Particles of darkness and thick tendrils of void connected to Ozzy, and he felt as his soul swelled. The power flowed into him much in the same way as the other cores had, but there was no pain. He wasn’t claiming anything but being gifted it, having that power molded into him by a hand so experienced the cosmos could nigh comprehend it.

  “I give you one final gift Ozzy, perspective.” The void said, and everything returned to darkness.

  Ozzy felt as his mind expanded beyond its normal scope and he shown in a rapid cycling of images and sensations not just his own memories, but an outside perspective of them. He saw insights into his emotions and sadness that only an outsider could, and understood them. The reasons why he ran away, the sadness, even the nature defying desire to give up, were laid bare before him.

  “I get it now.” He muttered into the swirling darkness.

  ***

  The room exploded, the cores turning the machine into shrapnel as they blasted not just Ozzy but even Trinidad across the room.

  It was a maelstrom of torn pages, chaotic energies, and Trinidad’s panicked cursing. They had not only been thrown against the walls but they were held there, the energies buffeting them with waves of energy. Yet through it all Ozzy was unharmed, which was really saying something. He’d just watched a wayward arm of an energy wave smash a whirring centrifuge like thing into pieces. The maelstrom continued, growing in intensity until finally erupting in a final massive burst, spraying everything away from it.

  Ozzy hit the floor like a sack of bricks and laid there, letting a wheezing breath out into the hardwood floor. The explosion hadn’t been nearly as bad as being in what he could only assume had been a god’s presence, but then again it had said it wasn’t a being of blessings, so who knew. That was a lot of thinking though, and at this point he really just wanted to take a nap.

  Trinidad was on Ozzy in an instant, “No no no no.” She said rapidly, and in what was probably the worst first responder move of all time grabbed him by the head, pulling it up off of the floor so that she could look at his face, and dropped him when blinked at her.

  Ozzy’s head thudded back onto the floor with a small thunk. Sighing loudly, he lifted his head to give Trinidad an annoyed look only to find the large woman in about as rough shape as he’d seen her at the edge slingers compound.

  “What the hell happened to you?” Ozzy asked, gasping as he saw the severity and quite frankly staggering amount of damage she’d taken.

  Trinidad only had a single serviceable limb, her other was bent awkwardly at the elbow and then a second time just below the wrist. It looked like her hand had been through a meat grinder and the flesh had been chunked.

  Ozzy could see dents in her chest where her ribs had been broken and lung collapsed. She must have been using her mangled arm to protect her heart because that side of her chest was largely fine. Though she’d been practically disemboweled, and intestine hung in mangled disconnected segments from her stomach.

  As he watched however, wounds closed in real time, her mangled fingers sprouted new bone which flesh gradually rose to cover. Her intestines snaked their ways back inside of her. Even the flattened section of her chest popped out with a crunch as Trinidad took a deep breath and blew into her nose, re-inflating her lung.

  “What the hell happened to you?” Ozzy asked, staring slack jawed at the rapidly healing woman.

  “No, the real question is why are you still alive?” She shouted, pointing a still regenerating finger at him.

  “Why wouldn’t I be? It just threw me against the wall, not” Ozzy gestured vaguely at her, “whatever happened to you!”

  She just looked at him incredulously, like he was some alien being the gods had thrown before her simply to confuse her.

  “I don’t even want to know. You realize you just blew up the most expensive thing our district owns?” She asked, running freshly healed hands down her face as she looked around the room with horror.

  “If they explode why would you have it in here though?” Ozzy regretted the question the second it left his mouth, as Trinidad turned a withering glare on him.

  “They don’t explode Ozzy! Otherwise, I wouldn’t have put one in a room full of books and delicate machinery!” She snapped, looking about the ruins of the room in growing distress.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  As Ozzy began to look around the room with Trinidad, he spotted a single leather-bound tome at the epicenter of where the blast had been, untouched and unbothered by the chaos that existed around it.

  “What’s that?” Ozzy asked, tapping Trinidad on her arm and pointing at the book.

  “By the gods…” Trinidad whispered, losing all care for the destruction around them as she bent to grab the book, only for a tiny little tentacle of darkness to reach up and swat her outstretched fingers away. It was almost comically done, slapping her fingers away like a mother might swat a greedy child’s hand away from a tray of sweets.

  A chuckle escaped Ozzy’s throat, and for a moment he thought Trinidad would punt him through the wall because of it until she joined him. Their mirth bouncing off of the walls.

  “It belongs to you Ozzy,” she said after they’d gathered themselves. “If I actually tried to take it the book might just explode again.” She admitted and encouraged him to come forward with an outstretched hand.

