As always, seeing the dangerous situation percolating in his emotional memories required Randidly to fold his perspective. He ignored the dream around him and took a deep breath through his nose.

Congratulations! Your Skill Ghosthound’s Acute Nether Nose (M) has grown to Level 1016!

He had rather impulsively arranged the Nether Sense for the Alpha Cosmos, following a deep instinct as to Nether that had proven invaluable to his intuitive handling of Nether. And no one would deny that having access to ample amounts of Nether provided some stunted individuals with more compatible growth opportunities. Powerful individual strengthened their foundation. It helped accelerate the development of Expira by a large margin.

Yet Randidly had not really looked at what these structures had shifted underneath the hood.

These Nether Sense Rituals that sat at the core of the planets could be unfolded to look like nets, however. Randidly’s emerald eyes glowed sightlessly as he drew a deep breath in through his nose. His created currents of Nether corralled other Nether flowing through the world. Once he examined the spaces between his current, he discovered a whole flowing ocean of Nether, tides lapping up against the firm rituals and draining in particular directions through the channels around them.

Which in turn ignored a whole layer of other strange phenomena that could only be seen through a bird’s eye view, certain dense and oblong chunks of significance, knocking against each other and spinning away, the way a group of close-minded individuals created an elastic whirlpool which kept too much significance from leaking outward into the grander current and made the flow filled with these masses of connections, and finally the popping bubbles of significance metastasizing after traumatic events, eventually erupting and launching shards of jagged significance to pierce and introduce new meaning into closed groups.

Randidly continued to breathing, feeling the whole of the Nether cycle brushing against his skin. The largest, closed groups rolled ponderously under the influence of the constant tide, large, bulging orbs that tried to squeeze through the gaps between the Nether Rituals. With the tight proximity, some was shaved off and left to fall into strange cesspools of significance, where dark emotions curdled.

Randidly forced the tension out of his body, trying just to observe. His awareness spread out to the whole of the Alpha Cosmos; Expira might be the most densely populated of the worlds within him, but it was only a fraction of the souls working and improving themselves. Expira dominated the Nether landscape, because they hadn’t suffered under the System long enough to know the difference and adapted quickly, but the Nemesai worlds possessed much more unity. The leadership there took longer to turn the ship around there, but they were now racing to catch up to Expira’s improvements.

With his awareness stretched as wide as it could go, covering the space between several atmospheres and planets, Randidly felt the slow gradual rotation of energy in a celestial pinwheel. Observing the movement for a time, Randidly began to feel the vaguest outline of himself. Or at least the dark place in the universe where so much negative significance was plucked out of general circulation.

Very clearly, the Pantheon had created a massive moon with a complex orbit to physically anchor the process. As the worlds orbited around the sun of the Alpha Cosmos, this moon would intermittently rotate into perfect alignment and create an eclipse. Right now, Randidly saw the approach of the moon to do so above the world of the Winged Serpents.

His gaze flickered. At the exact moment of the eclipse, the moon seemed to breathe. It released a gushing pulse of Nether down, previously taken and slightly cleansed from another planet, while simultaneously inhaling and dragging all the world cultural darknesses that had been shaved off into itself.

He didn’t know how to feel that, in biological terms, he essentially functioned as an emotional liver for the Alpha Cosmos. Randidly returned to the dream conference with Alta and pursed his lips. “How did this happen?”

Alta bowed slightly. “You are right to be slightly accusatory, but in our defense, we really didn’t understand how Nether would change the landscape. Everything happened too quickly. The Pantheon was overworked, trying to find our stride on providing Paths and Classes for the people of the Alpha Cosmos. And a rapid amount of… well, it’s hard to think of it as anything but emotional pollution now began to accumulate in populated worlds.

“The power of Aether comes from shape and emotion. But the Nexus versions of these have been split from memory and connection. To look at it another way, Nether plays the role of time for Aether beings, like Aether plays the role of a physical body for Nether. So Aether can achieve its powerful and pure effects because they are constantly situated only in the present. They flare with all their potency and vanish, not lingering long enough to be tainted or dirtied by the passage of time. Once Nether was introduced into the Alpha Cosmos, we noticed the stains on Aether increasing. As a stopgap, we used you, who already possessed relatively powerful images, to act as a cleansing agent for the weaker ones. It worked. However, it wasn’t until after the process had become a part of the great Nether Tide of the Alpha Cosmos that we realized your Aether wasn’t destroying these consumed influences, but accumulating them.”

Scratch that. Not a liver, but a garbage dump.

Randidly felt slightly disgruntled at the situation, but he waved his hand. “Don’t worry about it. Really, we understand so little about the way Aether and Nether function. If you hadn’t done this, Expira’s development would have been slower. Having this monster born within my memories of my mother… well, at least I’m equipped to deal with this sort of threat.”

Though this does make me wonder about two questions, Randidly tapped his pointer finger against his jaw while thinking. First, did Elhume know about this sort of interaction when he split the Nexus into different paths for Aether and Nether? That horrifying ball of significance around Pine is one thing, but what I now carry inside myself is more likely whatever horror lay beneath that solid barrier, beneath Pine and Solomon Rex. The significance singularity just acts as a vacuum.

Secondly… the memories are likely true, but perhaps my mother wasn’t really that bad? Is all this accumulated toxicity just a result of taking in too much contextless meaning?

