#I wrote the first draft in a state of hyperfocus for 12 hours a few days ago

[grimm-rider]

Entry 30

It’s done. We had to fight Keisuke, and it’s over and done. I couldn’t convince him to give up Nestian’s mother and her Eidolon. They were too connected to his damned ritual. And he was afraid of Nestian’s mom trying to kill him. Which, I mean, yeah of course she was going to try to kill him, he murdered her husband and got her son stuck growing up in another universe without her.

I’ve talked to the others. I’ve talked to Greta. It helped. Somewhat. I think there’s some stuff I’m just going to have to work through on my own. But they all helped to get me moving in the right direction. Again.

But I’ll write more on that when we get to it. I have too much to say about it—better to write it all then rather than write in circles getting it down now and then again when it comes up later.

I went to visit Keisuke basically first thing in the morning. I put it off as long as I could—long enough for us to eat a meal at least and for me to try to think of any other reason we shouldn’t go. Which was ridiculous seeing as I was the one who had brought up to Nestian in the first place! But…I don’t know. Knowing we needed to help Nestian to get his mother back as soon as possible, and knowing I needed to do what I could to try to work this out peacefully despite how the others felt about Keisuke were two separate thoughts that just didn’t interact. They were both just as true.

So with Edeya and Nestian’s help, we teleported back to Artrosa, and made the trek back inside to the chamber housing the Eon Pit.

I asked the others to wait outside for me, until I gave Aenland a signal through the Stone of Farspeech. I didn’t want to spook Keisuke by coming into his demiplane with a group of people who were—besides Greta and Talsune—all hostile towards him. Thankfully, the others agreed to give me time to try to speak to Keisuke one last time.

So I entered the doorway leading into the Nonagon. After walking down a short hallway, I came up a flight of stairs and found myself at the exact spot I usually Plane Shifted into the Nonagon at. Keisuke had his back to me, but his ears shot up at the sound of someone entering his domain. He asked before he turned if it was me, to which I confirmed.

He dropped the spell he had been casting when I spoke. Anyone else would have gotten an immediate Death Clutch—deadly to anyone not as incredibly powerful as my friends and I, and still crippling to even someone more powerful. I apologized for sneaking up on him, which he brushed off, as he seemed almost giddy to reveal what he’d been working on. He kept saying all he’d needed were ‘the time and the place’—which it turns out is what he traded the King in Yellow for his services helping Kostchtchie. He learned about the location of some foreign spymaster’s underground bunker—the place. And the time he needed to attune this ritual to—a moment in which his cousin, the one with Mythic Power he’d told me about so long ago, died for just a short moment.

Keisuke admitted he was getting a bit ahead of himself, as I’d mentioned that I was there to talk about something. He offered a seat at his table and some tea, as always. I took a seat and accepted the warm drink, and explained to Keisuke the real reason I was there. I asked if—since they’d been so much trouble for him recently—I could take Nestian’s mother and her Eidolon off his hands. He regretfully told me that before the Nonagon was fixed that would have sounded like a tempting proposition, but as it was, he needed the Eidolon to complete his ritual. On top of that, removing her now would apparently rip off one of his tails, which was exactly as gruesome as it sounds. He was also concerned for his own safety given that Nestian’s mother had every reason to kill him, even if Nestian was willing to listen on my behalf.

The subject drifted as I tried to think if there was any way to salvage this. Keisuke asked me about our mission to kill Elvanna. If I was still planning to go through with it. What I got out of it. The most obvious answer was that I don’t want the world to be frozen over any more than most people living on Golarian who aren’t fanatic Winter Witches. I prefer not living in an arctic apocalypse—especially if I’m going to try to live forever. That sounds miserable. The world has a lot more to offer me if it’s thriving. Keisuke pointed out that I could survive Elvanna’s apocalypse in Grimm Labyrinthus, but I countered that there was only so much I could do in a demiplane. I know myself—I’m very much a creature of pleasures. I need to experience the highs of living—preferably with Greta at my side. Being holed up in a demiplane would drive me mad.

It was probably a bit rude to point this out to the man who has clearly been spending the majority of his time in a demiplane since the Elvanna of his world froze it over, but it’s not like I was trying to say he was in the wrong for doing that. Just that I wouldn’t choose that life myself.

Talking about that brought Keisuke around to talking a bit about his own universe, the one where Elvanna did win. He’d been marked from a young age as someone meant for greatness—his silver fur meant he was destined to be an oracle or, as it turned out, a shaman. Keisuke was ambitious even back then, and did whatever he had to in order to keep the power in his tribe that he’s been promised—including killing those who spoke against him, claiming he wasn’t using his position to properly speak for the dead.

And then it all came crashing down around him when Elvanna froze his world, destroying his tribe with it. Keisuke tracked down a hole in time—the same one Nestian and Peanut later used. Keisuke believed he was meant to be the first to go through it, but as it turned out his cousin had beaten him to it. She went through first, and in doing so gained everything he felt should have been his.

I asked Keisuke what he planned to do once he had mythic power—hoping for anything I could grab hold of and cling to that might just give me another chance to talk him into some sort of bargain to release Nestian’s family members.

