This time, Randidly silently followed Octavius through the stark passages of the military base after the interview. As such, they made very quick time. The duo quickly descended down through the Web and reached its deeper recesses where the house of Edraine was located. But while Octavius proceeded directly through the heavy metal door on the wall, Randidly paused on a cord. It was only when Octavius turned around that Randidly spoke. “Go on ahead. I need to take care of something very quickly, then I’ll follow.”

Octavius was grinning from ear to ear, still buzzing from the excitement of Randidly earning the position of Head Drill Sergeant, so he nodded and turned away without thinking too much about it. Which allowed Randidly to unobtrusively drop another few hundred meters downward in the Web without anyone being in the pollution zone.

He didn’t need to go as deep as he had been training earlier. And no matter how much he wanted to keep training, now was probably not the best time for that; it was finally time that he got on the same page of everyone else as to why they were taking these actions. But for now, Randidly alighted upon another cable in that gloomy energy waste chute and gratefully released the emotions that the Stillborn Phoenix had been steadily refining.

Compared to their earlier violence, these emotions had greatly settled while Randidly had been informed of some of the smaller details of his new post. Which left the emotions an almost slime-like form, sluggishly exiting Randidly’s body. Their pink-red color had become increasingly vibrant, possessing some inherent quality of purity that made the emotions difficult to regard directly without some instinctual squinting. More importantly, as shape had almost completely been stripped away and only emotion remained, Randidly had been able to tell that the process of breathing was steadily polarizing the emotions. More and more, they were stripped and reshuffle to resemble that obsessive and all-consuming desire of the Stillborn Phoenix.

By extension, the emotions were essentially becoming Randidly’s own.

He could already feel a sudden stirring from his image physicalizations; if he was feeling it directly with the slow accumulating image physicalizations, it seemed like he would also be able to create more drops of liquid Aether with the strength of these emotions.

But Randidly was still cautious about cashing in on that benefit without fully understanding it. So he released those emotions now, to see if the extra emotional power would remain once the emotions were removed from his body.

When the emotions hit the air, at first there was no response. Then, only a second later, the emotions began to explosively hiss and foam, like potassium dropped in water. The emotions expanded outward with all the furious glee of a brood of young dragons eager to leave the nest, their earlier sluggishness completely forgotten as the impurities of the world built space between the emotions.

Feeling somewhat conflicted, Randidly watched those emotions diffuse into the surrounding space. Then he noticed something else quite strange: the Stillborn Phoenix retained some connection to those emotions as they spread outward. That expanding and diffusing energy had been marked by Randidly’s emotions, just as surely as something could be marked by a powerful and distinct shape.

How long will that connection linger, I wonder…?

Humming to himself, Randidly allowed the suddenly obedient Stillborn Phoenix to absorb some more of the ambient energy to continue its breathing. To Randidly’s surprise, the brief exposure to the bearman’s chaotic image had really affected the Egg of Depression. The idea that all of its carefully constructed artifices could be stripped away by another had aligned the image much more closely with Randidly’s interest; it had been scared straight. For now at least, it was committed to the journey of training so they could overcome this new foe.

With Yggdrasil’s help, sucking up another massive amount of ambient emotion and cutting away the energy only took a few minutes. As the Stillborn Phoenix adjusted to the process, the speed of the refinement was increasing. Then Randidly ascended and proceeded into the residential dome and to Edraine’s house.

Opening the door to Edraine’s room, Randidly was surprised to see that Lady Iellaya was already there. Which meant that there were more passages through the Nexus than just going up and down the Web. Still wearing her ornate military uniform, Lady Iellaya grinned over at him, “You know Commandant Wick could crush you, right? Like a bug, accidentally, if he carelessly passed too close to you.”

“For now,” Randidly responded with a similarly sharp grin. They booth took steps forward and hugged each other briefly. Then they stepped apart at the same moment, moving with unspoken cooperation. Seeing Lady Iellaya’s skeptical expression, Randidly shrugged. “But we will see what happens in a year.”

