“If you must hustle, hustle like a legend.
Petty schemes are for petty minds—
go big, or kindly go home.”
—Attributed to Purushottam Bhai, Patron Saint of Paisa and Punchlines, as found scribbled on a paan-stained napkin beneath the Golden Chai Stall of Vanmukh
Annotation: Believed by some to be divine revelation. Believed by others to be indigestion.
***
There was a pause. A stillness that stretched too long.
Theryx scratched his head with a spoon.
Then blinked at the bone-covered horizon.
Then sneezed a butterfly.
“Right,” he muttered to no one. “This is definitely going to raise some flags.”
He looked down at Arin, who was currently slumped unconscious at his feet, eyelids fluttering like someone arguing with a dream. A soft, rhythmic pulse of white light blinked from the cloak across Arin’s chest.
“Sweet stars and salted goat milk,” Theryx sighed. “They’ve found us.”
In the distance—though "distance" in Boneflick Ridge had always been more of a suggestion—ribbons of reality began to shimmer, quiver, and stutter. Geometry itself faltered, trees bent in directions that shouldn't exist, and an enormous, soundless bell tolled inside the marrow of the land.
The System was waking up.
And it wasn’t happy.
Theryx tapped the air.
Nothing happened.
He tapped it again. “Come on, come on. You worked during the Firefly Panic of ’88.”
A holographic interface reluctantly snapped into existence midair. It flickered with immense disdain and mild confusion. An ancient relic in a modern GUI, labeled in symbols even the bones refused to remember.
A message blinked:
Warning: SYSTEM Influence Reasserting Control over Sector X: Boneflick Ridge
Autonomous Relocation Protocols Disabled.
Divine Sanctuary Relays Offline.
Emergency Blink Magic Above Tier 5 Requires Multiversal Clearance.
Also: you smell faintly of garlic. Would you like to fix that?
Theryx rolled his eyes. “Rude.”
He reached deep into his robes, past a sandwich, a small taxidermied fox, and three spoons labeled “definitely not cursed.” Finally, he pulled out what looked like a lumpy piece of fossilized cheese. He nodded reverently.
"Cheddar. Plan Cheddar it is."
Then, in one swift motion, he bit into the cheese.
The universe hiccuped.
Everything within the Boneflick Ridge—bones, mist, ancient whispers, the spectral echoes of titans, an entire ghostly outhouse, and of course, Arin—suddenly popped out of phase like a skipped heartbeat.
Time yawned.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Space coughed.
Somewhere, a System monitor exploded in a cascade of red error messages.
SYSTEM ALERT: ANOMALY DETECTED
Relocation unauthorized.
Subject: THERYX (Theoretically Sanctioned Archwizard, Lunatic Grade)
Infraction: Pan-magic Displacement of Locked Region
Threat Assessment:
– Probability of Exploding Tea Kettle: 93%
– Probability of Finding Him Again:
– Backup Plan: Cry.
Somewhere inside the System's core, a divine chamber pulsed with unease. Three arcane figures—avatars of Necromane Supreme and the Lightbringer—gathered in celestial silence.
A single chicken flew across their vision and vanished into a rainbow.
"Was that...?" murmured the Lightbringer.
Necromane Supreme just sighed, long and tired, and rubbed his temples with skeletal fingers.
The third proxy, wrapped in living shadow, adjusted a prism-scroll.
“It seems,” they said, “the Paragon is now off-grid. Entirely. Not hidden... not shielded... just... misplaced.”
“By Theryx,” Necromane muttered. “Again.”
BACK IN THE NOW-NOT-THERE Boneflick Ridge
Reality reassembled itself with the grace of a drunken acrobat. Land twisted, sky flipped, gravity forgot the script. Finally, everything settled.
Theryx stood proud on a floating island of bone, surrounded by gentle, pulsating lights. They drifted through a pocket dimension wrapped in the subconscious hum of a dreaming god.
He drew a crude “Do Not Disturb” sign in the air and jammed it into the invisible barrier.
Then, yawning widely, he threw down a sleeping mat, stuffed some earmuffs into his ears, curled up like a large, magical cat, and muttered:
“Wake me if the bones learn how to tap dance or if he asks about taxes.”
He was snoring within seconds.
MEANWHILE, INSIDE ARIN’S MIND
Darkness. Then whispers.
Light again. Then black.
He floated somewhere between breath and memory. He saw Theryx hovering above him, occasionally slapping his cheeks with increasingly odd objects: a feather, a spoon, an eggplant. Then there were potions—poured into his mouth, rubbed on his forehead, tossed like confetti.
“Wake up, sleepy Paragon,” Theryx’s voice echoed distantly. “I tried everything but interpretive dance.”
But Arin couldn’t wake yet. The bones weren’t done.
They gathered around him now—not physically, but in his spirit, in the very marrow of his essence. Voices beyond gender and time. Groaning with thought, gentle with pain.
You wear the cloak of a lost vow. Why?
Are you a bearer of truths or a vessel for new lies?
Do you seek to change the world, or merely escape its weight?
Are you Paragon... or pawn?
A tool of the omniscient System... or its undoing?
Do you hear us? Or only the echo you wish to hear?
Can you walk into death and still name yourself alive?
Will you remember who you were before the world labeled you useful?
Will you be devoured by the System’s reward, or defy its chains?
Who is Arin?
Who was he, before power promised him a place?
The voices slowed, solemn. Arin’s breathing steadied.
And just before full awareness crept in, a final whisper hummed like a lullaby through the hollows:
Would you trade your freedom for meaning?
Then light.
Arin’s eyes opened.
He was lying on a throne made of ribs. Above him floated bioluminescent birds in the shape of question marks. Theryx was asleep, hugging a skull.
Everything smelled faintly of lemon balm and smoked cinnamon.
The sky above them was a swirling aurora of forgotten feelings.
The bones around him... no longer mourned. They watched. Waiting.
He sat up, slowly. The cloak rustled.
A strange calm washed over him.
He wasn’t being watched.
He wasn’t being graded.
He wasn’t being tracked.
Not anymore.
He was, at last, off the map.
Somewhere, far far away...
The System blinked.
Subject: Arin – Status: UNKNOWN
Tracking: ERROR
Achievements: REDACTED
Threat Level: ???
Paragon: Offline
A single message appeared on the divine dashboard:
“HE’S GONE WITH THERYX.”
Response: ??
But back in the remains of what was once Boneflick Ridge, reality twitched.
Shadows flickered at the edges of where the graveyard had been, cloaked in systemic code, armored in influence. Phantom agents of the System, faceless, formless, without will beyond their command.
They arrived too late.
Only a smell of garlic and ozone remained.
And one floating image burned into the air—
Theryx.
Laughing.
Maniacally.
Making faces.
Tongue out. Eyes crossed. Hands wiggling from his ears like a child mocking doom itself.
Then—pop!—even that vanished.
And all that was left was silence.
A note hung in the air: “Catch us if you can, smellypants.”
And then nothing.
Nothing at all.
The Paragon was gone. The graveyard relocated. The influence shattered.
And the System?
Still searching.
***