What he said caused it all to come crashing down around me.

He said he would go back and get the friends he was meant to have. He would get the friends and the mythic power that were denied him in one fell swoop. The time and the place he’d been given represented an extremely brief moment in which his cousin had been killed—disintegrated—and he was going to throw his soul back to that moment and take her place when she was meant to be revived. He would be the one with mythic power. He would be the one with friends. He would be the hero. And his cousin would be nothing but a soul lost in the ether.

I knew then that I would have to call the others in, despite how much I desperately wanted any other outcome. He wouldn’t be dissuaded, this was something he’d been working towards for years—something he felt he was owed by the universe itself. And if he went through with what he wanted, he would be taking the place of some sort of mythic hero, and…I liked Keisuke, but he was no hero. It would be a disaster. I would hardly call myself a hero despite doing arguably heroic things for the others’ sake. But Keisuke wouldn’t even play hero for the sake of people he cared about…I don’t know if he knew how to care about someone like that. He wanted friends for the idea of the friends that he felt he was owed, not for what friends actually are.

If he’d wanted real friends, maybe he’d have actually appreciated how hard I tried to keep things from escalating to the point they did.

Keisuke told me that this ritual would take a while—it could be anywhere from 9 hours to 9 days to 9 months, it was hard to say. But he said he would release Nestian’s mother and the Eidolon to the edge of the Eon Pit once it was complete and he no longer needed them. This is what he considered being nice. It was *almost* a compromise, except when I asked him if they would be unharmed, I could tell that he was lying when he said they would be fine. And anything that would bring harm to Nestian’s family was not an acceptable outcome.

Keisuke wanted to start preparing his ritual, and he was going to have to turn on the Nonagon’s defenses, so it was time for me to leave. He commented that I should let him know next time I’m planning on dropping by, since he’d nearly killed me this time. I laughed it off, reminding him that I am a very difficult man to kill.

At the time his response was foreboding, if not puzzling. He agreed with me that I was, in a tone that felt to me like it implied he’d tried to kill me before and knew from experience I was good at escaping death. But that didn’t fit any part of the story I knew of our forgotten past, and it certainly didn’t fit any part of our meetings that I could actually remember.

It made me all the more certain of what I needed to do—like it or not.

I left the Nonagon and began down the hall, but didn’t walk all the way to the door. Instead, when I felt I was out of range of even Keisuke’s sharp hearing, I activated the Stone of Farspeech and let Aenland know that I’d failed, and that we would have to go with his plan instead.

Aenland actually gave his condolences that things didn’t work out the way I’d hoped, before his voice cut out, and a moment later he and the others burst through the door ahead of me. Nevra cast Haste and then began singing as she and Aenland flew past. Nestian pat me on the shoulder—at least I assume it was Nestian. I had closed my eyes, just breathing, listening to them fly towards battle, the start of Keisuke’s ritual in the distance, and then the familiar sound of the Nonagon’s musical alarm sounding as Keisuke’s recorded voice began singing. I steeled myself as I heard Keisuke yell my name, and that we needed to have a conversation. When I opened my eyes, I knew I would find Talsune and Roscoe waiting for me there. I sent Roscoe ahead, then climbed onto Talsune’s back. I’d steeled myself for what I had to do.

I think Talsune knew what I was feeling well enough to know that no words were going to help. Just then his presence, and his own emotions offsetting mine a little, were more than enough.

Then I heard a yelp from Greta echo down the hall, followed by Keisuke in alarm telling whichever of his minions harmed her not to target her again. He sounded like he was being genuine in his desire not to target me, Talsune, or Greta—or at least his desire to not upset me further by harming the two people he knew I was closest to, and who he probably believed were the most likely to side with me if I suddenly switched sides to fight with him.

I would have been willing to hear him out again. Maybe even give talking one more shot. I would have liked that, really. Except for what happened next.

Keisuke called to me that there was an explanation for what was going to happen next—and then he invoked the name of the Grimm Rider. I heard a far-too familiar voice, followed by the sound of Wail of the Banshee being cast. The flickers of dark magic I could see emanating just beyond the staircase were also far too familiar. Because that was my magic. And my voice. The same voice I’d heard through that recorded scry of the Grimm Rider on Triaxus. The same voice I’d heard when Mirror Edeya had me battle The Grimm Rider in her twisted mirror maze.

Talsune swooped up the stairs and flared his wings so we could stop just before a floor to ceiling rainbow colored barrier around what had been Keisuke’s table, where he’d been standing moments prior. Now as I looked up, it appeared as though Keisuke was towering over us. As if the interior of the Nonagon had been shrunk and flung onto a war map on his table.

I looked to where I had heard my voice, and sure enough, there was yet another imitation of myself in my ‘former glory’. What really caught my eye, however, was the door behind him. Like the others, when I’d looked at them last time I was in the Nonagon, this one was replaying the moment Keisuke had caused me the pain and anguish that would allow him to create a simulacrum of me.

Keisuke was standing before a council of cloaked figures, some wearing Norgorber iconography, some wearing Urgathoan symbols. The man who appeared to be the leader had both of our patron’s markings, and he gestured to me—then a Skeletal Champion—and gave the order for me to kill Baba Yaga and to not come back until I’d succeeded. So I turned and left, to do as I was commanded.

