Sorry.

Took me longer to get this out than it should have...

I don't feel much like writing but I wouldn't let anyone else make this post

As we were leaving I got another call. It was Megan. She said Genome was right outside and coming in. I was a little confused and asked how she knew where he was. At that moment Megan walked into the amphiteater with a phone and smiled. "Because Genome's the one talking to you. How do you like the body I chose Muffy?"

I stared not getting it for a few seconds then it dawned. I charged towards him jumping over the seats until I reached him and grabbed him by the throat flinging him against the wall. I screamed at him to get out of her body and he just laughed. "Oh Muffins, you know how this works. There's nothing left of her mind in here. I've taken over completely. This is my body now."

"Then I'm going to fucking kill you!" I drew back my fist but stopped. He was smiling. He was inside there. I couldn't... It was her body I couldn't hurt her. Never again...

He waited then spoke. "Well if you're not going to let fly with that fist you may as well put me down."

I did so. "Now then. Allow me to explain how this will work. You stole my chance to become human and forced me to take this path. It's only fitting that I use the only thing you really care about to do so. I'm going to help you with the rest of your quest and every time you look at me and see me using your precious sister's body you're going to silently weep and lament that you caused this. Understood?"

I didn't respond. "Good then it seems you three managed to finish up here so let's head back."

Now here we are. Sitting here trying to find the next Ne Timu with Genome smiling at me with my sister's face. I'm not sure what the point is anymore. My sister's gone, The World's gone. They Dying Man can handle this shit I'm done.  

Ghosts

That's what I'm calling these things. They move through solid objects like ghosts, they don't speak and they're creepy. So ghosts seems like a good name for them. I'm sure there's a better name but who cares. Things we know about them sort of.


They can pass through any non living object at will.
They have pure red eyes.
They are immune to all weaponry.
They can affect things in ways that defy physical laws.


Ie that first one broke Harold's arm by twisting the bone itself through his arm without fully twisting the arm.


So yeah can only beat these things in hand to hand combat and doing so is risky since they can break bones essentially with a touch.


So knowing all of this how happy do you think we were to find Hiiln again in a stadium with twenty more of the god damn things.


It was like an amphitheater of sorts. Hiiln was on stage and the seats were filled with Ghosts.Like last time shortly after we arrived Hiiln stopped and The Ghosts all turned their attention to us. Harold's arm had healed somehow completely in this short time. He seems to have some strange healing factor. From what I understand he's also recovered from being stabbed in the eye, having his hand cut off and many other injuries. So, I don't really question it now. Anyways, we all got ready for some hand to hand combat as the creatures soared up towards us passing through the seats like they weren't there. We stayed in the doorway so they couldn't all attack us at once and began the fight. As long as we were careful they were pretty easy. The Liar got a leg broken but other than that we managed to kill 7 of them before the fighting suddenly stopped. The Ghosts stopped and retreated. They moved to the walls.

Hiiln raised his staff to us. "Enough. You have come for me. Sent by the Disloyal goddess of loyalty to destroy me. My servants could delay you indefinitely but it is a waste. Come. I will end you now."

We moved forward except The Liar who knelt down in the doorway due to her broken leg. We took out our weapons now that we weren't fighting the ghosts and charged. Seconds later we were all huddled over on the ground as Hiiln's Nihilism washed over us. In hindsight we really should have expected that.

Hiiln laughed. "How did you expect to kill me. You've felt my power before and you failed to bring along your immune friend. You are powerless."

Then Faceless stood up.

Faceless: It's funny. Once the idea of nothing mattering would probably have me crippled on the ground lie the rest of you but, I've been dead. I've seen what awaits after death and I already know that nothing matters. All your doing is confirming what I already know. The best part though. I have a reason to continue. I like killing things. It's fun. I don't need anymore reason than that.

As he finished speaking he moved his hand up and lifted his mask. Birds flew out and lunged towards Hiiln. The effect of Hiiln's power broke and we stood at the same moment as The Ghosts's attacked again. I threw myself at the attacking ghosts, an overwhelming sense of purpose replacing the nihilism. As we fought The Ghosts Faceless attacked Hiiln.

