Chapter 2271

“We need to rearrange the order for the attempts on the possible,” Randidly said to Neveah, dreading her reaction but still barging into her cabin anyway. Especially with so little time to prepare-

Randidly paused. He had just swung open the door to her small cabin to find her, as usual, sitting and sipping tea at her hand-carved wooden table. Opposite her was Charlotte Wick, with a half-finished cup of tea of her own. Immediately, Charlotte leapt to her feet and gave Randidly a low bow.

Randidly felt a twinge of embarrassment; he had been so wrapped up in his excitement over the realization that he hadn’t looked too closely at the occupants of the cottage. Obviously, the bear woman was on his side, so his instincts hadn’t pinged him to correct his impression. He offered Charlotte a nod, clearing his throat and refocusing his thoughts. “Charlotte, great job with protecting the slum. If you hadn’t been there with the idea, I’m not sure sinking the image into the area would have been as easy. How are the people reacting to the change?”

“Well enough. A lot of complaining, but most of it with smiles on their faces,” A small smile broke out on Charlotte’s face at the thought, warming her whole countenance. Randidly still couldn’t believe this woman was related to Commandant Wick, but he supposed that man had been more constructed toy, due to the malicious interference of another.

Charlotte shook her head, a helpless smile still in place. “Due to the extra distance, the biggest problem is those people who need to work in Homewell. But a few enterprising Lizakh have captured some of the ostriches and are trying to domesticate them for riding. For now-”

Charlotte blinked and glanced around. Perhaps she sensed the frosty air radiating off of Randidly’s Soulbound companion. “Well, I’m sure you don't care about these minor details. I must be going. Thank you as always, Neveah.”

Charlotte bowed to Randidly again as she rushed out of the cabin, leaving Randidly and Neveah alone with an uncomfortable conversation looming before them.

Neveah took a long sip of her tea, her eyes mild. Which, of course, was her most cutting method of expressing displeasure. “Ah. So, a day before one of the most complex plots I’ve had the misfortune to be associated with, to take advantage of the wild forces of history and extract copious amounts of benefits for ourselves, we are just going to change everything up? How delightful. Do we have time to throw a small soiree, or do we need to jump right to work? Too bad we don’t have a whiteboard detailing our plans, so we could just erase everything and play it all by ear. What a thrill.”

Randidly winced but his Nether Core sang with the truth that this was the correct move. “Not erasing everything, but I think my priorities were out of order. I wanted to start with the superposition attempt, to heal the Stillborn Phoenix. Primarily so I would have all of my images for the later attempts, believing the resistance would be higher and I would need to fight to get my way. But while that’s probably true… that shouldn’t come first. I need to reorient my Fateset before anything else. And I don’t think there is a better way than to interfere in the creation of Humanity. The Philosopher's Stone idea is still a good one-”

“Because that’s what you are.” Neveah took another long sip of tea. “An Alchemist. But your materials are not elements and energy, you work with images and life itself. You will transfigure possibilities to create a future of freedom. From there, with your Fateset more closely arranged, you can challenge the broader impossibilities.”

Randidly could only scratch his cheek. To have her not on his side hurt, although he didn’t want to show that. “Now, you almost seem sarcastic when you say those things, but that’s exactly correct. I want to be an Alchemist with Aether and Nether.”

Finally, Neveah set down her cup and glared at him. Fear radiated off of her in dense waves, the specter of Tiamat looming in the room. “The whole of your being is not just a

solution

Randidly Ghosthound. You are a fucking person.”

Suddenly, Neveah’s resistance to his plan clicked together. The small emotional notes brushing up against him spun together to create a clear picture. His eyes widened. “You… you aren’t afraid that I’ll fail at all. You are afraid I’ll

succeed

. And that the process will make me… something less than I am now.”

Neveah let out a tired laugh as she got to her feet. She stepped with all of the overwhelming physical prowess they shared and in the next instant, she slammed into his chest, her arms wrapping around his body.

Pressed up close, her emotions were even more obvious; Randidly wasn’t sure how he had confused her particular worry before. Her hands trembled, fumbling as she gripped his black robe and squeezed, pressing herself more closely to him. “Of

course

, you are going to succeed, you bastard. Even if I wish you’d just… be a bit more human, sometimes. How long have we gone through situations just like this? I’ve watched you locked by Yystrix in darkness, with nothing but the chemical reactions of your emotions to spark your way out. You swam through lava and dredged up the power to resist the sun. You faced down the calculating, remorseless construct of Commandant Wick and tore him to pieces.

“The problems weren’t as complex, with weaker powers arrayed against them, but all the same, tired pieces are in place for this. You used to survive and now you advance, whatever. In the end, it’s all the same from my perspective. But what

you

don’t seem to get is that the less prepared you are, the more you improvise, the higher the cost.”

“That’s why we make these plans. So we have resources to use to pay,” Randidly said softly. Her hair smelled like citrus and lavender.