It was exactly as he’d described my banishment from his cult to me before.

And then the thin strings connecting Keisuke to his Flesh Puppet Horde snapped, and everyone else in the room went limp.

…

Quite a while ago now, Keisuke told me about how I’d been sent to kill Baba Yaga by his old cult. An obvious suicide mission, meant to get rid of me. He told me not to worry, he’d killed them all for it. They made excellent flesh puppets. He’d said it as if it were to avenge my inevitable death. As if he’d killed them in anger and vengeance over a lost apprentice.

But, no. I was ‘lost’ because of Keisuke. He had sent me on that suicide mission, he had tried to make sure I get destroyed in an impossible task. This is what he must have been alluding to when he’d agreed that I was a hard man to kill. Because he’d expected Baba Yaga to kill me for whatever attempt I made. He hadn’t expected me to game the system and get myself resurrected, to become her Rider, to gain more power than him. He hadn’t expected me to come back a year later with amnesia and no idea who he was, ready to listen to whatever half-truths he fed me.

I listened to him, kept secrets for him, let him very nearly guide me down a path of being someone just like him, believing for so long that he’d saved my life and that I owed my very existence to him. Just to find out I was nothing but a puppet whose strings he’d already tried to cut once before.

I don’t even know how to describe how I felt in the moment. It’s not like the fury I felt at Rasputin for having caused the death that wiped my memories. It wasn’t like the hatred and disgust I felt for Nazhena. It’s not like the distain and loathing I feel for Queen Elvanna.

I was angry. Oh yes, I was very angry. But there was also this aching sadness that gripped at my heart and made me feel hollow. It drew in the fire of my anger that usually encourages me to reap bloody vengeance on someone who’s wronged me, and left it cold.

I did not enjoy fighting Keisuke. I did not enjoy killing Keisuke. Even if my spells had been what snuffed out his life, I would not have offered this death up to either of our gods. Although I wonder if where he did die has its own House of Murder. Abbadon probably has him regardless.

I’m getting ahead of myself. Probably because I would rather not remember and write the gory details of this fight.

But…there are reasons I probably should continue to write every detail. Not because I think I’ll have amnesia again. I’ll get to that soon. I should quit putting off the rest of this.

When I saw the images from my forgotten past, Keisuke quickly tried to explain them away. He said it was fine, because I’d survived and I was stronger now because of it (true, but that doesn’t make what he did to me fine.) He argued that he could see the future and knew that I’d survive (he can, but he did not.)

I told him as much, that just because he can see the future doesn’t mean he foresaw this. He tried to get rid of me, he sent me to die.

Keisuke said fine, if it was going to be like that. He rescinded his protection for me, Talsune, and Greta. His simulacrums and undead would target us just as much as they would the others. Maybe more, if he was out to ‘teach me a lesson’.

Talsune flew us away from the Prismatic Walls, and we dove at a simulacrum that appeared to be of an aasimar with wings made of fire, holding aloft a holy symbol of the same (illegal) dead goddess Edeya had once been interested in. My partner brought his blade down on the woman wreathed in flames, while I took inspiration from her fire and called down an Ectoplasmic Firestorm, which set almost every one of our enemies—except the Grimm Rider, go figure—on fire.

I decided to try to do a bit more against this echo of my past and quickened a Boneshatter. He resisted enough to not have any major bones snap apart, but I definitely heard the telltale cracking from the spell that told me I’d left him with a few fractures.

Unfortunately, Keisuke decided he was going to try to break my favorite pet. There was an artifact in the first room—an artifact which looked like the strange little chip that I’d seen through the image on the 1st door when I’d been looking last time.

It’s almost funny, how I could have discovered what Keisuke did to me so much earlier if I hadn’t quit looking at the doors when I found Nestian’s dad. If I’d had any inkling that knowing what was behind the other two doors would be important to me, and I’d looked, I would have learned before we ever went to the Eon Pit. Maybe we could have done something about Keisuke without the Nonagon being at full power.

Oh well…too late for what-ifs.

When the artifact activated, it shot a Maximized Fireball right in the middle of Nestian, Greta, Edeya, and Roscoe. Nestian, Edeya, and Greta made it through just fine (I will always be grateful to my past self for thinking of gifting Greta that ring. My only regret would be not just proposing to her already. I’ll have to somehow get her an even better ring when I do.)

Roscoe was not destroyed, but he was badly singed, and Keisuke made it clear that breaking what belonged to me in response to us breaking his things was the goal now. I told him fine, because we were going to break a hell of a lot more of his things than he would of mine.

I would be unhappy if I lost Roscoe for good, though. He’s just objectively better than any other undead we’ve encountered. But I wasn’t going to let Keisuke know that or he’d have redoubled his efforts on destroying him.

