The Legend of Randidly Ghosthound

Congratulations! You have completed the Emotional Evolution V Path! After riding the seething waves of dangerous emotions within your person, you have finally reached calm waters on the other end of the sea! Your ship might have sustained damage, but in these calm waters, you will have the opportunity to patch up the vessel. As the raging forces begin to settle within you, the lack of violence and force allows you to view your changed inner world. Motes of remnants glittering in the air, reminding you of the previous ferocity. And your current Path rides on emotional waves that have once more returned to the fold.

Congratulations! You feel your emotional force surging within your body! You have an increased ability to resist emotional exhaustion while working with image. A shift is building within your heart. You may choose to continue, acquiescing to the impulse to change, or you may wait and allow the possibilities to build into more complex futures.

Congratulations! Grey Monarch’s Authority (T) +100. Mana and Stamina +500.

Randidly cracked his back as he felt the substance of his emotion becoming finer and more energetic. In a way, he did feel changed after finishing the Path; his attention felt more easily divisible in a way that reminded him of reaching one thousand in Focus. Obviously, none of the dangerous emotional waves that the Path completion notification had ever been present. But it was nice that he still received the same reward, despite being exposed to none of the negative side effects.

Even if some part of him sourly regarded the lack of a new Skill. He beckoned and his emotional affect surged forward to circle around in the interior of his fingertips. Unwillingness and determination filled him, the outlook that had kept him working even when the Nexus threw an almost impossible amount of roadblocks in his way. It was the same sort of emotion that he used to bond with Vualla, although Randidly was no longer sure what that meant.

Congratulations! Your Skill Soulful Vigor (L) has grown to Level 2!

…

Congratulations! Your Skill Soulful Vigor (L) has grown to Level 25!

Fire licked along the interior of Randidly’s ribcage. With the emotional force animating him, his heart pounded against the confines of his body, aiming to break out and affect the world. Through sheer force, it wanted to crash through and cause a ruckus. But Randidly’s mind wandered. That’s another task I can attend to outside the Nexus. I’ll be able to see Vualla. I’ll be able to check... how genuine our connection is.

His heartbeats had reached enough force that the vibrations sent nearby pebbles skittering down the side of the volcano.

Satisfied with the display, he allowed the emotional force to fade. His body returned to stillness. Randidly tilted his head as he considered the new option that appeared in his Path list, Bubbling Emotional Accumulation I. Considering the fact that it was another series of Paths, he didn’t want to commit to it now, not with so many possibilities available to him. Especially when the cost for the first of these new emotional Paths was ten thousand PP.

He had better avenues to advance. He opened up his full Path screen once more to look at options.

Mantle of the Patron 0/500, Aether Convergence II ???, Puppet Master 0/100, Pain Immunity I 0/250, Cleaver of the World Tree ???, Weakness of the World Tree 0/500, Guilty Conscience I 0/100, Ashes of Illym, the Above-Average Child 0/5000, The Sigh as the Sky Closes 0/15,000, Joy, the Blooming Sun 0/15,000, Creature's Toil II 0/????, Violent Heat I 0/???, Violence Incarnate, the Storm’s Descent 0/?????, Deathwish X 0/5, Weakness of the Stillborn Phoenix 0/500, The Shadow Beyond the Threshold 0/???, The Creature’s Apotheosis 0/25000, Architecture of Yggdrasil I 0/????, Piece of the Ideal 0/????, Breath of the Imaginary Firebird 0/1000, The Throne of Nether Homage I 0/500, Stat Evolution VII 0/100000, Spark of the Origin Beast 0/?????, The Eyelids of the Grey Creature Flutter 0/10,000, Determined VI 0/600, The Ashes of Helen, the Ghosthound’s Bloody Knight 0/9000, Excavator of the Two Failed Dreams 0/12,000, The Ash that Reigns Above the Open and Closed Sky 0/?????, The Living Soul of the Alpha Cosmos 0/??????, Herald of the Eternal March 0/10,000, The Crown of Four Authorities 0/100000, Peerlessness Through Woven Truth 0/?????, Bubbling Emotional Accumulation I 0/10000

Shit, that Crown of Four Authorities costs WAY too much PP. His lips twitched. Aside from me, I doubt anyone could even finish it. But can it be worth it…? Usually, longer Paths give fewer Stat rewards but a great Skill at the end. However…

How much more can the System really offer me in terms of Skills?

Randidly rubbed his chin. The second big area he wanted to address was his own sense of dissociation with the Grey Creature, which mostly stemmed from his uneasiness acknowledging how directly Yystrix had impacted him. Just like with his absent mother, Randidly had such a hard time engaging with that space in his chest. But perhaps by activating some Paths-

Squeezing his eyes shut, Randidly admitted to himself that this was just another way to avoid the issue. It was another method to sidestep an actual, and likely emotional, self-reflection. Probably the only true way to close that distance is to go back to the pack of memories that Yystrix left… and to see if I understand enough about Aether in order to see past the curated movie that she created for me.

But that’s insane. If Neveah is still struggling at about 75% in the different Engravings that Yystrix left, there’s no way that I-

Randidly blinked. Because he suddenly realized that he might be able to cheat his way through the defenses. He didn’t have to overcome the labyrinth of Aether that she had left, hiding the lion’s share of her memories. He might be able to rely on the significant connection between the two of them to bypass her preparations entirely.

