While DiOrtho continued to struggle through the basic tiers of the Hierarchy of Burden, Randidly did his best to focus and observe Neveah’s movements inside of his inner world. His Soulspace hummed with the force of her Aether, as she deftly wove threads of Aether through different constructs in his Class and Skills. Although Randidly supposed that he could accomplish similar things when he truly lost himself to working with Nether, Neveah’s speed and grace were still staggering.

Congratulations! Your Skill Lesser Aether Inoculation (M) has grown to Level 263!

Are you ready? Neveah asked when all her preparations were finished. A dense network of Aether threads wound together in an inexplicable knot. Randidly nodded as he tried and failed to understand the exact mechanism by which it would work.

Soon he pulled back, letting Neveah to her task. What followed were five long seconds of stillness. Then all that restrained force exploded. She spun like a tornado, yanking on the delicate-seeming Aether threads in a very precise order.

Several Aether constructs were forcefully removed from Randidly as those threads became taut. They dangled and flapped in the air, rapidly degrading without their support structures to maintain them. Others didn’t come out quite so cleanly but were left partially shredded, with their embedded edges sizzling as the greater mechanism failed. Neveah’s arrangement was truly thorough.

But what caught Randidly by surprise was how fucking painful the process was. Instantly, Randidly’s body began to sweat from the bone-rattling reverberations as the various System constructs seemed determined to announce how completely a mistake Randidly had made.

The shattered constructs released unique pulses of energy that triggered the remaining Aether constructs within his Soulspace, until a cacophony of agony made his interior hum. Physically, Randidly felt his body curling up and he suppressed the urge to retch. It took him fully five seconds to overcome his instinctual reaction and straighten his body. Knowing that he was floating next to DiOrtho, Randidly refused to display weakness for too long.

You weren’t quite ready, Neveah noted rather wryly.

Randidly bared his teeth, but he enjoyed her needling. Those few moments of regular humor made him feel briefly human again. She had gotten much better at masking the lapping waves of worry about his mental state that she definitely released.

Although honestly, so little of what made me human remains. In the Shaft, Randidly opened his eyes and looked down at his hands. One was powerful flesh, the other corroded metal. Both tightened into fists as the horrifying ache from the Aether tearing began to dissipate. But right now… to avenge Helen… I’m glad that is the case. I need this strength to make things right.

Just as Randidly’s thoughts were turning down dark hallways, Neveah was there once more through their Soulbond. There is no trick to the process of removing the Aether constructs, and as you felt, the built-in alarms will quickly dissipate when there is no response from the overlay System… but I need to experiment a few more times to figure out if there is a method to lessen the discomfort. And for you to clean up all of Expira and the rest of the Alpha Cosmos at once-

I’ll start looking into it. Randidly answered. His focus turned inward, to his Nether Core. His entire being buzzed with the lingering pain of the torn Aether, but he quickly moved his focus to a different topic, so his mind didn’t wander further. How is the preparations with Claudette coming along?

With the Aether schematics she has access to and my Skill with Aether, how could it be difficult? Randidly felt Neveah rolling her eyes. In terms of her own readiness… although the passage of time doesn’t mean much, I can tell she’s getting nervous. Not that I’m an expert, but… I wouldn’t keep her waiting too long. She will begin to self-sabotage if too much time passes.

You certainly sound convincing, Randidly teased, but his gut began to seeth. The timeline in front of him felt too tight for even his resolve. Or perhaps, his grief in regards to Helen was jealous of Randidly’s time. He wanted to train and improve enough to avenge Helen, but he had this looming obligation to Claudette to fulfill. The tension across his being felt quite physical, as though his stress developed enough sentience to create an image that oppressed his body. If he also needed to be thinking about a grand Nether Ritual-

That wasn’t even addressing the millstone of Helen’s funeral that was sitting on his chest. Randidly would need to go invite Helen’s mother. And that was after he broke the news that her daughter had died and… and somehow dealt with the aftermath. Then he would fetch the Elite Squad-

Congratulations! Your Skill Soulbond has grown to Level 360!

Easy, Neveah sent a pulse of humming contentment through their bond, briefly slowing the downward spiral of Randidly’s unease. And when she didn’t dwell on it, Randidly appreciated her tact. But if you must know, there is a reason that I sound so convincing; I’ve been taking online classes at a university based in East Providence. I figured that if my penpal relationship can be so fulfilling, why can’t I do other things remotely?

Randidly frowned. ...Neveah, are you still unwilling to-

Humph, trying to deflect the conversation by digging into my own issues? Not on my watch, Mister. Neveah’s mental message was quite prim. But then she softened. You know… Sydney said something the other day that perhaps you should hear. None of us ever needed to be perfect in order to be valued by someone else. There is no shame in being flawed. There are some things you couldn’t have protected against. That’s life.

...Thanks Neveah, Randidly answered after pondering for a while. He could appreciate the sentiment in Neveah’s message but hearing it only made him increasingly furious. His stress tightened its bonds around his body until it felt like his joints would pop. Randidly knew that he shouldn’t expect himself to be perfect, but he at least wanted to protect those dear to him. And he hadn’t.

That was that.

With a mental sigh, Neveah let Randidly go. So he shook himself and settled back into his body, still wincing at the places in his Class where Aether constructs had been removed. Then he glanced at DiOrtho Vant, who still floated and twitched next to him in the Shaft. “Do you need a break?”