I didn’t get much time to think about it, though, because a moment later Keisuke covered the entire room with a Wail of the Banshee. My Wail of the Banshee. He was leeching that spell from the simulacrum of me, it’s not that he was just casting a spell I like to use with his own magic, he was literally using my spell. It was a little strange having someone else (well someone other than The Grimm Rider) throwing around magic identical to mine. Usually spellcasters have their own flair, something about their spell is unique to them, as different as a fingerprint or a snowflake. But, other than whatever he had from being a Shaman I assume, everything he had was pilfered power. His spells didn’t have that consistency, that through-line, they were all someone else’s magic tacked on top of his own.

Talsune and I resisted, but I didn’t have much time to think about that either, because then the angel woman hit me with a Heal spell. I really should have worn the Pallid Crystal. I knew that Keisuke knew that weakness, but I just kind of assumed he didn’t have that kind of magic. He implied as much back when I assumed that he’d resurrected me as opposed to raising me as an undead.

But then again, who knows how true that comment was? Maybe he wanted to keep that particular advantage over me close to his chest. I’ll never know now.

Fortunately, before anyone else could try to kill me (namely myself—or the echo thereof), Edeya was able to get a Harm spell over to me and undid the damage the Heal spell did.

Unfortunately, it would be hard for her to get over to me to do that again if it became necessary, because a moment later Nestian’s mother’s eidolon burst through the door she had been held in. And she was under Keisuke’s command. She immediately went after Nestian—likely because Keisuke knew that would hurt him the worst. I could tell it was going to be a nasty bite—one that would rip and then immediately burn with the electricity crackling across her scales. I threw some raw magical protection between him and the eidolon—not quite the Black Rider’s protection, but an approximation using my own magic. Not as powerful, but strong enough to protect my friends when they needed it if I was nearby. Nestian didn’t have to be the only one taking care of everyone, and always get himself beaten up and bloodied in the process.

Keisuke derisively said that I’ve gone soft—that that’s what this was, he just needed to get rid of the others and I would snap out of it. I destroyed the tracks that train of thought was on immediately. I told him that he was desperately trying to go somewhere else to find the group of friends he was supposed to have—these were mine. So, to torture the metaphor, he changed tracks and decided if I wouldn’t come back to him while alive, then he would just kill me and keep me as an obedient undead again.

Man, at least Rasputin never threatened to keep me as a pet after I rejected him.

Afterwards the Grimm Rider went for me, trying to cast a spell—the casting looked like Destruction—but it struck Vigliv’s protections (something the simulacrum thankfully lacked). He then tried to Quicken a Boneshaker on me, but again hit my defenses. My bones blissfully unshaken. Keisuke said something about how he honestly didn’t expect any differently—the simulacrum was fighting his progenitor, it was only natural that a pale imitation couldn’t live up to the original. I’ll admit to being pleased to hear that, despite Keisuke and I being at each other’s throats right that moment. If nothing else, he still had some respect for my power, even if it was questionable if he had any respect for me.

It was hard to keep track of what was going on around the battlefield. The Prismatic Wall was blocking half the room off, so I couldn’t see what Aenland or Illivor were up to, nor the goblin simulacrum or the reaper that went after them. I did hear Keisuke howl in pain and see one tail get rent apart, so I assumed that one of them had killed one of the two simulacrums back there. Then I got to see one of the simulacra get killed—a woman with goggles and multiple flasks of red reactive looking fluids, who appeared to have been paralyzed by Roscoe, if the bullet holes and lack of attempt to dodge anything that was happening around her were any indication. So, another point for my favorite pet. Peanut finished her off while she couldn’t move…saying something about how ‘being mauled by a bear wasn’t on her list yet’?

When the simulacra died, Keisuke howled in pain again as another one of his tails went up in explosive flames. Solidifying the connection between the clones and his tails for anyone who, unlike me, hadn’t already been directly told by him that they were linked.

In response, Keisuke summoned a new undead into the fray. A fucking Demi-lich. I heard the familiar Wail of the Banshee screams, saw that Greta was in the middle of that once again and remembered how that fucking Demi-lich in my bag had hurt her before. I threw the protection of the Black Rider around her, the screams of the damned parting around the black barrier like a river flowing around a rock. Then I saw Aenland’s arrows absolutely obliterate the damned thing in an instant.

I saw the Grimm Rider take his eyes off me. He was looking where I knew Aenland must be, based on where I saw the arrows shoot from. He pointed, and spoke a single word in Necril laced with power.

Nestian cried out, and threw his own protection of the Black Rider around Aenland—muffling the word that would have otherwise snuffed out his life.

Talsune tore into the angelic woman in front of us, then flapped away so I could focus on casting. I turned the full force of my power on The Grimm Rider. My magic—Power Word Kill, Wail of the Banshee, Destruction, all of it—was far too dangerous to have Keisuke and this echo throwing it around at my loved ones in this fight.

So, I ripped my magic away from him. By ripping out the pale imitation’s heart.

Keisuke noted that we really do learn things from one another. I agreed. I had never claimed otherwise.

Then he said he was going to learn from me and turn that method right back on me, since it worked so well on my simulacrum. I fell right back into step with whatever this dance of words was, reminding him that—in his own words—it was just a pale imitation. I wouldn’t be going down so easily.

‘Oh, we’ll see,’ he threatened.