I didn't see the entirety of the fight being too busy smashing the skulls of The Ghosts attacking me but I saw some snatches. Faceless and his birds attacking Hiiln who defended himself with his staff and what looked like a hand glowing with black flame. Eventually most of the ghosts were dead and Harold could handle the remainder so I rushed to help Faceless.

I turned my attention to the fight just as Faceless slashed with his Machete and managed to cut off Hiiln's hand but in return Hiiln caught Faceless with a blow to the side with his staff that audibly shattered or broke some of his ribs. As Faceless fell to his knees I leapt up on to the stage and lunged at Hiiln with a blow to the face. A crack appeared in his skull and he started to fall back but I quickly grabbed his necklace and pulled it off. He caught himself and lunged at me with his staff. Dark fire curled up the length of his staff as he swung it at me and I blocked with his necklace. There was an explosion and I felt the flesh on my hand tear as I was thrown back. When I got back to my feet Hiiln's robes were lying empty on the ground his staff broken and his necklace a charred heap of metal on the ground. My hand hurt and I lifted it to see the damage. All the skin was gone and a useless skeletal hand was all I had left. With no muscles I couldn't use it.

The remaining ghosts of which there seemed to be only two fled upon the death of their master. I looked to see if Harold was ok and saw him staring at the entrance. I looked as well and saw The Liar. She was standing perfectly fine on her broken leg and was holding one of the Ghosts we had killed earlier. She was grinning in a manner that can only be described as creepy. She looked at me and disappeared. Immediately afterward she appeared beside me and grabbed my ruined hand. I felt her flowing into me and felt my will disappearing even as my hand began to regenerate. I felt this earlier and I felt it once before all this. The power of The Dying Man. Some how that grey goo from The Ghosts was restoring her fear powers and judging by the rate by which she was healing me and how easily she had begun to take control of me it wasn't just the power of The Liar piece she had restored to her but the full power of The Dying Man. As soon as my hand was completely healed she withdrew from me back into herself.

Me: Are you... Still The Liar?

The Liar?: No. I'm The Dying Man. The shattered god made whole.

Me: ... You're still on our side though right?

The Dying Man: Our goals are the same that is all I can say.

Me: Fair enough.

With that she or I guess now it was gone. I have the terrible feeling we're going to have to deal with it eventually as well.

Of course my trouble didn't end there. At that moment Genome arrived but I'm too tired now to fill you in on the rest so I'll tell you after a bit of sleep...

Oh, Megan...

Servants?

We arrived in the area.

The broadcast was apparently some random guy with a camera and internet live streaming a fight between some Timberwolves and proxies. How coincidental that our first meeting with Hiiln and our last involved Timberwolves and Proxies.

So, arriving there we found the camera guy. It was some kid, no one important. We left him there and took the camera with us. Killing a Ne Timu is something I feel should be broadcasted to the world.

We found Hiiln inside of a church. Is every fight with one of these things going to take place in a church? Well this one at least wasn't a real church. It was a church of The Archangel and had been The Timberwolves base of operations. There were still a couple of them inside just slumped over, uncaring. It made me wonder whether they'd return to normal after Hiiln's death. Speaking of Hiiln he was standing behind a pulpit and preaching when we entered. There was only one person in the audience, but they didn't seem to be slumped over in nihilistic despair. They seemed to be listening with rapt attention to every word.

Hiiln stopped speaking as he noticed us and the man stood up and turned towards us. His eyes opened revealing blood red eyes with no pupils and he hissed at us. I think we may be seeing a Ne Timu servant. Apparently this is a thing. It makes sense, I guess. The Ne Timu are essentially just the fears and Unikeia obviously has servants so, we should have expected this. Hiiln just watched us as we began to fan out, preparing to fight. Harold pulled some guns on the creature and it just lunged. There were several rows of pews in it's way and it just passed through them like they weren't there. It reached Harold in seconds and grabbed his left wrist and twisted. I could see the bone snap as the wrist turned. It wasn't normal. You can't just break a wrist like that. Harold didn't seem to mind though and pushed his other gun to the servant's chest before pulling the trigger. The servant didn't even react as the bullets passed through him. He reached towards Harold's face but I stepped forward and grabbed his arm with one hand as I delivered a punch to his stomach. Whatever allowed him to pass through objects apparently didn't let him pass through fists as he crumpled from the punch and let go of Harold's arm. I lifted his head and uppercut him in the throat hard enough to punch through. He made a choked sound and dropped to the ground as I let him go. There was no blood from the wound. Instead there was some strange syrupy grey goop.

