Goan Moiran departed the arena of the Empire with his head held high. "Well done… Ridgeback." His instructors said to him as he walked out beneath the gate. Within, those who gave up. on their dreams, sat holding their heads in their hands, some sobbing, some staring at the floor or off into space. Some sat on benches or in corners or just slumped against the wall.

"What do I do now…" Was a common refrain among them.

"What do I do now?" Was a similar refrain from those who had triumphed, those who held their heads up having faced the challenge of combat and walked out to the cheers of the crowd.

Goan nodded silently to his instructors, without a further need for words, he simply approached a bucket of water, picked it up, and dumped it over his head, washing away sand and sweat down into the grate below his feet that would carry both things off to the sewers.

"What do I do now…?" Goan wondered, and not for the first time. He scratched the back of his head, his white hair rustled at his touch, it was soaked through with the water that replaced his sweat, and was now at least cool to the touch. Other victorious graduates of the arena program were filling up the place, including the impromptu couple that had formed a bond in the midst of the fight and had become an instant crowd favorite.

'I suppose I should go congratulate my comrades… that'll do for a 'what's next' at least for that moment.' Goan reasoned and headed over to his friends, only for a messenger wearing bright yellow clothing so he could be easily identified, to enter the room through a side door and approach.

He was a slender youth with a simple cap that draped around his ears and down the back of his head, but stopped in the front just at the forehead. "I've been looking for you, I've got something I'm supposed to deliver, your hands only. Now let's see here…" He reached into a satchel, took out a small letter with a red seal, and extended it to Goan. "Looks like that's it, got to go." He then bowed politely and departed.

"What a strange young man…" Goan considered briefly and broke the seal to open the message.

'Goan Moiran,

For years you pressed yourself beyond the limits of your endurance, striving to prepare yourself for the very moment that has come to you today. To celebrate the completion of your goal, you are cordially invited to the Arena of Nazarick to display your skills before His Majesty, and receive his reward for your accomplishment. If you accept this offer, go at once to the Emperor's box.

With anticipation of your arrival,

~Cocytus'

Goan read the message again and again. The only indication of emotion on his face was a twitch at the corner of one dark eye. "Why… couldn't I have gotten this message 'before' I drenched myself? Or maybe 'after' I've bathed and changed…?" He gave a snort and rolled his eyes.

"Oh well, hopefully His Majesty understands if I am less than clean at just this moment. And I suppose I will be getting filthy in the arena anyway." He shrugged the matter off and undertook a brisk walk out the long way to the underground path, emerging out the private entry for combatants and making his way around to the stairs that led directly to the Emperor's box.

A single guard stood watch, dressed in the armor of the state religion, simple, practical black scale mail, armed with a sword and a short bow, the fit looking guard was only slightly older than Goan himself. "Hopefully this letter is enough to get me past…' He thought while coming closer to the young man, who gave him a quick once over.

"You must be Goan, go on up." The guard jerked a thumb over his shoulder up the stairs behind him.

"Wait, how did you…?" Goan asked, taken briefly aback.

The guard looked at him like he was dense, a cockeyed glance and a snort that might as well have been drawn from Goan himself only minutes earlier. "Are you serious? How many white haired, black eyed teenagers are running around the arena in armor?"

Goan's pale look did nothing to hide the faint hint of embarrassed blush on his cheek and he rubbed the back of his head a trifle sheepishly. "Right… right. That was a stupid question I suppose."

"Very." The guard agreed with a pleasant smile and a sharp nod, "Now go on, there's someone waiting for you."

"Of course…" Goan uttered and began to jog up the long narrow passage, his shadow cast against both walls by opposing glowstones that lit the way, he found himself at the top in short order.

He wasn't surprised by who he found waiting for him. "Lady Shalltear." He bowed deeply.

"Well, well, well, the chosen one all grown up." She looked amused, with a phony blush and her hand on her cheek the way she shook her head, "Where does the time go?" She teased him for the thousandth time and he had the decency to laugh.

"Behind me, the way it always does. You're not going to offer a night with one of your vampire servants as a graduation gift, are you…?" Goan winked at the monster he thought of as an aunt, like Lupusregina or CZ.

