All is as ready as it can be. All except you. Chosen as you have been for your unique position, your connection to the past and your control over the tower... even you cannot survive the infinite chaos of the rift. Not un-aided. And simply being within the tower's walls will not be enough to protect you.
You haven't told them your plans for becoming one with the tower. They cannot really realize exactly what you mean. That was your intention, of course. They may not be able to spare you whatever suffering is coming your way, they cannot afford to, but... You don't need to make their possibly last moments painful ones. You know that if you succeed, you will undo these brave, kind souls. They know it too. They demand it. But the least you can do is make yourself what they need you to be, on this fool's errand. If you succeed, they will live on in your memory. If you fail... you will live on in theirs, as much as you can, until the end.
You've already sent them out of the tower. You're communicating by antique linkpearls, at the moment, but you ask them to wait a few minutes, tell them you'll let them know when you're prepared. You hang up. Then you turn to the expanse of rough crystal before you. Coax it, in the way only you can, to form a spike and break off a chunk of itself. There isn't time to be hesitant about this, so you grit your teeth and slam that spike into your forearm, sharp end first. You withdraw it and do it again, and again, chiseling out a piece of your flesh so you can place the piece of crystal there instead, will it to expand and form to the shape of the injury as best it can. Filling in, becoming part of you, jagged edges widening the wound but holding and stopping the bleeding. It's messy. It isn't clean. But it's the best you can do with your left hand, the best you can do without help, and you won't hurt them like that. They don't need to see you like this.
It... takes you a few minutes to trust your voice enough to call them back, and tell them you're ready. You're in agony, but you believe you're focused enough to pull this off. There's a countdown, and you keep Biggs on the line as you draw on the power of the Tycoon they built, on the power of the tower, and hurl the whole thing into the rift along with yourself.
It's a new, different kind of agony. Your life is flashing before your eyes in spite of the void all around, and it's not just your life. There's so much else. But you cling to the tower, to the feeling of its power pulsing within your own body, keep from being separated from your anchor. And you push, and push. You need to go to the First. You need to make it in time. You have to go back, to when there were people, to prevent that world from becoming entirely barren, to prevent twin Calamities. You tell yourself, over and over again, as the rift licks at your sanity, until--
It's over, suddenly. The tower is on solid ground, gaining new power from an external light. You drag yourself down to the ground floor, out the door, and shy away from the sheer brightness of the light. It's near-blinding. There's not a proper sky at all, but almost a miasma of light shifting above. It seems you've made it to the First.
From below, too, light shines right into your eyes-- but you find that's not the fault of this Shard. That's your arm, reflecting the light at you. When you left, it was just a chunk of crystal buried into your arm. Now, it seems to have overtaken much of the arm itself-- a shining, translucent forearm with gold running through it is there instead, where flesh was, like a bracer with ragged edges. It doesn't hurt anymore, not really. It sinks in only then, how much time you must have spent in the rift. No wonder you felt you were going mad.
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THE ACTUAL JOURNEY - self-harm cw
You haven't told them your plans for becoming one with the tower. They cannot really realize exactly what you mean. That was your intention, of course. They may not be able to spare you whatever suffering is coming your way, they cannot afford to, but... You don't need to make their possibly last moments painful ones. You know that if you succeed, you will undo these brave, kind souls. They know it too. They demand it. But the least you can do is make yourself what they need you to be, on this fool's errand. If you succeed, they will live on in your memory. If you fail... you will live on in theirs, as much as you can, until the end.
You've already sent them out of the tower. You're communicating by antique linkpearls, at the moment, but you ask them to wait a few minutes, tell them you'll let them know when you're prepared. You hang up. Then you turn to the expanse of rough crystal before you. Coax it, in the way only you can, to form a spike and break off a chunk of itself. There isn't time to be hesitant about this, so you grit your teeth and slam that spike into your forearm, sharp end first. You withdraw it and do it again, and again, chiseling out a piece of your flesh so you can place the piece of crystal there instead, will it to expand and form to the shape of the injury as best it can. Filling in, becoming part of you, jagged edges widening the wound but holding and stopping the bleeding. It's messy. It isn't clean. But it's the best you can do with your left hand, the best you can do without help, and you won't hurt them like that. They don't need to see you like this.
It... takes you a few minutes to trust your voice enough to call them back, and tell them you're ready. You're in agony, but you believe you're focused enough to pull this off. There's a countdown, and you keep Biggs on the line as you draw on the power of the Tycoon they built, on the power of the tower, and hurl the whole thing into the rift along with yourself.
It's a new, different kind of agony. Your life is flashing before your eyes in spite of the void all around, and it's not just your life. There's so much else. But you cling to the tower, to the feeling of its power pulsing within your own body, keep from being separated from your anchor. And you push, and push. You need to go to the First. You need to make it in time. You have to go back, to when there were people, to prevent that world from becoming entirely barren, to prevent twin Calamities. You tell yourself, over and over again, as the rift licks at your sanity, until--
It's over, suddenly. The tower is on solid ground, gaining new power from an external light. You drag yourself down to the ground floor, out the door, and shy away from the sheer brightness of the light. It's near-blinding. There's not a proper sky at all, but almost a miasma of light shifting above. It seems you've made it to the First.
From below, too, light shines right into your eyes-- but you find that's not the fault of this Shard. That's your arm, reflecting the light at you. When you left, it was just a chunk of crystal buried into your arm. Now, it seems to have overtaken much of the arm itself-- a shining, translucent forearm with gold running through it is there instead, where flesh was, like a bracer with ragged edges. It doesn't hurt anymore, not really. It sinks in only then, how much time you must have spent in the rift. No wonder you felt you were going mad.