“You are fucking insane,” Lady Iellaya speechlessly shook her head. Then both turned and looked at Edraine and Octavius, who were standing next to the central table in the room with serious expressions. Since Randidly had gone to his interview, the table had been cleaned of the messily strew papers and now housed three separate stacks of coins.

Randidly observed the three stacks. The leftmost stack he recognized as three Coins of Territory stacked on top of each other. The middle stack resembled the Tier I citizenship coins, except the metal was a strange blue color. There were five of these coins.

The final pile was Nexus Tier I Citizenship coins and there were four of them.

“Although we’ve been biding our time, we’ve still managed to gather quite an amount of resources.” Edraine’s voice was smug as she spoke. Then she pointed to the leftmost pile. “These, Mr. Ghosthound, are for you. An insurance policy, in case our attempt fails and there are… reprisals.”

That immediately had Randidly pressing his lips together. The Grim Chimera growled, deep in its throat. “...this would grant me the ability to take away a whole planet as territory, should we fail. A way to save Expira, huh. So, what exactly is your plan, Edraine? What are we even doing here? Why am I becoming a Drill Sergeant?”

But even as he said that Randidly did activate Hallucinations of the Bloodless Heart to float the Coins of Territory over toward him. His right hand tightened around the three coins and they were stored in his interspatial ring. He would not refuse this; he also had the planets of the Nemesai to still research and assist, as per their agreement.

Edraine nodded slowly. “I do think it’s time we talk about that. All four of us. Very simply… all of us here want to change the Nexus. I think it would be for the best for us to start with this commonality. It’s a bit frivolous, but I’d like to begin by each of us stating our individual goal for changing the Nexus. As for me… I wish to change the philosophy of the Nexus. I no longer wish for lives to be treated as a resource.”

Randidly frowned slightly as he studied Edraine. If he had been forced to make a guess previously, he definitely would not have said that Edraine was here over philosophical differences with the Nexus. Considering what happened to her… and her brother...

For a second, the room was silent. Octavius glanced around nervously, then cleared his throat. “I wish… I wish to live a peaceful life. That is all. But… but I’ve lost people due to the Nexus. If I can prevent something like that from happening again… if I can make the Nexus a more peaceful place...”

Randidly hadn’t spent much time with Octavius Shrike, but he was struck by the sudden intensity that seized the rhinoman’s face when he mentioned losing people to the Nexus. The lines around his eyes deepened and his mouth stretch wide to reveal thick and flat teeth. Rather than resembling the teeth of an herbivore, Randidly instead saw the insatiable cogs of a machine that would stubbornly grind any offending substance to dust.

The Overseer of the Seventh Cohort seemed like an unshakable monolith in that room, just as powerful as anyone else present.

Then the intensity left Octavius, leaving him the same slightly tired and nervous-looking bureaucrat. But Randidly filed away that display in his mind; he would not again underestimate the power that Octavius possessed.

Lady Iellaya cleared her own throat, drawing everyone’s attention. “A worthy goal, Octavius. I… maybe it’s selfish, but I just want to honor my word. I have made guarantees to protect the people who follow me. I have… failed in this respect in the past. I never want to feel that feeling of failure, ever again. I refuse to disappoint them any longer.”

Again, there was a moment of silence as Randidly absorbed that information. Then, belatedly, he realized that it was his turn to share his motivation for wanting to change the Nexus. All three of his images rose steadily up in his chest, resonating with each other. They were his strongest motivators. To survive, to grow, and to achieve the impossible.

But although each was parroted as a being separate from himself, they were still him. They always were. They were three different expressions of who he was and could be.

Randidly Ghosthound immediately thought of the burning passion he shared with the current Vualla. Their manic glee at the thought of tearing down the System. The reasons to do so were so numerous that Randidly didn’t know where to begin.

So he paused and considered. When did I start on this Path…?