"The thought crossed my mind, you are a young man now after all, you should know something about pleasing the opposite sex, or the same one if you prefer." Shalltear replied quite rationally.

"You might be right… you might be right. But for now… Lady Shalltear?" He asked and bowed with deference to the diminutive and delicate looking monster.

The gate opened, and through it they passed, out of the realm of man and beast, and into the divine realm of Nazarick.

To Goan's surprise, he appeared immediately in the arena, where Cocytus and Sebas stood waiting for him.

Before he could even offer a greeting, the ice blue insectoid guardian drew a sword from the air and extended it toward him.

Goan reached out with a steady hand and silent, steady features and placed his hand on the hilt. "Teachers." He said as he stepped away while still facing him, unwilling to show his back to the guardian or the head butler.

Sebas shook his head, the stern expression he always wore had not changed, but the tiny catch in his voice suggested more beneath the surface. "After today, not anymore. You will no longer be our student, young man, you will 'be' a man, your own man, with your own purpose, either here, or out there, but it will be yours."

"Sirs… that may be true… but you will always be my teachers. Always mean the world to me, and I am far more grateful than you could ever know." Goan blinked his dark eyes as he spoke, and took position.

"We do know. We saw your effort. That is how we know." Cocytus answered him and drew out a sword of his own.

Goan raised a white eyebrow, "You know I am nowhere near strong enough to defeat even one of you, no… I won't even make a scratch on one, let alone take on both of you."

"You're not expected to." Shalltear said liltingly as she floated up toward the viewing box where the Sorcerer King and Albedo were just sitting down.

"Go on, young man, go on!" Ainz said energetically with a majestic wave of his skeletal hand, "Show me what these years of work have turned you into."

Shalltear sat down daintily at the left hand of Ainz, and Goan immediately knelt and bowed his head.

"As my Lord wills it!" Goan shouted and when Cocytus leveled his sword, Goan immediately went on the attack.

Unlike most of his peers, who sought intimidation through warcries, Goan was silent. His feet pressed into the sands of Nazarick's arena, sank, and scattered the many tan granules like a dry splash.

His longsword was level at his face, he leaned into his run, his legs stretched out over the open ground, not a sound passed his lips. His coal black eyes were focused on his target… 'Teachers… teachers… teachers…' Now turned opponents he could never hope to beat.

Every step and every grain of sacred sand in this sacred place was a memory. He was fairly sure he'd eaten down an inch of it over the years...

'...Good, good, but you hesitate. Hesitation kills.' Sebas had said as he put a foot on young Goan's chest.'

'...Lose your sword, lose your life. Bind their sword, their life may be yours…' Cocytus had said as he deftly knocked Goan's sword away with a trivial flick of his wrist.

In the present, Goan's heart was heavy, his breath was light, but his breathing was rapid, but it felt as slow as the sands running out of an hourglass. A steady, constant trickle that felt like an eternity.

As he came closer, he veered aside from his straight course and went straight for the Butler of Steel. He raised his sword, only to toss it into the air and bring a Ki powered palm strike toward Sebas's solar plexus, it was batted aside, but before a followup blow could land, the young adventurer had already dropped to a crouch and gone straight to the kneecap.

It took no time at all to recognize what was happening. 'Cocytus waits for me, Sebas holds back… a great deal, no counterstrikes, only avoidance and deflection.' Goan recognized as the sword he'd tossed into the air came down again, his teeth gritted tight to keep back the urge to let out a war shout.

He caught the blade at the hilt and spun to strike into Sebas's side, only to find that his opponent had stepped beyond its reach, then in, and finally Goan felt the blow on his shoulder and his side. The air passed all around him as he sailed through it with the force of the blow, and he bounced over the sands for a dozen feet before he rolled over to his feet.

[Dull Pain] He muttered and the soreness vanished. Sebas was already stepping back, and Cocytus came to the fore.

"Good. You held your sword." Cocytus praised the young man, but Goan took no time to acknowledge it.

