After Randidly spent a surprisingly mild two hours talking to an increasingly enthusiastic Salazar, he returned to his tent and was rather surprised to notice how good his mood was. Even if time could have been more efficiently spent than listening to the obvious tall-tales that Salazar told about himself, Randidly couldn’t have found a better way to decompress.

Randidly had serious doubts about the veracity of what Salazar was saying, but that really didn’t matter. Randidly wasn’t there to make sure that the snake-man was honest. He was just there to listen because no one had acknowledged his subordinate in weeks.

It was an act of kindness and responsibility. And honestly… Randidly was surprised by how satisfying it felt.

When he set aside his own patience, what was left was a calm willingness to put in the work he had to accomplish. He was a leader. His subordinates were part of his responsibility. Focusing too much on his personal struggles might seem like the best option for the short term, but it also left Randidly to be tense and wear blinders on his head.

Which was great for accomplishing targeted goals, but bad for the big picture. And his ambitious plans for his Fate were definitely more big-picture than they were a specific goal. Relaxing his foot on the throttle and allowing some time to gather perspective was what he needed.

Just like in all other things, Nether isn’t so concrete that I can force it into shape. Randidly thought as he looked down at the scuffed metal of his left arm. I think about the shape and then release my hold so it can pursue the Path laid out by my faith.

Not all mediums I work with can be metal.

Of course, after a break came work.

The first thing Randidly did upon returning to his tent was practice with Nether Rituals. One point that Randidly realized after his mind had the chance to catch up with his busy body was that he didn’t need to spend the huge chunk of PP he would receive immediately. Which was an extremely frustrating prospect, but one that made sense.

It was just that he wouldn’t want to wait around to finish off his Paths. Specifically, those relating to Yggdrasil. Randidly wasn’t above using some inspiration from the System to help shape how he made his images.

For better or worse, Randidly didn’t gain any Skill Levels while he refamiliarized himself with Nether Rituals. After that, he returned once more to the steady inscribing of the Akashic Record upon the vast trunk of Yggdrasil. This time he did gain another Skill Level in Visualization, bringing the number of PP until the Soulskill activated to one.

For most of the night, Randidly worked his mental fingers tirelessly to create the shapes he’d slowly imagined as he drew his glowing fingers across the deep brown bark. Although it was mostly fancy, he ascribed meaning to each shape. The brave shape. The insidious shape. The fickle shape. The stubborn shape. The lines curved and cut sharply, creating an entire pantheon of shapes for the extended narrative that stretched behind him in his steady journey across the branches.

One fingertip at a time, filling a moment in the real world that stretched to fill an eternity. When he was tired, he looked up at the rustling emerald canopy of Yggdrasil and cracked his fingers. Then he continued to work.

When he was tired of something, Randidly switched up the shapes. When he wanted to mix different shapes together, he did that too. Perhaps like Nether, his movements were mostly driven by faith and instinct. Even though Randidly had a very high opinion of his own abilities, he couldn’t create this all on his own. The larger the role time and chance had on the outcome, the better.

Despite himself, Randidly felt echoes of Salazar’s cadence of speech creep into his shapes in a way that difficult to describe. Without the stutter, but possessing the same sort of epic arrangement that made the mundanities of Salazar’s life sound historic.

Storytelling was not really one of Randidly’s strength. But that is what this record was. The grand story of everything. So he used what tools he had available to him to add that extra specificity.

Almost the entire night was spent this way. It was only from Absolute Timing’s gentle brush that Randidly realized how much time had passed. As the light of day filtered in from outside, Randidly pushed outside the tent and looked up toward the mass of blue veins that drifted about like the careless tendrils of a jellyfish.

The real world reasserted itself. They were days away from the largest confrontation with Nether of the era. The Nether forces were poised above them. Randidly’s goal had a looming endpoint. If he couldn’t finish before the Nether arrived...

Zauna looked up sharply when he left the tent and straightened to bow as Randidly studied the sky.

Nodding toward her, Randidly said, “Any orders from above? Or movements from the Nether?”

“None,” Zauna answered quietly.

Randidly scratched his chin. He didn’t forget what Ileot had said about the Nether Prince being close to being cracked open. And Randidly didn’t truly believe that this sudden lack of assaults was a coincidence.

Although they hadn’t heard anything from headquarters, Randidly was willing to bet that the Aether forces had received another demand from the Nether forces. This was the calm before the storm as Lord Miln bought time as he opened up the Nether Prince. And as soon as the Nether King sensed that the Prince had been destroyed, the hammer would come down on the Aether forces.

