Don Beigon had been born knowing he would be someone someday. His eyes opened with that certainty inside of his body and he had been long searching for some corroboration regarding this dream from the world.
He came from a small village on the outskirts of Lord Cerulean’s domain, too far away to have been sent away for compulsory childhood training in one of the outposts but close enough to watch the columns of warriors in glittering sapphire armor march past the town for their patrols. He would sit in the upper boughs of pine trees and clench his fists, swearing he would be one of those armored men someday. He would live a glittering, blessed life and be the envy of all.
He would pay any price, break any rule to find a way to that bright armor.
Now, those childhood fancies made him sniff in disdain; be one of the armored thugs of Cerulean? The prospect was hilarious. No, Don Beigon would rule a city. Someday, he would have fellows like Fatia Cerulean begging for his favor. He would gather enough money and influence in order to own an entire world.
At the moment, such dreams seemed very far away. The wind off the badlands blew dirt into his face that no amount of spitting could keep out of his mouth. When he clenched his jaw, he simply had to accept the grinding crackle of sand granules between his teeth.
Colonel Matteo frowned at Beignon. The two stood on the Western wall of Homewell, looking out over the leafy slum. The day had not gone how both of them had expected. “You said you could compel them to accept.”
Beigon shook his head so vigorously his cheeks flapped. “I told you that, if they took the gifts, I could make sure they agreed to more than the gifts. Yet you provided them with such a pittance they felt no need to say yes. Cornmeal, really? When is the last time you ate cornmeal, Colonel?”
“We commonly send cornmeal to the slums. They often weep tears of joy at the sight,” The Colonel’s fingers tightened against the stone castellation. Beigon pursed his lips but said nothing. But turned and looked out to the West of Homewell. By now, the Lifeseal had regenerated through the damage it suffered three days ago and began to spread back across the whole of the area. For the sort of experiments they wanted to attempt, they needed to begin now, before the Nether in the environment increased to dangerous levels.
However… there was a problem.
The damned greenery that now infested the slums meant that it was difficult to get a read on what was happening out there. Cheerful ferns waved back and forth, completely masking the movements of the people of the slums. Half the time the messenger they sent into the slums couldn’t even find anyone to speak with.
Some of the Turtlelines actually approved of the shift; many pointed out how much more habitable the city appeared to travelers and merchants, surrounded by greenery rather than the dirty-looking poor. Obviously, those industries were much restricted right now, but these plants would remain, assuming they survived the war.
Beigon believed those who expressed such opinions were quite short-sighted.
“Do we even know how many survived the attack?” Beigon tried to speak lightly, but some of the tension in his chest leaked into his voice. Frustrated at being at stumbling now, in the midst of a war that was the perfect opportunity to prove his worth, was beginning to irk him.
He had expended so much effort to hitch his wagon to the Master, considering the chaotic times and his very focused skillset. And, as he had hoped, the Master had managed to catch the attention of several important people, including the stewards of the Lifeseal.
Yet now even the fucking Homids had the gall to get in his way.
“There can’t have been that many in fighting shape. Casualties were heavy.” The Colonel replied, but he didn’t seem sure. “Most of those remaining should be women and children… but honestly, we’ve seen less of them than ever. Perhaps the Nether truly butchered them.”
Beigon shook himself and turned away. “Well, I’m going to head down and investigate. We need to know what we are dealing with.”
*****
For two days, Neveah moved throughout the Alpha Cosmos and observed the people who lived inside Randidly Ghosthound. He might currently be struggling, but the Alpha Cosmos continued to thrive.
Her footsteps were light and quick, borrowing some of Randidly’s power to move without being noticed. She stood on the hills above Donnyton, admiring the idyllic paradise the Cortez siblings had maintained in the valley, even as the shine on the original Village of the GHosthound had begun to abate. Even now, the spirit and consistency of the Squads of Donnyton were the gold standard when it came to combat training. They hosted guest sessions, allowing anyone to join and observe their brutal courses.
With each individual participation, the discipline of Donnyton grew to become one of the defining characteristics of Expira. A note of it floated up into the history and weight of the world. And although so many hands had worn down the origin of their dedication, it only took a look from Neveah to recognize Randidly’s spine in their exertion and sweat.