He used some sort of latent power from the Nonagon to shift the position of the simulacrum of Nestian’s father—which was already badly injured courtesy of Roscoe, who I’d set on him so Nestian wouldn’t have to be the one to slay something that looked like his own father. He moved it so it was next to the dying Grimm Rider. The False-Isaac tried to Regenerate the Grimm Rider’s heart—and he did make it grow back, but in the process the positive energy burned inside of his chest where his heart was regrowing, and he died regardless.

So that was horrific. I don’t particularly want to die in any manner, but I think I just found a top contender for worst ways to be killed. And that’s coming from me. I kill people I hate in horrible ways for fun.

A moment later, Nestian flew across the battlefield and tried to finish off the thing wearing his father’s face. But he hesitated at the last moment, and his swing went wide.

So, it wasn’t Nestian who killed the fake Isaac.

It was Edeya.

She used a Quickened Dimension Door and appeared beside Nestian. She pulled him into a hug, so that his head was turned away as she gently said a few words—and the simulacrum slumped to the ground, falling peacefully dead and into a fine red dust as Edeya used Power Word Kill.

The effect it had on Keisuke was anything but peaceful, as two more of his tails tore apart. A moment later Keisuke howled with rage and pain as another unraveled—right before Aenland flew around the corner on Nevra’s back, soaked in his own blood and covered in cuts and burns, and enough blood coming out of his nose that I worried his brain itself was bleeding.

I called Roscoe over—he circled around to avoid the still dominated Eidolon, and landed near Nevra. Talsune and I flew over to meet them. I cast a Quickened Oracle’s Vessel on Aenland, then cast a Mass Inflict Critical Wounds on myself, Roscoe, and Aenland. It was enough to completely heal my wounds, but Roscoe and Aenland still looked like a stiff breeze might do them in. Fortunately for Aenland, he was near Edeya, and she patched him up with her more potent healing magic.

Then that strange artifact activated again, shooting another maximized Fireball at us. Most of us were fine—except for Roscoe, who looked like he was about to be engulfed in flames and likely meet his end, until Nestian threw his Helm of Teleportation to Roscoe—with an extra kick from his Black Rider powers—sending Roscoe safely back into my bag. Preventing Keisuke from having the pleasure of breaking my ‘toy’, and preventing me from losing my favorite pet. I thanked Nestian profusely later.

At the time Keisuke mocked me for going to so much trouble for a ‘broken bag of bones’, but I pointed out that he was a very useful broken bag of bones. Keisuke conceded the point, noting that after this he might see about getting a Baykok of his own—or taking mine. I told him over my dead body—and he wasn’t doing a very good job of that.

Despite his big words, it was clear that he was in a corner, and he knew it. He only had three tails left—and a moment later that was down to two when Nestian’s aunt, the Eidolon, broke free from Keisuke’s domination, and she and Nestian’s mother fused into one being and began tearing apart the Prismatic Walls. She disrupted the first one by throwing some sort of rounded object into it.

While she worked on that, I asked Edeya if she could identify the strange artifact that kept blasting us—assuming its destruction might help with taking down the walls. Edeya asked Illivor to look, as she was closer. Illivor glanced in, identified multiple Explosive Runes, and threw a Greater Dispel Magic into the room to nullify them all.

With the room now safe, I directed Talsune to get us in there and to smash that chip before Keisuke could activate any other defenses we didn’t know about. My partner did without a word from me, knowing my intention as quickly as it entered my mind. He plucked the small object from its stand—it looked almost like it could be a piece of technology from Numeria. A vision washed over him—and by extension me. Keisuke was somewhere in the mountains of Varisia, in a place piled with gold. He picked up the artifact, and when he did the room rumbled and a booming voice spoke to him. Keisuke fled in terror—but Talsune was a master of his own mind, and didn’t let Keisuke’s terror in the vision seep into him. He closed his fist and crushed the chip.

For the first time, Talsune and I were near one of these objects of Keisuke’s when they were destroyed. All of the suffering contained within that artifact—whatever it had once been—burst forth, trying to engulf myself, Talsune, and unfortunate Illivor who had still been a little too close when we’d swooped in.

We all withstood the onslaught, and as we did Keisuke once again howled in pain and anger and fear as he’s now lost all but one tail. The last one that must have been his original—he wasn’t born a nine-tailed kitsune at all, he’d simply stylized himself as one as he gained power. Not that I can judge him on that, with all I’ve done to style myself differently than the life I was born to. That’s just…ambitions for greatness. I don’t think that by itself is a bad thing. It’s the things he did to reach ‘greatness’ that put us on such different paths.

Destroying the chip also destroyed two more Prismatic Walls—just like I’d predicted. Nestian’s mother had already knocked down one wall, and Aenland did…something. It’s hard to say what. I know he used the luck blade, and I know it worked. But I think he might have toyed with time or something? Because on the one hand I feel like I remember the wall starting with nine layers—which fits, because Keisuke. But at the same time I feel like I remember only seven layers when I came up the stairs. And we only ended up destroying seven layers in total.

