Wish upon the Stars (Original Superhero cultivation sci fi litrpg)

[Malcolm Tent]

The next morning saw me up on the wall, supervising the placement of mine and Callie's centuries along with a few spares as they took their places at the openings between the segments. Each of the front lines was equipped with gleaming black spears covered with obvious enchantments, weapons specifically made for killing the Stone Lions.

As predicted, a good chunk of our friends weren't here. Callie would be on the other side of the walls, tapping into my abilities through our bond to take some of the segments off my hands and lighten the load, Abel and Mel were with Camden, Chelsea, Nat, Valk, and Bethy were guarding Jessie, and Benny, Callen, and Gabe were among the centuries below as backup.

Watching everyone get in place, I let out a low whistle. "This…this is going to be a mess isn't it?" I asked my girlfriend, who was standing next to me watching the prep. My arm was around her shoulder and she was curled up against my side. I wanted to spend as much time with her as possible.

"No more than most things we've done." She said with a reassuring smile. "At least there are no gods here this time."

I barked out a laugh at that. "And hey, if someone dies we can just bring them back."

Despite meaning it as a joke, I regretted it immediately. I knew she still blamed herself for Perit, and I'd stuck my foot in my mouth anyway. Before I could apologize though, she shook her head. "Not everyone." She said softly. "We got lucky with Perit and Alan, they died in pretty simple and direct ways. No soul damage. But I looked into it, talked to Nat, Zeke, and Anna… Shane, if your soul shatters, like it can sometimes when ranking up or overstraining…you're fucked. No second chances."

"That can't be right." I said with a frown. "We've seen people bring back gods from fragments before."

She shook her head. "A normal S-ranker who hasn't broken any shackles can reach the Obsidian Soul Body at best. That's the black souled version of the Sapphire Soul Body you have. The next step up, which you need to reach to become a demigod like Bethy told you about, is a Mercury Soul Body, and above that, which you have to reach to become a god without dying is a Mirrored Soul Body. Mirrored Souls are resilient and durable, they remain viable after shattering, but anything below that… wishes don't really affect souls, you know that."

"So we tell our people not to overstress their souls." I said firmly. "That's bad, but it's manageable. We can make sure everyone is safe about this."

Burying her face in my chest, she took a deep breath before pulling back, her face a mask of calm serenity. "Yeah, you're right. We'll be fine. I'm just a little worried about the others out there in the main battle. Ironically, I think we might be the safest out of everyone."

"Maybe so." I laughed. "Using his last few wishes to tilt the odds in favor of all the stronger lions emerging from the secondary entrance he made was a smart call on Camden's part. With Zeke there to take out anything above D-rank and Anna helping with the E-rank and above, we should be able to take care of the rest."

Part of that plan was to arrange for the lions to release into the formation Clairdon was bringing. It was just a shame we hadn't been able to sway any of the other Barons like we'd been hoping for. Aside from the suspicion that Spencer might have already paid them off, Camden couldn't give up the wishes.

Checking the time on my scan ring, I grimaced. "Alright, I think we should be getting close. Anna's people in Clairdon's estate said seven P/M on the dot, and Camden seems certain Spencer will time his attack in lockstep. The sooner we take these damned things out the sooner we can get over there and help Camden himself. Abel can handle most stuff, but I have a bad feeling about Spencer."

Callie nodded, leaning up to give me a quick kiss before heading off to the other side of the walls. She wouldn't be able to control a full half, but with my Expert Dust Construction at her disposal and access to Belial through me, she should be more than capable of mobilizing one whole side of the square palisade.

Once she was in place, I called down to my people to be ready, then looked down at the well in the center of the massive four sided fortification. We'd cleared a ton of space around it to be safe. Taking a deep breath, I reached out with Moonlit Night and blanketed the entire center in a thick fog.

I didn't go all the way to the edges, leaving enough space for the spear formations between the walls to see them emerge and prep to spear them, since I couldn't bring that many people into the Skill, not with everything else I had to do today.

Once that was done, I waited. And waited. More waiting. The wait continued. Just when I was about ready to scream in frustration, I felt a rumble. At first I thought it was the charge of the lions themselves, but a quick flex of Song of the Soil showed me that a portion of the cave system had collapsed. Luckily we were standing on conjured super firm foundation made to support literal tons of stone, so they were more than stable.

"Brace yourselves." I bellowed. "They're coming!" I could feel the lions, not perfectly, since they were only covered in rock and not made of it, but I could still feel them, and they were on the way.

I triggered Belial, then reached down into the wall with Dust Construction, and took control of three sides of the square. The walls dropped a few feet as I channeled the top few feet of stone into the base to increase the range of the stone tentacles and limbs, creating a deadly forest of toxic burning stone.
My soldiers, to their credit, didn't react much to the fog, and I made sure the noise from the eruption of Stone Lions would carry through the obscuring blanket of mist so they'd know what was happening. As I watched, large stone forms spilled out of the ground like ants from a hill, basically all F-rank as expected.

With a shove of my soul through the walls, the tendrils and spears shot out into the fog, tearing through the lions as they came out, ripping apart the stone hides with ease. I watched them die by the dozens and was starting to think this might be easier than expected, until a small wave of E-ranked monsters erupted from the dirt, tearing the ground around the well as they emerged, and allowing some of the others to slip by me.

That was fine, we'd expected that. It was why we had outfitted the centuries with the spears. Sure enough, it didn't take more than a second for the escaped F-rank lions to hit the wall of spear wielding defenders. They were all outfitted with sturdy but mobile shields, and like they'd been trained, they locked them together, bouncing back the charge of the lions as the next row rammed their own spears into the beasts.

When the charge broke, and the lions retreated, the shields retracted, and the front line jabbed dark metal spikes into the rear of the escaping monsters, felling quite a few with the parting shots.

I couldn't pay to much attention to that though, I was bust using my walls to corral and contain the E-rank Lions. They had quite a bit more Might than I did, obviously, but it did them shockingly little good. My overlay was in full bloom, and I laughed as my toxic tentacles, spear tipped and otherwise, herded to the monsters together.

"NOW!" I bellowed, as soon as they were in a tight grouping. I dropped a section of wall as Gabe came streaking from behind it on his starlight steed, silver spear glowing and a mad grin plastered across his face.

He slammed into a lion, his spear penetrating through the damned thing and out the other side snagging another one on it like a kebab, and not even slowing down as I dropped a section of wall opposite the first to let him vanish out the other side. With the fog active the damned cats couldn't even see what had happened, and I reapplied pressure with the walls to start herding them back together.

I was stabbing them as often as I could, but these were high E-rank. Apparently the wish had only been able to steer circumstances so much, which wasn't a shock, Camden had asked for things to tilt in our favor, which was much more affordable than some kind of invisible wall that didn't let E-rankers through.

Callie was doing the same with her wall, though I could feel the strain on her soul from using my abilities, she was almost out of juice. This entire thing was only possible because I had the gear to offset the strain and because this was MY Skill they had used. I knew it better than anyone, and Dust Construction mitigated even that level of strain.

The sound of screams and roars echoed along the walls and through the fog, and I saw some of my people die. Ichabod dropped his shield too quickly and a cat got under his guard, it grabbed his arm and shook him like a rag doll, throwing him over its shoulder as a series of spears perforated it, but it was already too late. Ranks reformed around the gap in time to prevent anyone else from that spot being lost, but he was hardly the only one to go down.

My smile dropped. This was suddenly much less fun, and my head was starting to hurt. Despite all the preparations this was a LOT of power to be handling. The only upside was that the toxic fire had seeped into the ground from all the dead lions, and it was corroding the new ones as they came out, softening them up for the spears, just like we'd hoped.

Despite the losses though, we were doing it, we were holding the damned walls and we were winning. There had been a lot of the things down there, and I was sure we had plenty to go, but if we kept this up we might actually get out of this alive in time to help the others.

Of course, as if fate had been taunted by the thought, that's when shit hit the fan. A wave of plants erupted from the ground, driving into the walls and tearing them apart. They didn't come down, my efforts at condensing and merging them paying dividends, but the plants ripped into the stone, destroying the enchantments and causing a failure in the Belial Skill.

I looked around in a panic as a vortex of wind swept away my fucking fog, revealing the now suddenly much more vulnerable defenders to a wave of very pissed off Stone Lions.

"Are you fucking KIDDING ME?" I howled. "What fresh hell is this?" I scanned the walls and crowds. "Who did that?" Unfortunately my question died on my lips as I caught sight of a familiar figure in rich robes.

The Magister. Fuck. He hadn't actually intruded yet, presumably out of caution of the higher rankers I was backed by, but he'd essentially crushed months of defensive work in a pair of moves. I wanted to attack the rat bastard, but the longer that was put off the better, for now I needed to help my people.

Luckily for me, while the destruction of the Belial Skill definitely sucked, the walls were STILL made of my stone and I could still manipulate them. I took a long, deep breath and focused, redoubling my attacks. One thing at a time. I just hoped I would survive that strategy.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The whole plan was falling apart. The walls were supposed to be pretty much impossible for the F-rank lions to pass. With the fog up I could see if any of them jumped and swat them back down. The massive difference in power made that trivial.

Now though, the fog was gone, the walls were crumbling, and with the breaking of the Skill I'd officially lost the corrosion effect that had been weakening the things for my troops.

The Magister, meanwhile, stood impassively on a corner of the walls away from myself and Callie, watching with interest as our whole operation fell apart.

A new form landed next to me, barely noticeable as I tried to corral the lions with the no longer enchanted but still highly durable stone. I'd let Belial drop, which had taken some of the burden off my soul, but it was still difficult and complicated. "Shane." Said a semi-familiar voice. Callen.

"Little busy." I grunted. "But good timing. Any ideas how we can take care of the Magister? Because while he might not be directly attacking us, there's no chance he isn't going to screw us over in the end. We've got to take him out." I wasn't sure the wall would be able to put a dent in him though, I was only barely E-rank.

Callen shook his head. "We can't." He said bluntly. "We've got no chance of injuring someone like that."

I was so shocked I almost froze, barely keeping up my onslaught as my people tried their best to group up into one of the backup formations we'd briefly drilled. I was suddenly glad I'd listened to Demia and insisted they learn that turtle formation, despite preferring to put my eggs all in one basket. "What do you MEAN, we can't?" I spat. "He's just one rank above us. I'm sure we could throw together an invocation that would hurt him."

"Do you know why D-rank is considered a watershed?" He asked me as his sword licked out and disembowled an E-rank lion that had managed to sneak up on me, before kicking its corpse into the face of another one trying to climb the wall. I suddenly realized why he was up here, and was grateful to both him and presumably my sister, who had definitely made these arrangements.

Drawing my own weapon, I smashed another in the face, using Piece of Mind to run the assault so I could protect myself and hear him out. "Yeah, you need to form a path before becoming a Master."

