Despite understanding this was the life lived by this enemy that had now fixated on him for his hand in Illia’s death, Randidly couldn’t help but be curious. He closed his eyes, allowing his imagination to transport him into his worst moments. He remembered his second trip to Tellus, force to swim through lava in order to avoid the vicious power of the sun. “How did he escape?”

The corner of Lowanna’s mouth quirked upward. “The legend says in his grief, Deganawidah followed his murdered companions to hell without noticing his own heartbeat. He looked so devastated that the gatekeepers didn’t even notice he was still living. He then lived in hell for seven years, before he could cope with living again. However… other accounts seem to think this is a figurative account of a literal occurrence. In order to survive, Deganawidah dug his way down and out of the city, while his people burned around him. Before turning to charcoal, the bodies of his companions protected him until he could burrow away from the heat.”

“Shit,” Randidly whistled. He had known it was true from pre-System human history, but intelligent life would sometimes default to violence, without even the slightest nudge. He felt a small pulse of sympathy for this Nether Warlord. “Alright, and the third drowning?”

“We have a bit to get through until the third drowning. This time, Deganawidah moved with purpose after escaping Quillic,” Lowanna said. “He returned to his lands and allies. They were few, but they had been honed by the wildlands for their entire lives. They were strong. At the same time, it is said that Deganawidah, motivated by the only emotion remaining to him, malice, invented the modern form of Maala. A bond that involved coercion, so these powerful individuals could feed off weaker settlements until they were a force to be reckoned with.

“Until they were a horde, a seething mass of bodies carrying weapons and spreading death. Stampeding directly back to Quillic. Capturing the leader of every force in opposition to him and burning them alive to send a message. ”

“What a cheery fellow I’ve appeared to piss off,” Randidly muttered. He rolled his shoulders and released a pulse of Nether, forcing the lingering patterns away. Following their contrary nature, other nearby patterns began to swarm toward Randidly to spite his attempts. Yet this time, Randidly sent out several twisted patterns in a second wave of energy. Patterns that he had adapted from the energy of Illia.

Unwillingly, the energy left layered across Homewell by Deganawidah melted away. The arrangement felt gorgeous, like dappled light across a rippling surface of water. On his own, it would have taken him perhaps a month to come up with something as functional and lovely. As he watched the influence disappear, Randidly felt a pang in his heart. Illia and her dragonfly wings had been weaker than Randidly, but only by a small amount. He had felt genuine pressure.

To then witness her killed by Cerulean was almost too much to bear.

Lowanna continued. “I am skimming through a very long and bloody war that was triggered by Deganawidah and then joined by other borderland powers, unsatisfied with the tight control centralized Nether authority held over the economy. This became a much larger calamity than just his vendetta. Others took up the brand of revolution and set fire to the old ways. The particulars of his battles were irrelevant, aside from the fact that Deganawidah kept winning. He won all the way back to Quillic, this time demolishing every fortress and city in his path, enslaving the survivors with Maala and only growing stronger.

“And just when he arrived… the Aether began their invasion of the Nether Lands. Sensing weakness, they struck. All the losses they suffered meant other predators smelled blood. So when Deganawidah’s host arrived at Quillic, they found it besieged from the other side.”

Randidly held up a hand for Lowanna to pause because an individual in flashy sapphire armor marched across the open ground to the broken fort. The mud and dirt of the badlands scuffed up his greaves, making the polished feet coverings look like smelly leather. The two watched the soldier approach and then leap up to stand before them.

Bowing, the soldier said. “Nether King Hungry Eye, Lord Cerulean has recovered enough to speak to you regarding this new threat. I will escort you to his position so you might plan your next moves.”

The muscles of Randidly’s jaw bulged. The truth that Illia had been hacked from the world by the bone-raptor monster hit him again. That Fatia had caused them both to draw the attention of this ancient, monstrous Nether Warlord. He considered just giving into the undertow of rage that seized his emotional sea, striking the messanger and seeing how high up in the sky he could smash the body.

He restrained that impulse; he wasn’t so depraved he would crush this buffoon just to feel better. And as he thought about how he wanted to deal with it, a smile snaked across his face. “Well, well, well. I suppose this is appropriate. I do have several subjects in need of discussion with Cerulean. I’ll head over in a few minutes.”

Instantly, the soldier’s eyes sharpened. “You mean to make Lord Cerulean wait, despite the favor-”

“If he had something to say to me,” Randidly eyes blazed. The Cloak of Utter Night condensed around his body and wisps of suffocating black darkness began to swim outward in the direction of the soldier. Aether and Nether spun together in his body, until the substance of him became more real than the surroundings. “He could have walked over here and done so. If he wants to wait for me, he is free to do so.”

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The soldier flinched backward, bowed several times, and opened up some distance between them. He seemed content to stand in the shadow of the massive shadow of the vine system for Randidly’s pleasure.

Lowanna cocked an eyebrow. “You can be harsh, sometimes, Hungry Eye.”

Some part of Randidly agreed, but he shrugged. “Perhaps. But also, the scope of my activities make it hard not to be. Not that I’m trying to excuse myself… but moving without destroying individuals like that takes conscious effort. Heh, sorry. I bet you have it even harder than I do.”