Anyways, I turned around and took out a diamond from my bag, and cast a Miracle through it. Out of the faceted sides of the diamond, the different spells needed to take down a Prismatic Wall were cast all at once—burning a bunch of scrolls we had on our person as payment in the process. When the diamond crumbled away, that was one less wall. Nestian’s mother cast a spell—I have no idea what she cast, if I didn’t know any better I’d say it was modified through an object like my pocket watch, because the spell didn’t fit any spell I know of. Maybe it was specific to her universe—although I don’t think I’ve ever seen Keisuke use magic that wasn’t in some way recognizable on Golarian.

What she did was…well, it looked like the threw the wall into space. That is the best way I can describe it, even though we were in a Demiplane and the concept of space in a place not directly connected to the material plane is a bit nebulous. Regardless of how she did it, it did get rid of another wall.

And I think Keisuke panicked as we were ripping straight through his defenses to reach him.

He used his luck blade twice to cast a non-existent spell—Mass Harm. I wish there was a Mass Harm, that would be really convenient for me. I guess I could apparently use Miracle to make a Mass Harm, but then I’d need a diamond for it every time and at that point I might as well just let someone die and resurrect them.

…My life is very strange that ‘Mass Harm’ would be more likely to be used for mass healing than for actually ‘harming’ anyone. If I wanted to harm a bunch of people I’d just use Wail of the Banshee, or Massacre, or Fire Storm, or Horrid Wilting…you get my point. I have a lot of ways to kill a lot of people at once. My best way to heal a lot of people at once is significantly weaker than Harm.

The final diamond of his Luck Blade he used to try to force his ritual to successfully complete early.

And it worked.

The Nonagon vanished, nothing but the room the blank simulacrum had been in was left. Only the blank simulacrum standing in the replica of some spymaster’s safehouse was now replaced by a silver haired woman, the remains of a green ray hitting her chest, and her body turning to dust. This was no longer the replica of the room, or the simulacrum. It was the time and the place that Keisuke was trying to fling himself into.

And Keisuke was running down a long hall towards it. We ran after him.

Edeya and Illivor acted first, our resident witches always the smart ones. They both stripped away his defenses with as many uses of Greater Dispel Magic as they could throw in the blink of an eye.

Talsune dove forward. He knew I wanted to reach Keisuke first. I let go of Talsune, trusting him to hold me aloft, as I pulled out the pocket watch. The pocket watch that once belonged to Keisuke, but which I pulled from the Eon Pit and have made my own. I channeled Slay Living through it, and even as Talsune’s blade skewered him, my touch was gentle. I was not aiming for a horrific death. Not this time.

The ritual seemed to have a strange effect on Keisuke’s personal time. The injuries were there, but formed across his body so painfully slowly. The dark flames of Slay Living that normally devoured a body in seconds instead danced across his red-stained white fur for what felt like an eternity.

I knew I couldn’t let him escape—not when I had no idea what might be at stake if he replaced his cousin as one of these mythic ‘heroes’. So I quickened an inflict critical wounds, remembering that he’d once mentioned he didn’t have my gift. The black and purple flames joined and intermixed with the almost ebony flames of Slay Living, twisting together in a dance of death and decay.

Keisuke looked over his shoulder at me. For once I don’t know what emotion I was reading in his eyes. Hate? Fear? Disappointment? Anger? Resignation? I don’t know. I really don’t know.

I told him I was sorry, that I wished this could have ended differently.

It wasn’t a lie. Despite everything, despite how much he hurt me, despite knowing how much he lied, despite all the things he said during this fight…I still didn’t want to kill him. That anger at him was a pile of barely glowing coals and ash by this point, seeing him like this. I couldn’t find it in myself to reach for that burning indignation and thirst for retribution that normally comes so naturally to me.

I don’t know what I wanted to do instead. I don’t think I had any realistic vision of another way forward until I talked to Greta later. I just know that despite everything, it tore at my heart to kill this man.

The others joined in my attack, equally unwilling to risk his escape despite not truly knowing the extent of the consequences like I did. I hadn’t had a chance to tell them what Keisuke told me. All they knew was that he was getting away, and that he’d completed some sort of ritual. They had no idea the full implications of what he was about to do.

For once, I suppose, it was fortunate that Aenland and Nestian were not going to hesitate to attack Keisuke.

Greta was the first to follow up on Talsune’s attack, however. When she pulled away from the strange time anomaly happening around Keisuke, she laid a hand over mine—still white knuckle clutching the pocket watch like a lifeline. No words needed—she was there for me, and she knew that this had not come easily to me unlike most deaths we’d caused. That was more than enough.

The others did what had to be done, with Nevra, Aenland, and Nestian finishing the job in quick succession. Time around Keisuke seemed to start to catch up to him, and I was sure that was the end of it.

But then his form flickered, the familiar displaced from time effect of a Temporal Status overtaking him before the spreading damage could snuff out his life entirely. I recognized a Contingency spell when I saw one—even if I don’t remember the time I saved myself from death by similar means.

However while he was frozen in time, the woman behind him finished dissolved into nothing but a fine dust, and the image of that other place faded away. He’d missed the time. The ritual was over. But with one final push Keisuke popped out of Temporal Stasis, alive but weakened, and stepped through that distorted point of reality into…somewhere else. He looked exhausted. Weak. I don’t think he had a single drop of magic left in him. He swore he would start from the bottom, and build his power up from scratch if that’s what it took. And then he’d come back for us. For me. To avenge himself of everything we’d just taken from him.