He grunted, sidestepping a leaping lion and separating its head from its shoulders as it flew by. "Yes, but do you know WHY that's the case?" I shook my head, and he paused for a moment to kill another pair of the E-ranked beasts. More of them had come up out of the ground, clearly herded by the Magister, but luckily they seemed intent on killing me to drop the walls.

I called for Mephistopheles, offloading the strain to my armor, and blasted a pair of cats away in a pair of black flame bursts. "Look, I really dig the whole learn it yourself thing you're doing here, but it MIGHT not be the time for a pop quiz. How about you just tell me the answer?"

Callen's sword flashed up to kill one of the lions, only to get caught in its jaws. His off hand drew a long knife and jammed it up into the stone, separating it like butter as he gutted the monster and kicked it off his blade. "Point taken." He said with a small laugh. "Master rank is important because it's a milestone. Specifically, it's when you pass a hundred points of Impact."

"Gods damn it." I swore. "Why the hell does everything happen in multiples of ten? It's some kind of qualitative change, I take it?"

The swordsman barked out a much louder laugh this time. "A question for the ages, but yes. Fighting up ranks is possible, but fighting E to D can only be done under VERY specific circumstances. Even a ranged controller like the Magister is going to be impossible for us to harm."

Grimacing, I reached out to Callie mentally. I had a whisper of a plan "Hey, you doing alright? I can't see you too well in all the chaos." I got a surge of affirmation over the bond, but no words. I supposed she was probably busy. With that in mind, I went ahead and told her the idea I'd just had. I got another feeling of agreement, and sighed in relief, turning to Callen. "I think we might be able to work something out, but we need to hold them off for a few minutes. Any ideas on how to turn this mess around?"

He grinned. "You need to make a hole. Luckily, we've got just the man for the job." Gesturing behind me, I glanced back to see a tall, regal form on a glimmering silver charger, massive lance propped up on a shoulder as he surveyed the battle.

Switching hands with my staff, I triggered my scan ring, firing off a quick message. I saw Gabe receive it and then nod as he skirted around the palisade to the spot I'd directed him.

"Alright." I said to Callen. "Get ready, because as soon as he hits them, we're going to be changing things up. I have a plan, but it's going to be a bit nuts." I fired off another group message from my scan ring as I prepared, because this was going to get crazy. The second Gabe was in position I signalled for him to charge.

I shifted the walls around me all into dust, keeping just enough tension that we could stand on them as my friend charged through the hole I made. The charge this time was different than the last. It wasn't meeting the sturdy bodies of a pair of E-ranked cats…no, Gabriel Brightlaw, Adamant of the Church of the Red Revenant, hit the horde of monstrous cats like a hot knife through butter,

"RUBRUM GLORIA!" He bellowed as he smashed into the morass of felines like the fist of an angry god. Instead of just using his lance though, I saw his Path itself manifest around him, an aura similar to what Abel did sometimes. Gabriel didn't spear the lions, he hit them like a glowing silver comet, smashing clean through them and leaving a five foot swathe of carnage behind him as he sped out the other side, having split the whole army in half….which was exactly what I'd needed.

I needed the cats out of the way so I could see the ground, and I was so ecstatic about the success, I didn't even subverbally trigger the Skill like usual. I threw back my head and howled. "PIT OF DESPAIR!"

The bottom dropped out of the world. The huge swathe of dirt and stone in the center of the square defensive encampment turned to dust under the force of my soul, and all of it plummeted right down into the massive tunnels beneath like waves of water being sucked down a drain.

Using Piece of Mind to spawn two more parallels, I set one to work shoving my own people out of the dust funnel as I collapsed the walls around the plants and POURED an ocean of dust into the tunnels after the lions as the were sucked in, triggering Moonlit Night to try to mix the stealth factors into the dust. I dove into the vortex, staff out in front of me, and sped off into the sinkhole after them, Song of the Soil telling me exactly where everything was.

Callie, having access to my Skills through the bond, dove in after me, and the two of us flowed through the sand like sharks through the sea. I didn't know where the Magister was, since he'd avoid being submerged, but with my Danger Sense and the massive sea of dust I could both sense and control, we handily dodged all the plants he seemed to be using to comb through the sinkhole.

I felt like a god as I blurred forward through the dust, my staff slamming into lions left and right, destroying them in blasts of black fire. Even the E-rankers couldn't see where I was coming from, and with all that power behind my attacks, not to mention the fog I'd mixed into the dust that gave me a boost to attack power when I landed an unseen hit.

Lion after lion died, heads bursting under my assault or stabbed to death with the spears Callie had picked up before she jumped in. I felt their numbers begin to deplete, and I was grinning under my mask.

Sadly, my easy victory (in the abstract, my brain felt like it was melting keeping all these fucking parallels going and using all the Skills) wasn't to be. I heard a colossal roar of "ENOUGH!" And a pulse of power slammed into the earth, sending me, Callie, and all the lions exploding up and out of the dust.

Whatever had been done severed my connection with the material, though not Pit of Despair itself luckily, and we slammed down into a pile of super fine dust, safe from and harm, if somewhat disoriented.

I climbed up and out of the dust and glanced over to see the Magister, in all his glory, glaring down at my from where he hovered in the sky. "Boy, you test my patience." Snarled the magic user. "You think I won't dare to kill you? Forces beyond your comprehension arranged for this event. Do you know the kind of enemies you're making?"

Standing up, I hardened the dust under my feet once I was able to reform the connection. All my parallels dropped. My head still hurt, but I could function now, and I stared impassively up at the magic user. He was standing on a whirling vortex of air, leaves whipped around in the current.

"Do you?" I asked disdainfully. "Because I feel like you're taking some big risks here, all for…what? Some pissant Tolbert scion? You think Spencer gives a fuck what happens to you and your Earl when his cousin is dead?"

I saw a slight flinch. He wasn't sure about that. Spencer must have promised them SOMETHING, but he wasn't exactly a trustworthy guy. He hadn't attacked me directly, because he clearly knew who I was at least in the abstract so he still had a chance to back out. But…he'd come too far. And the threat of Zeke was being revealed as more of a bluff by the second.

"You're nobody." He said arrogantly. "If the B-ranker you brought along was going to intervene he would have done so by now. And that D-ranked sneak thief who liberated those bandits won't stop me from putting you down." He raised a hand, and a massive fiery bird of prey manifested over his head. "Any last words?"

Callie, who had finally climbed out of the dust next to me, just grinned. "Oh, I do!" She said excitedly." He turned to her, sneering down dismissively but clearly waiting for her to speak her piece.

"Let it not be said that I can be merciful." He said coldly. "Speak."

Smirking defiantly, Callie said. "Gladly. In exchange for every chit I have, I wish that this asshole was as heavily suppressed as your power will allow, Shane." I saw his eyes widen at the same time as I felt the power well up within me, static building up as purple lightning flickered over my skin.

Wish detected. Grant wish?

I grinned as my wish power built within me, every last ounce of power I had in me gathering as a storm of energy rose, crackling across my body. Like lightning building in the clouds to smash down on the unsuspecting earth. The Magister's expression was changing, clearly about to unleash his attack, but it almost seemed like everything was happening in slow motion as the requirements for the wish were listed out. I didn't waste time even reading them past checking if it was enough. I confirmed.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The explosion of purple lightning that erupted from me was unlike anything I'd seen from my power before. Specifically, it was VISIBLE to everyone. I could feel through the bond that Callie was witnessing the lightshow in a way she never had, and she was blown away by the dazzling display.

The lightning arced up into the air, smashing into Magister Weston, wrapping around him like a living thing as it bit into his flesh. Roaring in outrage, he began to struggle as the lightning condensed into purple shimmering chains. Even as I watched though, I could see some of the tiny flowing symbols shatter as he struggled.

Not that they looked likely to give immediately, but they were fading alarmingly fast. Callen cursed. "Damn. Those things are stacked with Might and Impact, but it's passive. It'll only last for a minute or two." Snapping his fingers, a bag appeared, and he tossed it to me. Opening it, I found ten E-ranked chits inside. "I wish the restraint was extended. Six times. I'll pay that same amount for each wish."

Wish detected. Grant wish?

I sighed in relief as I confirmed. There was another burst of lightning, and he tossed me another five bags, each one extending the restraint slightly longer. I'd been studying the chains as we worked, and when the last wish finished, the first one was maybe ten percent gone. "Ok, we've got maybe five minutes." I said with a grimace. "Let's make them count."

Triggering Mephistopheles and Belial at the same time, I stacked Mercy Kill, Afterburner, Marked for Death, and every other possible enhancer I could think of on the attack, then triggered Ripple Running and stepped off the air, flashing up toward the Magister like an inverted comet.

My staff hit him right between the eyes, and I unleashed every ounce of death energy stored inside it as the but of the staff hit the bridge of his nose. His whole head was swallowed by a black explosion of flames shot through with toxic green, and I grinned as I watched him fly backwards, smashing into the dust below us.

I cheered at the solid hit, knowing he must at least be hurting from an attack that, even with relatively low Might, had been stacked so high with modifiers it HAD to do something.

To my shock, when he sat up from the dust…he was fine. His face was soot stained and scorched, but he looked more like he'd gotten a bad sunburn than taking any real damage. I just gaped at the lack of effect from what had probably been one of the strongest attacks I'd ever seen.

Callen stepped up next to me with a sigh. "I told you." He said sadly. "There's a qualitative difference. You can't hurt him."

"You…TRASH!" Howled the Magister as he staggered to his feet. "How dare you? How DARE you? Low ranked garbage attacking me, attacking a Master of magic on my own planet? I know what you are boy, and I know what it means. Your guardian can't protect you, not from me. I'll butcher you! I'll tear your limbs from your worthless corpses and beat your loved ones to death with them as you watch! I'll-"

A blob of shadow slammed into his face, wrapping around his head and muffling his words. "Sorry." Said Callie lazily. "So we can't hurt him at all? I can't believe with five minutes we won't be able to manage SOMETHING." She cursed. "I really wish one of us had a D-ranked weapon. Why are they so damned expensive?"

"Because of this." I said bluntly. "Like…this exact situation. But at least he can't-" My eyes went wide and I hurled myself at Callie, slamming her aside as a cone of fucking blue FIRE erupted from the face of the trapped Magister, burning away the shadow mask.

I blinked in horror as I noticed the chains flicker, one of them draining faster. Apparently physical struggle didn't drain them as quick as the magical stuff. "What the fuck" Yelped Callie as we scrambled up. "I wished for that asshole to be restrained! Why is he still attacking? Damn it, I should have just wished him dead."

"You can't." I responded automatically. "Death involves the soul. Wishes can't kill sentient beings. It's one of the big rules. But we need to hurry this shit up, because he-" Cursing again I jumped aside. Without his face blocked the Magister was starting to mount an offense. It looked weakened, like he was trying to fight underwater, but he was still doing it.

I conjured Moonlit Night, condensing the fog to a ten foot area around him, hopefully making it harder to aim.

