As they walked into Tatiana’s office, Tatiana didn’t even bother to glance up from the maze of paperwork that covered her desk. Her hand continued to rapidly shuffle through papers, locate places for signatures, and gracefully scrawl her approval of the plans contained on the page. “Randidly, is it possible for you to create a Skill for me that will allow me to be in two places at once?”

Taken somewhat aback, Randidly thought about it. Perhaps if they trained Tatiana’s image up somewhat...“Literally? Hm. No, I think-”

“Then why,” Tatiana said as she finally looked up from her documents and rolled her eyes. “Does it seem like you are here to give me more work?”

“I assure you, Madam, that we would not trouble you unnecessarily.” To Randidly’s abject shock, the Ogre Lord gave Tatiana a deep bow with his hands spread. Then with a flourish, he produced a diamond the size of an apple and set it delicately on the only empty space that Tatiana had on her desk. “A token of my appreciation, for giving us some of your time.”

“Huh…” Tatiana looked at the apple-sized diamond. It’s sharply hewn edges twinkled in the light filtering through the windows. She looked up at the three-headed ogre and then looked at Randidly with her eyebrows raised.

Randidly coughed lightly. “This is… the leader of the ogres in the Ogre Gorge world. I’d like you to help with the relocation efforts…”

“Of course you would,” Tatiana said tiredly. She picked up the diamond and tossed it lightly from hand to hand, then set it back down on the table. She pulled out a drawer of the desk, removed a small hammer, and tapped the diamond lightly on each of its sides. Each time made the stone release a clear chime. If anything, Tatiana’s frown deepened. “It certainly is very nice, but its unnecessary; I cannot accept this.”

“Then how about this?” The Ogre Lord produced a smaller opal, the size of a chestnut. Tatiana’s eyebrows scrunched together as she looked at the Ogre Lord and tried to figure out what he didn’t get.

“...such a gift is unnecessary…”

The Ogre Lord managed to keep his face bland. “If we will be working together in the future, wouldn’t it be good to establish some goodwill by the exchange of gifts? These are just trifles, I have many more…”

“What sort of goodwill can be established when you tell me that you have many more?” Tatiana said wryly.

His message delivered, Randidly turned and snuck out of the room with Sam, Dozer, and Obyrn. When they had left the building, Randidly stretched and turned to Obyrn. “Do you have any idea what was going on there…?”

Obyrn rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I don’t know for sure, but… legend has it that on my world, in the time before the System, the countries were ruled by vast clans led by Matrons. However, when the different areas were scrambled into Zones… the matrons were often separated from the bulk of the clan’s power.

“Due to the extreme rivalry and blood feuds between the clans after generations of fighting and backstabbing before the System even arrived, the rival matrons were attacked on sight in most instances. And when my world came back together again, my people were horrified to find that basically all of the matrons had been killed off in the initial chaos. So perhaps… as one who was alive before the System arrived, the Ogre Lord finds Tatiana's presence at the heart of your organization… reassuring.”

Randidly shook his head. The ways cultures interacted were somewhat hard to predict. But hopefully, this situation was just as harmless as Obyrn described. And if this was going to happen for each Danger Zone that had been cleared…

“He seemed to treat her much more respectfully than he did you,” Sam added unhelpfully.

After a few more words, the group dispersed. Randidly returned to his island, floating above Kharon while the gates and guard posts in front of the Ogre Gorge were unlocked and opened for the flood of new bodies that would soon come to Earth.

Luckily the mountain ranges to the North of Zones 1 and 32, between 7 and 11, are pretty much empty of anything except monsters...

But again, Randidly turned his attention to the South. After biting and lip and hesitating, he raised the Philosopher’s Key and thrust it into the air. A portal opened. Taking a deep breath, Randidly stepped through to the other side.

Suddenly, Randidly was in a deserted plain, tall golden grass waving softly all around him. If not for the dirt track that was right in front of Randidly, it would be quickly easy to lose your sense of bearings in the vast, shifting field. On the dirt track was Ezekiel Ghosthound, walking briskly forward with his head bowed. From the familiar frown on his face, Randidly knew that his father was thinking of other things and likely had very little attention on his surroundings.

More than anything though, Randidly was uncomfortably aware of the scent of blood on Ezekiel’s body. But since most of the blood scent was tainted with Straud’s strange magic, Randidly gave his father the benefit of the doubt. It had seemed from Randidly’s attention on the battle at the stadium that Ezekiel had mostly killed the minions of Straud.

As Randidly’s eyes fell on his father, a notification popped up.

Congratulations! You have found the holder of the second piece of your Fateset, the Dreamcatcher of the Long Night! Warning! The holder is unaware that he currently possesses the piece of your Fate. In order to obtain the Dreamcatcher of the Long Night, please have the holder freely give you any gift! More details will be available after receiving the gift.