'Faster. I have to go faster!' He shouted inside his head, his white hair trailed lightly behind him, 'Top of your class is nothing in a world where power like theirs exists… but you can do one thing…'

'I can only hope to make them proud…'

Goan's sword flew fast enough before him that it was nothing but a streak of silver, and yet Cocytus with his massive body and a single long blade was more than sufficient to simply bat Goan's best aside as if it were nothing.

His black eyes darted everywhere at first, until they settled and became steady, taking in the totality of the monster, his hands and feet moved of their own accord, he felt his arm begin to bleed where Cocytus's sword had slashed a shallow blow, the wet sticky blood dripped away and added itself to the memory of this fight to the eternal sands beneath their feet.

Goan began to back up, his footwork was being tested.

He felt the presence at his left before he saw it and instinctively arched his body backward at the waist, a fist that would have sent him flying with a punch to the jaw passed through empty air instead, and Goan in a moment of desperation, punched up at the elbow of the attacking arm.

'They're fighting me as if they were around iron ranks… or gold at best if I'm being exceedingly generous to myself.' Goan reasoned with his preternatural calm.

However his reasoning stopped, when he felt his lungs all but collapse as two sudden blows sent him sailing backward. 'It's a beautiful night sky up there…' He managed the thought as his arc away from where he stood, peaked and began to decline.

He landed and slid for a dozen feet, scattering sand like water was scattered as the wake of a swift moving boat. When he finally came to a stop, all the top of the class could do… was groan and try to raise a sword in fingers so nerveless and an arm so banged up that both simply collapsed.

From the box, a long, slow clap began to ring out. The strangeness of hearing flesh where only bones lay had long ceased to trouble the young man. Instead he felt only gratitude, and a growing sense of pride. That pride redoubled when it was quickly followed by the noises of polite applause from watching guardians.

Sebas approached the gasping, groaning young man who could not stand up on his own, drew out a potion of deep purple and dumped it over the boy's chest.

Goan managed to slowly raise a hand, sand clumped to his flesh in such a quantity that he wondered if he would not end up taking another inch of the arena floor with him when he left. He made a very slow thumbs up, and let out a hacking cough for several moments before he began to rise.

He did so in part by the use of his blade. As soon as he was up enough, the sword in his hand stabbed tip first into the sand, sinking several inches before it stopped. He held the pommel with his fists over the upright base and remained in a kneeling position. He kept his head bowed low, facing the Sorcerer King.

"To my savior, my mother's savior, and the god of this world, I pledge my life, my soul, my sword, my hands, and my work. As my mother knelt in gratitude before she gave up her life to your glory, so too will I, if it is asked of me. And if it is not asked of me, then as long as I live, your will is my work. I am your adventurer, god of gods, and king of kings."

"That is a heavy oath you make to me, Goan Moiran. Are you sure you can bear that weight?" Ainz asked the young man from his position in the high dias. "An oath like that, killed your mother at Crossroads."

"And also saved many lives." Goan pointed out without raising his head. "I will venture out into the world, and bear your glory with me. I… I honestly don't know if I am strong enough to do as I've said." Goan admitted with some hesitation. "I only know that I wouldn't exist without you, my mother wouldn't have lived as long as she had… everything I have, I have because of you. My white hair, my black eyes, my… unlooked for blessings, came from you."

"Blessing of the Dark." Albedo said and briefly touched the empty belly of her own body, fresh longing and a recollection of prophecy yet to be fulfilled, and there was a hint of it kneeling on the sands below.

'He is more right than he knows… his white hair is the color of my beloved's bones, his black eyes, the deep pools that only our pope has matched, so like those dark shadows beyond the red. His strength, like the undead, his martial arts are all drawn from death. Perhaps the blessing given to him before his birth, changed him more than even he knows…' It was a reflective moment for Albedo, who wondered, 'Will the child I bear for my Lord, look something like that? Though I do hope… he has wings like me.'

Albedo lost herself briefly in the reverie, the others were not done.

Shalltear, in her customarily haughty posture with her hand near her mouth, laughed. "If you want to go make a mark for our god out there… you'll need a better weapon than that. Or maybe armor, you're a bit banged up there now." She tittered a bit, and Goan managed a laugh in return.