Lowanna reached over with her hands and touched Randidly on the shoulder. Her fingers were surprisingly cool. “Anyway, there is not much story left. Deganawidah held the sword he had desired to take revenge, but found the body in the process of being hacked to pieces by another. For almost an hour, his allies and generals nervously watching him, Deganawidah stood without moving and just stared at the fighting.

“After the hour, he ordered his force forward; they would move to assist Quillic. He entered into battle, not knowing that the council of Quillic had arranged the deployment of troops. They hoped their two problems would take care of each other. So when Deganawidah charged, Quillic’s troops pulled back. The battlefield became a chaotic melee, Aether and Nether churning in a horrid meat grinder that created piles of bodies the size of houses and rivers of blood.”

Randidly’s gaze flickered. “...a third attempted drowning. This time in Aether warriors.”

“Yes,” Lowanna leaned back and looked up at the sky. “When the battle ended, Deganawidah was soaked in gore, but he was nearly alone when he looked up at Quillic’s soldiers on the wall. He had his quarterstaff, but his army had been broken. He heart burned, a lump of smoldering coal, demanding justice. And perhaps he could have gotten it; his Maala remained strong. He could once more plunder the countryside and return with an army.

“But looking up at those high walls, Deganawidah chose not to. He called up to the guards and told them, ‘You who stay here, just know who bled for you.’ He walked away, the tattered remnants of his forces following. And here, we have some historical inconsistency. Very obviously, Quillic soon collapsed. But the more often told story is that the words of Deganawidah so resonated with the people of Quillic that they followed him, to found a new citadel and usher in a new age of Nether prosperity.”

“If that truly happened, how did Deganawidah end up here, in the Nexus?” Randidly wondered.

Lowanna shook her head. “I’m not sure. I’ve never actually met him; the bindings between the old Nether Warlords happened before my time as Arbiter; my predecessor just warned me to be wary of them.”

Randidly tapped his cheek for several seconds. He thought about the stringy clouds, the patterns releasing fear, and of a man who three times had been betrayed and drowned. He looked up at Lowanna. “Thank you, for this. I need to speak to Cerulean now, before this misunderstanding stretches any longer. But let me know if you think of anything else about Deganawidah. I suspect I won’t want to wait until he comes to find me to meet him.”

Lowanna nodded and Randidly hopped to his feet. A flick of a toe carried him to the soldier, who jumped to his feet. Randidly waved him back down. “Don’t bother. I know where Cerulean is.”

With a kick Randidly practically vanished, arching up over Homewell and falling toward the military base established on the Eastern side. He didn’t bother to slow his descent, so Randidly crashed to the ground, his legs sinking up to his knees and throwing up a cloud of dust in every direction. While some of the nearby soldiers let out cries of dismay, he hopped out of the hole and walked into Fatia Cerulean’s tent.

When he entered, two guards in those same overly polished blue armor leapt to their feet and leveled their weapons at him. Randidly pressed his lips together, the Cloak of Utter Night once more settling around his shoulders. A specter of the void, he glided forward and waved an arm. Night settled across the two guards, heavy and complete, leaving them blind, deaf, suffocating, alone in a darkness too vast to fathom or explore. Both collapsed.

Then Randidly had passed and they lay on the ground, their breath coming in ragged gasps.

Inside, Fatia looked up. His raptor face stretched into a sardonic smile. “I appreciate your flair for the dramatic, but if you could refrain from disrespecting my soldiers-”

“You are carrion,” Randidly enunciated every syllable, Nether moving through his body to support the assertion.

“What?” The blue flames around Fatia’s body flickered.

Randidly observed the energy around Cerulean. Already, thin lines of Nether had begun to be woven into its being, a benefit from the new trophy. A benefit Randidly intended to rip from him. He cleared his throat. “You are carrion, pecking at the corpse hunted and overwhelmed by another. You ambush, you lurk, you stalk. You are carrion, stealing a prey that was mine.”

Fatia Cerulean’s image warped. The fourth ‘trophy’ began to spark. Belatedly, the raptor construct realized what Randidly was doing. His eyes blazed with fury, but that fury made Fatia Cerulean go very still. It was this ability to restrain impulses that made Fatia dangerous, despite being little more than a hyena with rabies.

“You did not act with honor. You did not earn this,” Randidly said, trying a few phrasings to find the proper point of contention. At earn, the image shuddered. The sparking became more intense. Randidly allowed himself a small smile of triumph.

Fatia Cerulean might possess a powerful image that allowed him to cannibalize his victims, but he was deluded. And he had deluded himself regarding the how of his ‘predation’. Randidly, armed with his certainty and the significance from his battle with Illia, could deprive him of that delusion. Because Fatia knew he was right.

The flames across the raptor constructs body began to tremble. Randidly waited. At this point, Fatia could either choose to suppress the response, and likely weaken his image in the long term, or regurgitate that vital essence he had stolen from Illia.

“If this is true, the problem of this Nether Warrior is entirely yours,” Fatia spat out the words.

Randidly showed him his teeth. “Who else would be capable of handling it?”

“You…” The anger receded from Fatia’s expression. “You will regret this.”

“I regret waiting this long before making my stance clear. Rumors of our friendship are greatly exaggerated,” Randidly waited until Fatia allowed his brief, fourth trophy to unravel. From the remnants, he plucked up the Nether Prince that formed from Illia.

He left quietly, a fluttering breath of air, followed by a slew of curses from Fatia Cerulean.