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Sermung kept wondering if perhaps the whispers he'd kept hearing had been wrong. That the Godslayer was, in truth, someone else. He supposed he would never know for sure until he finally found the man.

Or rather, if he ever did. There was no guarantee of it happening, of course. One of them could die first. Or both of them. And then Sermung wouldn't even be able to recover his remains, much less discover what he'd been doing all these years.

If the moniker was true, though, then it was at least a hint. Waging war directly on the Primordials. And perhaps beyond them, even. Looking to dismantle the mechanisms that sustained them and kept creating new ones.

But knowing Osgar, that might've just been a secondary objective. Or an accident, even. Prior to leaving, the man had seemed so tired of this world. Of all the loss and haunting memories, no doubt.

It hadn't made much sense to Sermung at the time, but now? Now, he understood. Only too well. Perhaps Osgar had found a way to start anew, out there in higher realms. Perhaps he was living it up, having a grand old time.

That would also be just like him.

And the terrible truth of it, the thing he'd been struggling not to dwell on too much, was that he'd been considering doing the same for years now. Decades. Perhaps a full century, even. It was hard to judge when the idea had first taken root in his mind.

But he couldn't just leave like that, of course. That's not what Osgar did. Osgar left a successor behind. A clear pick. In a world that wasn't locked in such a long-running stalemate.

It wouldn't be the same. There were too many problems to take care of.

But there always were. There always would be. Perhaps they would simply never go down in number again. Especially if he kept neglecting this middle realm. Wasn't that only making the issue worse?

Agh. No, no, no. There were larger concerns. You knew that. Stop raking yourself over the coals.

What larger concerns?

Hmm?

Oh.

The child. Hector. You picked up on that, eh?

Yeah, I did. What larger concerns?

Sermung paused. Hesitated. All that processes, for once, converged and fell quiet as he deliberated over whether or not he should answer that question. Over the incredibly tempting prospect of it. Over the knowledge that he almost certainly shouldn't.