  Ozzy approached the book, and as he reached down to touch it the same black tendril reached up, but rather than swatting him away it connected to him, pulling the book up and into his hand where instantly he was struck by the feeling of barely held power that resided within the tome. He had to scan this thing.

  Light danced across the surface of the tome as his watch did is thing, the tendril curiously waving about within the light as Ozzy waited for the scan to finish.

  *BEEP BEEP*

  Items identified:

  Artifact Tome of The Endless Void

  Rarity — Unquantifiable

  Absorb? Yes/No

  Ozzy moved the screen over for Trinidad so that she could read it as well, and the shout of joy she let out as she finished reading it was practically as deafening as the void things voice had been.

  “It’s an artifact!!!” She practically jumped with joy. “I need to write this whole thing down! I can’t believe we made an artifact!”

  Ozzy had to drop the tome to avoid shocking Trinidad as she grabbed him in a massive bear hug and spun him around like the pretty princess he was. She sat him down awkwardly a moment later, clearing her throat to fill the silence.

  “Would you be willing to absorb it here? With me?” She asked, for the first time since he’d met her seeming a little reserved.

  “Why wouldn’t I be? I mean you were the one who helped basically did all the work. Plus, I’m kind of the reason the combiner thing blew up. I’d be happy to do it here.” Ozzy said, smiling up at Trinidad who… was blushing? There was definitely something going on culturally here he was too new to understand.

  “Thank you,” she murmured, in a voice that made Ozzy uncomfortable.

  “Don’t mention it.” He said awkwardly and hit the yes on the option to absorb the core.

  In stark contrast to the last two times he’d absorbed cores there was no searing pain, no fiery burning sensation, this core was instead announced by an emptiness so vast it made him feel like he would collapse in on himself. More than simple pain was the knowledge something so vast loomed above him were to sneeze his existence and all of those within a hemisphere of him would be doomed. It was wholly uncomfortable to a level that could not be explained, and as the moments stretched, he couldn’t help but wish for the pain he had loathed and hated from the other cores. As he felt like his very soul would implode in on itself and cease to be he writhed, rolling across a sea of shattered glass of his own conjuration as his own mind was made a weapon against him.

  Everything went black.

  ***

  Ozzy woke up, warm, comfy, and without his shirt. This had happened to Ozzy twice before in his life. Both times were worlds apart in difference. Once after getting knocked unconscious by a rear tackle the size of Rhode Island playing football, he’d regained consciousness high on meds in a hospital bed. The other time had been after trying Tommy’s special blend of weed and mushrooms and finding himself lying next to a woman he’d never met before.

  This time he knew the woman he was lying next to, but didn’t have the excuse of a drug fueled loss of inhibitions to blame it on. Wait, did he? Do magical artifacts and cores count as stimulants? He supposed they could in some ways.

  Needless to say, he was very close to Trinidad right now. Uncomfortably close. Chew toy close. He knew it was Trinidad because who else was so much bigger than him, and who else would have access to him after he’d fallen unconscious after absorbing the artifact.

  He was currently trapped by two very large arms and being held little spoon style in something akin to a hold most pro wrestlers would never be able to get out of, tier 2 snuggles. Not that he minded all that much he would say, because at the end of the day did it really matter anyways?

  Ozzy stayed like that for a time, letting the moments stretch by. It was nice to just be held by someone, even if it had come about by strange means he wouldn’t give up some of the only true relaxation he’d gotten here in Myreluck.

  His relaxation ended abruptly, and much too soon when a knock at the door shattered their peaceful silence.

  Trinidad’s arms slipped out from around him, and she silently padded over to the door, opening it to an explosion of noise and angry Liza.

  “I’m sorry mam she insisted and came with the firelight leader!” A voice Ozzy didn’t recognize said, though he was mostly shouted over by Liza.

  “Where’s Ozzy you big watcher prick! You better not have sent him on one of those suicide missions you’re so fond of!” She shouted up at Trinidad, and Ozzy rolled over to see what all of the commotion was about.

  The second he opened his eyes and moved Liza saw him, a look of shock and then anger crossing her face.

  “You’re grooming him? He doesn’t even have all of his cores yet! He’s barely been in Myreluck for three days! I can’t believe you’re jumping on a zero like that!” Liza shouted, her face growing redder and redder.

  “It’s not-” Trinidad began only to get cut off by Liza.

  “Come on Ozzy! I’m getting you out of here, it doesn’t matter what she told you she’d give you. We’re going!” Liza stomped over to Ozzy, yanking him out of it before he could even get a word out.

  This was gonna be awkward to explain.