Even with him long gone, they ceaselessly chased his back.
Neveah traveled to the Orchard in Zone 1, which had grown over the past year to become the largest city in the world. Perhaps even the Alpha Cosmos. The Citadel in the monster world might rival it in land size, but in terms of population, the Orchard had exploded to unrivaled heights. Creating connecting portals to the different Danger Zones and associated world made it a hub of trade. Figures in Zone 1 might be alarmed by how freely non-humans did their business in the city, but they certainly wouldn’t turn their noses up at the tax revenue. And the constant flow of strangeness wore the edge off of prejudice, one individual at a time. Looking at the city, Neveah saw Randidly’s practicality.
Her gaze moved to the Southwest, to the less populated areas. Huge metal legs churned through water, a giant mechanical spider surrounded by its drifting moons. Kharon continued to thrive. People flocked to the city, looking in wonder at the brilliant emerald roads paved in the sky. Specialty soaps, impossible metals, and wondrous new foodstuffs flowed out of the Wandering City, courtesy of some of the seeds from the memory that Neveah had carefully replicated and imported.
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It had required a great deal of her limited, compared to Randidly’s, Nether, but Neveah believed it was necessary to perpetuate the wonder and innovation in the city. The city needed to advance, capturing the driving spirit of Randidly’s Dread Homunculus.
In terms of daydream destinations in the minds of the idle, and therefore being part of the great river of Nether that flowed through the Alpha Cosmos, no place could rival Kharon. The expanded campuses were filled to bursting with the isolated universe’s youth. They laughed, they studied, they showed up sleepless to exams, they kissed, they Leveled up, they grew, they snorted soda out of their noses, they experimented. All within the churning nebula of energy released by Randidly Ghosthound’s physical Nether Core, the students unaware of the bits of his motivation and determination that steadily embedded themselves in their character.
It wasn’t even very hard for Neveah. Everywhere she looked, she could feel her Soulbound’s long shadow.
The University pushed the boundaries of System knowledge, especially under the Pantheon-governed lighthouse Class System. Right now, a group of professors was perfecting a vast Engraving that would allow for the creation of lighthouses, so long as at least two powerful, and also compatible, images were used as a lodestone base. Above, the Pantheon bickered over whether this effort should be stopped; the pseudo-governing body of Alpha Cosmos System was almost exactly split on the issue. But Neveah had a feeling it would be allowed to pass.
She knew also there would be trials and tribulations, dark Classes carefully gathered and assembled, the fabric of the world wounded in the process. But she could also picture the wolfish smile on Randidly’s face, when he heard the news.
We don’t need to tell them they can’t change the world. The world will have plenty of its own objections, I’m sure.
Neveah breezed through the other Zones, stopping and observing which portion of the broader trends washed ashore in the distant places, but she didn’t linger long in the wilderness. She made a beeline for the worlds of the Nemesai, who still regarded Expira warily, as the source of an impending invasion.
She watched their elders carefully prepare gifts, following protocol to a T in all interactions with humans. Yet simultaneously, she felt the youth of these strange races not understanding the history between the Nemesai and Randidly. They moved freely into the world, small jets of different culture, sometimes welcomed and sometimes spurned. She felt the connections between the Nemesai worlds themselves growing more strongly, all those races gathering resources to forge private portals between their worlds, so they didn’t need to rely on Expira as the central intermediary.
Finally, Neveah moved through the fault lines of the Alpha Cosmos. She felt envy for Expira from the original Soulskill world, wondering why their planet had been relegated to second best. She felt tensions among some of the Danger Zone populations, most notably the ogres, as a new leader began to gather support, demanding a larger slice of the pie for his supporters. And in the Great Sea, which had been carefully ruled by the same King Phirun since the beginning of the System, the strangest opening just began to shudder, wider and wider.
King Phirun was allowing himself to age toward death. He had tired of existence, his soul gradually extinguished by the unending days, the constant shifts, the constant fighting and training. From what Neveah could tell, he would breathe his last in a little over a month, with no structure in place to handle the transition of power to the next generation.
