After Randidly reviewed and approved of the form and material of the invitations, he had believed he would once more had free time on his hands to rather exhaustively train. And while he did have large stretches of the day where he wasn’t required to do anything, he still had some rather tedious responsibilities that cropped up. Planning a party turned out to be quite a bit of work.

Which he had planned to effortlessly avoid by distributing the invitations himself, but Arbor had very enthusiastically volunteered for the job. Such was the treants joy that Randidly regretfully allowed the plant to handle things.

Then Randidly had announced his plans to travel to the Danger Zones and approach the various populations on the other side, but, to his surprise, Neveah had rather quickly volunteered. She had apparently been paying attention to his actions and surprised him by making the offer rather out of the blue while Randidly was talking some plans over with Tatiana.

Not so much to do down by the World Crater anymore, so moving around a bit would be welcome. Plus… I had a lot of fun fighting against the Toad Lord. Hopefully, the other worlds have people just as strong.

Randidly felt more than a little pity for the leaders of the Danger Zones when Neveah arrived bearing his metal invitation. So regretfully he turned his attention to the party itself when he wasn’t working on his images.

Which, unfortunately, involved Randidly listening to Tatiana and Wolfram describe the amphitheater they would construct for his birthday. At certain intervals, he would then be required to make tiresome decisions about minor details regarding the venue. Randidly chose multiple smaller bathrooms rather than larger bathrooms. He selected a more classical style architecture. He also wasted several hours trying to come up with a comprehensive menu that reflected his personality.

At the end of him wracking his brain to think of his favorite food, Randidly had shaken his head in disgust. “Honestly, just serve whatever. The point is to gather them, not to wow them with cuisine.”

“But it’s your birthday, Mister Ghosthound,” Wolfram said with patient determination. All three heads still wore glasses as he looked carefully over the ledger in front of him. “This is a celebration of your majesty. Proving sub-par fare to your guests will result in you being mocked for a generation.”

Randidly gave Tatiana an aggrieved look that made her snort. “You’ll be in Kharon for a while anyway, right? Just come by for dinner for a few nights and I’ll arrange for the best Kharon has to offer to be delivered. Try some things and just pick your favorite. ...I think we will be able to avoid you being mocked for a generation.”

Throwing up his hands, Randidly left the chortling duo to their endless stacks of paperwork and their snide jokes; he was beginning to regret introducing the Ogre Lord Wolfram to Tatiana. The duo’s ability to quickly discover weaknesses and rather mildly antagonize Randidly was somewhat of a wonder. He honestly doubted if they ever had time to actually do the work that they were supposed to do with all the snarky lines they were thinking up.

But of course, the proof was in the pudding; the work was getting done. When Randidly stood on top of city hall and looked West, he could see hundreds of steelworkers rapidly converting one of the city’s smaller parks into the Kharon Amphitheater for his birthday. At this point, there was only a solemn ribcage of metal beams to hint at the building that would soon house Earth’s elites, but an extremely large shipment of marble from Donnyton’s mine should be arriving in the next few days to fill out the scaffolding.

With that shipment, the construction was scheduled to begin in earnest.

All this from the spur of the moment idea to receive a freely given gift from Ezekiel and acquire the Dreamcatcher of the Long Night… Randidly thought to himself. He shook his head. Although I could quickly figure out ways to get more benefits from the event… it’s somewhat scary that a sudden idea that I had could mobilize so much time and effort from these people.

I suppose that is what it means to lead an entire city...

After examining the general situation on Kharon, both of the image and of the continued proliferation of moss spirits, Randidly returned to his island and prepared to meditate more on the progression of his Ignition Essence image. But before he could get himself comfortable and clear his mind, a notification popped up in front of Randidly.

He had received a message. Vualla had replied to what he had sent after the night of the stadium attack.

He quickly closed the message without reading it as his heart seemed to literally squirm in his chest. But then Randidly looked blankly at the empty air in front of him and tried to figure out why he had done that. He was excited to receive a message from Vualla, wasn’t he? So why was he putting it off?

Disgruntled with himself, Randidly opened up the reply that Vualla had made.

Randidly,

This past week has been hectic. The entrance into the Xyrt Brigade has been… difficult. Really difficult. I barely have time to breathe with the tests they administered.

But in those rare moments of peace, I always remember the warmth of your hand on my shoulder. Because I know I’m not alone.

As for your guilt over your world… never punish yourself for the Path someone else has chosen. And the source is unfortunate, but your Nether being more powerful is a good thing. After seeing the people here… if we really want to change something, if we want to destroy this damned System, we will need to be more than exceptional.

We will need to be singularly overwhelming. Because that is what awaits at the Pinnacle of the Nexus.