He never got a chance…he’ll never get the chance.

Keisuke was so focused on us through the rift in time and space that he didn’t see the man standing behind him. He’d stepped into what looked like some sort of golden casino, and behind him was a finely dressed man. Wielding a flaming glaive. The last I saw of Keisuke was a look of surprise as that glaive cut him down. The man muttered something about the number of temporal anomalies crossing through lately, before the portal snapped shut.

Keisuke’s body was left bleeding out and already dead in some other universe, out of reach.

There wasn’t time to think about it, as the entire Nonagon began to shake. I remembered that early in our fight Keisuke had told us that if we killed him, the Nonagon would break down and take us with it. I’d said then that I’d need to have a Plane Shift ready for when that happened. And I did…and as luck would have it, once Illivor returned to her fox form and her bond with Edeya reinstated itself, there were nine of us.

Because of course there were.

So I cast the spell through the pocket watch. I brought this to a close in a perfect circle, as I used the tool that once belonged to this man who caused so much death and hurt for my friend, and his family, and the people around them, and this time used it to save us all from his own crumbling Demiplane.

I took us to the safest place I could think of in the moment. Home. Grimm Labyrinthus. My own Demiplane. Maybe not as technically intricate as the Nonagon had been. Certainly not built siphoning power from the Eon Pit. But it is mine. Ours. And it is perfect.

I was more drained emotionally than physically when we arrived. I’d honestly not used that many spells, and I wasn’t that badly hurt—although I would need to expend quite a bit of negative energy later to patch Roscoe up. But in the moment, I was just…tired. And sad. And I wasn’t even entirely sure why I was sad. Was it because I’d found out that Keisuke had been lying the entire time, or because I was mourning that we had to kill him? The fact I’d been right, in a way, that what he needed were friends like the ones I’d had? Only he was too blinded by his own desires and obsessions to see it. Some strange mesh of all of these things?

I called Edeya, Aenland, and Nestian over, and just hugged them. I felt like I might pass out, but I held it together (although Nestian’s fur was very cozy). I don’t know what I was trying to say, really.

No. No, that’s a lie, I do know.

I just…wanted them to know I care. That they mean more to me than I can express. That…I’m grateful to have known them, because if I hadn’t I may well have stood with Keisuke today and let something terrible happen, for the sake of power, and for the sake of a friend who wanted nothing more than to erase anything we might have had, believing there was something more out there just for him.

I still can’t bring myself to be mad. I think I kind of pity him. I think I see a very dark mirror when I look at everything he did, and would have done. Not of the Grimm Rider, not this time. But of who I could have been without the others. All that power and no one to care about, to give me a reason to choose something more important than reaching endlessly for more power. No Aenland to call me out when I go too far, or lie to his face, or choose a path that scares him because he knows it ends in self-destruction. No Nestian to…quite frankly not want to disappoint. I’m more afraid of doing something that disappoints Nestian than something that makes him angry. I know I can handle an angry bear in my face. I can’t handle his soft-spoken disappointment. And no Edeya, my fellow Irriseni, my fellow spellcaster. She was the one I felt I had so much in common with when we first started, my confidant when I didn’t trust Aenland and Nestian with my secrets, and look how much she’s changed. She’s learned to be decisive, but she’s also so kind, and so gentle. And…I respect that about her. I could never…would never…limit myself the way she does. Yet she’s decided to do what she feels is the right thing to do, unabashedly, regardless of any jokes we make about her unusual take on pacifism. And she has still found a way to be an amazing witch even with her self-imposed limitations. I think…she’s set a really good example for me.

And, of course, there’s Greta. I don’t think, even with the other three, anything would have changed without Greta giving me that first nudge in the right direction. Being honest with her back in Whitethrone right before we fought Logrivich was one of the hardest, most terrifying things I have ever done. And it was the best decision of my life.

I know Nestian believes Keisuke and I are fundamentally different, but I think he just had the good fortune to have seen me at my best instead of at my worst. Even early on, before I liked or trusted the others, I still knew we were in this together and that I needed to at least act within a range of what they’d consider decent to keep this alliance we’d agreed to in Baba Yaga’s name running smoothly. But I also know for a fact I killed at least a few people in our early fights that Nestian wanted to spare, just because I saw no point in showing mercy to people who might come back and cause problems later. I think I would make a different decision now—I would respect Nestian’s wishes and his logic more than I did back then. I am sure I would still point out that keeping enemies alive might cause us more trouble in the long run—we have to take everything into consideration—but if in this theoretical situation Nestian understood that potential consequence and still wanted to be merciful, I would at the very least do my best to spare them for his sake. Although at this point I think Edeya is the one more likely to be the first to suggest nonviolent means.

Nestian and Edeya went off to make lunch to lighten the mood a bit and give me some time to process things. Aenland lingered for a moment. We talked. He said he’d give me space if I needed it, but he was here for me. He called me his brother. I thanked him to sticking by me, even though I’d been a bit of an ass to him early on. He said he could easily say the same to me. But what’s family for? I agreed, clasping his hand.

