Void stood at the border of the continent, arms folded behind his back like a professor who just caught a student trying to explain quantum mechanics using crayons. Behind him, the realm he just left quietly folded itself out of existence, grateful to be left alone with its emotional damage.
"This place," Void murmured, "smells like politics and combustion."
EXrczate spread before them like a continent drawn by committee and then ignored for a decade. It was massive, hyper-industrial, and humming with the awkward energy of a place that knew it had too many kingdoms and not enough plumbing.
⸻
EXrczate at a Glance: A Mistake That Kept Growing
• Population: Unclear. Somewhere between "Too many" and "Oh no."
• Divisions:
• 633 Small Kingdoms
• 7 Great Empires
• 1 Central Laundry Council (don't ask)
• Cultural Values: Smoke. Glory. Arguments over underwear colors.
• Political System: Everyone rules. No one rules. The goats are voting now.
• Elemental Condition: Polluted. Like someone boiled down guilt into fog.
⸻
They arrived on the continent's eastern edge, where the skies turned yellow every other Tuesday and the clouds cried oil instead of rain.
Ezekiel sneezed.
"This place is giving me tetanus just by looking at it."
"That's the air," Frederick confirmed, rubbing his beard like it owed him answers.
⸻
The Sacred Underwear Crisis
As they moved inland, they stumbled upon a regional capital known as Shimmerveldt, which was less of a city and more of a heated argument sculpted from metal, steam, and unresolved trauma.
There, on the grand marble steps of the Capitol of Queens, a full-blown royal debate was underway:
"Orange symbolizes strength, defense, and ceremonial radiance in war!"
"Black is for dignity and mourning! We are not circus performers!"
"And yet, you wore fuchsia last coronation, Elaria—explain that!"
Void passed without breaking stride.
"Three centuries," he said. "Still unresolved."
"Should we intervene?" Ezekiel asked, dodging a stray handkerchief thrown with surprising velocity.
"I would sooner battle the god of bureaucracy," Void replied.
⸻
They found shelter in a nearby volcanic mountain range known as The Burned Backbone, because no one here believed in naming things gently.
Void located a lava-lit cave and sat cross-legged in front of a floating chunk of dark ore.
"Forging something?" Ezekiel asked, peering in.
"Yes," Void said.
He was lying.
He waved his hands dramatically. The ore rotated. Nothing happened.
"What's it supposed to be?"
"A reminder."
"Of?"
"The importance of subtlety."
"You don't even know what you're doing, do you," Frederick said flatly.
Void's hands twitched.
"I am a master of unmaking."
"And a disaster at hammering," Frederick muttered, stepping in to grab the ore like a disappointed uncle at a school science fair.
Ezekiel leaned on the wall and whispered, "You once tried to forge a blade out of law fragments and sadness. It turned into soup."
Void looked him in the eyes.
"That soup had potential."
⸻
While Frederick began sketching forge upgrades on the wall using glowing minerals (and probably spite), Void gazed out into the continent, toward a rumbling signal beneath the land.
"This continent wasn't built here by chance," he murmured.
Beneath the smog-choked cities, under the clashing kingdoms and smug empires… something ancient pulsed.
A Forgotten Heart.
One of the seven original fragments of the World Realm, lost during the First Cataclysm. It wasn't a heart in the physical sense—it was more like a metaphysical hard drive full of cosmic regrets.
"What happens if we find it?" Frederick asked, clearly already plotting how to fit it inside a backpack.
"It remembers us," Void said. "And we remember too much."
⸻
Casual Disasters That Happened While They Slept:
• A Peppa Pigkin warband declared spiritual independence and demanded bacon reparations from the Goatfolk.
• The Goatfolk responded by throwing cheese wheels with the speed of ballistic missiles.
• Someone crowned Ezekiel King of District 419 by accident. He accepted, then resigned five minutes later when he realized the royal crest was just a rusty spoon.
• Frederick accidentally invented a device that turned complaints into raw kinetic energy. It exploded halfway through his second rant.
• Void stood under a thunderstorm that was legally classified as a screaming fit from the sky, and stared at it until it apologized.
⸻
Void didn't just come here for the heart fragment.
He came because EXrczate is a wound.
It bleeds forgotten magic. Forgotten structure. Forgotten promises.
And if it's not sealed or mended soon, it will spread. Like law decay.
But healing it… requires remembering what broke it in the first place.
And Void?
He's starting to remember things he buried so deep the stars forgot them too.
⸻
Void looked at the dark sky, the flickering kingdoms, the endless stupid debates about laundry and lineage, and the broken heart beating beneath it all.
"I just remembered… this is where it started."
"What started?" Ezekiel asked, blinking through smoke.
Void didn't answer.
But the wind did.
And it whispered something that made Frederick drop his hammer.
⸻
Ezekiel's Confused Journal Entry: "I Think I'm Dying but Emotionally"
Day ??? of Following Void (Chronologically, Time Has Given Up)
Dear journal,
or rock, or glowing scroll—I don't know what this is anymore.
I just need to write things down before my brain turns into hot cheese.
Which, honestly, I suspect is already happening.
⸻
Location:
Continent of EXrczate, which sounds like a cough and feels like a fever dream.
Fun fact: It has 633 kingdoms. Yes. Six. Hundred. Thirty. Three.
Someone told me that's "political diversity."
I call it a multiplayer anxiety attack.
⸻
Highlights of the Week So Far:
• Watched a royal debate about underwear color last five hours.
Apparently, orange is the color of visibility and firepower, and black is the color of shame and mystery.
I personally wear brown—because that's what trauma looks like now.
• Void tried forging a weapon again.
It looked like a cosmic blender married a paperweight.
He called it "a metaphor."
Frederick cried.
• I became king of a district for four and a half minutes.
They handed me a spoon and yelled "Long live the lad!"
Then their economy collapsed and they blamed me.
I abdicated. To a goat.
⸻
Existential Revelations:
• Void can break reality with a sigh but cannot forge metal without emotionally injuring nearby witnesses.
• My father (bless his unstable beard) is developing a hammer that runs on passive-aggressive energy. It's working too well.
• There is something ancient buried under this continent and I'm 90% sure it's giving me headaches on purpose.
• I backflipped once. Void judged me. The grass judged me. I judged myself.
⸻
Questions I Currently Have:
1. Is my life an extended metaphor for impulsive decisions and their consequences?
2. Do magical mushrooms count as therapy?
3. Why did the flower next to me whisper "almost-hero" last week? What does almost mean??
4. If Void isn't a god… what is he?
5. Is Frederick aging backwards? Because he built a lava-powered drill and giggled.
⸻
Final Note:
If I don't make it, please tell the next dwarf generation that I died confused but deeply moisturized by divine energy.
Also: DO NOT accept any kingship offers from random goat people. They don't explain the taxes.
I need a nap. And a therapist. Possibly one who specializes in cosmic trauma and underpants diplomacy.
Sincerely,
Ezekiel