Callie lashed out with a hand, a torrent of shadow blades erupting from the dust and smashing into the Magister, only to shatter on impact. The same purple flaming bird burst forth, rocketing toward us, and I cursed, getting ready to tank it with Mornax, but to my shock it was smashed aside by a silver comet, bursting apart as Gabe came to a stop, lance lowered.

"Well this isn't going great." He said casually. "You guys figure out how to kill him yet? Because out people could use a hand with all those lions." He pointed behind us, to where the lions had encircled the massive turtle formation all the remaining soldiers (we're lost a LOT of them so far, like maybe half) were clustered up tanking the hits.

I could see a few E-ranked beasts smashing into the solid dome, and the shields were protecting them, but the constant need to overlap them for the formation meant no one was getting attacks OUT of the dome.

"Cal." i said, glancing at her knowingly. She sighed and nodded, reaching out a hand. A bunch of shadows dove into the dust, coming out with the spears of dead soldiers. She turned and glared at Gabe and Callen. "If you two idiots get him killed, your boss won't have time to butcher you for it, I'll kill you both myself. I've slain a god before, and a pair of jumped up holy rollers won't pose a problem. You get me?"

They both nodded slowly, and Gabe waited until she left to ask. "When exactly did she get so…scary?"

"Probably the godslayer thing." I said with a shrug. "But you heard her. Don't get me killed. We've got like four more minutes. Gabe, do you think your charge can do better than the all out attack I used?" I hesitated to ask, not knowing if failing that one strike would be enough to break his Path.

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you looked at it) that didn't seem to be the case. "I don't believe so. He's a Master. Those of us still below the hundred point threshold just CAN'T defeat them. Or at least, I've never seen it done."

Callen sighed. "There's one way." He reached up behind him, hand gripping the massive wrapped blade on his back.

"No!" Said Gabe in horror. "If you draw it you'll waste all your progress. I'd rather break my Path than see you throw away decades of cultivation before even reaching Mastery. At the very least you should wait until D-rank, ideally you should save it until A to catapult yourself directly into the S-ranks."

I knew what they meant. Callen was a sword nurturer. His entire life he'd been pouring stats into that blade, a special linked sword that was considered a part of him. The longer he waited, the greater the effect of drawing it would be.

It was more than just a cultivation aid though, it was also a single use attack. The one draw he got would allow him to unleash a truly legendary blow, a single strike with the momentum of an entire life behind it. If he wasted it, he wouldn't be able to benefit from that attack the same way as if he'd saved it for a more impactful battle.

"I won't let you die here." He said to me with a soft smile. "Not just because the lady commanded it, but because of your mother, and your grandfather. They love you, even if it might not seem like it, and they've given me so much in my life. I'd be nothing without the Radiant Pope, nothing without the Star Queen and her kindness. I can and will do this for you, and for them. But I'll need help."

I was uneasy. "I don't want you to give up so much for me, but even if you do, how could I help. He's already heavily restrained. I can't do much more than that."

He shook his head. "My attack will partially sever the chains. There's a chance he'll break through them at the last second, and if he dodges my blow, I'll be too busy undergoing ascension to survive his retaliation. I need you to restrain him. Even with the chains he can still move, but with them on he's greatly diminished in all ways except for his Impact. I only need him held in place for a second. Can you do it?"

I glanced down at the sand, thinking, and then nodded. "I have an idea, but I'll need help." I turned to the side, bellowing towards where Callie was pincushioning lions. She was being aided by the turtle formation, who were dropping guard and stabbing every time the damned cats focused on her. "Callie!" I bellowed. "I need you to teleport Benny over here? Can you get in there?"

I FELT her eye roll as much as saw it, and she dropped into her shadow. Seconds later, there was a yelp as my best friend came flying out of a shadow, landing head first in a pile of dust, legs kicking the air as he scrambled out, glaring around like Callie was going to follow him.

"A little WARNING would have been nice!" He bellowed back towards the formation, but then just waved it off and turned back to me. "What?" I filled him in on the situation, told him we only had three more minutes, and then told him my plan. "Well." He said slowly. "It's nice to know your plans are still terrible. That's going to suck, but I can do it."

I winced. "Trust me. I know." My head was pounding and my mouth was dry. I'd been pushing my soul hard. No cracks yet, and Benny's involvement would help, but I didn't know if I could pull this off. No time for doubt though. I nodded to Gabe and Callen, then Benny and I circled around behind the Magister, whose attacks had stopped as he tried to disperse the mist from inside WITHOUT massively overpowering me.

When I stopped at his back, I took a long, deep breath. Then I called out to the dust. Pit of Despair had turned nearly everything inside the walls and most of the walls themselves into dust. I called it all to me. Benny stood at my back, putting his hands on my shoulders as he got ready.

All the dust poured in, and just as we had before, we CONDENSED it. Packing it in as tight as possible, all around us, in the form of a colossal stone effigy of me. So colossal in fact, that its feet were planted on the ground of the tunnel below. Benny was tripling the density of the statue as I formed it, and when we finished, we towered over the Magister.

I dismissed the fog, and he whirled, ready to attack. I didn't give him the change. The massive hands of the stone version of me grabbed an arm each, and, through my solid connection to the earth, I trigger my Mornax form.

Hyper dense powerful stone was further reinforced by even more density and by my Mountain Stance. The Magister's eyes went wide. "What is this?" He howled. "Release me, trash! I'll kill you when I get out…of…this." His eyes went wide as he finally noticed the immense surge of power behind him.

He turned slowly, looking over his shoulder as a giant sword swung down at his neck like an executioners axe. The chains ruptured, and he started to pull. I felt the hands crack and start to give as his full D-ranked Might came to bare, but he hadn't gotten it back fast enough. The sword met his neck and scythed through the flesh, his head rolling from his shoulders…and then Callen all but exploded with power.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Once the Magister died we were able to clear out the rest of the lions pretty easily. Even without Callen, a concentrated effort from the rest of us was more than enough to take them out, and we mopped the monsters up quickly with help from Gabe and the formation holding them all in place. Once we were done, we waited for Callen to finish his Ascension.

I'd seen rank ups before, but this one seemed different…weightier. Whether because he was reaching D-rank or because he was moving PAST D-rank by virtue of all that accumulation, it was still impressive to watch.

I was distracted though, as I felt a smaller form slam into my side, and felt Callie clamp her around me like a steel vise. "You idiot." She mumbled into my chest. "I'm so glad you're ok. I thought he was going to kill you. Even with the wishes I just felt like there was nothing we could do to stop him."

"Yeah." I said slowly. "I get that. That was…I felt like death itself was coming for me. I can't believe we survived."

Gabe rode up next to us, hopping down from his charger as it dissolved into sparkles of starlight. His lance vanished into his ring as he laughed. "We shouldn't have. D-rank is a sublimation of life state. Not just defensively but offensively. I don't even know how your wishes were able to do that."

"Triple'd Impact." I said with a laugh. "Honestly I expected it to work better. I think the main issue was that the constructs were stable binding manifestations, and made to be temporary. He didn't have the Impact to break free all at once, but his hundred Impact attacks did erode the bindings, and he was cranking them out as hard and fast as he could. We'd have been dead if he broke out. Even that slight window at the end wasn't a full break, the bindings fractured from the strike but they weren't compromised entirely, just fading."

It was spine tingling to think about him getting loose. Not only would his stats be higher than ours, AND more effective because of his Impact, but the suppression wouldn't have been affecting him either, so he'd most likely have been getting the thousand pounds per point maximum. Even as a magic user he could have swatted us all to death like flies with his bare hands.

"So do we know what's up with Callen?" I gestured to the other man, kneeling with his sword driven into the ground, light radiated from the blade in strange, shimmering patterns, shifting and warping like it was being shone through moving seawater. It drained into the big warrior, and aside from Impact, I could feel something else, presumably stats, pouring into him.

Gabe nodded. "His blade had more than enough to rank up. There's diminishing returns past the next rank, but the power is still there. He'll probably hit halfway or even three quarters of the way through D before it stops."

I sighed. I was happy for the big guy, but we sort of needed him. I was in bad shape, and Callie wasn't much better. Gabe was pretty fresh, but Benny was sprawled out behind me wheezing from the effort of density shifting that huge stone giant. We needed to go help the others, but Callen was our best chance at doing that properly, especially considering the powerful lions that were probably over in that direction.

We'd killed a LOT of them, and while I doubted these were the full complement of even the F-ranked lions, it was most of them. The stronger centuries of the elite division would be able to handle the others, especially with the enemy to redirect the aggression onto, but I had a feeling whoever Spencer got to help him kill Camden wasn't going to be a pushover. If he could mobilize the Earl and the Magister, D-rank assassins were on the table for sure.

"Looks like we can ask him ourselves." Said Callie, gesturing to where he knelt. "The light is dimming." And it was. Even as we watched the sense of pressure around Calleb dropped to a manageable level and he opened his eyes.

I looked at him guiltily. "So…you ranked up huh? Congrats."

He grinned. "Don't sound so unhappy. Killing a D-ranker at E-rank is a hell of an accomplishment. That's going to get my story out there for plenty of people to hear. Combined with how far into D-rank I started I got a serious head start. Now, I believe there was some mention of rescue?"

I laughed, turning toward the direction the main battle was going to be. Before I left though, I wanted to check on my century. "Alanna!" I bellowed. "Front and center." The fire user had been disengaging from the turtle shell formation and appeared in front of me post haste.

"Reporting for duty sir!" She snapped off a crisp salute, and I had to fight not to grin at the total shift in demeanor after she'd seen me fight. "What are our casualties like?" I asked quietly.

She grimaced. "About fifty percent." She admitted. "We did what we could, but with the walls collapsing like that and the Magister distracting you. Commander Nightstrike probably prevented us from breaking and losing the rest. Will we be joining the main battle, sir?"

"No." I said firmly. "Get to the med tent. Agria will take care of you all. You've done more than enough." I glanced down at where my friend was laying. "Benny, you go with them. The soul strain you just went through is no joke. You need time for your spiritual calming to take effect."

Groaning, he sat up. "You're right. But I think that was the last push I needed. I can feel my soul stirring, it's going to sublimate when it recovers. After tonight I'll officially hit Sapphire."

I grinned at him. "Lucky bastard.That spiritual calming belt is pretty convenient huh?"

He chuckled at my obvious jealousy. "Yeah…" He trailed off in worry. "I'm…just be careful, ok Shane? This little sortie might be over, but the bigger mess is still going. That Spencer guy is a vicious bastard, and he doesn't strike me as the type to leave things half done."

"I know." I said firmly. "I'll be careful. And even if I wasn't Callie is with me. You know she has better sense than either of us unless something shiny is in front of he-ow!" I feigned a yelp as she elbowed me in to ribs from where she was standing next to me, glaring up at me challengingly.