I’ll be waiting for you,

Vualla

After reading the message, Randidly released a long breath that seemed to contain all of the worries that had been swirling within his heart regarding the number of people he had let die at the stadium. Then he took a breath back into his lungs and all those worries flooded back through his cardiovascular system, lodging themselves in his fleshy internal organs.

Even if the people in charge of the Zones chose that Path, the people who attended the game didn’t necessarily do so.

Then Randidly breathed back out with enough force that those worries were once more dislodged and sent out of him. And because they had dug so deeply into his ‘flesh’ this time, this batch of worries carried with them the seeds of anxiety and doubt that had been buried in his heart.

For a second, Randidly simply looked down at his hands and felt at peace.

It was a purely metaphorical gesture, but Randidly released a wave of pure Nether that burned through the exhaled air and reduced it to nothing. Then Randidly turned his emerald eyes back to the message and read it one more time.

Never punish yourself for the Path someone else has chosen, huh… Randidly shook his head. He could feel Vualla’s brash determination as she said those words. He could feel her stubborn insistence that it was true. But it was, at best, only partially true. Even if it wasn’t his fault that it happened, there was no shame in mourning those people and experiencing the pain of their loss.

That is what made him human. Refusing to acknowledge those emotions is part of the reason that the second version of Vualla, the one that now bound Ileot Swacc, came to be. So Randidly allowed himself to sit and simply hurt for a while after he did his best to eradicate his guilt.

With a flick of his wrist, he produced the long list of names that he had Tatiana and Wolfram procure for him. Every one of the people who died at the stadium was listed on the piece of paper. And for a time, Randidly simply read the names.

It was harder than he thought it would be, and several times he had to stop and look up at his mist-shrouded surroundings while taking a deep breath. But again and again, he forced himself to look back down at the paper and continue.

There should be a price to power… Randidly thought to himself. And this… this is something that I should pay. I allowed these people to die. I allowed someone to recklessly endanger these lives. I made that decision.

As he finished the list, Randidly thought about the last line in Vualla’s message. I’ll be waiting for you.

With a furious determination, Randidly pressed his eyes closed and continued to train.

*****

Ramsey Swacc, current acting head of the Swacc family, gripped the leather armrests of his chair and tried his best to keep his voice even. “What do you mean he disappeared?”

Dalak Swacc shifted uncomfortably. The man’s amphibian-like skin glistened with slime. “As you requested, I staked out the teleportation arrays near the front lines in order to encounter Randidly Ghosthound. However… he never arrived at the nearest teleportation arrays. After a few days, I figured he might have avoided the main arrays and gone to a subsidiary to travel and therefore I sent men to watch every array on the planet. But… either he has remained on the frontlines or he expected the surveillance and beat me to one of the side arrays…”

The muscles along Ramsey Swacc’s jaw worked ceaselessly. Although quite of bit of prestige came with the position of acting Swacc family head, there were some drawbacks. Most specifically, the rules of the honorable Swacc Family dictated that the acting head could not be involved at all in the recruitment of new individuals into the Swacc family. As the Swacc name was a ceremonial name and unrelated to blood, this did a lot to curb the longevity of a head’s power past his usefulness.

But Ramsey had made no secret of the fact that Dalak was someone that he didn’t deem worthy of bearing their illustrious name. As someone who had become the family head rather abruptly, there were a lot of established players who enjoyed these sorts of small slights to demonstrate that Ramsey was not quite in total control.

But still, even this fool should have been capable enough of keeping tabs on a single man-

Ramsey closed his eyes and did his best not to rip his chair to shreds. Does that mean he remained on the frontlines? But it would be difficult to avoid the military checkpoint… but other than that… what connections does this Randidly Ghosthound have in the Nexus? Is there really more to the death of Ileot than meets the eye…?

Ileot’s activities within the Swacc family were before Ramsey’s time, but he was aware of how powerful the man had been. His exact image was kept a secret, but a few of the Swacc Family elders had hinted that it had contributed heavily in the process of shifting Swacc Family from a middling power to the dominant faction it now was.

The mission to watch Randidly Ghosthound had been issued by Ramsey almost on a whim. Just a way to cover all his bases. And now-

“See if our spies on the frontlines have noticed anything,” Ramsey ordered, knowing full well that even Dalak had enough brain cells to do that before slinking before him to report. “In addition… send someone to the Ghosthound’s homeworld to check things out.”

Dalak squirmed. The slime on his skin seemed to be getting thicker. “That’s just the thing… we cannot. His world… hasn’t yet even received the first Calamity.”

“What…?” Ramsey considered that. Someone powerful enough to be brought to the frontlines and become a Commander even before their world fought a Calamity…?

There was definitely something going on behind the scenes here. Ramsey Swacc steepled his fingers and considered the problem. After all, he hadn’t become the acting head of the Swacc Family for nothing. “...then I suppose we will need to get creative.”