Still, for now, Randidly set that idea aside. He looked up at the sky, surprised to see the last colorful stains of morning had been rubbed away into blue by the rising sun. He turned back to the Path lists and picked out a couple of affordable one-offs to blaze through very quickly, for additional Stats and Skills.

Congratulations! You have completed the Breath of the Imaginary Firebird Path! Within you stretches a primordial impossibility, the stitched-together form of the phoenix with the fragile fabric of a dream. It rolls and flaps its wings beyond the event horizon. As you approach its mist-filled nest in the dark places of existence, the difficulty in making out its exact form rises. Yet a chest heaves with breath. The mist stirs and flees before the imaginary firebird’s attention.

When you arrived and the beast raises its head, right beyond the edge between existence and Other. The divide has substance and in it, you can see shapes. You see yourself reflected and refracted, a thousand shards of warped perception of your person. Your dark hair, your green eyes, your nose and jaw and lips, you are sketched by a thousand different artists, deformed and perfected.

The eyes of the Imaginary Firebird exist in the fractures between these possibilities, jagged and squinting, observing your every movement. Then the beast raises its nonexistent head and releases a burst of raw power. The sky melts and drip down to cover the Path.

Congratulations! Mana +200. Congratulations, synchronicity detected! Recalculating…

Your Skill Erode Image (L) has fused with the reward! Both have been added to the Skill Breath of the Cosmos (T). Recalculating…

Congratulations! Your Skill Breath of the Cosmos (T) has shifted into Volatile Breath from Beyond (T)! Damage dealt by the Skill vastly increased. There is a small chance that the environment will mutate due to exposure to the Skill. There is a minuscule chance that a small tear will form between the boundary of real and the imaginary, tripling the effectiveness of the Skill for a short time. Skill Level set at 700!

Randidly raised a hand and casually released a gushing blast of the new Skill. It was the same Skill that allowed him to gradually commune with the environment, but now it had inherited a bit of dangerous functionality from Erode Image and turned into the gravitation equivalent of a flamethrower. A geyser of blue/black energy shot out from his hand, warping the air and sending the clouds retreating like the curling toes of a scared child.

Below, the vegetal mass stirred. Randidly rolled his eyes; the strange consciousness within that portion of the forest wanted to examine that energy and experiment with it. Why don’t I ever make normal changes to the environment? Why does the plant want to have access to the Stillborn Phoenix’s bad breath?

From that Path, Randidly continued with those relating to the Stillborn Phoenix.

Congratulations! You have completed the Shadow Beyond the Threshold Path! For some time, you have observed the grand doors of bone in the distance. Your feet carried you forward, unfailingly eating at the distance that separated you from this dangerous boundary. To your surprise, mountains rose around those doors of bone, soon towering over you, a horizon grown teeth. Yet finally after a long journey, you arrive before the towering edifice. Your neck cranes upward, unable to see the top of the massive doors. Yet through the crack between them, a cool wind chills your skin. And a massive shadow whispers, just barely inaudible. It begs you to release it from its prison.

Would you like to open the doors and witness the shadow beyond the threshold? Y/N

You have chosen to open the doors. You press your hands against the cool bone and push. The doors shake and groan, warning you away from this Path. Yet you have resolved yourself to witness the truth. Because the darkness that waits on the other side feels familiar. You apply more and more pressure until the doors grumble and relent. Under the force of your hands, they swing open.

Warning! Synchronicity detected! Please see your local Village Spirit! Continuing forward without access to sufficient energy will result in sickness or death!

Recalculating… Warning-

The Alpha Cosmos Pantheon has intervened. Incorporating elements of the user. Access larger Aether stream to fuel adjustments… insufficient energy. Applying for an expansion of the Aether stream… expansion granted.

Your hands push open the door. The doors of bone shivered and the cool gust becomes a blizzard, lavishly spreading frost across your skin. As you pause to look at the small shift you have made, a massive hand of shadow reached from the other side. Its fingers curl around the door's edge and throw them open.

The darkness of your heart unspools and rolls into the abyss before you. And what rolls back is a beast of energy that can devour worlds.

You stare up at a massive version of yourself, planets pulsing with light as they swim in your shadowy body. You can feel your own need for power and desperation to overcome the Nexus in its shape. Its Cheshire grin is one you’ve felt on your own face many a time. At the end of a dangerous and jagged path you find this cosmic entity, a physical form almost completely abandoned. All that remains is flinty determination.

The shadow version of you opens its mouth. The tenor of its voice shakes the air. It sounds glad, the bearer of joyful news. Civilizations lay rotting between its teeth, dead and forgotten.

This is what we can become. This is one of our futures.

You manage to stare into this thing’s eyes without flinching. To know the depths your darkness might reach is a rare thing.

Congratulations! Reaction and Grim Intuition (L) +200! Each Skill Level in Revelation of the Atramentous Threshold is slightly more effective! Your ability to cope with future possibilities increases. The potential to become something vast and hungry and infinite now lurks within you. It will influence your growth. The Stillborn Phoenix raises its head and howls.

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