*****

  SYSTEM ADDENDUM ADDED BY USER NAME: [ERROR: REDACTED]

  ADDENDUM NOTE: Two months after the founding of Closetland

  *****

  Brae’ach seethed as he grasped the table, and the air shuddered around him. Lately, it was always crowded around Brae’ach; there was always some avatar, some United, some follower that needed his attention. Jakom feared it would soon be too much for him to bear.

  “You are certain of this?” asked Brae’ach. The walking void before him nodded.

  “Utterly,” said Limbo.

  At the center of the table was a dimly glowing teal prism which featured faint lines of mana threading across a map of Arzia. Some of them connected to the parchment, where celestial letters floated off the page: “Delve 2883,” “Delve M82,” “Labyrinth 081.” There were several thicker mana threads, most ending in question marks, but one had a strange label: “Raid 0.”

  “I know the truth of Hysteria’s words, despite their lies and hyperbole,” said Limbo. “I maintain a soul tether to everyone I’ve met, allowing me to see and hear everything they do.”

  Brae’ach raised an eyebrow.

  “Almost everyone,” Limbo continued. “I thank Unity for allowing me to interact with you without such a handicap.”

  “Hysteria’s capture was some time ago, then,” said Brae’ach. “You are only now deeming it prudent to mention?”

  “The entity Hysteria encountered had an unusual effect on my soul,” said Limbo. “The tether could only be partially reincorporated. As you suggested in your conversation with the histrionic one, I passed along their testimony to an Arbiter. All of Arbiter gathered to debate it, and I have recently been informed that Hysteria’s account is Verified, ignoring their embellishments.”

  The massive Davahn sighed as a breeze blew through the room. “I had heard the generations were getting faster, but such feats in so short a time exceed even the wildest projections. I would question whether some are even possible.”

  “And yet here we are,” said Limbo. “You should recalibrate what you consider to be possible.”

  As much as Jakom loathed the obscured one’s presence, Limbo was supremely focused, minced no words, and suffered no distractions. Jakom could not think of any other avatar that was so driven. Brae’ach emitted a rapid, soft chittering as his lowest mandibles clacked back and forth in consternation.

  “They’ll be ready for the Raid within a few years,” said the titan. Limbo squinted, sort of. He was difficult to read at the best of times.

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  “That means we’ll achieve our goals earlier than expected,” said the darkness.

  “No, it means that we’ll have to accelerate our time table by an order of magnitude in order to be prepared when they complete it,” said Brae’ach. “Your ‘kin’ are too used to running amok as soon as the Transcendence finishes, wafting in your own flatulence before the divine sphere closes and you saunter back to hibernate in your caves. If we are to succeed, we must complete our tasks before the Transcendence or else it was all for naught. You cannot merely wait out the Delvers this time.”

  “I will not sit for another age in this wretched form,” said Limbo. “If time is of the essence, your ‘preparations’ are taking too long. You must abandon such foolishness.”

  Brae’ach stood.

  “And what do you know of these ‘preparations?’” the man asked.

  “I know you spend days at a time praying. You travel for hundreds of miles in strategically irrelevant locations. You spend months erecting shrines of exotic but mundane materials. I know you are letting your spiritual practices get in the way of expediency, and now I know we are on a much shorter time table than before.”

  Brae’ach glared at him. Jakom could feel a swell of emotion rising from the ground, like a flaming want, a burning of need.

  “You know

  NOTHING.

  The earth beneath them split asunder, sending fragments of stone blasting across the room. Jakom raised his arms reflexively to shield himself, but the rocks diverted away from him and struck the wall behind. A frightening red glow rose from the newly formed crevice, and thousands of long, sinewy hands began crawling out of it, grasping at the air but finding no purchase.

  Consumed by your own malice,

  You grab the dirt and eat,

  Fistfulls of mud and worms

  And see it as a treat.

  A banquet lays before you,

  An invitation on the seat,

  But you crawl along the floor

  Bereft and incomplete.

  You were meant for more,

  But balked and learned defeat,

  So hold your writhing tongue

  And follow in my feet.

  Limbo betrayed little visible expression, as always, but Jakom could feel his presence being balled up and wrapped in the Word, so that the despair overflowing from the creature no longer suffocated Jakom. The Word was rarely used, especially with avatars, who were as likely to flee or fight as follow when hearing it. Jakom could sense that the Word had an unusual effect on them, even beyond the effects it had on mortals.

  “Duly noted,” said Limbo. “I acknowledge the limits of my perspective.”

  The grasping hands clawed more fiercely as an unseen force dragged them back into the ravine. The ground quaked and closed once again, without so much as a crack to mark the abyss that had so recently been opened.

  “In that case,” Limbo continued, “you cannot allow them to complete the Raid. Not yet, anyway.”

  “That is a difficult proposition,” said Brae’ach. “We cannot simply eliminate any Delver who would be a threat. We need them to keep advancing the System, and only the best of them can achieve that. But I think we can slow them down considerably. If these children die as a result, then they were not strong enough to matter in the first place.”

