What is this Sydney asked Despite herself her fingers reached out and brushed against the worn material Someone had crumpled this piece of paper several times before painstakingly smoothing it out
When she looked over at Neveah the woman was crying I suppose itÆs what you humans call a suicide note
Chapter 1433
Randidly floated in the in between space for a while wondering what message Yystrix had left him with this movie Then he released a breath and set everything around him into motion
Welcome YystrixÆs voice said lightly before her a strange purgatory where her breath no longer shaped words Instead Randidly could only hear the sound of her breath leave her body as he sat in the total darkness of her memories There were pauses between the breaths but there was never the sound of an inhale It was only an intermittent exhale as though Yystrix was a balloon struggling to keep its last bit of buoyancy within its form
Randidly hesitated but ultimately didnÆt respond to the strange depressing release He settled himself within the dense web of YystrixÆs memories and didnÆt attempt to wander from where she was leading him He allowed himself to be pulled forward as a last act of respect to the callous and cruel woman who had shaped him
Gradually light began to emerge in the surroundings In real time the world around them was calibrated into existence Randidly found himself sitting in a room with light blue walls The material of the walls caused Randidly to tilt his head to the side it seemed to glitter like metal yet also was vaguely see through like a crystal It was exactly the sort of rare material that would have Sam transfixed
Welcome to Hallohm The ancient home of my people Yystrix announced The holy land of energy beings Heh in fact it would be accurate to say that we looked down on the wider universe and the flesh beings that inhabited it To us to my people this land was everything
The cradle the home and the grave
It was also clear that Randidly was seeing from a perspective that was not his own The small body he possessed which he assumed was YystrixÆs heaved itself to its feet and slowly waddled toward an open passage As she moved Randidly was struck by the strangeness of what he was seeing Around him aside for the crystal walls almost everything was blurry What Randidly assumed to be furniture was just a vague bulge along the sides of the room It was only those walls and the open passageway that had any definition
My apologies Yystrix voice continued in between exhales Even my memory has degraded with time No amount of training or Stats can stop that I considered leaving this out but I think it is important to see Everything started from this The tragedy began here
From the passageway YystrixÆs small form entered an area that completely blurred as though it was a watercolor painting that was rained on before it dried Only after squinting did Randidly hazard that it was some sort of stairwell although Yystrix didnÆt ascend She continued forward clearly knowing the path even if the area around them was bleeding into itself
There was another clear passageway and Randidly found himself in a wide open area that was clearly an arid highlands The dirt beneath him was almost bright orange Before Randidly could scrutinize the blurry plant life scattered in the vicinity Yystrix wheeled around and looked up at the building that she had just left RandidlyÆs eyes widened as he saw a giant crystal tower that stretched upward toward maroon clouds It seemed to have no end each floor clearly possessing a wide window and an elaborately carved stone ramparts around the edge
The Tower to Heaven Yystrix whispered The crowning Jewel of Hallohm It houses the entirety of my people It possesses 512 floors one for each of my people It is a hierarchical building those at the top have lived the longest Those at the bottom well they were born later I was just born and thus I live on the bottom floor in this memory
All my people experience this The sense of loss and wonder the abrupt existence and then this Tower piercing both the ground and the clouds
Even while the metal crystal Tower to Heaven remained the same the surroundings began to blur and warp YystrixÆs voice continued to explain There are two types of individuals in my population The first and the last Generally it is very simple to separate individuals into these two categories
As I told you previously life energy is constant amongst my people We must give of our own lives in order to bear children Typically a couple will each give half of their lives to form a child So they have two children the First and the Last The First is raised with the guidance of the parents They become our historians our great philosophers and our most respected leaders They bear the weight of tradition on their shoulders
The Last well They are born alone They have no guidance except occasional kindness from the community But they are also the sources of growth and innovation within my peopleÆs community in so far as my people were willing to change at all The horrible loneliness the Last feel those feelings of envy that eat them up when they see the FirstÆs supportive parents those are purposeful acts They are designed to isolate us The historians spend our childhood telling us how meaningful that suffering is How strong it makes us
Why then did I never feel strong Heh but then again was isolating you not the first thing I did to you
The tower receded like an ocean time its bright blue materials gradually fading into sky blue and then pale grey Into that void a slightly larger Yystrix was sitting on top of an orange rock outcropping looking down over a narrow ravine The figures were still blurry here but the memory degradation had settled to an acceptable level that no longer made Randidly dizzy to look at it And as he examined the surroundings with a finer comb he saw the forms of YystrixÆs fellows
There were two in the ravine below standing across from each other They had humanoid shapes but as Randidly looked at them it seemed like the outer skin of their bodies was translucent The main meat of these beings was the waves of light that flowed within the confines of their skin They were in fact oddly beautiful sights The one nearer to Yystrix was a soft blue color mixed with bursts of deep green The other was a pure bright yellow
Between them was a chessboard At the two figuresÆ gestures blurry pieces moved There was definitely a game being played below but it was also clear that YystrixÆs memory didnÆt place much emphasis on it Sometimes the moves of the blurry pieces seemed contradictory and Randidly couldnÆt tell if it was due to rules he didnÆt comprehend or that Yystrix didnÆt bother to fact check her own memory
Yystrix widened her view looking side to side to see the broken whole of the ravine And Randidly saw that there were dozens of these boards up and down the wide crack within the rock filled with blurry figures facing off Then Yystrix looked back to the light blue and yellow individuals directly below her outcropping
As I have told you previously my people believe we are descended from the Shallah beings who truly were pure energy without form In comparison you could say that my people are energy suitably contained and corralled That wild freedom we were once blessed with was lost
Due to the horrible betrayal of the Nether people we were stripped of that freedom and forced to leave Eden Yet now with the perspective of age I see how strange the arrangement became The two energy races settled on a single extremely small world The Aether below the Tower to Heaven in Hallohm and the Nether next to Sinkhole in the badlands We stayed and we fought generation after generation
There was always a certain cold war going on where the people of Aether and Nether would periodically meet and clash People might die in combat but we would carefully gather their life energy and create more children while mourning their abrupt passing
Yystrix released another long breath But did we ever think to leave Of course not But perhaps perhaps there was something special about those locations for our people