We said our goodbyes to Benny and the others, then took off headed for the manor. Camden had told me ages ago that the final showdown between nobles was usually at their personal estates. It was a big mess that needed a lot of manpower, but for a last push it was doable, especially with the Magister around to help (well…formerly around).

We took off at a dead sprint, and given our respective power we made it to the estate pretty damned quickly. When we arrived…we all came to a stop, staring in horror.

'The manor was on fire. MULTIPLE TYPES of fire. I saw blue flames, green, the telltale gold of Mel's attacks in some places. There were ragged units outfitted in full gear posted up at the entrances, and I could see bodies, both from our own people and from soldiers dressed in Clairdon's livery strewn about.

Clairdon's people were gone, the assault clearly having been driven off, and I could see why, because as Camden had hoped, the centuries acting as a strike plate had held the enemy still for the lions to hit from behind, tearing into them like so much meat.

Of course, that was hardly the extent of it. Some of the units had been wiped out completely, and I saw blasted and destroyed sections of manor that revealed stone forms prowling inside.

"Camden will be inside." I said with a grimace. "He played defense this time, and once the external guard collapsed he would have moved deeper in. My guess will be the basement, down where Sonia does her thing. It's heavily fortified and likely to have some dangerous weapons lying around." Glancing at the lions, I turned to look at Callen. "You mind taking point?"

He just smirked. Turning to walk in through one of the blown out entrances on the side of the manor, we went slow just in case we ran into someone really dangerous. Lucky for us, the manor seemed pretty empty, hallways littered with rubble and the occasional body.

On second glance, MOST of the bodies were decked out in Clairdon's house colors. I guessed they'd dragged the others off to Jessie and succeeded in getting them patched up. It was nice to know that had worked out for them. The Magister's presence had made that something of a moot point for us, and I gritted my teeth, knowing the Earl had been part of this and wouldn't receive an ounce of trouble for it.

I wished he'd been here, ready to attack me. I'd have loved to watch Zeke crush him for what he'd allowed to happen. I wasn't too worried about it though. I ranked up fast, and with my Solid Path already part of my soul, I'd have no bottlenecks until I hit B-rank. The Earl was immortal, I'd have plenty of time to pay him a visit myself.

When we came to the stairs where Sonia's basement was, I grimaced to see that the door that would normally have kept us out was just…gone. The whole thing was ripped clean off, jagged metal edges all that remained.

Callen held up a hand, wanting to go ahead, and began to inch down the steps nice and slowly. It was staggering to see such a big man move so quietly, and the giant sword that had been on his back was held up in front of him, dark metal almost eating the light as he moved toward the bottom.

There was a roar and a form dropped from above us, and I barely had to to process the lion before a line of pure cutting force bisected both the lion and the ceiling above us as Called put the sword that his whole reputation had been based on to use.

We all stared at him in shock and he grinned. "My blade has been nurtured with Impact and stats just like I have. I'm not the only one who hit D-rank."

I whistled as I stared at the huge sword, noting how terrifyingly sharp it looked even in the low light. When we reached the bottom of the steps we came upon a new scene. And I froze in place as I observer what we were up against.

Camden was in the center of the room with Sonia, Alister, and a few of his most trusted guards and commanders. Around them a giant spectral anvil of blue light glowed, the surface littered with symbols and patterns. Around it, stood what looked like three different D-rankers and about ten E-rankers, all deferring to one man.

Spencer Tolbert (I assumed) looked…normal. He had delicate features and soft eyes, the kind that looked like he was always concerned about everyone and was always there to listen when you had a problem. He wasn't very tall, and was kind of skinny, but his warm blue eyes and shaggy blonde hair made him look like someone's kid brother.

It was almost paradoxical how eyes that seemed so naturally open and compassionate could sit over such a sadistic smirk. I was betting this was the smile he'd worn that day in the maze, when he watched his little sister drown.

Of course, everyone in the room was an Ascendant, so when we arrived they all turned to regard us warily. I sighed internally. Callie and I were tired but we'd been resting a bit. I'd have taken the two of us and Gabe against ten E-ranked mooks, but those D-rankers outgunned Callen three to one. Or at least, they would have. Over their shoulders, I saw a shift in the dark and Anna stepped silently out of the shadows, invisible to the enemy who were looking at us. She shot me a wink and put a finger over her lips before melting away again. Ok…that, I could work with.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"Well." Said Spencer in a surprisingly mild voice. "This has been a fucking mess. I assume I have you to thank for that. My information said you were going to be dealing with the lion outbreak." He glanced at one of the D-rankers. "I could have sworn we sent Weston to make sure that worked out." Callen had suppressed his aura, still looking to be an E-ranker at first glance.

I smirked. "Oh you did. We already ran into him." I was pretty proud of what we'd pulled off. "Quite a temper on that one. He just couldn't keep his head." I paused, waiting for a reaction. "Sorry, it's funny because we-"

"Decapitated him." He cut in. "No, I got that. I'm just not sure why I'm supposed to care. This is why I use disposable minions." He paused briefly and looked around at the distinctly unamused D-rankers. "What? You thought we were best friends? Please. You'd kill me the second the payment hit your account if I wasn't a Tolbert."

I was waiting for the attack, but he hadn't ordered it yet. "There a reason I'm not dead yet?" I asked, as if I didn't have a hope of surviving.

"As I said, this has been a mess." He said frankly. "It SHOULD have been impossible for my cousin to survive this. I didn't expect to NEED to get involved directly. Something has been tipping things in his favor, and in retrospect it isn't hard to figure out what. Resources appearing from thin air, powerful fortifications, tunnels, strange turns of luck. I can only think of one ability with that kind of versatility."

"Poetry." I said seriously. "You've found me out. I write limericks so bad the universe itself has to give in. Tremble before me."

He didn't even have the decency to chuckle. Dick. "You're a Wyndham." He reached into his pocket, pulling out a small compact mirror, which he flipped open. His eyes scanned over it and he nodded. "As I suspected. A wishmaster candidate." He sneered at Camden. "Some people really do have all the luck."

"Maybe it's karma." I pointed out helpfully. "I mean last I checked Camden isn't a child murdering sociopath."

That got an amused smirk. "Trust me, if karma existed, the world would be a very different place." He paused. "Well, there's that lunatic over in the Holy Dominion, but that's just an ability. And nothing S-rankers do counts anyway. Barring the intervention of the Judgement Pope, the world doesn't really see fit to punish those who do 'evil'." He made air quotes around the word.

I groaned. "This isn't going to be one of those 'there is no good or bad there is only power' speeches again is it? Because those get SO old. Can't you just own the fact that you're a scumbag murderer and delight in the suffering of others?"

"If you'd prefer." He said with a shrug. "But it's not really about that. I DO think it's amusing when my lessers have to struggle, like watching a bird with a broken wing drown in a birdbath, but I don't do anything just for my own enjoyment. I never take action unless it benefits me."

I held up a finger. "Ok, first, no one empathizes with your amusement at watching birds drown, you psychotic lunatic, second 'I'm just a dick because I'm selfish, not because I enjoy it' isn't as reasonable an argument as you seem to think. Now can we get to the part where you offer to team up with me and I tell you to go fuck yourself? Because breathing the same air as someone as rancidly evil as you is genuinely making me feel sick. And my mask has a filter."

He just sighed. "I'd hoped a member of such a prestigious family would be a bit more willing to look at the big picture, but no matter. Your guardian can't intervene when your opponents are only Masters." He smiled. "Did you know that more Wyndhams die at E-rank than any other rank? Being RIGHT on the edge of that watershed is quite dangerous."

"Maybe." I said sweetly. "But then again, your advantage is dropping fast. Or did you not notice that you only have two D-rankers left?"

His head snapped around, searching his people…and we attacked. Camden's sword flashed out at Spencer, but it was effortlessly deflected by the huge man in the black skull helmet standing behind him. The massive spiked club he wielded was surprisingly fast, and sparks flew up as it slammed into the incoming sword.

It didn't, however, stop the stomp that Callen planted in the man's gut, sending him hurtling across the room and into a rack of smithing tools with a crash. My sister's bodyguard was already bringing his weapon down on the smaller, dark haired, dark skinned form of the woman standing on the other side of Spencer as the big man landed.

Step by step, the most talented crusader under the aegis of the Red Revenant Church began to herd the slim, dangerous woman towards the other man.

I stepped off the air, channeling both Mephistopheles and Belial through my armor as my staff blurred forward toward the back of Spencer's skull.

A man appeared between us, shock on his face as my blow slammed into his open mouth and an explosion of black flame erupted from his eyes seconds before the corrosion of my Belial weakened his skull a bit more and the leftover burst of Mephistopheles black flame blew his head apart.

I grimaced, but wasn't too bothered. He was a mercenary working for Spencer, after all. The small blonde man was smirking at me. "I AM a noble, Mr. Wyndham. My people are honor bound to see to my safety."

"He's an Oathbinder!" Shouted Camden from inside the construct. "He makes contracts that change the mental state of those he ensnares. It's like a geas!"

I glared at my friend. "That would have been useful information to have BEFORE!" I bellowed. "You didn't think it might be nice to share?"

He shook his head. "I didn't know, but I saw the Tolbert crest flash in that man's eyes. That's why he looked so surprised. The contract broke when he was in position to take the blow. Be careful, that's a dangerous power."

I heard a clash of metal, and looked over to the other side of the anvil to see Anna locked in combat with a very harried and severely injured D-ranker. I hadn't been bluffing earlier, he had been missing, but apparently Anna hadn't managed to take him out, just get him out of the way. That was enough for now.

"You going to come help?" I said in annoyance as I triggered Mornax, tanking a spear thrust from one of the ten E-rankers protecting Spencer. It didn't even leave a scratch, but it didn't feel great either.

He pointed at Sonia, who shrugged. "Would if we could, but the emergency bunker is time released. It's the only way we could get it strong enough to tank D-ranked attacks. We had to strip out a lot of the functionality."

My staff flicked out, smashing aside an attack aimed at Callie's back as she faded into existence in front of one of the others and tried to eviscerate him. She vanished back into the shadows once she noticed the other attacker, and I felt a flash of frustration from her over the wasted attack.

She appeared behind me, using my stoney form for cover as I glared at Spencer. "You rethinking that whole 'join up or die angle'?" I asked. "Because I think you've really got us on the ropes here."

To my surprise, he didn't look even remotely worried. "Disappointing." He said again. "I'd have thought a Wyndham of all people would know not to judge a situation by first impressions. I assure you, I am quite safe as I am now."

I'd long since let Belial fade, unable to keep up three different forms at once, but Mephistopheles came to my call easily as I smashed my staff down and behind me, my Danger Sense and Callie's quick warning more than sufficient to catch the shadowy assassin who had appeared behind me by surprise.