  Brae’ach looked to the map and his eyes traced a few choice threads.

  “They will need Labyrinths to keep their current pace, and such places are rife with valuable materials we need. Let us see how well they can secure those obelisks against the United.”

  Epilogue, Part Deux

  *****

  SYSTEM ADDENDUM ADDED BY USER NAME: [Joma ‘Fluffykins’ Argentmane, Handmaiden to the Void King]

  ADDENDUM NOTE: Three months after Joma’s capture.

  *****

  Joma reflected on the decisions that had brought her to her current position in life as she scraped another barnacle. The tail overhead drifted lazily from side to side, a looming threat of a good walloping if she were too indelicate with the chisel. She pried the arthropod free and dropped it in her bucket, alongside a dozen others.

  “I knew Felgar was touched,” she muttered as she worked. “Easy job, good pay, ‘unique’ environment.” She deepened her voice and held out her arms in a mockery of musculature. “‘Just let me graft this blood rune onto your soul. If you would perish, it will bring you back.’ I should have known it was a crock, that nut job.”

  She continued scraping as she jabbered out her grievances, the creature known as Nottagator the only nearby ear to bend. She wasn’t even sure that it had ears, not that it mattered. The creature gave her a deep, twisted moan in reply. It was almost like a cat’s meowing, if the cat weighed several tons and was born of a madman’s deepest nightmare.

  “I used to be important, you know?” Joma continued. “I was a princess, in fact.” Nottagator groaned. She scoffed. “No, it’s worse than you’d imagine, but it was better than this.” She picked up her brush and scrubbed the scales clean where the barnacle had left behind a calcium stain. “There was an arranged marriage–my mother’s idea–but it was my choice to leave. It was my choice to kill three of my bodyguards on the way out. It was my choice to take this thrice-cursed job.”

  She threw the brush into her other bucket. It plunked into the fetid water and splashed her fur.

  “When the priests came after me, that’s when I really started to hate the faith. Not that I’d ever appreciated the churchman’s groping. But, I mean, you get it, right?” Nottagator didn’t reply. It was too busy licking scum from one of its too-human hands. “Get rid of a king and one of those holier-than-thou autocrats from Eschendur, of course I was on board with that. It was misplaced anger is what it was. I get that now. Then we were working for something called an avatar. The crack ‘forgot’ to mention that in the briefing.”

  Joma spoke louder to overcome the slurping. She pulled a rag from her overalls and polished the cleansed scales.

  “Then the master summoned that… that thing!” She shuddered at the memory of galactic eyes, gazing into her. Showing her that she was less than the most insignificant speck of nothing. When her new master had met her with his sparkling emerald irises adrift in a sea of black, it reminded her of that horror. She could feel him looking into her soul. Stripping her down, tearing away at her layers until she was exposed, vulnerable, naked as she’d never been.

  “I have no words,” said Joma. “But after that, Felgar spoke, and we listened like eager pups ready for their letters. So stupid, but my pride wouldn’t let me abandon a job. What did I get for that? I got eaten by a fucking Atrocidile.”

  Nottagator chuffled. Joma imagined that it was amused.

  “Ever had your pelvis crushed by teeth as big as your head? No? Didn’t think so. But, hey, Felgar’s blood rune worked. Resurrection. Nobody can do that. Felgar can, apparently. Too bad it marked me for sacrifice. Did the rest of his party know? Did they realize? Were they fanatics as well?”

  Joma spat. “Doesn’t matter,” she continued. “They’re dead. I’m not. But, am I a clone now? Did the real me die, and I’m just a fateless copy? I don’t know! Maybe!” She grabbed her chisel and scraper, moving to the next barnacle. “After that, I’m trying not to get my insides sucked out, I’m in the middle of a fight between demigods, then there’s a fucking blood god trying to suck me again!” She dug in beneath the crustacean. “And now I’m cleaning barnacles from an Atrocidile’s ass!”

  Nottagator raised its head and turned to look at Joma, its mad eyes glaring at her with cold, empty hunger.

  “Ahem. Which is a noble and mighty creature,” she said, raising her hands in a placating gesture. “One whose ass is a blessed thing! It’s an honor to purge it of its discomforts!” The Atrocidile shuffled, turning toward her and peeling its lips back in a grotesque smile. Its flat teeth clacked.

  “And, and, even among such well-formed creatures as the Atrocidiles, Nottagator is very handsome!” The beast tilted its head to the side, judging her words. “Um…” Joma tried to read its inscrutable features. “Not handsome. Uh, pretty? Nottagator is very… pretty. Beautiful, I’d say.”

  The Atrocidile huffed a breath and laid its head back down onto its hands, thick tongue returning to its grooming. Joma let out a shuddering breath and returned to her work.

  “Fuck, I bet I got shat out of this. Are those my bones?” Joma studied a pile of Nottagator’s excrement, one she’d have to shovel later. “Maybe I did die,” she muttered.

  “Hell is just an Atrocidile’s asshole.”