A dark mist wafted around the massive spider's feat. And the first emotional note that spread out from its bleak and fractured form was very clearly learned from all the scattered sparks of significance imported from the memory's dead. The spider hunched under the weight of the grudge it carried.

Randidly felt a chill run through him as he considered the very real possibility that this had been a bad idea.

A monster towered over him, oozing potent Nether and wild dissatisfaction. Energy crackled through its joints and broken body, the form clearly hastily assembled and poorly conceived. Gushes of significance poured out of the cracks of its body as the Nether Ritual beneath it began to dissipate.

On the one hand, he felt immense power in the massive spider. Its standing body was about as high as a ten-story building, with probably just a little less than one-half of the memory’s significance gathered into the form. A baleful danger seeped to seep out from the chitinous body, a genuine impersonation of those frightful statues that Randidly had discovered in that strange sea connected to his Nether Core.

Ice-veins ran through its long limbs, the legs ending in slightly curved talons. It possessed probably twenty eyes stretched across its torso, all in various shades of bloodshot, rolling, unfocused.

Randidly wondered how long it would be able to survive with so much energy seeping out of the flaws every second. It had been forged from the significance of the memory, but it didn’t quite all fit together correctly. The wishes of Randidly and those hard-working deceased, those innumerable dreams of becoming real, currently bridged those cracks. But Randidly wasn’t sure how long that would last, either.

A ripple of Nether rose from Deganawidah’s location, but the Nether Monster did not wield his significance to strike at the manifestation. However, it did set off a small but intense series of fights between Aether and Nether forces once more.

Strangely, it was Elhume that reacted most visibly. He paused in his efforts to invalidate the reality of the memory and glanced at the giant spider. Then he looked at Randidly. For a brief moment, the energy distortions around his face began to settle, revealing amber eyes with slit pupils.

Their eyes locked. Randidly felt the hairs along his arms prickle. Whereas the current Elhume seemed to buzz with emptiness, this Elhume was rather overstuffed. Randidly could sense hundred of emotions ragings within his foe’s body, crashing against each other in constant struggle.

Emotional force like Randidly couldn’t even imagine containing crashed across those irises, reminding him of the heights Elhume would someday reach.

Yet it was the words that really made Randidly feel fear.

“Randidly… Ghosthound.” The memory pulsed with Elhume’s words. Through the press of conflicting emotions, something ravenous, protective, and quite unhinge began dominating within those amber eyes. “Such a familiar energy. So you are where she hid-”

A shattering dong of a noise cracked the air as the spider deftly raised one of its long legs and stagged it directly toward Elhume’s heart. The sharpened leg smashed against the tear ripped by Elhume and shook its occupant.

The spider opened its mouth, speaking with the shrill voices of children, the dying gurgle of warriors, the calm insistence of priests, the absolute surety of addicts. “I’m real!”

“Bug, do not-” Elhume began to speak again, annoyance clear as his attention shifted, but the spider stabbed once, twice, three times, each gathering more and more momentum. The third strike hit the tear so hard it began to stretch outward with micro tears from several locations. Elhume seemed genuinely alarmed, likely by the damage to the memory.

Each strike also knocked more of its degrading body loose, tumbling hunks of smoking Nether falling to the ground beneath it. Yet even as its energy began to weaken, Randidly could feel its emotional intensity finding its proper shape. All those disparate individuals began to merge into one cohesive whole.

If anything, the resemblance to those statues increased as the unity of the spider’s desires increased.

Elhume’s eyes flashed. He raised a hand and made a fist. When he threw a punch, a massive image manifestation blazed out of his body; apparently, this spider’s attack hit even harder than it looked, if Elhume immediately responded so violently.

Yet before that punch could travel very far, a pulse of divine light shot down and surrounded the spider’s body. Elhume’s fist manifestation fell to pieces as it encountered the powerful light gifted by Pine. Elhume’s heavy gaze turned upward, toward the memory of his son that also wished this timeline was genuine.

Even as the Cohort plan stalled, Pine still pressed a finger on the scales on Randidly’s side.

“I’m real!” The spider struck again and Elhume loosened his grip on the hooks in order to block the next assault. A freight train of significance derailed and crashed into the ground beneath Elhume, shattering stone. Thousands of voices screamed, desperate and begging. “Look at me! I’m real!”

Randidly allowed his shoulders to slump as he observed the spider’s movements. His Nether Core once more had been reduced so it barely managed to rotate, his images were at their limit just maintaining the connections between the two Aether constructs. And he looked at the spider he had created and saw all the aspects Deganawidah probably witnessed in Randidly, the desperate craving for power, a being that only knew how to lash out, the lack of cohesive purpose.

Randidly released a breath. He didn’t stop sending out his silent entreaties, even though the Nether Ritual had expended itself. This isn’t all you are. Show them you can change exist, when enough desire is accumulated, when you earn your prize.

