With an inward sigh Randidly rotated back toward the fence once more He tried his best to observe the patterns without letting them absorb him The strange detail compression triggered easily if the fence wasnÆt regarded carefully This is what gives the Skull of Truth its power not whatever being dragon is imprisoned down there this sophisticated sapphire barrier I wonder how
A small prod brought him within touching distance to the octagonal bars of light had he possessed the ability to reach out Being so near the barrier Randidly suddenly realized that he sensed a very familiar aura on the barrier An aura that he would never forget
NeshamahÆs expression stiffened But I thought
None of you may pass The cowled Skull Shadow continued seeming to consider the trappings of polite conversation to be optional The alliance with the Beigon Family will be obtained by the Nether Collective It has been determined
Oh great The lyrical voiced Allilia muttered Some new Orthodox Nexus Organization And a collective at that IÆm sure thereÆs no harm in giving them unilateral authority over a few planets
Skull raised his hand and unleashed a concentrated blast of Nether at AlliliaÆs chest His responses were direct if nothing else She snorted and produced a strange humming that obliterated the force of the attack However Skull raised both his arms and spouts of Nether erupted all around them
Thick tentacles of Nether lashed back and forth carving scars into the stone and releasing a caustic suppression Claudette felt slightly uncomfortable but it was definitely true that the disparate Nether couldnÆt injure this body easily She marshaled herself to deploy her image but Neshamah blurred past her
The other woman forcefully blasted apart the Nether defenses that Skull Shadow quickly brought around to bear and slammed into him The stoic man growled as he stumbled and then collapsed onto his back More Nether was surging but Neshamah twisted and unleashed a piercing bolt of Nether that ripped a hole in the hastily erected defenses She exchanged a glance with Claudette and in the next moment Claudette launched herself through stumbling to regain her footing and then dashing forward in the direction of the light source
The ground rumbled beneath her as Neshamah and Skull clashed behind her but Claudette ignored it The rebels seemed caught up in the chaos and she was happy to proceed alone On the wings of RandidlyÆs powerful body she soon arrived before the brilliant light which turned out to be a gazebo made of pure crystal She briefly stilled remembering a request as a child that her father make her an entire princess castle made of diamonds Her father had laughed and laughed slapping his knee in a desperate attempt to regain control Then he told her that if she was impeccably behaved for the rest of the year he would see what he could do
However between that conversation and the end of the year ClaudetteÆs mother had died In the wake of that event a lot of promises had slipped into the cracks and dissolved into the gulf of their private griefs
When she stepped onto the crystal gazebo some mechanism beneath it activated and a teleportation array manifested In the next instant Claudette stood on a small path in the desert at night but this time the sky above was filled with stars Beautiful patterns gleamed above so fresh and bright they seemed about to drip down on the sand
She examined the terrain The path forked directly in front of Claudette stretching off to the left and right in a meandering fashion At that fork stood a sign and beyond it a deep ravine filled with glimmering light
On the sign was a message
My sincerest congratulations to those who have made it to this point this is the final leg you havenÆt quite won yet now have you Before you lay two paths nearly mirror images of one another YouÆll paths lead to the final location However the journey will not be simple Parallel arduous and painful while the other based on the natural structure of the Skull of Truth luck
That was the entirety of the message because a weird sort of black flame flickered up from within the ravine eating away a large portion of the final few lines and much of the middle Claudette took several steps forward and peered down into the ravine A sea of black flames waited below And as she watched the cracked ground spread eating up even more of the DonÆs message
The damage would soon annihilate the entire message Claudette frowned What the hell is going on
Then because the tight knot of anxiety in her chest urged her onward she started moving down the left path No matter what was occurring she would not waiver
Chapter 1867
As RandidlyÆs finger neared the array of light bands that bisected the sapphire lake that light began to shift into varying wavelengths as though it was passing through a prism by virtue of his fingerÆs proximity The shifting liquid around him manipulated his body into a slow approach while a scene appeared in his mind
His Nether stirred instinctively as the vision formed this was a very old memory
The environment blurred and skipped like a pre modern film reel Brief flaws snaked across RandidlyÆs awareness but were just as soon eliminated leaving the same flickering tableau Perhaps even more confusingly the background seemed to shift from one location to another while the characters remained the same One moment there were three figures standing next to a pond that burned with the same sapphire hue that currently suppressed Randidly Then the next they stood in a great hall with strange angular banners flapping along the high pillars to an invisible wind
In the final shift there was suddenly a blurry fourth figure The features of this new figure were completely fuzzed away by the ancient memory but in its hands was a long dagger pointing at its heart In the third shift the three other individuals stood upon an outdoor marble staircase with the dagger wielder near the middle
Then the shift continued
The three figures that appeared in all three of the images were similarly blurry but they at least spoke in distinct rumbling tones that differentiated them The first figure stood hip deep in the sapphire pond in the first scene with tears streaming down his cheeks In the second backdrop he sat at the far end of the great hall on a wooden chair upon a dais Finally he kneeled at the base of the staircase in that strange scenario sporting a fourth player
The second figure watched then first weep with his arms crossed In the great hall the second figure was strung from the rafters a grey liquid dripping from the chains around his body On the staircase he stood halfway up only a single stair above the mysterious fourth figure looking down at the kneeling figure
The third figure dunked his head in the pond in the first figure He kneeled in the second scenario opposite the figure in the unadorned wooden chair in the great hall And upon that strange staircase in the abyss he lounged at the top laying on his side and viewing the figures below with cold eyes
Swish swish swish The image flickered Randidly felt that now familiar heat returning to his brain as he tried to discern the features of the three figures His hand drifted toward the golden barrier giving him more information but he could barely handle the information that he already received He dearly wished he had been able to recover fully from the shift in his Nether Core
But Randidly hummed to himself partially in awe that this conversation had been fixed in time solely based on emotional force and significance Somehow it had parasitized the defensive barrier in the sapphire lake Is this the mission to slay the individual who accumulated too much karma But which figure
Swish
While weeping the first figure opened his mouth and released the first rumbling line of the skit Your steed is insanity Look at the broken eternity you have wrought
The second figure seemed to sigh Such is our nature If we could make other choices
I go to my own doom gladly The third figure kneeled within the great hall his head held high The second figure swayed slightly chains around his body clinking His mouth had been sewn shut in this iteration