The Legend of Randidly Ghosthound

Lowanna received the message from Nether King Hungry Eye, but she had already been gathering up her things for the past several minutes. The winds had whispered of the coming shift, although she hadn’t realized how frightful the event would be.

Winds are funny that way. Seeing so much. Understanding so little. Lowanna picked up a ceramic mug that had been made for her by Neveah, with hoops on both sides so it was easy for her to lift with bound hairs. She released a long sigh and pried her shaking fingers away from the mug before she stored it away, careful not to shatter it. I am quite like the wind.

She stood at the threshold of his farm, looking around and sighing at how organized and lush the greenery seemed, rustling in the harsh winds produced by the wave of atmospheric Nether in the South. However, the fresher breezes stunk of fear; something old and monstrous had begun to move, deep in the Netherlands.

Lowanna winced. A shift inside of her allowed this to happen, although the alternative was to kill a village’s worth of people. She had felt the breaking of a few of the bindings that made her the Arbiter. A counterweight from the surly old generation of Nether beings, a promise to protect the Nether people.

Suddenly, winds of significance did not believe she was doing everything in her power to protect her people.

Lowanna's hands tightened to fists, some part of her anxious that even the small movement would reap lives. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t. Too hot, or too cold. Always sucking away moisture or bringing storms.

What… what is my purpose?

For now, she had some information. Once Lowanna felt the shadow, she recognized the horror from which it stretched. She waited for Nether King Hungry Eye to open a portal to her position, so she could report what she knew of Deganawidah, the Thrice Drowned. Perhaps the worst of the old Nether monsters for him with which to become an enemy. Yet she blinked as Devick moved to her side, her packed bag strapped to her back, her expression determined.

“You are returning to the frontlines?”: Lowanna tilted her head to the side. She forced a smile onto her face. “Well, at least you and Hungry Eye will once more be on speaking terms. You know, he’s never quite as happy as when-”

“I am not.” She shook her head, her crimson hair rippling across her face. Devick still possessed that brittleness that had characterized her frantic training over the last week. Yet she had also settled into a decision and purpose looked good on her. “I will head to the fighting in the central plains. I’ll fight until my fingers break if that’s what it takes.”

Lowanna's heart ached at the other woman’s desperation. “Isn’t it enough he cares for you? Why are you so concerned with rivaling him in destructive power? In the end, there are areas in which you are superior to him-”

“Are there?” Devick challenged, her tone sharp. As Lowanna prepared a response, she shook her head. “No, don’t answer that. You are right, this is selfish; I cannot stand that I am a burden to him. I am the problem, the one unwilling to allow things to continue like this. ”

“So you will endanger your life?” Lowanna pursed her lips.

“If that’s the quickest Path,” Devick nodded. The two women embraced. When Nether King Hungry Eye opened the portal to his position, Devick smiled at Lowanna over her shoulder. “This is strange to say, but I’m just… not strong enough to be weak, you know? I don’t know how to just accept help. I’d rather… that I be the one helping. I’d rather he needed me.”

Then Devick began to walk away and Lowanna passed through the portal.

*****

Randidly sat at the edge of Homewell, observing the continued circulation of Nether in the sky. The massive display of only an hour earlier left deep scars on the significance of the environment. Grey clouds had been dragged and stretched to the point of dispersal, long and diffuse, shredded by the nervous fingers of the sky. His Nether Core continued to rev in his chest, an almost heartbreaking display of propaganda. A promise of triumph over overwhelming force. A hard knot of tension had formed in his chest.

He had been taken completely by surprise by a Nether being, the patterns wielded moving unexpectedly with great power to sweep his base defenses away. His thought only minutes earlier about how difficult it was to overcome a Nether being with a superior knowledge of patterns came jeering back.

Despair had been thickly painted in the energy of this other being, dripping down and infecting everything with a suffocating grey sensation.

He had discussed the particulars of the interference with Lucretia, who had informed him that she had been attempting to pull an item of great karmic power to her position when the Nether Warlord had acted. In only a second, he had surged forth swiped the prize. In the moment, Randidly had simply been overwhelmed.

It was an old and familiar feeling. But encountering it now, it made him uneasy. Just when he thought he had the plot of the memory figured out, his actions unearthed a dangerous impediment.

Tremors still made the memory creak, even after his Nether Core had stabilized the great Nether Ritual after the confrontation. Of all the shifts Randidly had made, apparently aiding in the death of Illia had been one of the largest. Considering the force that moved in her wake, he could understand why.

The question remained how this powerful figure and his ilk had been handled in the memory, but for now-

“Always more threats,” Randidly sighed. He squeezed the cube in his hand and then gestured. The smaller cubes comprising the larger whole came apart and stretched, a warm light emanating from the core. But he did not target a physical item, but simply the exhaustion he felt, a build of the same exhaustion that had once formed a negative emotional core. The light expanded, trying to encompass all of it.

Congratulations! Your Fatepiece the Codex Hexahedron has grown to Level 70!

A very scientific and methodical interpretation of the emotions Randidly felt flowed into him. Obscure chemicals and the balance of his brain were reported. Yet he couldn’t help but smile slightly; for all its growing body of knowledge, the Codex couldn’t quite cover what constituted an emotion. A brief ember of curiosity flared in Randidly. The better question might not be what information can the Codex give me… but what it can’t.