If only I could figure out why Lord Miln was so confident. Randidly chewed his lip. Some part of it is likely due to Ileot’s presence… but duplicating Vualla was Ileot’s plan. What did Lord Miln get out of all of it…? Was it just Ileot’s strength…?

Even though he felt like he was missing something, Randidly forced himself to let it go. After all, his primary concern was getting stronger before the hammer fell. Everything else could wait.

“And Salazar? Where has he wandered off to?” Randidly finally asked.

Zauna shrugged. “...he thought he would go for a jog for a change of pace…”

Which left Randidly somewhat at a loss. I guess… that’s a good sign…? Hopefully talking to him for a bit helped him manage his stress.

Either way, it was enough to assure Randidly that he had accomplished his goal with the talk. So then Randidly returned to the tent and turned his attention to the Ignition Essence, which was slowly being perturbed by the memories of the Hitless blade.

As he sunk into those sensations, the familiar touched appeared to him.

Two children, one just pretty enough with brown hair and another that gleamed like the dawn. Two twin sisters, born with one soul. Both wracked by terrible illnesses that grew more frequent as they aged.

Illym, the above-average child. And Radiance, the golden sister.

The hiltless blade with her terrible shakes that left her bedridden, and her sister who suffered from the comas that silenced her tinkling laughter for days at a time.

Memories of Illym sitting in the dark, looking at her own reflection in the mirror struck a deep corner. There were bags under her eyes and her brown hair hung limp.

Gritting his teeth, Randidly tried to calm his emotions. He had too many nights just like that. Although the reason why he had been so lost was different, the feeling was the same.

Yet even if the pall of tragedy soaked into every aspect of these two twin lives that Randidly viewed through the frame of memories, they continued to live. The two parents with such high hopes felt helpless. They searched for solutions, but they could find none. The tension in the household mounted as the two girls aged.

Memories of birthdays that were missed by Illym as she shook and gripped her sheets in tight fists, and memories of birthdays where Illym sat at the table with her parents alone. The house was silent around them.

Time relentlessly marched forward.

The problems obviously didn’t go away, but they grew used to them. Sometimes one or the other would need to take a leave of absence from their tutored classes, but otherwise, things proceeded with a semblance of normalcy.

During one of the good times, the year where both girls were 15 and neither suffered from a single attack the entire year, Illym had said to her Radiance, “This is the best year of our lives. I hope your… sleep never come back.”

“Do you? I’m not so sure.” The golden sister leaned her head to the side and her hair swayed in a way that caught the light. Then she flashed an apologetic smile. “Sometimes this life is just so exhausting. When I’m asleep… well. I always wake up quite rested, don’t I?”

The hiltless blade could only wince.

Of course, the memories after that idyllic time quickly turned sour. During the years 16-20, both young women were inflicted with their individual sicknesses with increasing frequency. Sometimes so that both were suffering at the same time, which was an entirely new type of affairs for the parents.

This was a wakeup call for the whole family. Very quickly, the two parents surged into action to try and find a solution. Favors were called in. Experts were consulted. They were willing to pay any price for a solution.

Although no one asked her, Illym had her own thoughts about a solution. And in the end, it was the obvious one that the old man had given to them years ago. One of the sisters had to die. In the wake of that, the other sister would no longer have her soul split across two bodies. She would be able to live a normal life.

Yet this realization sent her spiraling downward into an endless spin of depression. Because she tried her best to be logical about the decision. When it came to love… she loved her sister dearly. Yet still… Taking a dispassionate view of everything, which one of the sisters deserved to live?

Compared to the golden sister, Illym was not as impressive. Even if she had debatably better performance on some of their tutored subjects, the golden sister would always shine so brilliantly with an instinctual insight that it completely outshone some of her sister’s modest achievements elsewhere.

In terms of moral imperatives… Illym was also helpless. Although she didn’t know when it happened, she had often found herself in the role of simply helping her more eye-catching sister. And because she was constantly on the move, Illym certainly gave so much of her time and effort to helping Radiance.

But Radiance’s movements were incredibly well planned. She volunteered to help disabled soldiers from the frontlines and arranged wonderful events in the community. She was constantly the center of the party while also having a preternatural knack for spotting the individual who needed a private conversation to cheer them up.

When she wasn’t in one of her comas, the golden sister glowed.

Illym did not. The answer to who should be the one to die seemed obvious.

But the hiltless blade was terribly afraid of dying.

However, all of these thoughts were eventually pushed to the side as the true light in the family had an announcement: Radiance had fallen in love. On the twin’s 21st birthday, she planned to be married.

It was in the run-up to that year that the twin’s symptoms worsened.