When the spider struck again, the extra tears stretched out from Elhume’s floating presence so they were almost as large as the original wound against the memory. The blurriness returned around Elhume’s eyes. The spider raised its leg again and Elhume threw out two punches, one with his left, one with his right. Neither seemed to make much difference at all, but it was likely just Pine’s continued interference.

And when the spider struck again, Elhume vanished. The air folded back together as though he had never intervened. Only the crackling pieces of Nether significance were left falling down in his wake to prove his presence. The Aether bubble for Randidly’s Cohort plan started to fade and sag, invalidating a huge portion of the memory Nexus, almost thirty percent.

“Real!” The spider continued to insist. Without Elhume, it skittered back and forth for a few seconds, its sharpened legs pulping the ground into giant troughs of gravel. Its attention fixated briefly on Homewell, its Lifeseal finally regaining some of its robust energy after its earlier attack, and Randidly wondered if he would need to rush over and prevent the giant spider from attacking the city.

Yet two of its smaller interior legs stretched back to the bottom of its abdomen. It began pulling out glittering blue threads, connections of pure energy that resembled gorgeous whorls of ice. It raised its head and used those legs to fling lassos out across the memory.

As he watched, Randidly’s eyes widened. There was no Nether per se in its movements, but as the spider through out connections across the memory, the air around those threads began to shift and flow in sinuous rotations. Its existence became a series of connected Nether Rituals. And as Randidly watched, the energy within the memory began to stir.

A pulse of time went through the memory, strengthening the effect. It was difficult to capture the feeling that the spider added to the memory, but the closest Randidly could come was by saying that it was… carbonating the memory. Everything seemed to glitter and fizz, becoming light and insubstantial. The potential energy in the place rose.

The chorus of doubts within Randidly fell silent. They watched in awe as the legs of the spider moved faster and faster, flinging out these strange connections, creating the sense of possibility in every corner of the memory that hadn’t been ruined by Elhume’s interference. The spider began to sway, a keening, horrid song coming out of its mouth.

Thread after thread splatted out, creating a massive web within the memory. Pieces of Nether fell off as the spider expended itself, but it continued despite the impending collapse. One of its front legs snapped in half, the emotions and wishes of the memory no longer enough to support its physical manifestation. But after it crashed to the ground, it propped itself up with other legs and continued to weave its web.

Randidly blinked. “Am I…. just going to succeed here?”

The memory vibrated. With small tremors at first, but growing larger as the web became more comprehensive. The pulses added part of the indefinable quality the memory lacked. Chewing on his lip, Randidly sat down on more rubble and began to meditate. He gently eased his Nether Core back to rotation, guiding it, protecting it, healing the flaws he could find in the Nether within his body. Soon, he had achieved a sustainable ‘base’ rotation. Because if this process was to succeed, Randidly would probably need to add a bit of life with Animation Nova.

Yet another problem soon presented itself, clearer with each thread tossed out into the web. An enormous chunk of dead weight sat at the middle of the memory, grounding it. Muting a portion of the echoing reverberation produced by the spider. Huge plates of Nether rock, some the size of rooms, tumbled off the spider. It settled down on its belly, continued to work. It threw thread ups to Pine, floating in the sky, bringing its web near completion.

And sitting below as the memory began to fizz, Deganawidah and his vast sea of significance refused to be brought along for the ride.

The spider threw four last webs out, touching last corners of the memory and completing the complex pattern of connections. More chunks of Nether had fallen off the flawed shape, so it really only had three full legs remaining, the two smaller ones throwing those connections and one sharpened front leg, the same one that had stabbed at Elhume over and over again.

“Why?” The spider screamed at Deganawidah. “We’re real!”

To Randidly’s surprise, the significance of Deganawidah rippled in a genuine emotional reaction of pity. His energy pulsed and sent his voice up to the spider. “This will accomplish nothing, false idol. Your hollowness dooms you. And to make the poorly conceived attempt, the greatest insurance of our people will need to be sacrificed. It is not a deal I am willing to make.”

“Real!” The spider raised its sharpened leg and struck.

The point sunk into Deganawidah’s massive sea of Nether without even producing a ripple. The spider flailed its leg, but could produce no disturbance. That pure and untouched corner of memory remained placid.

Randidly narrowed his eyes and wondered whether, with his Songstress of Absence otherwise occupied and his Nether Core completely depleted, he would be able to assist in another conflict with Deganawidah. The spider didn’t have much time remaining; soon its shape would completely collapse into disparate pieces of dead Nether.

Just as he decided to move, a voice spoke next to him. “The Fourth Fist: Timeless.”

Randidly barred his teeth and the Dread Homunculus roared. Sulfur flashed up, catching Elhume attack that had been hidden in the air for a moment of distraction. For a second the two warred, the Soulseed arm absorbing the kinetic force a hair away of allowing the attack to blast through and smash an already unsteady Randidly to the ground. Yet the attack must have been weakened by delaying its execution-

“The Second Fist: Vengeance.”

The second punch caught Randidly in the side of the jaw and knocked him out.

The impact against the ground was not enough to wake him back up.