"You always know how to make a guy feel better…" He mumbled just loud enough to hear. "But you're right, Lady Shalltear, you're right. As are you, My Lord. All I can say is… if I fail out there, it will not be because anyone who taught me let me down. I have to go out there, sooner or later, and you have… all of you, prepared me better than any other man in the world, I can't ask for more than I have. I can only make my oath from here…" He pounded the place on his chest where his heartbeat marched slowly onward. "And hope I am my mother's son in courage, to whatever end that means for me. Thank you… thank you all. My teachers… who have been as uncles…"

Shalltear and Albedo coughed discreetly, their eyes toward their lord, "...and aunts… and a godfather who gave a fatherless child more than emperors give to princes."

Ainz finally relented and held both hands outstretched, "If you won't be dissuaded, then… I accept your oath. Goan Moiran, son of Moira and a nameless dead, foster of the Peasant General, Governor Enri Emmott-Bareare, student of Sebas Tian, student of Cocytus, blessed of the darkness, graduate of the Grand Arena of Arwintar, chosen of the Sorcerer King, I grant you my blessing on your resolve."

With his head still humbly bowed, Goan replied with a deep, "Thank you, Your Majesty."

'Save and bless one brave pregnant woman on a whim… and the next thing I know I get a talented servant that… somehow, everyone thinks of as somehow 'chosen'? How does that sort of thing always happen?' The question always got to Ainz when unexpected benefits came his way, and still, everyone thought it was all part of his plans. 'Still, at least you've gotten used to it for the most part.'

"However, even the most unconditional of gifts is not given without any reason… and before I do so… there is one single thing that must be done." Ainz said, and before Goan knew what was happening, skeletal feet were down beneath his eyes and sand scattered about from the impact. A gate opened a moment later, and Ainz simply gave the order, "Follow."

The whorling void, an impossible magic anywhere else, was nothing but a routine convenience to his lord, and it was a thing of wonder, but not of fear for those who knew their god well.

Goan was somehow unsurprised by where he found himself. The night sky twinkled overhead, thousands of stars shone down and winked, like pupils in the eyes of a numberless audience. The air was cool and blew lightly through the tree near the grave. The rustling branches and the smell of grass only added to the tranquility of the darkness.

Goan looked up at the statue of his mother, she was posed in a mode of heroic defiance, spear set in both hands, teeth gritted, her hair short. Wounds had been etched onto her body by the master sculptor who had taken the great lump of gray stone and carved a masterpiece to mark her place of rest.

Down at the base of the statue there were numerous small footprints. Goan let out a very small laugh, drawing Ainz's gaze down on him from Goan's right hand.

"Just this, sire, just this." He said and waved his hand toward the footprints. "The people who have my mother's home now, they have little children, and they like to climb all over her statue, swing from her spear, climb on her shoulders, that kind of thing."

"Is that right?" Ainz asked quietly.

"Yes, they were doing it once when I came to visit this place." Goan gestured to the grave marker a few feet away, "When I explained who I was, who was buried there, the parents were mortified at their children's conduct and offered to stop them. I told them it wasn't necessary."

"Why?" Ainz asked.

"Because, sire… she used to love to let me on her shoulders. If she were here now, she would say that children playing on a monument to her is proof that she didn't die for nothing." Goan reached out and touched the stone where a wound was etched.

"Go on." Ainz said in a quiet voice, "You know you want to."

Goan gave tiny nods and made his way to the headstone. He brushed aside a bit of moss and read it yet again. 'Moira, born in the summer of the Queen's hundredth harvest, died in her twenty eighth year. Hero of the Siege of Crossroads, may she rest in the peace life denied her.'

"Mother… m-mom. I made it. I grew up. I'm a man, as I was always so impatient to be. I know I was a difficult child, different, quiet, I couldn't feel what others felt… I didn't understand what you understood. I'm sorry for that. But I'm not a child anymore, wherever your spirit lies, I hope it is a happy place, w-with good beer, warm milk, sunshine and green grass. Free of fear, free of pain… and I know… I know you won't listen to this, as good mothers never would, but I'm asking you anyway not to worry about me. I have had good teachers, everyone from the Demon of the West, to the Peasant General, to the Butler of Steel and the Sword of Nazarick. There's nothing to worry about… so don't worry about me. Just… just be wherever you are, and one day, some day, I don't know how long from now, I'll lie down for the last time and we will meet again."