Am I supposed to be eliminating those blind spots, or covering for them?

Before he had followed those thoughts too deeply, Lowanna stepped out of the portal he opened with the Alchemist’s Passport. She raised her hands bound with black wicker and offered Randidly a small bow. Her eyes were still and serious. “Nether King Hungry Eye, I apologize. You should not be the one who needs to endure the haunting of old Nether ghosts.”

Randidly offered her a crooked smile in return. “Don’t worry about it. It’s almost a comfort that, when I cease living and transition naturally to haunting, I’ll still be suitably intimidating. At the very least, I am glad you are familiar with that voice. Who is it?”

A strange expression crossed Lowanna’a face. She bit her lip but eventually spoke. “...forgive my hesitation. My people… well, the being that threatened you has a long history of being the boogeyman in the nightmares of our young. They call him Deganawidah. I think the easiest way to explain is to tell you the story, as it was told to me. Before Deganawidah was born, it was prophesied that he would herald the downfall of Quillic, the great seat of Nether power in the main universe. The prophecy is perhaps the only part of the legend that we are able to corroborate: ‘he will rip out the heart of Quillic and carry it away.’ So… his mother attempted to drown him. When the babe had ceased struggling in the water, the mother’s heart broke and she left the body floating in the river, hoping the current would wash away her guilt and shame. All the filth of the city flowed with the body, buoying it away.

“However… the babe did not die. Miles away from his home, in the wild, desolate spaces that afflict the main universe… something only half-alive crawled out of the brackish water. That… was Deganawidah.”

Randidly felt goosebumps on his skin. He looked up and witnessed the way small bits of the remnant patterns left behind by this figure’s reach now began to decay, weighing down the significance in the area with fear. His pupils dilated, this effect was deliberate.

Despite the fact he could sense what was going on, Randidly still felt the air thicken. His frown deepened as he felt the flows of Nether. Time and immaculate care created this sensation. This being first created one of the most powerful patterns I’ve ever seen… and then altered it in its base state so that it would steadily unravel and release waves of fear.

That… what sort of being does that?

I guess the sort whose first experience is attempted murder…

“It’s very dramatic,” Randidly rolled his shoulders.

Lowanna attempted to laugh, but the sound was hollow. He saw a small drop of sweat run down from her temple, despite the cool temperature. “Apologies. I know it can sound… far-fetched, but as far as I know, this is the truth. The records in Wyndaos-” Briefly, a different sort of flinch seized Lowanna, due to the tragedy of the city’s annihilation, but she kept speaking. “-were considered relatively expansive, stretching to before our people split off and came into the Nexus. And in those days, Deganawidah was still shrouded in myth.”

“What happened next? Did he bring ruin upon the great Nether city?” Randidly tilted his head to the side. With his spare attention, he wove his own small patterns to try and eradicate the lingering effect of Deganawidah. To his annoyance, the particles stubbornly resisted his attempts to remove them. And the more energy he poured into it, the more the targeted particles released a magnetic field that cause more to flock and surround him.

Randidly forced his jaw to unclench and listened to Lowanna.

“In a way, Deganawidah did bring ruin to Quillic. But not for several decades. First, he crawled out into the wilderness and learned to survive on his own. Early Nether beings developed enough to survive on their own very quickly, but even for one of his people he was exceptional. Within ten years, that area of the wilderness had fallen under his dominion. Within twenty years, he had civilized the area, his protection enabling a half-dozen small villages to begin altering the wilds to be more habitable.

“As trade blossomed, connections with the wider Nether world began to form. Perhaps it had once been prudence that had guided Quillic to its heights, but now their behaviors might more closely resemble paranoia. Their high Nether Priestess had a vision and hammered on doors until the entire city had awoken to hear her words. She had one chill message. Deganawidah would soon return.

“And return he did, without knowing the complicated past he shared with the city. Although his awareness is a subject of considerable debate. He had been a child, left to thrash and drown in the river; most believe it is impossible for him to have any memory of Quillic. Yet others found his countenance so uncanny they would believe any evil, if attributed to him. As though he could smell a betrayal and followed his nose right back to his birthplace.”

Randidly cracked his jaw. His patterns managed to wrestle these particles into an uneasy deadlock, ceasing their constant release of negative energy, but he didn’t manage to achieve anything more than that.

At the very least, Lowanna seemed more at ease as she continued her story. “He led the trade caravan from the borderlands personally, happy to escape the struggle for survival and see the riches of the Netherlands. The group snaked their way across the intervening lands, bringing their raw materials and earning untold riches. They worked their way inexorably toward Quillic, the heart of the Nether lands. And when they arrived… they received a great honor of being invited by the ruling council of Quillic to be received in what was once known as the Hall of Ephemeral Lanterns.”

Lowanna released a long sigh. “It is known now as the Hall of Ash. They burned the entire place to the ground, hoping Deganawidah would succumb to fire where water had failed. But for the second time… he lived.

“Swimming amongst the baking corpses of his closes friends and companions, through waves of flame, Deganawidah did not drown.”

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