Neveah pulled back and looked up at him, showing eyes glistening with tears. “You are blind to yourself Randidly. Because the more you treat yourself as just a force, the more you will be. And the way that becomes real is that when the chips have been counted and you end up down, you pay of your own vital essence, over and over again. You cut away meat around your heart, your entire dreams, the future of

you

to build something… structural. I understand it is for the Alpha Cosmos, but to me, it seems hollow.

“Look at me, right now,” Neveah urged, still not breaking eye contact. The tears began to leak down her cheeks. “You might be able to focus outward and miss those wounds in yourself, but you won’t miss them in me. For better or worse, we our bound.”

After several long seconds of hestitationRandidly looked at Neveah. Not just sensed her emotions, but opened his senses and observed. Her eyes were forest green, several shades darker than his own. But while he peered at the iris and pupil gazing at him, he saw his own reflection.

A man who had done anything to survive, who had been shaped by Shal, a man who had been so pushed by the world's forces he didn’t know why he was still living any longer. They had shaped each other, and everything that had come after.

In a word, perhaps Randidly heading down this Path after encountering Shal in that Dungeon had been inevitable.

And where had it got both of them? Tellus saved, yes. But Shal had witnessed his own limits and broken down when he failed to measure up. He had attempted to rely on Armaments to become strong and become their tool. Even now, he remained in the main universe, bitter and refusing Randidly’s offered help.

Randidly had given up survival in exchange for advancement. And now he was going to shift the focus of his Fateset from the prototypical alchemist to a very specific one, seeking to create a miracle for humanity from shapes, stories, and images.

He saw himself, the tired lines around his eyes and mouth. In Neveah’s eyes, he could see the way that the always-faded dream of surviving all this and creating a farm had dissipated, nearly entirely as he focused on more pressing concerns. But what made him flinch was her own raw emotions, tied through with a deep emotional resonance with several other individuals.

He looked at himself and saw not only himself but the Alpha Cosmos and its people. Who in a strange way,

were

him.

Randidly saw the way, if he ever sacrificed all of himself and vanished, the way it would break the old goblin Nrorce, who had taught him to cook and now happily spent his days waving a spoon at Randy.

He saw the people of Donnyton, those who had known him in the beginning, Mrs. Hamilton, Donny, Alana Donal, Sam, Raina, Annie and Dozer, and even Delilah, would look up at a wide sky and weep if he were no longer there, the unreachable force striding before them all. If he simply became the reinforced road on which they could walk.

If he died during his efforts to protect them.

His eyes began to close, but Neveah’s fingers shifted to his biceps and tightened. She whispered. “Don’t you dare look away until the end.”

So Randidly kept his eyes open. He kept looking at the pieces of others wove into the fabric of his body.

He saw the various races from the Danger Zones and the worlds brought by Nemesai, the people still suspicious, still trying to adapt to the Alpha Cosmos, still fearful and paranoid of retribution. And even more isolated were the remnant experiments of Father Karman, humans transplanted into the body of monsters. He saw the battle in his subconscious, between excluding these ‘beasts’ or simply accepting them as people.

Deep, deep within him, Randidly saw an old memory of him going into a memory and meeting a race of feathered beings within a Dungeon and killing them for convenience. And the deep wound it had left on his psyche, even now prodding the most recalcitrant denizens of the Alpha Cosmos, demanding they pause in their lives and show empathy to strange beings.

They all struggled underneath the yoke of the same System, after all.

He saw the half dozen races he had created, over the course of his budding growth on Expira, most of them accidentally. How they revered him, even now, even in his absence. How they listened to the gossip of the day, retold the same stories about him, speculated what new wonders he attempted now. He saw the hyper-intelligent crabs living along the bottom of the Great Sea, he saw his Lancers of the Baleful Crusade, he saw his Soulseeds and how they would all be hollowed out by his passage.

And, weirdly, at the end of these truths, he saw Devick. Young, bright, laughing, her crimson hair cascading down her back. He saw with absolute clarity how his absence would break her, corrupt her, warp her with rage, anguish, and pain until she became the same twisted version of herself in the future.

The same monster that bound innocent, talented souls together until she found a broken pet capable enough to earn the term ‘son’.

“Why include her at all?” Randidly whispered. “She isn’t-”

“At the end of this attempt, are you not going to try to take all of them back to the Nexus?” Neveah countered. She pursed her lips. “You always drag along to safety those cursed with a bad lot in life, Randidly Ghosthound. I know you. And she… well. She is the most complex to bring. Maybe that’s why your thoughts often drift to her.”

Their gazes held for several seconds, a different sort of pressure passing between them. After an even shorter amount of time, Randidly looked away. But Neveah did not push the issue, simply shaking her head and moving on to the next subject.

“So humanity first,” Neveah remarked.

Randidly nodded slowly. “Humanity first. Because… isn’t that what I’m trying to do? Remake myself. What better place to start than the origin of the species?”