His voice caught and a shaking hand touched the stone, he pressed his forehead to it as he spoke. "When I do… when I do, I'll have endless stories to tell you. I'll do my best to follow your example, serve His Majesty well… and… and I'll never forget you."

The breeze caught his hair and cast it lightly about behind him, a caress that brought back a memory he'd long forgotten…

'There it is… Goan, sacred Carne, the place our god descended on the world, if the stories are true.' Moira said and holding him on her shoulders in the high windswept grass of the hill, she pointed to the mighty walls of the growing settlement. Her long brown hair carried aloft by the wind, he'd reached down and run his hands through it, only one eye on the city of the god of death, and the other on the way her hair billowed around his fingers, and its great silk softness.

'If we go there, the chance may come to show him what his blessing brought to the world… so he knows I didn't waste his gifts…' Whatever Moira had said after that, it didn't come back to him, all he remembered was her sudden lurch as she stepped forward into the grass and out from the shade of the tree they'd stopped to rest beneath, and into the light of day again.

He felt a lump in his throat at the caress of the breeze, and slowly stood up. "Goodbye… and… till the next life." He whispered to the grave, and turned to the waiting king.

"My Lord, my god… why did you need to… no… how did you know I needed to do this?" Goan asked with eyes turned up wonderingly into the glowing red orbs.

"It is something very human to speak to the dead. After all, they are always with us." Ainz waved his hand and paused, a moment later, the whorling dark gate appeared a few feet from the simple peasant house, and the pair stepped through again, and left the grave to the silent night, and the statue to its lonely vigil, a testament to a war that was already history to a growing generation.

Goan knew most of the places in Nazarick, except for a few that were strictly forbidden save to those who worked within them. The workspace of the busty demoness, the office of Demiurge, Neuronist's chambers, and a handful of others.

It didn't take long for Goan to realize he was following the towering undead monarch to a place quite unknown. Wherever he was going, the hall was empty.

"You will need this." Ainz said as he neared a series of statues in alcoves. His hand plucked from a hole in the air, a simple ring. "Wear this ring only after we pass safely. Otherwise you will die before you know what's killed you." Ainz instructed him, and the pale skin of Goan's ever placid face looked up to the towering skeletal god with surprise. The ring closed into a tight fist in his palm as if he were concerned it might be lost.

Ainz said nothing more at first, he simply resumed the walk down the long hall, their steps alone creating sound, echoing unevenly off the dark stone walls of the interior.

"My Lord… may I ask… who are all these statues of?" Goan asked innocently, and this was enough to stop the Sorcerer King in his tracks.

"I have never spoken of them to you, have I?" Ainz asked, his hand reached out to fall on the statue of one of his dearest friends. "Bukubukuchagama, Ulbert, Nishikienrai, Herohero, Blue Planet, Whitebrim, Touch Me…" Ainz ran down the list of names until he had spoken them all. "These… these were my friends, my guild, my family. Long ago, long before you were born, in a place very far from here, I found true camaraderie among them. But…"

"My Lord… if it is too hard to say… if I should not have asked…" Goan said and bowed his head in apology.

"No. Perhaps this is best." Ainz replied and looked up at Touch Me's statue. "One of my servants, one you know, once said to me, 'People meet, and people part, and that's just how life is.' If I'd heard that saying when the forty-one of us were all together at our height? I never would have believed it. I thought we'd be together forever, my friends and I." Ainz went still, and Goan asked with kind humility…

"How did… how did they die? Or am I going too far?" Goan swallowed at the unexpected and obvious sense of loss in the being he called his savior.

"As far as I know, they did not die. However, they did make other choices, chose to go, one by one. They went to… in your terms, another world. So forty-one became forty. Then as time passed, it became thirty, then slowly toward twenty. Finally, there were two, and finally… one. I called for them again to come to me one last time. Only one did, they wished me well, then they were gone again. On that day, I found this world, your world." Ainz told the story with a grim sense of sorrow that his emotional suppressor struggled to defeat. However, he was not done.