And when a vacuum of power emerged in the largest, by area, domain in the Alpha Cosmos, she had no doubt several bad-intentioned players would rush to seize anything they could.
After getting a general idea of the state of the Alpha Cosmos, Neveah would have continued to refine her search, discovering more concrete details for all of Randidly’s sub-Classes, which had become practically irrelevant with all the passage of time. Yet she paused, sensing that Randidly had come out of his Visage of Obsession coma.
Immediately, she withdrew from the Alpha Cosmos and went to the hole in the ground in the badlands. He released a certain sort of surety that meant he had cobbled together enough of a plan it was worth talking to him, and perhaps dissuading him from its most aggressive indulgences.
When he popped out of the hole, she almost groaned; his eyes danced and his grin was wide and cheery. He pushed his raven-black hair back from his forehead and cracked his neck. She sighed. “I can always tell when you have a bad idea. You practically sparkle.”
“I’d consider it more of a dramatic radiance,” Randidly said with a sly smile. He shuffled his shoulders in preparation and then performed an elaborate bow. “But I come before you, having discovered the fool-proof method by which I will solve all of my problems at once.”
“It sounds simple and not at all reckless,” Neveah deadpanned. “A dream come true.”
Her tone earned a snort out of Randidly, but he continued without comment. “The idea of the Moiraes, which I believe to be a useful one, is to use use the imperative Deganawidah laid on me, barring alchemic success, as a trampoline to jump to even greater heights in the fallout. If I can get my Skill Levels in time, I will define Ghasthund right before the end and add some extra bite to the final result. But it was the process of getting there that left me slightly mixed up. How exactly would I fail? What would I be failing? How would those results benefit me going forward? But I think I’ve worked out all the details.”
Neveah folded her hands in front of her, waiting.
Randidly held up three fingers. “Three attempts! Three failures! In the process, more and more chaotic energy will be generated. First, I will attempt to use Aether and Nether to create a small, a minutely small, isolated universe. And then I will fold a bit of space in the memory on top of the isolated universe and superimpose them. Two different points will be one, if just for a moment.”
Neveah’s gaze flickered as she followed his train of thought. “...you might fail to connect the points, but you’ll use the force and intensity of the attempt to handle the wound on the Stillborn Phoenix.”
Randidly’s grin was positively wicked. “Essentially, yes. Although I think all three attempts will strengthen the Stillborn Phoenix. Hasn’t Deganawidah’s voice become the universe, shouting no at my attempts to surpass the possible? Then for the second attempt, with a bit of momentum built up from the first ‘failure’, we do exactly what we have been told we cannot do: we attempt to recreate the Philosopher’s Stone. A failure here will help me recharacterize the whole of my Fate. Refocus myself from one type of alchemy to another.”
Neveah raised her hand and massage the bridge of her nose. “Please don’t use the pronoun we to try and imply we are on the same page about this.”
Again, Randidly was not swayed by her lack of enthusiasm. “Finally, we use all of the energy, both from the repeated failures and from the conflict between Deganawidah and Cerulean, to attempt something truly ambitious-”
“Ah, now we have finally arrived at the reckless portion,”
“-and we try and recreate one of the moments of the Pinnacle.”
Neveah stilled. “On top of everything else, you want to try and reach the Pinnacle? Have you thought this through at all? Even through the memory, I suspect the modern Elhume would notice-”
“No,” Randidly interrupted with a shake of the head. “I considered that, but you are right, I don’t think we have the resources to manage it, especially on short notice. Instead, we go after the moment of a Pinnacle. We forcefully trigger it. Normally, that would be impossible too, but we are in the memory. And how else does this memory end, but Elhume ascending and reaching the Pinnacle? We either crack open the memory and reveal that perfect moment, or rebound and fail, but still-”
“A Pinnacle failure… possesses so much substance and Aether of the highest caliber your Class can easily be reinvigorated,” Neveah whispered, finally seeing the pattern in the madness. “More than reinvigorated, completely advanced. Sharpened to the point that it no longer becomes an afterthought.”
Randidly smiled. "And I become a spear, aimed right at the System's heart, when I return to the main universe."