Just what I need, to go from being an only child to having a younger brother who is also over a hundred years older than me.

Afterwards I retreated with Greta to our room. I just laid there with her for a long time, in comfortable quiet. After a while I talked to her about how I didn’t even know why I was so upset, because logically I knew Keisuke had been a terrible person who hurt Nestian and his family, and was honestly kind of awful to everyone else around me. We talked a little about how I felt he was like that because he hadn’t had the same fortune I had, to have people around him who loved him enough to stop him. Then Greta said something that set the wheels spinning in my head, about how if I really wanted to give him a second chance, there was always Baba Yaga’s wish. At first it seemed like an immediate dead end—the others wouldn’t be ok with me bringing Keisuke back after everything he’d done and everything that had happened. But Greta pointed something else out. What if he got a fresh start when he came back. Like I had.

And she was absolutely right. If the Grimm Rider had come back like I’d planned when I’d convinced Rasputin to kill me in Taldor with a contingency spell in place, then I wouldn’t be who I am today. The Grimm Rider wouldn’t have teamed up with the others—or if he did it wouldn’t have been as equals. It took me starting over and rediscovering my power alongside my friends to become more than I was.

…

…I’m going to be giving up a lot if I go through with this. If I don’t take this opportunity for Mythic Power, another one probably won’t ever show itself. Keisuke’s ritual was to shunt his soul through time and puppet another person’s body and use their mythic power, rather than having a mythic ascension of his own, so I learned more about how not to get Mythic Power from him than how to get it.

And if I don’t get mythic power, it’s unlikely that I will find a means of immortality. Lichdom was a bust, and whatever Keisuke had going on with that artifact can’t be replicated since we broke it.

There’s no guarantee it’ll even work. I might bring Keisuke back, try to do right by him, and he’ll still turn out as a manipulative murderous bastard…well, more of a manipulative murderous bastard than I am. Then what? If he just goes right back to hurting my friends again, do I have to put him down a second time? If I bring him back I’ll be shouldering the responsibility for what he does.

Ugh. Responsibility is not something I have ever gone looking for. That’s why I told Greta I was never going to try to take over the world or even a country, regardless of how much power I get. Once you have it, what then? You have to manage running a country (or every country), that’s what. Sounds awful.

…

It’s so obvious that one of these things has so many more guaranteed upsides than the other, and one of these things had so many more unknown variables and could just blow up in my face all over again. And for once it’s not Mythic Power that’s the iffy option.

So why in the Nine Hells am I actually considering this?

…

I know why.

I had this chance. I wouldn’t be who I am today without this chance. I wouldn’t have everything I have today without this chance. Sure—I’d have the Grimm Rider’s power still. But what else would I have? Maybe I’d have made an empty demiplane with nothing but undead to lord over, just like Keisuke. Hell, for all I know the Grimm Rider did have a demiplane I simply don’t remember that will remain abandoned forever now. But beyond that, I’d have had nothing. Power, a wish from Baba Yaga, and isolation—because like Baba Yaga said, there was only one person that Calio Caecos trusted. Himself. I have so much more than the Grimm Rider ever did—I had to lose everything to get it, but now I am so much more than I was before.

I want Keisuke to have that same chance. Even if he turns around and screws me over again…at least I could say I tried. At least I could say he actually had that chance, and if it goes wrong again this time it’s all on him.

…I’m going to want some more time to think this through. Not to talk myself out of it, per-se. More…because I’m emotional right now. I am feeling about a dozen things at once, and it’s hard for any one feeling to come to the forefront at any given moment. I feel a whirlwind of emotions and a hollow empty place at the same time. It’s…a lot. I’m not going to make such a big decision like this while I’m in this headspace. Better to wait out the storm. We probably still have…what, a few more days before we kill Queen Elvanna? That…won’t be enough time to get over it, but it should be enough time for me to get my head on straight enough to really think this decision through.

Speaking of wishes, I finally had an opportunity to tell Greta about Baba Yaga’s offer of a second wish—one that had to go to someone else. Obviously, Greta was my first choice from the moment our kindly grandmother told me it couldn’t be for myself. I think ‘whatever your heart desires’ is a pretty good gift. Maybe a little behind ‘a ring that protects against fire’. But what can I do? You don’t outdo the classics.

Afterwards we decided to go back to the dining hall to see what Nestian had made for everyone.

Unfortunately, this extremely long day was quite literally only just beginning (Greta told me not to look at the clock so I just know in my heart what time it was.) While I was having a delicious meal with my family after a fucking awful day, my emotional state finally approaching an approximation of stable after Greta and my talk, I got a sending. From A’pul’a, that weird mythic plant person we met in the sewers who has technically killed Illivor twice now.

They apparently forgot to tell us something important. We needed to go to the royal cemetery immediately. Because someone was trying to create a new Crone Queen. And they asked me specifically not to ruffle the feathers of their bird friend—because he’s a Pharasman.

Of-fucking-course he’d be a Pharasman. Because this day couldn’t get any worse.