“I can continue,” Vant said in a slurred voice. His tongue and lips were clumsy, so some drool seeped from the corner of his mouth as he blurted out his words. Perhaps before Randidly would have ignored the assertion and forced him to rest, but right now he just nodded; he knew that he wasn’t the only person who needed some time to mourn Helen.

While Randidly had been forming his Nether Core, DiOrtho and Raymund had been training inside of the Alpha Cosmos. For five long years, she was his superior officer.

Randidly brought himself back to his Nether Core. The steady accumulation of Influence from the planets of the Alpha Cosmos had brought him to over sixty thousand. He estimated that by the end of his assistance to Claudette, he will have broken through a hundred thousand and he would evolve his Nether Core. Now that he had the two different Nether Core methods, he could educate himself and make the jump.

But for now, all this significance just continued to deepen the patterned foundations of his core. A tiny grey Nether Bubble anchored the rotation of the Core, letting Randidly utilize his Nether more freely. As always, his ability to create dense Nether was steadily growing. His tail twitched, excited to get back to work.

Once he had spooled out a decent amount of Nether, Randidly began to experiment. It simply wasn’t feasible for Randidly to manually attach the Nether Ritual to each individual on Expira. Even his Fidelity of the Ascendant Moirae would be stretched by such a project. But Randidly didn’t need to do that: he just needed the proper prayer.

Nether was not Aether in its execution.

Congratulations! Your Skill Left Hand of the Nether Oracle (M) has grown to Level 360!

Congratulations! Your Skill Right Hand of the Nether Polymath (M) has grown to Level 300!

After his training to absorb planets into the Alpha Cosmos, Randidly was at least confident in his ability to create constructs of Nether. Humming to himself, Randidly started and stopped a few times over the next hour, looking for a usable method. His Skills steadily guided his hand until he began to create a pattern that didn’t seem flawed. He spun large loops of Nether outward, twisting them off and tucking them into the next loop in a long chain. The loops would act as the hooks that could seize upon the unwanted Aether constructs and remove them.

Of course, that’s just in theory… Randidly grimaced. The more he worked, the more problems he encountered. But he just shoved his way forward, iterating when he had no sudden insights to help him.

Randidly created more and more loops, his hands and tail blurring into motion until he had a ‘thread’ of these numerous loops. He considered how these should be arranged for a short time, then shrugged. Right now, effort was the one thing he did not lack. Better to make an attempt and fail than to be too meek and never move forward.

Helen’s fragile smile flashed in Randidly’s mind’s eye. But instead of looking away or flinching like he usually did, this time Randidly simply observed her trembling lip for several long minutes and felt his heart steadily breaking. Pieces of the shattered organ dropped away in the depths of his churning guts. Only after the surroundings began to buzz with his radiating emotions did he force himself to look away.

This is why the influence of the Nexus needs to be removed. Randidly’s eyes were intense as he spun those emotions together into its own sort of sizzling thread and wound it together with the Nether thread. Significance and emotion began to resonate. Because as long as the Nexus continues to dominate… those at the top of the Nexus will treat life like it is nothing. They will continue to bring ruin to those worlds unlucky enough to be pulled into their orbit…

Congratulations! Your Skill Grand Perspective (R) has grown to Level 41!

…

Congratulations! Your Skill Right Hand of the Nether Polymath (M) has grown to Level 309!

Congratulations! Your Skill Grand Perspective (R) has grown to Level 70!

He created and destroyed grand patterns of Nether over and over again, searching for the special recipe that would pull the elaborate magic trick of making all of Expira disappear, truly, from under the Nexus’s nose. No matter how his body or mind tired, he continually pushed his Nether Ritual to more and more innovative shapes.

An emotional fire smoldered beneath his heart. The ventricles pumped and spasmed in a smooth rhythm, completely ignoring their nestled presence between searing embers. This state meant that there were frequent, stalled moments for Randidly, but it also meant that failure was the furthest thing from his mind. Any effort was better than stopping for too long and staring into his memories of Helen.

His Dreamcatcher of the Long Night pulsed at that thought, but Randidly ignored it. He continued to work. His tail smoothly drew symbols of Nether in the air and tied them off into neat loops.

I need to take care… Randidly thought, with a pink of bitterness. If I push myself too hard, Neveah is going to be on my case to not exhaust myself… Haaaah….

After a dozen more failures, Randidly pulled himself out of his submersion in Nether and allowed the different patterns to snap apart and dissipate. Soon, he was floating in the shaft with a special guest appearance by the electrified DiOrtho Vant.

Randidly regarded the ram demon for several seconds, looking at the glazed focus of his eyes. There was a low level, constant vibration to his body that was mildly off-putting Vant had forcefully endured the electromagnetic radiation up to the fourth level, because Randidly had casually mentioned that was how far Helen had been able to go on her first attempt. But of course, Helen’s Stats were probably fifty to a hundred points higher; at this point, Vant was just torturing himself.

Randidly tutted and then cut off the connection between Vant and the Hierarchy of Burden. His smile was small but genuine as he watched the ram demon succumb to a coughing fit, now that his muscles were usable. The former recruit pounded on his chest, trying to come to terms with the easing spasms in his muscles.

I’m not alone. Randidly shook himself. You didn’t know her for as long as I did… but she was probably the first one who pushed you to be better, wasn’t she? In that respect… we have that in common.

Without her… Randidly pressed lips together. We need to be our own Overseers.

His hands trembled. But Randidly reached within himself and created a bridge to Tellus. It was time to speak with Islinda, the mother of Helen.