, right as the tips passed the plane of the other layers.

He extended his arm and the hierarchy stretched out to become a corridor for him. If he kept pushing, he could use this item to rip a hole in the universe.

Randidly pulled his hand back and let the limb fall to his side. Lucretia nodded in relief. “As I said, you only managed to survive because of the presence of the Earth Golem Emperor, adding some support to your psyche. I would brush up a bit further before you do anything hasty. But you apparently did earn quite a few Skill Levels.”

Randidly leaned forward a bit, his thoughts chaotic. But when he straightened to look at Lucretia again, he knew what he wanted to ask. “Did you know?”

Lucretia’s expression began to wilt. “Yes, but only when it happened. He was… extremely self-possessed. He left a small footprint very purposefully. Whatever intentions he had and how long he must have held them, they didn’t manifest in his Paths. He, like you, usually waited until he had enough PP to complete everything at once.”

Randidly’s head ached, but the not from the strenuous overexertions that he had dealt with pretty often in the past two years. This was just a dull wound that pulsed in the center of his thoughts. Unfortunately, the effort with the Hierarchy hadn’t settled his grief at all. The pained hole itself wasn’t too massive; his relationship with his father hadn’t been… close. Yet for now, it dominated every synapse, the small sparks conducting their way through the sensitive rift and producing a small wince.

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“How weird, that the last thing he would say to me, would be to forgive my mother.” Randidly finally said. The strange nonexplanation puzzled him so much he offered it to Lucretia without context. “He never…”

Randidly stopped himself. He had been about to say that he had been a rather morose man who rarely complimented anyone, but that wasn’t true. The thing about Ezekiel Ghosthound was that he always had a very strong opinion on the way things should be. And even slight deviations from that ideal earned his verbose condemnation.

Randidly’s thoughts drifted back to the past. His problem with his father was that he never seemed to have the same vision for the world as he did, thereby causing his disappointment. Combined with the fact Randidly was intrinsically tied to his mother, who definitely did not suit Ezekiel’s neat view of the world.

He closed his eyes and released a breath. He tried to refocus his thoughts before they spun too far out of control. The hole in the center of his head ached.

“Have you… sensed the situation with Shal?” Randidly asked as he forced himself out of his swirling emotions.

Lucretia gave him a disapproving look. “Don’t try and avoid your own feelings by talking about mine. But yes, I am aware generally of the… malaise afflicting him at the moment. Maybe that’s even why I’m here, helping you now. So you can address your own wounds and then help Shal address his.”

“You think my relationship with my father-” Then Randidly shook his head. His thoughts continued to busy themselves to follow this unexpected response from Lucretia, earning small twinges of pain from the absence but happy about the distraction. “No. You are saying that the best way to reach him is Shal’s relationship with his father. How the hell am I supposed to even access that sort of emotional lever?”

“Ha, well I certainly didn’t expect to bring this up now. And take what I say with a grain of salt, because you are the one whose images will need to contort for this, but I have been giving this some thought. Just follow my logic.” Lucretia said. Her lavender eyes became quite serious. “Yes, Shal’s current situation was due to his own loss in the Nexus. We don’t have much information about it. But what we do know is that you spoke to him, and accomplished nothing, as well as defeated him in combat, which was similarly ineffective. And compared to pursuing details about his most recent, heartbreaking loss, I think it would be better to go back to the source of this emotional pain. The day that he learned that a single man isn’t invincible in the face of the world. When the Spear Phantom was felled.

“Recently, your images have found ways to combine in new and interesting ways,” Lucretia continued. “You inherited the moves of the Spear Phantom, although they were later combined with other influences to form the Grey Creature. So I’m just suggesting that there might be a way to use your familiarity and modular image to fight Shal not as yourself, but as the Spear Phantom. Perhaps that might finally reach him if you can prove the Spear Phantom invulnerable once more.”

Randidly’s mouth felt dry. He allowed a pained smile to cross his face. “...in theory, I sort of understand what you are saying. However- my version, even with my improved Stats and firmer images, might not be able to match up against the current Shal.”

“If you want to save him from himself, you will find a way,” Lucretia said quietly.

Randidly finally looked up and frowned at her. “Lucretia, what are you doing? Doesn’t this feel like an awkward time to spring something like this on me?”

“What? Weren’t you the one that brought it up? And you were grieving and I provided you a task you can use to distract yourself,” Lucretia affected a snooty air. She sniffed. “I had assumed you would be thanking me.”

In spite of himself, Randidly chuckled. Lucretia’s expression softened into something more genuine. “And I’m here if you ever need to talk, you know.”

“Thank you,” Randidly said, meaning it. Unlike Alta, Lucretia didn’t run away from the acknowledgment but met it with a kind smile. Randidly looked down at himself and blew out his lips. “Well, doesn’t look like I’m making much headway with these memories today. But at least-- at least I now know what happened to him. I’m going to go back home and get some genuine sleep.”

“Good luck, Randidly,” Lucretia nodded. “Just remember, you don’t have to do everything alone.”

If that was true, you wouldn’t have seized upon the opportunity to talk about Shal at such a fraught time, Randidly thought to himself. No matter how much assistance you give me… in the end, you are right: I’ll need to be the one to get through to him.

But he stayed silent and turned away to hide his expression from her. Any slightly bleak emotional fluctuations such a thought released were generally masked by the continued pulses of grief that ran through his body. So he left the interior of the Kharon Academy Labyrinth and went back to his skyisland.

Almost immediately, the hairs on his arms stood on end. The moonlight spirits flew to him and buzzed around in agitation; someone was on his island.

Someone who didn’t have any implicit permission to be there. Randidly’s eyebrows slowly drew together. He was in no mood for this. His long legs stretched into massive strides to devour the ground around his manner. The doors had been left partially open.

His lips twitched again. He walked through the front doors of his house and found a man seated on one of the couches that Tatiana had picked out for him. The man set down a steaming cup of coffee and smiled up at him. “Mr. Ghosthound, I don’t believe we’ve had the opportunity to meet, despite my best efforts. I’m Cale West, current President of Zone 1. And we need to talk Mr. Ghosthound, no disrespect intended, but you’ve let too many of your messes spill out into my Zone.”