That gap would remain limiting your potential
Luck is important Randidly whispered to himself The road to the Pinnacle was long and there was only so much you could do to change your foundation You needed luck that something tragic didnÆt happen to destabilize your image of peace and healing Or luck not to fall in love and find contentment while nursing an image of incendiary revenge Or to somehow have the tragedy fit perfectly into your images in RandidlyÆs case three images
To have it rip out a chunk of his soul and deepen the hunger in the Egg of Depression To have it feed its darkness
To strike like a bolt from the blue reminding the Grey Creature that even it wasnÆt safe To motivate it to plant contingency plans like seeds everywhere it could
To sprinkle yearning for a better world in Yggdrasil To have the tragedy tempered by the heart of the stern and stubborn woman who would tirelessly spar with him but gag herself when she truly needed help but there was nothing he could do
Randidly closed his eyes and spent several minutes meditating His current work required emotions but that was somewhat different from being emotional He allowed the memories of Helen to recede slightly before he began to work
He examined his inner images also using the Penances ability to perceive the shallow reflected Authorities that his foundation might someday become As always he felt oddly frustrated by the mysterious fourth Authority For the moment he simply used it as extra evidence to examine his foundation and his current emotional state with his image
To his great relief it felt like none of those dangerous emotional rifts had emerged He found small flaws especially in the Grey Creature now that he had reached an amount of power that seemed to indicate he wouldnÆt die suddenly from an ambush but all of it was within acceptable levels
He spared one last glance for the slate grey storm clouds that circled the island and then sat down cross legged at the edge of the volcano He cut off his physical senses of the world and simply reached out and tasted the images and emotions that animated the world in preparation for his own internal examination
Compared to the ripples of energy the waves of emotion were less flashy Randidly sucked in a breath through his mouth and released it through his nose his sensation expanding to follow the subtle interplay of emotion across the whole of Expira and then the Alpha Cosmos Most of that larger emotional space seemed to be dominated by the actions of himself and the Pantheon but he noticed something else that brought a frown to his face
A dense storm of pressure was brewing across Expira
Repressed tensions and frustrations bubbled up in every cultural center that Randidly could sense Kharon was relatively free of the taint of this near feral resentment but he also understood that this was simply because Kharon stood on a particular side of this issue
Buried underneath the more aggressive negative emotions were a lot of individual fears and worries about the future There were clear threads leading from isolated groups creating the vast coverage of this storm He felt the hopelessness and the jealousy that had fermented for so long in a lot of peopleÆs hearts Although he couldnÆt make out the specifics he could also detect the way that so many people needed an easy answer a simple way to ascribe blame
ThatÆs not surprising There were always a lot of people who prefer an easy answer to a complex one Randidly shook himself However this isnÆt my problem
As soon as Randidly thought it he hesitated In a lot of ways it was his problem This issue whatever it may be arose within his world and would affect his Soulspace He had experienced wars in his Soulskill before if this situation went to the worst case scenario he was not interested in cleaning up the mess that individuals who had been empowered by the System could create
Well if it does come to that IÆll intervene But for these normal tensions RandidlyÆs awareness swept through Expira He sought out the familiar vein of Nether running through all these bulging and mutating negative emotional pockets More than anything else what he feared was some hidden architect a lingering hand behind the curtain that made the population of the world dance to the sick tune of their own destruction
But he found nothing these emotions might be becoming extremely pervasive across the surface of Expira but they were simply normal human emotions Their growth felt almost inevitable Their ubiquity spoke less to the uniformity of their source but of some shared viewed held by the population And Randidly both didnÆt want to be the sort of individual who stomped out these mundane emotions through the threat of force and also didnÆt believe it would be very effective
In a way it would probably just unite the antagonism in targeting him Which would be foolish and likely pointless of most people to do but it did seem like a hassle
His eyes cracked his irises flashing emerald His gaze pierced through cloud and distance and arrived at the capital city of Zone 7 one of their closely protected hive cities At the moment three individuals that Randidly recognized were fighting their way through the defenses And although it was an isolated incident Nether was gathering above that area for whatever reason that event would be the fuse that broke the silence on this issue
Despite himself RandidlyÆs heart ached as he saw Todd riding a small wooden skateboard through the air his eyes grey and sightless The lingering image of the Calamity lingered in the wounds scaring him
He forced himself to close his eyes For now let the issues develop I have my own work to do
RandidlyÆs attention turned back to his images and the emotions that animated them
Chapter 1899
Randidly settled into the dark and murky area of himself where his Nether Core existed He relaxed for a short time savoring the comforting hum of its rotation Around him he felt the constant flow of Nether churned outward and running through his veins The Penance rang with a slightly different note achieving a delightful harmony with the lower pitched core
In a way he wished he could remain there for longer simply savoring the reassuring hum of the Nether System that supported his body It felt like leaning against a massive metaphysical rib cage and hearing the even and sure beat of a powerful heart
Then Randidly felt that comparison was slightly strange because the heart was his own Shaking his head he turned his focus to the three foundations of his images
Randidly understood intuitively the emotions that would empower his images but that was putting the cart before the horse He should not adopt those emotional affects in order to pick up the emotions but those should be his affects all the time thereby binding him more tightly to his three images Making that process subconscious and natural would remove one small impediment from him improving his images
Considering how far he still had to go he wanted to get that small distance out of the way as soon as possible
He first conjured Yggdrasil having the massive trunk creaking branches and rustling leaves wrap around him The warm and earthy noises of Yggdrasil were very different from the hum and chime of the Nether Core and Penance but they wove together extremely well into a natural symphony Randidly instantly felt transported to an imaginary temple deep within the jungle Above it the World Tree rose
Randidly felt raw and exposed forcefully opening himself up to sensations so he could examine the whole of his emotional affect with Yggdrasil He felt awe and fear for the wild growth around and for the rugged and unpredictable beauty of nature and life He felt a desire for stability the warm uplifting feeling that allowed the World Tree to gather and purify so much energy to later distribute to the surrounding landing
But Randidly also felt a stubbornness in that image For a few seconds he groped around confused But then he felt the source although the World Tree continued to consume increasingly large amounts of energy and gather it all together the tree still felt that its current form was enough As he was partway through evolving the image and its Skills that resistance to change was still present