"My friends, they were unbeatable, but they are now gone anyway, as you go out into that world, you will have your best chance if you go with companions. Nemu and Kuuderika, for example, they should be finishing up their training as well. Perhaps go with them, see the world at large, and watch out for one another." Ainz gave the advice, and could not help but think, 'That sounds wiser than I think I am… but still it makes sense, three different specialties, they already trust each other.'

Goan kept his head bowed, "That is wise, sire, I will bring up the subject when I go home."

"When you do, and they accept, remember that you will be going out as a team, your lives depend on one another, you may very well die together. Or, worse perhaps, one or more may die and you go on alone. They are a gifted pair, but it is still a big and dangerous world. What choices you make will dictate the chance you have at surviving to old age." Ainz gave the advice as gently as he could, then removed his hand from the statue and extended it toward the long dark hall through which they were walking. "Now come along, I have something for you."

Ainz resumed the slow walk toward the end of the hall, Goan synchronized his steps at the left hand of the king, doubling the sound of their echoing steps in the otherwise empty hall until they came to a door.

It opened with a slow and resistant groan, the interior slowly coming into view. As it did, Goan's mouth opened, he stared in open disbelief at what lay before his eyes. Treasure, mountains of it rising impossibly high, gold, platinum, metals, weapons that were beyond price, and what was more, it went off into the darkness beyond his view.

From out of that darkness came the blank faced son of Ainz Ooal Gown. "Vater! Willkommen in meinem Haus!" Pandora's Actor bowed with a deep flourish that swept one hand before his waist and the other stretched out at the shoulder height.

"And master Goan, the young man saved and blessed by mein Vater himself! As you are… utterly filthy, I assume you graduated today! Das ist gut! What brings you here today!"

Ainz mentally cringed for the thousandth time at the melodramatic speech and actions of Pandora's Actor. He barely suppressed the needless sigh from nonexistent lungs. "A gift, to commemorate all his hard work over the years that has led to today." Ainz raised one skeletal finger, "He may choose one thing to take with him, a suit of armor, a sword, a shield, a blade, he may take what he will."

"My Lord…" Goan's black eyes pooled, "I can't possibly be worthy of… of even one thing here!" He looked numbly around the treasury of incomprehensible wealth and power.

Pandora's Actor pointed at him dramatically and all but shouted, "Perhaps not, but with time, perhaps you may become so, mein gutes Kind! Now choose!"

Goan began to walk about the room, zombie like, dazed, at first. 'How can this be, how can this be real how can this be how can this be real how can this be how can this be real…' The questions ran on a constant unbroken loop in his mind as he beheld rings and suits of armor that would make common soldiers like gods of war and foolish peasants wise as gods. He pointed to item after item, each one turning to Pandora's Actor to learn what it did, each time he felt only more sweat spring to the surface of his already sweating, stinking body.

Finally he came to a great curiosity, "Foolish question but… why is this sword in a stone, not in a sheath?"

"Ah, that is Excalibur! A legendary weapon of another world, said to belong to a great and noble king, only one worthy of the throne could draw it out. It was said to be able to turn the tide of any fight, cut through any armor, and end any life." Goan looked at the sword, it glowed with golden holy light, he felt his fingers twitch.

He closed his eyes, and heard the blade sing to him and caress his ears. It sang songs of glories yet to be beheld, battles to be won. It promised him an undying name if he carried it with him out of the darkness and into the light of the world he longed to write his name onto.

Goan reached out, then looked over his shoulder, "Even this, Your Majesty?" He asked, Ainz did not reply, he only waved his hand toward it, inviting the young warrior to take it if he wished.

Goan's arm turned upside down so that his elbow was up, his fingers wrapped around the blade in the block of thick stone, 'Pull it out! Pull it out! Take it!' Every fiber of muscle, every fragment of bone and sinew, all said to claim this sword, but as his fingers wrapped around the burnished hilt, he stopped.

'People meet and people part…'

'You might lose them…'

'I grew up…'

'She didn't die for nothing…'

Words and thoughts passed by his mind in rapid succession, the tight grip that threatened to draw the sword from its resting place, began to slacken.

"Goan?" Ainz asked.