Randidly reached up and scratched his chin. Although it shouldn’t possess the same physical needs of his fleshy body, his metallic left arm twitched as his mind wandered. The three surrounding individuals, his co-conspirators, didn’t look at him, but Randidly could sense their attention was locked onto him. He was not their leader nor the most powerful amongst them, but Randidly Ghosthound was the link that had woven them all together.

Because he had caught the attention of the Overseer of his Cohort. Because he had been sent to the frontlines. Because he had persisted and been assigned to Lady Iellaya. Because he had been able to heal damage to images and earned her praise. Because he had been able to utilize Nether and steadily unraveled the secret of Ileot and Vualla. Because he had found Edraine, the core of the System, the replacement in the form of her duplicated brother.

Randidly released a breath. In the silence, he heard the sound of his own heart. He blinked once, and while his eyes were closed, he saw the self-righteous silhouette of Ki-Kunot. “I… I want to give everyone the opportunity to grow strong. I want…”

Perhaps it was because of the process the Stillborn Phoenix had started, but Randidly’s emotions felt particularly potent at the moment. The guilt he felt for the mistakes he made and the rage at all those who tried to use him… those emotions boiled in his chest. If he was a kettle, he would be squealing with pent up heat.

Yet Randidly forced all of those emotions down. As they did only when Randidly pressed, his three images wove themselves together, closer and closer. The combination was unexpectedly easy. So suddenly, Randidly was looking at his heart with the eyes of all three of his images. The followed his motivations back to the pure core of himself.

Strangely, Randidly’s mind drifted back to the recent sensation of diving down through the Web to head for some training. The sensation of air parting before his body, cutting cleanly through space as though he was sailing on the thin boundary lines between the currents of energy. He had been a god of wind, thrilled by the sensation of the shackles of the System being shattered. He raised his head and savored that liberation. The feeling had been exhilarating.

With the roar of the wind in his ears being almost deafening, Randidly had felt alive.

“I want people to feel free,” Randidly finally said. The other three studied him. Then he winced. It sounded rather unsatisfying after seeing the emotion that his fell co-conspirators displayed, but it was difficult for Randidly to match that. Because the core emotion that motivated him forward was not a desire for revenge, although he had slowly developed that as he experienced both Yystrix’s and Elhume’s meddlesome plots.

No, Randidly was motivated forward as he chased joy. Joy that he had learned training under Shal in the Dungeon all those years ago. The joy of feeling the edge of perfection, of engaging in the dance of spearplay and testing your own limits. The joy of competency and the natural exuberance of physical movement.

The joy of honing your limits and discovering yourself. Of seeking an answer to a problem and discovering one. Of following his own Path without regrets. Of spitting in the cruel face of reality and daring it to do its worst.

For a brief moment, his three images shifted further and more completely than they had in the past. They settled together in one pure, blended form. But then the balance was lost and Randidly released a long sigh.

Edraine tilted her head to the side and smiled. “Well then, here we are. No matter the motivations, we share our goal, changing the Nexus. But… as I’m sure you all can tell, this is not an easy task. There are some very powerful individuals with vested interests in keeping the Nexus the way it is. Any sort of shift will be met with resistance and among us, we don’t have much political power in the Nexus.

“That is slowly changing,” Edraine glanced at Randidly before she continued to speak. “But it still isn’t enough. Even if we were to gather enough Citizenship Coins to get us all to Tier III, we still wouldn’t have an easy time. So I suggest that we cheat.”

Edraine smiled. “Power can make up for some deficiencies in influence, but we would truly need an absolute power in order to make a serious ripple in the current Nexus. And I know where we can find one.”

“Is it you?” Lady Iellaya asked, disbelief clear in her voice. No one was quite clear on how powerful Edraine currently was, but Randidly shared Lady Iellaya’s doubt that they would be currently hoarding citizenship coins if she really was that powerful.

Chuckling, Edraine shook her head. “No, but only someone with my ability to read the flows of energy would be able to find this tool. It might sound crazy, but what I propose is… that we steal and weaponize the sealed body of Elhume.”