With the servant dead we turned our attention instead on Hiiln. Unfortunately he had vanished during the fight. A scream drew our attention back to the servant. The Liar had touched him and she was screaming we pulled her away and she stopped but as I touched her I felt something begin to try and pass into me. As soon as she was free I let go and moved away. She was unconscious and a look from Harold confirmed he had felt it too.

The Liar's still unconscious and we're still looking for Hiiln. I have a lot of questions now.

Megan contacted me as well. She said Genome has a body now and he's coming to join us. Good it will be useful having another ally.

Arrived in Michigan.

So after going out of our way for the seven hundredth or so time Harold raised a very good point.

"If going normally is going to keep getting us distracted why not go there directly. The domains are all still working."

Oh yeah right... So we did that. We arrived somewhere in West Michigan and decided to ask around to find out more about the place Genome told us about. While searching around we spotted a building which was quickly identified as a proxy base. They'd probably know somethings.

So we headed in. On the way in some guy rushed past us before we could stop him. He was wearing a plain black leather jacket and bicycle helmet. Harold went after him while the rest of us went inside.

Inside seemed pretty empty. Or at least it did until we entered one room. inside were quite a large number of bodies apparently dragged in from other parts of the building and in large red letters (Not blood I checked) was written the words: "Stay Alert, Stay Alive" I don't think we'll be getting help from any servants around here.

We met back with Harold later. As expected he lost the guy shortly after beginning to follow him. Fortunately shortly afterward it all became moot as we caught wind of Hiiln's activities anyways. Dr. Malice contacted us and told us about a live feed of a fight coming from nearby that had caught everyone involved suddenly just dropping to their knees. Sounds like Hiiln is there so we're going immediately.

Dr. Malice also apologized for something but wouldn't say what it was. He sounded afraid.

Going to Michigan.

So just a short update.

We're still on our way to Michigan...

Yeah I know... We stopped quite a few times. We've been hitting huge streaks of servant activity and dealing with it and it's severely increased our travel time... For example we're currently in Montana... We'll get there eventually and nothing too important has happened but we did have an interesting encounter you might want to know about.

Me and the group were heading down when we ran into what appeared to be signs of a nearby group of puppets. We tracked down where they were holed up. It was strangely enough a comedy club. I decided to go in alone cause I had a weird feeling.

So I kick open the doors walk in like a tough guy and stop. There were puppets there but sitting near the back was a guy wearing a mask and a black hoodie. The mask had a large smile and green hair coloured on it with a purple strip going down the left side. He stared at me for a few seconds. I quickly backed the hell out of there and told the others we were leaving.

I am completely unashamed of this fact.

Faceless seemed strangely disappointed when I eventually told them who had been there.

Anyways carrying on our trip now.

Oh also...

Genome I contacted Dr. Malice. He still has some stuff to take care of so just telling you this. I assume he's not there yet. I did tell him and he will be coming. So you can tell the thoughtborns surrounding our campsite not to kill us. Alright?

Thoughtless.

For... Reasons. Megan and Dr. Malice will not be accompanying us anymore... Instead they are going to stay with Unikeia and try to convince her to give Portnoy back to us.

So instead now it's me... Muffin, The Liar, Faceless and Harold.

Next on the list... That jackass Hiiln. I have a score to settle with him and a lot of frustration to take out.

Unfortunately this one we had no idea where it would be. So we went to the servants who would be best able to guide us now that the Camper and The Archive pretty much no longer exist. We went to the Thoughtborn.

Well technically it was a group of Towerborns each group led by a Thoughtborn but The Towerborns are essentially mindless shells and The Thoughtborns are the ones really in charge.

So we went to a local group. The thoughtborn/Towerborns weren't really a threat they kept to themselves so we hadn't planned to hunt them originally. Interestingly they were staying in the old Netwerks warehouse. My painting was still there at the entrance when we went in.  The Towerborns went about their work without noticing us. We weren't really a threat. We couldn't hurt The Thoughtborn and The Towerborns would be hard to destroy and wouldn't care anyways. In the main chamber where Megan had once been held was a console. There was The Thoughtborn. Well sort of. The Thoughtborn itself was in the internet but here was where it communicated.