His daggers slammed into my back where my kidneys would be if I was flesh, but they skittered off. The combination of my higher than normal Impact and my absurd defense made Mornax one of my most effective forms, and this guy wasn't rich enough to afford D-rank weapons…thankfully. He ALSO wasn't rich enough to afford D-rank armor as the staff jammed into the crevice above his knee and an explosion of black flame tore his fucking leg apart at the kneecap.

He howled in agony, stumbling back and so distracted he didn't see Callie step from the shadows and open his throat with both daggers, blood fountaining out and splattering across my stony back. Thankfully I don't think it stained my cape.

"Was that your trump card?" I asked Spencer, gesturing to the assassin choking to death on his own blood. "Because his stealth wasn't bad to have gotten that close to me with Nightstrike here. She's good at that stuff. Didn't seem to matter though, he's dead and soon you will be too."

He shrugged. "His death is immaterial. I paid for his service, and he gave it. Perhaps he could have been more useful had he lived, but I found his manner of execution highly amusing." His eyes raked over Callie. "What a bloodthirsty beauty. I may be in love."

My girlfriend shuddered, and I shoved my staff toward him, triggering a move I hadn't used in ages, Steam Arrow, and infusing it with Belial, letting Mephistopheles drop for a moment. Another startled mercenary appeared in its path, tanking the blow and dying with an agonizing scream as his face melted off.

"Don't talk to her." I said coldly. "Don't even look at her. If you keep your fucking mouth shut you're going to die tonight, and if you don't I'll make sure you don't die for YEARS. Even if you ask nicely."

I'd wanted Spencer dead since Camden told me what he'd done to his sister, but seeing that disgusting predatory gleam in his fake eyes made me want to tear him apart. I was fucking boiling with anger, and only a current of love and consolation from the bond kept me from losing it. Spencer was a…thing. A monster. He had no limits, not hesitation. Someone like that focused on Callie was the last thing I wanted. He'd haunted Camden for years, and I wasn't going to let that happen to her.

His gleaming eyes turned back to me slowly, and the light of interest intensified. It wasn't romantic. He wasn't suddenly interested in me, any more than I suspected he'd been interested in her. Spencer didn't want a significant other. He wanted a victim. And I'd suddenly become a more interesting toy to play with.

I didn't care. I was glad he'd focused on me. I knew Callie could handle herself, but thinking of him eyeing her like that made me sick. His smile was so wide it was almost unnatural, and his eyes finally shed the faux warmth, inhabited by a burning toxic glee. "That was positively barbaric." He crowed. "How terrifying. Oh, how I wish I could risk such a fate and engage in combat with you myself. Alas, it seems it's time for me to go."

"You're not going anywhere." I snarled. "You're never leaving this fucking basement. No one is going to stop me from killing you." I triggered Pit of despair, knowing Mornax would lose its foundation and would drop out and I would be left semi defenceless in the dust.

To my shock, the Pit didn't form. Something…smashed into the energy forming the Skill and just kind of washed it away. I was stunned. I'd never felt anything like it. As it happened, I heard a set of footsteps echoing down the steps, and a dark haired man with a goatee and cold amber eyes stepped into view. "Oh really?" He said mildly. And my blood went cold as I felt the weight of his Impact…a weight far above Callen or Annas.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Staring at the powerful C-ranker, I could immediately tell that if he wanted to kill us, we would be dead. I wasn't sure he'd even need to use a Skill, he might be able to just crush us to death with his sheer presence. "Vanden Nevius, I presume." I said in a faux bored tone. "Is there a reason you're sticking your nose into my business?"

I saw his eye twitch, and internally celebrated. I wanted him mad, in fact, I wanted him so mad he couldn't see straight, because him being here was a huge fucking problem for us and if he didn't attack me I couldn't solve it.

"The Wyndham. I was apprised of your presence. Unfortunately." He said distastefully. "I deplore your kind. Hucksters and charlatans, merchants with too high an opinion of yourselves, leeching off the success of your forebears."

I snorted. "Yeah, because nothing says 'I hate nepotism' like inherited wealth and noble titles. Admit it, you're just annoyed that your daddy was some backwater imperial noble and not someone from one of the big clans. Isn't that why you're sucking up to this waste of space?" I pointed at the smiling and very punchable face of Spencer.

"The noble houses of the Empire are a necessary and important part of the standing order." He sneered at me. "I wouldn't expect a lowlife pawnbroker from a dynasty of indolents and anarchists to understand. The Empire CARES for its people, it doesn't just leave them to die."

I gaped at him. "Are you fucking KIDDING me? You actively encouraged a rogue actor to incite an invasion of dangerous monsters that AT BEST would have wiped out an entire city in your territory."

He shrugged. "Eggs and omelettes. It was for the greater good. Once the Tolberts used their vote on the council of Kings to overturn my banishment the entire planet would have benefited from my strong leadership. I wouldn't expect a hedonistic layabout from a family of maniacs to understand the burdens of leadership."

"Well you can feel free to ponder that as you stew over your failure, now if you'll excuse me. I have a fucking monster to murder." I stepped forward, bringing my staff to bear, only to have a golden line carve itself in front of me. When I tried to step over it, I slammed into a wall of glowing force, bouncing off and falling on my ass in shock.

The sneer became more pronounced. "You wish to kill one under my protection in my presence. Laughable, I-" His eyes widened and he vanished as a wave of black chains ripped through the floor, snapping shut in the area he'd just been standing hard enough to tear the air itself. He reappeared ten feet away, turning to glare at the appearance of a familiar porcelain mask fading from the darkness.

"Oops." Said Zeke lazily. "My mistake. I suppose I should be more careful where I leave my things. Someone could get hurt. And if they did, I would of course be culpable for that injury. Don't you think, Nevius?"

"I know who you are. The brat's guardian. Cavendish. A former native of the empire." Hissed the formerly composed Earl. "Dog of the Wyndhams, you dare show your face here?"

Zeke just cocked his head, pointing at himself. "I'm wearing a mask you fucking idiot. Not that it matters. You know whose authority I'm here under, and you can't do shit about it. If I'd been trying to kill you you'd be dead. That was a warning, and one you should heed."

"I didn't attack your charge, traitor." Nevius growled. "He was attempting to kill one of my nobles. I was well within my rights to defend Baron Tolbert."

Spencer grinned. "Ah, then the purge went as planned? My territory is ready?"

Nevius nodded. "It is, your grace. Baron Carrey has been…relieved of his lands. A shame his family had missed one of their tax collections a few decades back, and when it came to light I was forced to repossess their territory."

Camden looked incensed. "You GAVE him a territory? After I had to work so hard? This is an outrage, you can't just-"

"I think you'll find." Answered Nevius with a smirk. "That I can do whatever I like. Were it not for your various backgrounds I'd have leveled this manor and slaughtered the lot of you. I'm quite irritated that so many months of planning have come to nothing, you see."

Zeke shook his head. "You never learn, do you Nevius? Swimming in waters too deep for you is what got you in trouble in the first place." At the man's surprise, he chuckled. "What? You think I didn't do my own research? You should know getting involved with the affairs of your betters rarely turns out well."

That seemed to offend the man on a deep, personal level. If Zeke hadn't been so obviously willing and able to kill him I think he might've attacked. "This coming from a spineless traitor like you?" The Earl sneered. "Defecting to that den of iniquity to become a dog for Elijah Wyndham."

"Ok this is all fascinating." Said Callie in annoyance. "But can you tell those of us who aren't natives what the fuck is going on?"

Camden answered. "Because he's a registered Baron of this planet Spencer is now part of the local hierarchy. The presence of outside forces enable Earl Nevius to step in as a protector. While your guardian could easily kill him, he's unable to do so as the Earl hasn't actually attacked you."

"Would that I could." Snapped the man. His eyes trailed to Callie. "Though perhaps not all of you are under such protections as the holy warrior and Tolbert castoff."

Zeke snorted. "She has a deep bond with my nephew. Like…soul sharing deep. Killing her would cause grave injury to him, which means an attack on the girl is an attack on my charge. So please, feel free to try something, I'd love an excuse to kill you."

That was…new information. Was that because we'd ranked up the bond? Nevius grimaced, but nodded. "Very well. It is, of course, immaterial. As neighboring Barons, the two Barons Tolbert are free to engage each other in the same way any of my nobles might war. I have it on good authority that Baron Tolbert the elder, our most recent addition, plans to make a hasty assault on his cousin's territory."

"So we let them settle it themselves then?" Zeke said with a sigh. " I suppose if you're going that route I can't really intervene."

Camden was sputtering. "I just withstood a siege from TWO separate invading forces. My elite unit is seizing the Highgrave and Clairdon estates as we speak. You can't expect me to weather another siege after everything that's happened!"

I hadn't seen any Highgrave soldiers, but they could have attacked from the opposite side of the manor, I knew there was an entrance back there. Knowing the elite division was mopping up the nobles was a load off my mind, I'd been wondering where the stronger members of the army were, and I didn't want to get screwed out of my territory.

Before Necius could respond, Zeke cut in. "He doesn't. Or rather, he can't. The lion invasion counts as a natural disaster. You can invoke domain protection. It only lasts a month, but it'll give you time to reinforce." At the Earl's glare, Zeke laughed. "What? Just because I 'defected' doesn't mean I forgot my upbringing."

Gritting his teeth, Nevius nodded. "Very well. You shall have a relief period of exactly a month beginning sundown tonight. At the end of that time, the domain protection will be revoked, come what may."

Camden nodded, slumping down in relief. A cold laugh split the air. "Don't assume this will stop me, cousin." Said Spencer in a coy voice. "A month is plenty of time for me to accomplish MANY things. Your new friends are powerful, but don't forget that not all of us recused ourselves from family politics. I have quite a few resources at my disposal, and nothing better to do with them than finish what I started here. Come, Nevius." He turned and stalked toward the steps, the Earl hot on his heels.

Before he left though, I couldn't resist getting in one last dig. "We'll settle this in a month Spencer." I called in my coldest tone. "Don't forget, we've got a new territory of our own. Because Highgrave's people were here, that protection applies to us too. I'm curious to see what I can do with my new land in that time."

He didn't even slow down, just waved over his shoulder and left. I slumped slightly once they were gone, knees weak. Callie was shaky too, and we held each other up, the sheer relief of not being under the pressure of the C-ranker anymore palpable through the bond.

"Well that went well." Said Zeke cheerfully. "Kind of wish I could have killed the bastard, but oh well."

I scowled. "This whole thing is bullshit. I hate the Empire. What the fuck are all these rules and politics even good for?" Him being allowed to protect Spencer because of some dumb ass loophole, and us being forced to wait for his attack were both the stupidest things I'd ever heard.

"Not much." Admitted my uncle with a sigh. "But it is what it is. Sneaky fuckers like that are always a pain to kill, but if you want my advice, stay and get it done. You could bail now if you wanted, but that kind of guy won't let this go. Better to take care of the problem before it gets to be a real pain."

I waved him off. "We aren't abandoning Camden." I said firmly. "That was never on the table." I turned to my friend. "So…the elite division took down Highgrave and Clairdon's estate?"