Randidly swore quietly to himself. Have Ezekiel freely give him a gift…? On the one hand, it wasn’t like that task was that difficult, on the other hand, his father was always one who was extremely forgetful when it came to things like birthdays-

Randidly blinked. A very bad idea occurred to him. But it only took him a short amount of time to realize some unintended benefits of such an idea. After casting his mind around, he realized that he actually was quite lucky; based on the calendar that the World Council had adopted, the actual date that he had in mind was only two weeks away.

Releasing a breath, Randidly stepped forward. He tried to keep the movement relatively quiet and unobtrusive, but he knew as soon as he moved that he wasn’t quite used to the juice that Nether Brawn provided his movements. He passed through the air at a speed that caused it to hum and appeared ten meters in front of Ezekiel like he had ripped off a cloak of invisibility.

Ezekiel immediately froze. Before taking the time to figure out who had appeared in front of him, a purple energy surrounded Ezekiel’s finger and he took several quick steps backward to open up space. The scent of blood intensified.

Randidly simply watched the rise and fall of Ezekiel’s chest. Wind rustled the tall grass around the lonely road. “Hey… dad. I assume… you’ve heard that I’m back.”

If anything, this induced an even more violent reaction in Ezekiel. Every limb seemed to tremble and the purple energy around his fingertip disappeared. “...Randidly. You… you came looking for me? Look, son, I know we talked before, and I-”

“I really don’t want to talk about that right now.” Randidly’s face twisted. Ezekiel was referring to the requirement of his Class that he kill a conscious being each day in order to continue to exist. If he took days off, he would slowly lose stats until he wasted away. “No… today I just… I wanted to give you an invitation. To a birthday party I’m throwing for myself.”

While those words hung in the air, Randidly’s emerald eyes went to Ezekiel’s chest. Because he actually was quite curious about how a Class with such requirements was constructed. It was obviously a special existence, but that meant that Randidly could probably learn a little about Classes by examining it.

Congratulations! Your Skill Aether Detection has grown to Level 188!

Several seconds passed while Randidly looked intently into Ezekiel’s Soulspace. When the complex series of rotating glyphs of Ezekiel’s Class left him stumped even after several seconds of wracking his brain, Randidly reached through the Soulbound and prodded Neveah. Almost instantly, her Perception overlapped with his so she could see what Randidly was looking at.

Fascinating. But hard with your senses to feel how the depth of the four rotating glyphs manages to fuel the cycle. Can you grab him and bring him to me?

Randidly’s mouth twisted while Ezekiel looked solemnly at him. He’s… my dad. I can’t just… grab him.

Isn’t he killing people to live? Neveah asked. Randidly’s chest tightened.

“I… you want me to come to your birthday party?” Ezekiel asked. He sounded bewildered. Which Randidly could somewhat understand; as a child, Randidly had always insisted on low key birthday parties. Basically, he had invited one or two friends from school and celebrated their shared birthday with Sydney and that was it.

But this time…

Randidly’s small smile in response was chilly. “Yes. But you don’t have to worry. Since I’m doing this… I plan on sweeping in everyone I can at once. I’ll send invitations to the leaders of each of the Zone and the Orders. Everyone talks about how I’m constantly absent… well, for this party, I won’t be. It’s time that the Earth’s leaders and I have a frank conversation.”

His smile widened and became even more frigid as his gaze refocused on Ezekiel. “I think I’ll also extend invitations to the remaining Nemesai at large. Or even… other independent factions. And I’ll guarantee that there will be no fighting at the event.”

“What?” If anything, this confused Ezekiel further. “Why? It’s not like the two sides have anything to talk about.”

“Really? But I think it will be good. Because ultimately… we should never forget that this isn’t personal to the Nemesai. They are simply dancing to the tune of the Nexus,” Randidly said lightly. He tried not to blink as he looked at Ezekiel.

The idea to invite everyone was something of a whim, but Randidly thought it might be a useful opportunity to start revealing the truth about the System to more people. But at its core, this sudden birthday party was only meant to cause Ezekiel to give Randidly a gift. Randidly cast his mind around for other ideas to try and ensure that he would get a gift for other reasons, but he hesitated from doing anything too drastic or dishonest.

This was still his father, although he had been broken down by the System. Before seeing evidence to the contrary… Randidly decided to have faith that his father would get him a gift, whether he attended the party or not.

“I’ll think about it,” Ezekiel finally answered. He lowered his gaze and walked past Randidly without looking back.

“Dad,” Randidly turned around and looked at Ezekiel’s back. His father paused. Even now, under the thick scent of blood, Randidly could detect the energy of the Creature. Randidly’s hands clenched. “If there is anyone threatening you… or trying to control you… just tell me. I can help.”

Ezekiel just nodded. Then he continued to walk away.