The Legend of Randidly Ghosthound

The young and gangly limbs of the future Nether King splayed out around his body against the dark stone ground. For several seconds, he did not move, just loosed a low groan while both Deganawidah and Randidly observed his collapsed form.

Snakes of Nether swam through the air, the manifest frames of Deganawidah’s curiosity. Their long tongues tasted and churned the air above the Nether Warrior’s body with the young, out-of-his-depth individual pressed himself up to his feet.

Meanwhile, Randidly’s heart pounded. Even now, he felt simultaneously awed and intimidated by the method used by the Nether monster to trace out his Nether connections. For a brief moment, Nether had moved with such violence to rub away the substrata of existence and lay the framework bare. The dense and wide network of eternity had been displayed. Nether scoured away the paint and veneer. He had seen and recognized his own connections because that was the area that Deganawidah had focused on, but other bonds had fallen within the displayed area.

A few seconds later, it was those depths that haunted him. He kept picturing what he had observed.

Webs on systems on tenuous bonds supporting existence, a trapeze dangled above a deep abyss, an ornate tent of meaning above the void- the brief rip created had given Randidly insight into reality. He peered down through gradually separating organizations prevented existence from collapsing back to naught. Pieces steadily coalesced in his mind; what he saw today, what he understood from Engraving, and what he had witnessed through that small hole within his Nether Core began to move together and create a larger, more ominous working model of the universe.

For the first time, Randidly understood the phrase, ‘turtles all the way down.’

“You cannot have met, this seed is mine and you bear the scent of a fresh and organic Nether King,” Deganawidah grunted, pulling Randidly’s attention back to the trembling form of the future Nether King. His thoughts spun, begrudgingly settling until the pressing matter of this confrontation had been handled. The evil Humpty-dumpty leaned forward and studied the Nether Warrior, as though the secrets of his and Randidly’s connection would be physically present on his body. “A conundrum. An unusual pattern. Peculiar.”

Waves undulated along Deganawidah’s smile. His expression resembled the gooey internal movements of a lava lamp, the different portions always oozing in separate directions. With his thick, muscular hands, the monster cupped the appendages together and created a circle. “Boy, come here. Let me cut to the core of this mystery.”

The future-Nether King yelped as the force of the command yanked his collar and smashed his face against the ground. He stumbled to his feet and helplessly trotted forward until he stood before corrupted Humpty-dumpty, the dark mound of Deganawidah’s body casting the smaller Nether Warrior entirely in shadow.

…

Congratulations! Your Skill Nyx’s Successor Births Fate (GD) has grown to Level 1009!

Congratulations! Muse’s Reverie +1!

At the last second, Randidly felt a sense of forbidding. The Notifications exploded in front of his eyes as his Skill sensed a coming change. Even Muse’s Reverie snapped to attention. The memory began to tremble. All at once Randidly could feel the air squeezing him, the vast significance of a pivot howling loud enough to be heard, even through the screen of Deganawidah’s storm. “Wait-”

“Open for me, boy.” Deganawidah’s lips parted, revealing first the blunt gold teeth and then a slithering, onyx tongue. He whispered a Nether Ritual into his hands, staring intently through the circle created by his hands at the Nether King.

All the Nether around the Nether Warrior, Randidly assumed every pinch of energy visible through that opening in the thick hands, stilled. The Nether King whimpered. Then the carefully preserved and frozen arrangement was pulled and expanded as though it was being projected against the backdrop of clouds above them, showing a complex, layered, and very obviously bifurcated arrangement of significance. Not only did the Nether Warrior in front of them have a mark on that system, but looming even larger was the Nether King he would eventually become.

The two layered beings also very clearly delineated the fabric of the memory, where one began and the other ended. Even had Deganawidah not been such a masterful manipulator of Nether, even if one of the petty Nether Kings Randidly had fought within the memory had seen this, the implications would dawn on them.

Randidly sucked in a sharp breath as the patterns remained in stasis, their truths laid bare to anyone who looked. Nether seethed and circled as the trembling in the memory worsened.

Congratulations! Your Skill Yearnings of the Nether Heir (P) has grown to Level 1082!

Congratulations! Your Skill Left Hand of the Nether Oracle (M) has grown to Level 990!

…

Congratulations! Your Skill Yearnings of the Nether Heir (P) has grown to Level 1095!

Congratulations! Your Skill Right Hand of the Nether Polymath (M) has grown to Level 970!

Holy shit, Randidly blinked several times. The brutal brevity of Deganawidah’s Nether Rituals left him inspired in a way he hadn’t felt since he and Neveah had begun exploring the legacy left to them by Yystrix. But one fact loomed large as he stared up at the patterns ripped out from the future Nether King. …Deganawidah can see this is a memory.

The bloodshot and beady eyes of the Nether monster narrowed as he stared up at patterns. The memory seemed to be fretting itself to pieces so that multiple Deganawidah’s split off from the main body like the hesitant duplications of a shattered mirror. Some raged at the realization, some howled, some spat to the side, some raised hands and beckoned massive tidal waves of significance that rose out of nothing.

Congratulations! Your Skill Revelations of the Atramentous Threshold (T) has grown to Level 955!

…

Congratulations! Your Skill Revelations of the Atramentous Threshold (T) has grown to Level 964!