"They will." He said confidently. "As you remember, I stocked them up with a few…surprises, courtesy of your power. Not all of those were for the lions. Highgrave took the bait like we expected and his people took a serious pounding. I had ten of our units lying in wait on the road behind some of the camouflage artifacts you made me. They never saw it coming."

That explained the lack of bodies at least. "Alright, well, I guess we need to go get the others and strategize." I said with a sigh. "Nat might be able to help you with prep and repair, I assume you can pay her now?"

"Of course." He said with a grin. "Clairdon is plenty rich. I agreed to pay Anna a finders fee for helping me sniff out his remaining stockpiles of treasure. Not to mention all the decorations and defenses of his I can sell. I take it you're going to be taking control of your own territory as soon as possible? You erecting a new manor or taking Highgrave's to repair?"

Callie cut in. "A new one." She said firmly. "We don't have time to sift through wreckage looking for traps."

We said our goodbyes and headed up to find the others at the hospital tent. Celine was going to be taking over as an official representative, so we'd need her immediately if we wanted to get started. I'd used up today's wishes though, so I'd need to sleep all this off before we started work.

Lions aside, I was pretty sure this next attack would be…worse. We had our D-rankers to help out, but I was sure Spencer would hire more, and thinking of his fixation on Callie and I, there was no way we'd be left out of the attack, especially after what I said.

All that was bad but…still, I found my heart was surprisingly light. We'd deal with Spencer, but for now…we'd won. We'd lost some people, and that sucked, but we'd gotten through it. Camden was alive, my team was alive, and now it was time to start building something sturdy enough to weather the coming storm. I couldn't wait.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Reaching the healing tent was both a relief and a blow to our morale. I could see first hand my friends and family were alive and well, which was amazing…but I could also see the pain and injury on display in the tent. Jessie was frantic, hurrying around, laying hands on anyone she could reach. Thanks to her powerful ability and rank, all the F-ranked soldiers recovered nearly instantly, but I could see the E-rankers were a bigger problem.

I stared in shock at the pain and devastation on display. I saw my sister kneeling next to a bed, hand alight with white fire as she pressed it against the hissing green energy erupting from the wound of an E-ranker I didn't recognize.

In fact, there were dozens of them like that, acid or poison or what have you keeping them from healing, though some were just injured so badly by a similarly ranked opponent that their Vitality was having trouble mending the wounds. Several of their eyes glowed with green life force already, Jessie having dosed them with her power to begin the healing process, but I could see it was wearing on her.

Stepping up to where she was rushing to the next bed, I caught our healer by the arm. She glared up at me, looking ready to snap, but when she saw who it was, her face crumpled and she grabbed me in a bone crushing hug. "You're ok." She murmured, pulling back and latching onto Callie next, and then Benny. "You're all ok."

"We're fine." I said firmly. "And I'm glad to see you are too. But you need to take a break."

She scoffed. "What? That's crazy. Don't you see how many people are injured. They need my help, I can't just-"

"You very much CAN just." I stated forcefully. "Your Vitality is absurd for your rank, and your Impact helps make your healing more effective, but even you have limits. You'll recover quickly because of your stats, so take a minute and rest. I have ten charges of heal burst available, and I can help by taking your place for a bit. They won't go untreated."

I'd been worried about what this would do to her, and it had been smart to be. Her eyes were ringed with dark circles and her skin was waxy, I could see sweat beading on her forehead and her breathing was labored.

Callie stepped past me, grabbing her hand and pulling her over to sit on a nearby empty cot. "Let Shane do his thing. Those are your charges anyway, so you're still helping, but you're no good to anyone if you keep over dead. Where is Bethy, by the way? I thought she was guarding you with Nat and-"

The vampire stepped out from behind a tarp, wearing what seemed to be hospital scrubs with small flying cats on them. Despite her cheerful garb though, she looked as somber as I'd ever seen her. In fact…she looked extremely distressed. Her movements were jerky and ragged and her eyes were glowing. It occurred to me that being around this much blood was probably really hard for her.

"I stabilized the two bleeders back there long enough for your healing to reconstruct the arteries." She said clinically. "We're lucky Chelsea was here, because there's no way I would've been able to keep them alive through the acid eating away at their carotids." She noticed us all and gave a jerky nod. "Shane, Callie. It's good to see you. Where are the others?"

I nodded back, a little worried at the rawness and discomfort I was seeing from the normally cheerful vampire. "Abel and Mel are stuck in a defensive construct with Camden and Sonia for a while. They'll be here when they can but they're fine. Gabe should be here any minute." As if summoned by my words, the front flap of the healers tent was pulled aside and the big Crusader entered, looking exhausted."

"How's news from the front?" I asked him. Gabe's starlight charger made him the fastest of us in terms of mobility, it was designed to utilize his Might stat to achieve much greater speeds. Camden had dispatched him to deliver messages to the commanders of the elite division and to check on their progress.

He smiled tiredly. "About as good as expected. Without the majority of their forces and equipped with the artifacts they got from you, Clairdon's estate fell easily. They're sieging Highgrave right now, but the assault is going well." He noticed Bethy standing there and his smile widened. "Bethany, I like the outfit."

She forced a wan smile, but I saw the big Crusader's troubled expression as he took in her demeanor. "Thank's Gabe." She said with a faux cheerful tone. "They're my favorites. Perfect for helping out around the hospital tent."

"You need a break too." I decided. I glanced at my sister. "Seems like Chelsea hasn't been pushing as hard, so she can help me use my heal bursts to patch things up." I realized how ill equipped I was for healing. I depended far too much on Jessie and had no way to help her out. My next form would need to address that, but I'd need to figure out what combination of abilities I'd use to make it.

For now, I just ignored their protests as Benny led Jessie and Gabe led Bethy to the back of the tent to sit down and relax.

Callie followed me to the first cot and stood beside me silently, not able to do much to help, but clearly wanting to support me. I glanced down at the pale faced soldier on the bed, clutching a nasty looking wound in his side as he groaned weakly.

Putting a hand on his chest, I reached into myself and triggered Afterburner. Fire surged up through my consciousness, suffusing me with strength. I only had ten charges of healing, and Afterburner gave me ten boosts. It was perfect. I was soothed and bolstered by the flame, but I knew it wouldn't last. Once I used the attacks up the weakening would hit me like a ton of bricks.

Callie latched onto my arm as I reached for another skill, about to use Mercy Kill. "If you strain your soul more than you already have instead of letting me help, I'm going to choke you unconscious and stuff you in a broom closet." She said bluntly.

I gave her an adoring smile. "I love you too, Cal. Mercy Kill and then heal burst then, count of three." With my soul, or I suppose our souls, as strong as they were, making the combat specialized buff work on a healing skill was child's play. I triggered the skill and stored charge, offloading the strain onto Callie.

She didn't seem overly bothered by the strain, though she was plenty exhausted too. She was close to hitting Sapphire now, though not quite there, and I think that was helping. A wave of blazing green life force, even more powerful than Jessie's normal heals, slammed into the man, and his eyes exploded into green light. Not just the irises, but the sclera too, the whole eye became suffused with green.

The energy shone from the wound too, which began to close with visible speed. Sadly, as the wound slowly healed, the glow began to fade, burning off the whole healing charge as quickly as possible to repair the worst damage.

Satisfied with that, I moved on to the next injured soldier. Another heal, and another. One by one I healed up all the ones with the worst wounds, hoping to minimize casualties.

Vitality was amazing, but it couldn't save you from everything. Impact played an outsized role in combat, and attacks from people at your own rank were harder for your stats to heal. Bleeding out WAS more than possible for an E-ranker, provided the wounds were dealt by the right people or with the right weapons.

Each new soldier I fixed seemed to lighten atmosphere a bit. One good thing about Ascendants was that while there WERE nasty skills and abilities that could slow kill someone, provided they lived through the initial attack, as long as healers were on hand most people would survive. I'd healed up the only really critical cases, and Chelsea was chipping away at the acid and poison stuff, chances were good the people in the tent would all live to see tomorrow.

Once I finished the last one, I all but toppled over, Callie catching me and hauling me to the back where Bethy and Jessie were being fussed over by Gabe and Benny respectively. She shoved me into an unoccupied cot and towered over me, hands on hips, as I tried to get up.

"Lay back down." She snapped. "Now. You're at critical mass, Shane. Any further soul strain and you might cause irreparable damage. Not to mention your body has been put through the ringer. You were just telling these two to rest, and now I'm telling you."

Jessie nodded from where she was glaring at Benny. "She's right Shane. Look at you. Your hands are shaking, your breathing is uneven. You look like you're about to pass out, and I can't even see your face." Her concern was evident, and the others all turned to study me, suddenly aware of how hard I'd been pushing myself.

And…she was right. I was a mess. I'd been keeping myself going on sheer momentum. My head was in so much pain I could barely think, and the only reason I was functional was because it had been like that for so long now that I'd gotten used to it and had started tuning it out as background noise. I was at the end of my rope. Wishes, Dust Construction, multiple powerful attacks, overlapping my forms, parallel minds…I'd pushed myself to the limit.

"Fine." I said, slumping back onto the bed. "But if I'm resting so are you. And for more than a minute or two." I said firmly. "Chelsea is still working on the worst cases, and I patched up the ones in need of immediate triage. You can take a bit to recover, and if I have to sit here and relax so do you."

She looked appalled. "But there are so many-"

"Nope." I said lightly. "Don't want to hear it. No arguments. Lay down and let Benny get you some soup or something from the mess hall." I turned to Bethy, who had been trying to get up. "And you better plant yourself back in that bed missy. Don't think we don't all see how frayed your nerves are around all this blood."

Her expression became remote, but I could see a bit of hurt in her eyes. Callie noticed too, and immediately reassured her. "We don't think you would hurt anyone. We know you better than that. We just know that this must be agonizing for you. You need time away from the blood to calm down your bloodlust, and if possible maybe something to eat to help quell the hunger."

Gabe shoved his arm forward. "You can drink from me." He said without hesitation. "I've lost blood before. It won't be a-"

"No!" Bethy screamed, shoving him away. "Don't…you can't offer that! I can't drink from you. One of the cats will be fine. Familiars and thralls have native protections against having stats drained when I feed. You don't. If I bite you…it won't be an experience you want to repeat. Trust me." Her voice sounded broken and a little ashamed, and Gabe looked devastated.

I remembered hearing from Valk what it felt like to be drained back at the bazaar. How awful it was, and I knew that she didn't want to inflict that pain on someone she cared about. She must have been feeding on the cats for a while. To my surprise, looking back they seemed stronger rather than weaker, maybe she'd been giving them her blood in return?