At the last thought, a part of Randidly regarded himself with a great deal of pity. He uncomfortably shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, I would deal with the being in your memories sooner rather than later,” Alta interrupted Randidly’s musings. “Obviously, its growing stronger. Quite quickly I might add, with how much development there is within the Alpha Cosmos. We’ve explored and connected all the Danger Zones now, so there shouldn’t be any new population boosts in the short term. But even if you are supremely powerful and possess impossibly high Stats, you cannot keep up with the negative accumulation from millions of people. “

Unless I start really pushing my Stats upward, Randidly mused.

Alta didn’t seem to notice his reflections. “We’ve even noticed the cleansing is less effective than it used to be; I suspect you are nearing your limit as a repository for these certain types of significance. The Pantheon is more capable of handling some static interference these days from the unmoored significance, which is why it hasn’t become an issue. But that’s why I wanted to talk: we have a plan to help you start wearing down this monster.”

Randidly tilted his head to the side. “What sort of plan?”

Alta stepped sideways and gestured dramatically. A new figure arrived, a very uncomfortable-looking Earth Golem Emperor. He offered Randidly a stiff nod. Alta grinned at the Earth Golem, seemingly genuinely happy for the first time. There was a bright light in her eyes. “Essentially, we will give you an emotional support to brunt the force of facing the memories. An airbag of sorts, to prevent a crash. And luckily enough, we had a volunteer, someone who saw how hard I was working on your dream scenario and agreed to share some of the load.”

Alta turned back to face Randidly. The Earth Golem Emperor opened his mouth to say something, but she flicked a wrist and somehow banished him from the dream. She continued on officiously, not addressing what the golem had been about to say. “You have a new Path available, Care of the Pantheon. It cost a bit of PP to set up, because it involves some heavy Nether shenanigans, but you’ll get some Stats for your trouble. After you finish it, go through one of the doors and see how exposure to the memories affects you. We can figure out how to proceed from there.”

Randidly nodded, but he was curious about her cavalier attitude. “The Pantheon is becoming proficient in Nether?”

Alta rolled her eyes. “Randidly, you stuffed the Alpha Cosmos full of the stuff. And before we… agreed to become a part of the Pantheon, we were all relatively competitive in terms of capability. Lucretia may be the best, but we all have some skill these days. Anyway, let’s not waste any more time chatting. Good luck.”

“Thank-” Randidly began to say, but Alta had vanished before he could finish. He was alone in the cavern once more. Shaking his head at his bashful subordinates, Randidly opened his Path screen. His lips twitched when he saw the Path she wanted him to take: Care of the Pantheon 0/10000

She did say it required a lot of shenanigans, but is this really the most efficient version you could create? Randidly tsk’d. But his mood improved when he realized that he currently had almost thirty-nine thousand PP to spend. A combination of a leftover chunk from the Tithe and his continued growth through the Sonara gave him a lot of leeway. Ten thousand was a significant amount, but he could finish the Path and still have plenty to spare.

Although maybe I want to do a few more Paths after, to try and push my Stats even further upward. Especially my mental ones, to handle the strain of dealing with this amalgamation of negative emotions, Randidly mused. Then he started the Path.

The rewards for proceeding through the Path were rich as promised: he earned one free Stats point every 5 PP spent, which was two thousand free Stat points all told. It was an efficiency that Randidly hadn’t earned from Paths for quite a while. Considering his worries about handling the emotional load, he distributed them between Grey Monarch’s Authority (evolved Willpower) and Discretion of the Apostate Moirae (evolved Control).

Just the addition of one thousand Stats each gave Randidly a flush of cool clarity through his brain. The improvement rinsed ice water up and down his brainstem. He had just gotten up from a nap, but he hadn’t allowed himself to rest for too long. The additional Stats, taking him to 4084 and 4807 respectively, rejuvenated him to a certain extent. And then came the Path completion notification.

Congratulations! You have completed the Care of the Pantheon Path! As you walk forward, entire civilizations and worlds bloom in your footsteps. The energy you radiate has supported people enough that they have grown large enough to assist you in your endeavors. They drift and flourish in your wake. The haunting presence of the Pantheon of the Alpha Cosmos has sensed the crucible waiting ahead of you, due in part to their existence as a regulatory body within your Soulskill. To that end, they wrap you in the softest and most careful protection they can manage. They entreat you to go with care because no one can replace you, should you fall.

On the one hand, Randidly felt rather touched by the message. On the other…

His lips twisted as he scanned the single paragraph notification from first to last words, to make sure he had missed nothing. “No other reward?”

However, just as he was speaking he felt it. The Earth Golem Emperor seemed to condense around his mind, sitting in a meditative position. He felt the projection superimpose itself upon his psyche, before sinking in and becoming a part of him.

Randidly reached up and scratched his head. Hard to really tell how much it will do… and to see how dangerous this monster of subconscious really is. Guess the only way to know is to try it out.

Randidly raised his Lantern of Harsh Truths and looked around. Almost immediately, his eyes were caught by the glittering door with the name Ace hanging above it. Very clearly, they considered this to be the next step in Alta’s carefully prepared dream.

However…

For a reason he couldn’t quite grasp, Randidly turned and peered into the darkness. A dimly lit and almost rotting wooden door seized his gaze until he couldn’t look away. At this point, Randidly Ghosthound trusted his instincts. So he began to walk toward the dark and shabby door.

The door had a name above it: Ezekiel.