In those alternate timelines, Randidly felt himself drowning in the dense Nether of his foe. He felt his personality being scraped away through acerbic waves of Nether, an unending torrent of force and pattern that didn’t even attack him directly, simply plucked him up and chewed him up in the gears between larger machinations. Randidly’s jaw firmed and his brow furrowed in an immediate rejection of those possibilities. The Dread Homunculus began to chuckle, its eyes wide and observing, peering into the future and clocking, and cataloging, the oncoming threat. Because each second the image survived, it learned.

From the myriad fractures in the memory, Randidly saw several methods of attack Deganawidah might use, and each one he steadily began to prepare to counter-

Yet egg-like being simply clicked his tongue. His smile faded, but no other emotion played across his blunt features. “How trite. Nether King Hungry Eye, truly peculiar.”

Deganawidah waved a hand and the tremors in the memory stilled. New patterns of significance flowed around and reinforced the structure of the reconstructed time. Randidly released a surprised gasp of relief. He hadn’t even noticed the strain, it had been so long since he had taken the burden upon himself. Yet no longer did he support the memory with his Nether.

It had been plucked at him. He hadn’t even really noticed how it had happened.

Randidly’s eyes went wide. Deganawidah’s focused eyes flicked over to Randidly briefly. “I meet like with like. Under such a mandate, the force I wield has blossomed to the point of incredulity. You… judge me. Or wonder about my method, yes? Perhaps in my youth, I turned my gaze away from obvious signs so the betrayals became inevitable. So I could dispense with my most familiar verdict. I appreciated the simplicity of justice this allowed me. Now… well, my passivity usually makes my choices straightforward. You… present a problem. Ahem. For the act of returning a stray duck to me… I will take this burden from you. Play as you will with our echoes.

“Yet… for the act of murder which brought you to my attention…” Deganawidah’s gaze harden. He turned back to the shivering Nether Warrior. In that instant, the Nether Warrior changed as the future Nether King’s consciousness flowed into the body. The posture straightened and the patterns became blossoms with petals falling away.

Deganawidah grunted, a look of distaste curling up the edges of his mouth. “You butcher my life’s work for aesthetics. Short-sighted.”

“I could only capture the slightest pinch of your allure,” The Nether King bowed slightly. His eyes went up to the sky, where his own Nether remained expanded, then flicked back down to Deganawidah. “Even now, this can barely-”

“It seems late for flattery, doesn’t it?” Deganawidah clicked his tongue. Nether continued to swirl in a giant storm above the face-off. The old egg monster held out a hand palm up.

The Nether King looked pained. “This will wound him deeply. He is meant for greater purposes.”

“Do you think we were meant to be alive? Yet, stubbornly, we live.” Deganawidah’s face scrunched up. The heavy clouds pressed closer. Randidly pressed his lips together, trying to understand the conflict between the two.

Several different emotions passed across the face of the future Nether King. In the end, he sighed. From the rumble that went through the memory, the Nether King’s surrender had heavy implications; yet Randidly marveled that the disturbance lasted only a brief moment, quickly smoothed over by Deganawidah’s support. The Nether King stretched out his hand and deposited something in the other’s palm. Then he vanished, hunching over in fear and shock as he stood so close to the monstrous old Nether being of myth.

Deganawidah waved his other hand and the liberated Nether Warrior fled.

Randidly licked his lips, unable to help his curiosity. “You… don’t seem to care much that the current version of yourself… exists within a memory.”

“Heh. Need I be a shape? Need I be a moment? The small desperations of lesser beings don’t interest me. I am, and I am enough.” A look of disgust crossed Deganawidah’s face, briefly closing his mouth. But then the wry amusement returned, the undulating smile. “Still, the scales between us remain uneven. I will not allow this to be so. Thus, you have hurt me, I will hurt you. Just a wound is necessary, not the cessation of self. Because your self… it is quite large. And peculiar enough I won’t push the issue.”

Randidly frowned. His eyes went to the tensed fist of Deganawidah. “...what sort of wound?”

“A necessary piece, deprived. A shape made impossible. An Alchemist, no longer. Or rather, the possibility of alchemic success sealed away.” Deganawidah gestured to the object in his palm, which resolved itself into a ruby-colored sphere, gleaming like fresh blood. Randidly’s skin tingled and he felt his instincts screaming. Just from looking, he sensed the connection between himself and that object. “I now hold what would have been the ultimate piece of yourself. Allinne’s Tear. Amu, in your own world’s words, it can also be called ‘The Philosopher’s Stone’.”

“My Sixth Fatepiece,” Randidly whispered, remembering the future Nether King plundering the piece for himself. His body blurred into motion, but Deganawidah had already moved. In the middle of his storm of Nether, the environment dominated by his energy, Randidly was too far away.

The corrupted Humpty-dumpty squeezed and crushed the Fatepiece to powder.

Error! Warning! An unknown force has caused extreme damage to your Fateset! Please see your nearest Village Spirit-

Error-

Congratulations! Muse’s Reverie +1!

Warning! Due to a sudden loss of structural integrity, your Class has been damaged. You will be unable to gain Experience for the foreseeable future.

Warning! Your specialty Attribute, Muse’s Reverie, is deeply tied to your Fateset! The synchronicity between your body and the Paradox of the Alchemist made its extraordinary effects possible. You will be unable to gain Muse’s Reverie for the foreseeable future.

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