Whatever the case, she didn't try to get up again, so I was satisfied. I allowed myself to relax, lying back and closing my eyes. I wouldn't stay down long. Only for a second. I'd just rest my lids for a moment or two so I could recover. That was all I needed though, to drift off into darkness.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I woke up in the dark. That wasn't too strange, nor was Callie curled into my side, but the fact that I could hear multiple other people in the room threw me for a second. It was only after I let my brain rev up a little and was able to process that I remembered where I was.

Based on my last memory before sleep, I was guessing it was night now, and that they'd put all the lights out to give everyone a chance to sleep. I kind of wanted to leap out of bed and look around, but I couldn't bring myself to wake Callie, not given the absurd levels of strain she'd been through.

To my shock though, my soul wasn't in pain like I'd expected. I mean, it didn't feel GOOD, but my head wasn't pounding like a bass drum.

When she felt me shift, I heard Callie's voice in my head though, proving she was as awake as I was. "Don't make noise. We barely managed to convince Jessie to take a nap. After you fell asleep she 'rested' for an hour and then got up and went back to work. Camden managed to hire another healer though, and once relief showed up we dragged her back in here to sleep."

"How long was I out?" I sent to her nonverbally. "Because that sounds like…a lot. And my soul is really recovered. Did I sleep for twenty hours or something?"

I sensed a pang of amusement through the bond. "Nothing so dramatic. Can't you feel the soothing energy?" When she pointed that out, I realized I DID feel soothing energy, specifically the same kind I usually felt when Benny was restoring my soul with his spiritual calming. But that was touch based, and Benny wasn't touching me.

"Did reaching Sapphire give Benny the ability to use abilities at range?" I asked in amazement. "Because that'll be SO useful."

I felt her shift slightly, and her Stealth Skill fell over us, letting me get up without waking anyone. With her Perception, it wasn't hard for her to navigate a dark room, and with our bond leading me out was trivial. Once we left the room, she grinned at me. "Sorry, this is easier." The rest of the tent was clear, showing me that while I might not have slept for twenty hours, I'd taken a pretty decent nap.

"Ok, so…how long WAS I out?" I asked, looking around. "One healer was enough to do all this? I remember like thirty people in here."

She shrugged. "You were out for ten hours. Jessie had already worked on most of them. With your sister and Bethy helping they were all mostly just suffering from flesh wounds. The healer treated them and sent them on their way, while Vitality might not instantly fix every injury, once they were stable they were free to go." Her face fell. "Lots of them had friends to bury."

I flinched, then sighed. "Yeah, that makes sense. We lose anyone that we knew?" It was a cold thing to ask, but I was most worried about friends and then acquaintances. I was sad for our lost cohorts from other centuries, but it wasn't the same."

"Niles." She said sadly. "He was the one training me in formations while you were working with Demia. He was a nice guy."

I winced. "Damn." I glanced around. "Do you think we should let Camden know about resurrection being possible? Down the line I mean. He lost so many people, wouldn't it be great if he could bring them all back?"

"I love that your head went there, hon." She said sadly. "But no. Resurrection for a personal friend or loved one of a close team member is one thing, but if it was feasible on a large scale it would be much better known. Assuming you get to that point, chances are Camden wouldn't be able to afford a single resurrection in his entire life, never mind hundreds. It's kinder not to mention it. That's not even false hope, it's basically just mocking him."

Despite the harsh words, her tone was soft, and I nodded slowly. "Yeah…yeah I guess it is." Finally processing something I hadn't noticed earlier, I blinked at her in shock. "Wait…that feeling earlier. Are you at Sapphire?"

She beamed at me, throwing her arms open as if to show herself off. "Took you long enough! Yes, Benny's boost to recovery helped push me up the last few percent. And yeah,to answer your earlier question he was able to push the radius up after his soul sublimated."

I wasn't surprised in retrospect. Benny's abilities were localized to start, and with a stronger soul he learned to spread them over his whole body. The next logical step would be to push them out in a radius, though I wasn't sure how that would work with some of his other tricks. Either way, it had certainly been a lifesaver here.

"Did we hear about what happened with the Highgrave estate?" I asked, walking over to slump onto an empty cot. The others must all be napping in the back, but Callie had us covered in terms of noise so I didn't bother to whisper.

Joining me, Callie leaned against my side. I didn't mind. I could feel she was as shaken as I was, and feeling her weight against me helped soothe my nerves. I put and arm around her, pulling her closer, and she sighed contentedly before answering. "Yeah, we won. Pretty decisively. Some of those siege artifacts Camden wished for were WEIRDLY specific. Anna must have gotten him details on the security at both manors because they went down fast."

I sighed in relief. "Oh, good. Listen, about the buildup, I know you wanted to get started right away but-"

She put a finger on my lips. "We have a month, and a day or two off won't hurt anyone. I'm not pushing you to jump into anything after this mess. We could all use a day off. I know Spencer is a pressing threat, but all of us burning out is worse."

"Which is what I wanted to talk about." I said somberly. "I want to try to help Bethy. Like…today. I didn't realize how bad it could get until we saw her helping out. Seeing her break down like that with Gabe was…rough. She isn't the kind of person you expect to lose it, and seeing her of all people so torn up was awful."

She nodded. "Yeah, that wasn't easy. Are you sure you can help her right now though? I mean I agree we should try, but making changes at that level…are you strong enough?"

"I'm honestly not sure." I said with a shrug. "The Vampire is a terrifying guy, and his bloodline is demi-god level based on what Bethy said. Not to mention her mom, who is supposed to be strong in her own right. I imagine the mixing of those two natures resulted in some pretty volatile reactions. Granted, my power lets me apply triple the Impact to a problem, but I'm not sure if that's enough."

Callie sighed. "But we have to try." She finished. "Plus it's not an all or nothing issue. Even if she can't wish to be magically fixed there are probably items or enchantments that can suppress her bloodlust and help keep her balanced. We knew when we agreed to help her it probably wouldn't be easy."

"I know." I said guiltily. "I just feel bad it took so long. She seems so happy and carefree most of the time so in my head I didn't mind putting it off, but if she's been dealing with that kind of thing…why didn't she tell us?" It was just another thing I was oblivious to happening to my team under my nose. In my defense Bethy wasn't the most transparent people at the best of times, but still, I should have picked up on something.

"Because I didn't want you to know." Said the surprisingly serious voice of Bethy from the direction of our sleeping friends. She'd appeared out of nowhere, and I saw she'd changed out of her flying cat scrubs and into one of her more usual fancy ball gowns, though how she managed to move so silently in that I had no idea.

I just about jumped out of my skin, staring at her in shock. "Gods Bethy, warn a guy. We didn't see you there? How did you hear through Callie's Stealth Skill anyway." I glanced at my girlfriend. "You are keeping us muted to the others right?"

Bethy just smiled. "You forget my illusions are pretty Perception heavy, and I have my own means of piercing Stealth. Sorry to interrupt cuddle time, but I heard my name mentioned and I wanted to come weigh in." She strolled up to me and then reached down and flicked me in the forehead.

It thunked into my mask hard enough to snap my head back, and I yelped, hand going to my neck, which felt a bit tweaked now. "Hey, what the hell?"

"You will NOT feel guilty because the miracle cure you offered to give me that will solve all the problems in my life is TAKING a while." She said in possibly the steeliest tone I'd ever heard from her. "I won't allow it. We're E-rankers. We have plenty of time.You've been doing your best, and if you think I'm going to let you beat yourself up over making me wait a few months for you to magically solve the biggest problem I have in my whole life, you're even dumber than you are tall, and you are FAR too close to the ceiling."

"She's right." Said Callie matter of factly. "Anything over six feet is just excessive. You can jump over buildings, what does a few extra inches of leg even matter." At my glare she just smirked. "Oh, and also yes, feeling guilty is dumb."

I threw my hands up. "What the hell? I can't even feel bad in the privacy of my own head?"

"You don't have any privacy in your head." Said Callie mercilessly. "It's not even the bond. I just know you that well.I know everything you think the second you think it. Like right now, you're thinking about how lucky you are to have me in your life, aren't you?" Her tone was haughty and I could feel her slyness through the bond.

"Yes dear." I said blandly, playing along with her teasing. My eyes went back to Bethy. "But fine. I won't feel guilty IF you agree to make your wishes TODAY so we can try to help you." She opened her mouth and I held up a warning hand. "I can and WILL go into a protracted monologue about my culpability in your suffering and how I've failed as a leader if you say no."

Callie nodded somberly. "Don't push him." She said. "He'll do it. He LOVES to hear himself talk."

"Ye- hey!" I said in mock outrage. She just winked at me and I let out a quiet chuckle. Bethy thought it was funny too, because she giggled a bit at the exchange.

Finally, the tiny vampire agreed "Alright. Fine. I'll make my wishes today. I'm not sure what to pay with. Maybe stat points? I do have some other options. I'll think about it." She narrowed her eyes, looking me over. "I don't suppose I could pay you in a makeover?"

"You leave my new gear alone!" I snapped, scandalized. "I look fantastic." I whirled on Callie. "Tell her!"

Callie winced playfully. "Well, the crown is a bit much. But the cape is very dashing. Purple is definitely your color." I gripped my chest, playing up my devastation, and Bethy giggled again. It was nice to see her back to her old self. Hopefully the help we'd be giving her would let her stay like this more of the time.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

After we finished talking we stepped out into the evening air and followed Bethy a ways away. We wanted to make sure we had some privacy for these wishes, so she sent the cats ahead to look around and found us a place. When we arrived, Bethy double checked our surroundings and then called for her Domain, surrounding us with blood red sky and black grass.

"This should be plenty secure." I said, looking around. "I can understand not wanting the truth about what's going on with your bloodlust to get out. So, before we begin, I need to know more about what happens to you. It might help with coming up with a proper method of controlling it."

Callie nodded. "Tell us about how it feels. I mean, from what I've seen, it looks like you lose contact with your humanity. You seem withdrawn and cold. Like you don't feel any emotions."

Bethy laughed, a ragged, broken sound I'd never heard from her before. "I wish. No. That's just the mindset I cultivated to keep myself under control. Bloodlust doesn't make me stop feeling. It makes me feel so much more. Blood is…it's amazing. And the way I feel when I give into the hunger. Like I want to dance, and sing, and laugh among the bodies of my enemies."

She shuddered, taking a long, deep breath. Callie stepped closer, putting a hand on her shoulder. "You alright? We can give you a bit."

The Vampire just shook her head, as if trying to dislodge the thoughts. "No. Thanks, but no. I just need to focus. I get my bloodlust from both sides, the mix of my parents blood makes me decidedly unstable when I'm hungry. But I can't… I don't want that to define me. To be all I am. I could just bury myself in misery and act all dead inside, but that's not the kind of person people want to be around. I want to have fun, to live my life, just…without murdering people for no reason."

Callie stepped back once Bethy responded, acknowledging that she probably needed some space, and I decided to focus on what we COULD fix rather than what we couldn't. I wasn't benefiting from this directly, so I had a bit more leeway with suggestions. "Well, why don't you identify exactly what happens when you're hungry and we can figure out how to help from there. Not just your feelings, what is the process?"