I went to the keyboard and typed in: "Hello Thoughtborn. We require assistance."

The response was. "Who the fuck are you?"

Me: Um... My name is The Muffin Man...

Thoughtborn: That's an idiotic name.

Me: Oh yeah? Well what's your name then jerk?!

Thoughtborn: The name's Genome.

I paused.

Me: Genome? I know you!

Genome: You do? I don't know anyone named The Muffin Man.

Me: It's Turncoat.

Genome: OH! So that plan worked out well huh?

Me: Was that sarcasm?

Genome: Of course it was.

Me: Hey how was I supposed to know this was going to happen.

Genome: You know I had plans of my own. I was going to become human again.

Me: Didn't work out huh?

Genome: Nope cause SOMEONE destroyed the god damn world.

Me: Ok... I get it I fucked up. Anyways I need some help.

Genome: With what?

Me: I need to find Hiiln.

Genome: Who?

Me: The internet must have something on him... Guy paves a path of Extreme nihilism everywhere he goes.

Genome: So everyone he comes in contact with becomes nihilistic and yet you expect one of these people to talk about him online?

Me: ... Point taken. Well anything on people becoming randomly nihilistic?

Genome: Hmm well a few things. There was a sudden outbreak of nihilism among a group of timberwolves and proxies a short while back they were slaughtered by some puppets.

Me: Yeah no I already know about that one.

Genome: Well most recently an entire city in Michigan decided to just lay down and starve to death.

Me: That sounds like a good lead.

Genome: Yep. Course info isn't free.

Me: What do you want?

Genome: Well I want to be human... I've been reading about you and it seems you had a thoughtborn with you who had found a way to map himself to a human body.

Me: Um... Yes...

Genome: I want to do that. Have him come here and teach me how it's done.

Me: Um I guess we could do that.

Genome: Yeah you'll do that. Otherwise you'll be ripped limb from limb by a bunch of mindless cyborgs. Understood?

Me: Understood.

Genome: You may be tough but they're tougher remember that.

Me: Got it...

Genome: Now go away.

So that was useful. Genome is just as big an ass as I remember... Course back then I only had to converse with him once and tell him what to do. I can't imagine having to converse with him for extended periods of time.

Harold's friend and tricking a god.

So yeah seems Harold is back and he brought his friend The Faceless Bastard. Yeah... The dead guy. Apparently they were the people I'd heard about targeting servants. So what the hell happened?

This apparently. I'll give you a few seconds to read that.

Oh who am I kidding none of you read that. So I'll sum it up. Apparently after Harold abandoned us he went and made a deal with Jack to bring Faceless back to life so they could have a final battle. According to the blog the fight ended with Harold winning and killing Faceless again.

However Harold reveals that's not actually what happened. Harold did pull the trigger but he was out of ammo. Faceless recovered and the fight continued. They fought for a while Faceless quickly gaining the upper hand as Harold's supply of bullets dwindled. As Harold wasted his last bullet Faceless stopped. According to Harold with all of his bullets gone he didn't stand much chance of winning anymore but, because of the fact Harold had technically won earlier and Faceless was only still alive due to Harold running out of bullets, they called it a draw. The two began talking about what had been happening. Faceless managed to convince Harold that they should help stop the servants and so they began hunting down servants and they happened to arrive at the church in time to save us. As for why he posted that fake out. Well he was talking to Jack and learned something interesting. Apparently Jack doesn't know everything that happens. He keeps tabs of people but he can't watch everyone so while Jack was focused on our dealings he posted that so that Jack would think everything had gone according to plan.

A big question comes up... Why didn't Jack's plan go as planned. If Jack makes a deal he knows what's going to happen. So why didn't it? Faceless gave an answer to this one. He said maybe The God figure did it. Jack said that whoever serves as the god figure in this triumvirate was an inefficient failure. What if he or she or it isn't. What if it's just very subtle. Jack said Portnoy's powers were also from God. Sure they mostly worked against him but his powers indirectly lead to Faceless defeating Harold and many other interconnected events that eventually lead to the defeat of the Amalgam.

So we got Harold back and another heavy hitter on our team. We also learned something important.

It's possible Jack can be tricked.