Li found himself a disembodied piece of consciousness adrift amid a sea of pure, infinite darkness. He was almost used to this sensation now, and he found he could move his consciousness, traveling through the dark without feeling a particularly terrible sense of disorientation.

Though he had no physical body to speak of, he was no longer as conditioned to think himself limited to physical flesh and blood as he had been when he first came into this world.

He knew he was something more now, and he could sense that there was another that was much more within this expanse of darkness.

His mind homed in on the being's presence, and as soon as he did so, it manifested, as if called to him.

A vast red eye manifested from a crimson flicker. It stood out greatly amid the darkness, an orb of red centered with an ever wobbling and fluxing black pupil. The size of the eye escaped all human comprehension, and not because of a sense of sheer enormity.

Rather, it was simply incomprehensible. There was no set size to it. It was small and large and wide and narrow all at once at impossible scales, and Li knew that no primitive human eye could have ever truly managed to grasp the essence of its shape, for the entity was beyond the normal three dimensional boundaries that created mortal ideations of shape and existence.

"Ah, there you are. Warden of my prison," said the eye as its pupil focused on Li. "Amusing. A twist of this universe's many fluctuating uncertainties that an aspect of the Gate itself watches over me."

The voice was surprisingly calm. Gentle, even, and yet, not at all sympathetic. Its tone might have been friendly, but there was something about the way the voice rang, at how there was some kind of empty, robotic drone to it that made it clear that this voice did not belong to an entity that grasped any true notion of human warmth.

"You are Sho-Gath, I presume?" said Li. "I always did think about what it meant for my items to become real. About all the entities trapped or bound to my celestial gear or spells."

Sho-Gath chuckled, peals of his laughter echoing through the dark, and in a rare situation, Li felt unsettled. That laugh had so much…contradiction to it. It was a sound meant to convey something positive, and yet, it felt so empty, so cold, so wrong.

"Oh, I am not bound to your gear specifically. My prison, this box that has contained me, has taken many forms. Across many worlds. Across eons. You are but the latest to hold my box, though I must say you are the most amusing. And the first that is of my own kind.

Far, far more amusing than any mortals that held my chains. Mortals that could never even begin to grasp how infinitely small they were compared to the breadth of malevolence they drew from."

Li knew the lore about the [Thousand Eye Band] item that kept Sho-Gath imprisoned. It was said to be forged from the primordial void using space and time as ores, and though that had sounded just like flavor text before, he could grasp that it had meaning now.

"Why do you reach out to me now?" said Li. He and Sho-Gath might have been of the same kind, but Li could tell at a fundamental, conceptual level that they were diametrically opposed.

Li had chosen to uphold Order. Life and creation.

Sho-Gath was malevolence manifested. Meant to envelop and choke out all that was warm and living and structured. Chaos.

"Partially, because it is just now that you are beginning to attune to your true nature," said Sho-Gath. "But mainly because you stood where your world's aura was thin."

"World's aura?"

"You are young, I forget. Then I will explain for I must thank you for your blood offerings and most entertaining journey," said Sho-Gath. "Worlds that hold life within them envelop themselves in an aura signifying Order. It is difficult for beings of Chaos such as myself to manifest fully within these worlds as a result.

Thus, you see some of my brethren, the more patient kind, meddling about with mortal cultists and zealots and the like. Not my pace, you see. I prefer to unleash myself fully, to envelop a planet in the choking smog of the hate that forms me.

I may not be able to enter a planet with its aura intact, but surrounding it fully, showing its denizens flickers of my form, visions in the smoke that lay bare all that is desperate and desolate, makes them understand the true meaning of malevolence.

How pithy their hate is. How tiny and insignificant it is compared to the sheer breadth and coldness of the uncaring void that is the universe. They realize then the universe around them is not one benevolent, but malevolent, indifferent to, no, desiring of their suffering, their inevitable death and decay."

Sho-Gath laughed again before continuing. "Ah, but now I am confined to this box. And you, my young friend, can glimpse me now for you stepped upon a piece of your world where its aura has faded."

"I see," said Li. That explained the spatial tear that Lira seemed to be guarding and the presence of a Fthagguan in front of it. Why the fog felt so familiar in its coldness – it was because it was eldritch in nature to begin with.

"Then you must have called me here for a reason," said Li.

"We are the highest beings of this universe," said Sho-Gath. "And it is only among ourselves that we may fight and die or be imprisoned or freed."

"You want me to free you," realized Li.

"You are an aspect of the Gate. Higher ranking than I am should you mature. And, as I see it-," Sho-Gath's pupil narrowed, the ever-shifting blob of darkness thinning into a pinpoint. "An aspect of Order as well.

Crawling chaos it was that created this box, and it is Order that will undo it. You, my longtime friend, are uniquely suited to assisting me in my predicament."

"I cannot free you now," said Li honestly.

"And I do not expect it," said Sho-Gath. "When you mature, if we are still together, and I should hope we are, I only ask that you strike the latches off this box that constrain me so.

What is it that I will do for you, you wonder? How will it be that I, a being of sheer Chaos, may aid you, a being of Order? Is that what you are thinking?"

"Yes," admitted Li.

Sho-Gath laughed again. He never seemed to laugh at anyone, only to himself, but that made the laugh even more unsettling. "I am invested in your journey; I will admit it. Among the many keepers of this box, you are the only one whose blood offerings I have taken with eagerness, granting shards of my power with willingness.

I will continue to aid you, provided you continue to grant me your blood offerings, of course. And when it is time, when you are matured and I am free, I will not spread my form towards this world that you protect. Nor shall I ever raise my malevolence towards you or whatever other worlds you decide to champion."

"And will I not be able to achieve the same result by keeping you imprisoned?" said Li.

"Of course. But trust me, Gatekeeper, you will not regret shattering this box that binds me. I know it. And I do not twist my words with deception as some of my brethren do."

"How? What do you know?"

"I do not know for sure. But I can sense it." Sho-Gath's eye glowed bright for an instant before dimming. "Through time and space our forms may travel, but time and space molded by others of our kind become difficult to unweave and tamper with. I cannot see all that lies in the future for you, but I know you will not regret granting me my freedom."

"It may be some time before you find your freedom," said Li. "I will have to live many mortal lifetimes before I begin to fully embrace and mature into this side of mine."

"Oh, you are starting to use words like 'mortal'. You are already maturing, but yes, it may take centuries. A millennium, perhaps. Perhaps more. Uncertainties of the universe, no? But I am willing to wait. The spans of time you bring up to me are naught but specks in a desert vaster than any that you have borne witness to."

Sho-Gath chuckled to himself. "I sense that you find my proposition agreeable. It is done, then. I will remain in this band an ever eager witness to your journey until you embrace yourself, all of yourself, fully. "

Sho-Gath's form started to waver, growing opaque in the darkness like a mirage. This meeting was ending. "And perhaps that time may come much sooner than you think."

"What do you mean?" asked Li.

"I cannot know for sure. Uncertainties of the universe, no?"