"No… No… I am not worthy of this one. I am no king, maybe one day? But when I reached for that… I thought of myself. If I became a king with it, I would be a bad one. I don't want to be that… I was blessed by the hand of god before my birth, something I didn't deserve then. I definitely don't deserve this now. If I took it, I'd be a man my mother would regret having given life to. I will… I will choose something else. But if it isn't too much to ask of you, mighty god, may I make one small request?" Goan knelt again as he finished speaking, his head bowed and hands on one knee while the other bent back behind him.

"You may 'ask'." Ainz replied from where he stood a few feet away.

"One day, let me come and touch this sword again, perhaps then, then I will be worthy." Goan asked, "Even if I can't take it, just a chance to touch it and know my worth, or lack thereof, that is all." Goan swallowed and cursed the weakness of his own selfish ambition that the brief moments had brought to stare back at him like an ugly reflection in the mirror.

"That will be acceptable. Now, choose something else then, something more suited to you." Ainz said with an approving nod, one shared by Pandora's Actor, but which Goan missed as he rose and turned his back to them.

Finally, walking between two piles of golden coins he found himself staring at something else. A shockingly simple straight blade that seemed quite out of place among so many ornate pieces. The crossguard was short, just enough to go beyond the hand, it was shorter than the standard length of a longsword, clearly meant for close combat, but was longer than a falchion. The simple leather wrapped grip was molded tight and had grooves for the wielder's hand that might as well have been made for Goan himself.

He took the blade and held it over head, "Pandora's Actor… what is this?" Goan shouted from beyond the coins.

A sound clap of the guardian's hands coming together preceded another shout, "Ah, that is an Ulfberht! I've always called it a Sunderblade. It would shatter the weapons of those who stood against its bearer. It is one of the few items to come here that had runes on it from the other world!"

Goan waved the sword in hand a few times, giving it a few practice swings. It whipped around with ease, perfectly balanced, despite its common look, just holding it, he could feel the power flowing through every scrap of impossible metal in the impossible realm.

Goan returned to the entrance bearing the blade sideways in front of himself, he lowered himself to one knee again, bowed his head, and raised it up. "With your permission, my Lord. This is my choice. With this, I can shatter the weapons of those who would threaten my friends, and draw a circle in the dirt around those I love… with this, I can protect them."

Ainz laid his skeletal hand on Goan's forehead, and recalled the way he'd laid that same hand on Moira's belly on an idle whim more than a decade and a half earlier. "She fell fighting for my will, if you do as she did, you will make her weep in the afterlife."

"Not for long, as I would be with her again, my mother would not oppose this… please… bless me, and my choice, before I go." Goan asked with the deepest humility, though he knew the power of that undead hand, his heartbeat was steady and calm, without doubt in the will of his god.

"Then, in the name of loyalty and faith, for your truth of character and resolve, I bless you as an extension of my will. Go, join your friends, form your party, and write my will onto the world, in the great known and great unknown alike." Ainz stepped aside, waving to the space beyond the door. "Return the way you came, a gate will be waiting for you at the end, you may return the ring then." Ainz instructed the boy.

"Thank you… thank you, my Lord." Goan wept, he stood and made to leave.

"You'll need a sheath for that, mein kleiner Bruder." Pandora's Actor said, and reaching into a pocket dimension of his own, he drew out a simple brown leather design with a strap to secure it to a belt. He tossed it to the boy who had become a man, and when Goan caught it, he gave a rare and grateful smile backward. He then sheathed the blade, and ran off down the hall, toward the gate that would take him to Carne.

"Vater, why did you not warn him about Excalibur, that it would kill him if he was unworthy?" Pandora's Actor asked when they were alone.

"Because if he was the sort of man his mother wanted him to be, he wouldn't need a warning to know not to take it. Now I know, and I can leave him to work my will." Ainz replied while turning to leave, already his eyes lingered on the distant statues of his friends.

"Mein Vater is truly wise." Pandora's Actor said warmly as he came to stand beside his creator.

'Maybe not always… but this time at least, this time.' Ainz thought, and made to leave the treasury, and pass by the monuments to a vanished past, once again, alone.