"I smell blood." She said simply. "If I'm full it just smells nice, soothing. I get sort of muddle headed in a happy way. But if I'm hungry…it's like my heart is made of explosives. The scent of it climbs through my nostrils and into my veins, and when it hits…it's like an explosion of joy. It sings to me, asking me to revel in the bloodshed, to engage."

Callie made a contemplative sound. "Ok…well how about a scent dampener? Maybe if you can't smell it you won't have as much trouble."

"Won't work." Said Bethy with a shake of her head. "It's been tried. The blood isn't…vampirism isn't physical. That's why we can siphon stats. It's a spiritual condition, just like all racial traits. The scent isn't a real smell, just a sort of spiritual radiation we pick up. Blocking your nose doesn't do anything to mitigate that."

"So…why don't you just wish for something that does?" Asked Callie bluntly. At our confused glances, she just shrugged. "I'm just saying, wishes aren't bound to traditional mechanics. You could wish for something that blocks soul scent or whatever."

I paused, thinking that through. "Well, maybe. Wishes don't work on souls too well, so we probably couldn't directly dampen the smell."

"We don't need to." She disagreed. "We just need to stop the radiation or whatever from getting to it. Something like a spiritual air freshener or some kind of scent shield would prevent that without actually needing to mess with the soul in question."

Bethy was starting to look excited. "That's…that'd be amazing! I mean, before that I want to try to affect the actual hunger itself, though based on what you said about wishes and souls it might be tough."

"Maybe." I said slowly. "But abilities are a grey area. They aren't really part of your soul, just kind of attached to it. That's what a Path is for, connecting the two. You should at least try."

She nodded. "Alright, I wish that my bloodlust was gone."

Wish detected. Gant wish?

I confirmed, but winced as I got the cost. "That's a no go. My ability says it's out of reach. I've seen that before trying to give master level Skills to someone when I was just starting out. I might be able to do that eventually, but it'll take a higher rank. Try something else."

Biting her lip, she thought for a second. "I wish that my bloodlust was muted enough that I could think through it more easily."

Wish detected. Grant wish?

I confirmed, and then grinned at her. "Ok, the use of the term more easily apparently helped. I'm not sure how MUCH it'll mute the effect, but it'll do something. What can you pay for that?" I was hopeful that a few of these wishes would help, especially in conjunction with the possible sent defense artifact.

Bethy offered a few different things, eventually settling on a single D-ranked chit for all of her wishes, which was a pretty amazing deal considering the huge jump in relative value between E and D-rank for chits.

I accepted, and then granted the wish. I felt the electricity build until I finally unleashed the energy into her. Then she wishes again, and again. Five times, five attempts to mute her hunger. We weren't sure how effective it was, but she informed us that she didn't think it was going to have too big an impact. Just from her sense of herself she said she doubted the wishes dulled her hunger more than one percent each.

Strill, five percent wasn't nothing, and even if it got harder as it went like she thought, it meant once I was stronger I'd be able to do more. Until then, we still had two more wishes left, and we were all excited to check if the scent protection artifacts would work.

"Alright." Bethy said slowly. "I need to be precise here. I wish that I had a piece of equipment that would prevent the spiritual signature of fresh blood from reaching the perception of my soul, or at least suppress the effect partially."

Wish detected. Grant wish?

This one was really Impact heavy, which was the stat used to balance it out when I didn't have enough stats in other departments. That was actually a good sign because it pretty much confirmed this would be a powerful and effective item. I told Bethy and she watched, enraptured, as the purple electricity of my ability started to build.

And I confirmed with the others that they COULD see it. Apparently, much like the bindings on Weston, there were certain levels of power (i.e all of it) that would make my wishes visible at the current level, even to people who couldn't normally see it.

The buildup continued until finally, there was an explosion of purple energy that coalesced into a thick black manacle with a pulsing blood red ruby on it. I passed it to Bethy, who slapped it on her wrist, admiring the oddly shiny black metal like a fashion accessory.

Flexing her fist, she stared at it in awe. I saw her eyes glow slightly, and a fractal scrollwork of miniscule red sigils lit up. Within moments, her eyes had dimmed again, and she was grinning ear to ear. "That…helps. Given the battles and all the wounded there's been a pretty consistent undercurrent of blood around this place. It's almost gone now."

"Is that enough?" I asked cautiously. "Do you still need the other? You're paid up for it, but if you're good you can use the wish for something else."

She just shook her head. "No." She said firmly. "It's working, but the scent of blood leftover is…miniscule. It'll be way stronger when I'm around the stuff in person, and even moreso when I'm hungry. Donuts fed me earlier, so I'm not starving anymore but that will change eventually. I wish I could feed on Luggage, but his blood is toxic."

She'd left her thralls behind before she came on this trip, and it occurred to me that she must really want a life away from all the bloodshed if she was willing to go to those lengths. Granted, I had promised to help, but still.

She made her last wish, and within a minute, an identical black shackle appeared and she clamped it on. She took a deep, excited breathe and let it out with a giggle. Letting her head tip back she spread her arms, spinning happily.

"Seems like you're happy with the results?" Asked Callie with a grin.

Bethy squealed and hurled herself at me, clinging to my neck like a spider monkey, she reached out and grabbed Callie and pulled her into the hug, cackling with excitable giddiness. "I feel AMAZING!" She gushed. "Five percent weaker bloodlust and these two bracelets together means unless i'm in a bloodbath or a tent like before I should be fine!"

I let out a sigh of relief. "I'm glad. I can try to do more tomorrow if-"

She bopped me on the mask like a bad cat. "No. Stop giving away wishes. You're got a territory to develop and only a month to do it. It would take ninety five more wishes to suppress my hunger IF it stays at one percent, which it definitely won't. I can feel my nature as a vampire shifting. It's unsettled. Much more and it would start pushing back."

Flinching, I nodded quickly. That sounded…horrible. If she had this much trouble with the bloodlust when it was just normal, what would her hunger be like if it was actively pushing her. I still didn't know how Bethy's nature even worked. Two supernatural Ascendants with racial traits having a kid clearly had some ramifications. How was that different than normal high rankers having children?

I knew that I'd been born with higher stats because of my parents, but my neither of my parents were fucking S-rank. God bloods or not, they were both firmly in the As, and Bethy's dad wasn't just an S-ranker, he was a demigod.

More shit I didn't understand, but I was more than pleased with the results. I'd done my part to help a friend, even if I'd taken a while.

"So about your feeding." I said slowly. Her smile wilted and she looked at me, guard up. "Have you considered…going elsewhere for that?"

She cocked her head. "I mean…I don't feed from anyone who hasn't volunteered. Or during official duels sometimes if I'm peckish. But I consider accepting a challenge to be implicit permission to shed blood."

"But is that something you need to do?" I asked. "Like could you feed on wild animals? Or for example…enemy soldiers?"
She bit her lip. "I don't know Shane. Feeding on anyone who isn't a thrall is incredibly painful. Even during duels I usually only take a sip, which isn't so bad. But a real feeding. That would be horrible."

Callie saw where I was going with this, but she frowned when she heard BEthy's response. "We won't push. But if you're willing, let us know. There's some tactical possibilities there."

Bethy's feeding WAS painful, and scary. And Bethy herself was terrifying for many other reasons. If she started picking off lone soldiers from Spencer's camp, chances were good word would spread. People would be too scared to sign up with him. It was an exciting plan, but I wouldn't push my friend if the idea made her uncomfortable.

"Anyway." I said, throwing an arm around Callie. "Bethy may not be hungry anymore, but my ass is starving. Let's hit the mess hall." Bethy giggled at that, her worry wiped away and we headed out of her domain. Tactics could wait, for now, I just wanted dinner.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The next day, we officially headed for our new territory. Well, Celine's new territory. She was the one officially marked to be the noble in charge of this place. Since she'd be getting the renown from the Empire for its operation, and since Callie would be making the wishes, I should be able to grant the wishes for upgrading the territory itself.

With that decided, we just had to figure out exactly where we were going to begin work. Highgrave's territory did contain a city, as well as a manor, but both belonged to Highgrave and the latter was not only probably full of traps, but also pretty damaged.

Besides that, since we were building from the ground up, we decided we needed to find a location with a lot of natural defenses, somewhere that would make our job easier.

Which brought us…here. As I stared out over the valley, I couldn't help but whistle at the sight before me. "Damn." I said quietly. "That's amazing." I put an arm around Callie as we stared down into the idyllic landscape of what was going to be our first real home since leaving Callus. Sure, we'd be off and heading for the conclave in a few months, but it would be waiting for us to come back.

"It IS amazon." She murmured. "I can't believe the cats found this place. Thanks for the assist Bethy."

The vampire giggled. "Um, duh. Of course I found somewhere awesome. I have the best taste ever, right Gabe?" She shot a slightly strained smile at the big blonde man, and he nodded solemnly. Ever since her outburst in the healing tent, she'd been acting incredibly guilty whenever she was around Gabe. For his part, he didn't seem to care about her shoving him away, but I could tell he was concerned about her new demeanor.

I forced myself to focus on the valley itself though, smiling at the beautiful scenery. Stretched our below us, a deep depression in the ground cut out a huge section of the forest. Inside was a large idyllic meadow filled with lush green grass and the occasional patch of wildflowers. A few trees dotted the landscape, but only in the singular, and they were all large sturdy fruit bearing behemoths.

At the far end of the valley was a huge clear lake. The lake was backed up against a sheer cliff face, and a waterfall tumbled from the rocks at the top. I could see a deep stone cave at the back of the waterfall, allowing the lake to drain out without overflowing its peaceful banks, and peaceful fish and frogs and turtles enjoyed both the shore and the glasslike water nearest to it.

Benny, who was escorting Celine, took a long deep breath, smiled pleasantly and said aloud what we were all thinking. "So…this is a trap right?"

"Oh, gods yes." I said immediately. "I'm surprised someone didn't build a candy house in the middle of that meadow. It's super pretty though. And unfortunately for whoever or whatever is expecting to ensnare us, we have other means of securing our territory." Kneeling down, I pressed a hand to the grass, and called on Song of the Soil.

Earth. For miles in every direction I felt myself spread through the earth. My Perception was miles ahead of where it had been last time I used this skill outside of a Pit of Despair I made myself, but I had an easy fix for that. I triggered Piece of Mind twice, letting each of my three selves take a portion of the information load to sift through.

"Ok, let's see." I said as I sorted through stimuli. "Small settlement of giant moles, but they're pretty deep and don't seem hostile. Den of river otters, judging by the piles of suspiciously human bones in their cave they ARE hostile, but there's only like ten of them and they're just F-rank. And, oh, that'd be the one. Ouch, that's nasty."

Benny cleared his throat. "We can't see what you're talking about, mind filling us in on what you're looking at?"

"Ambush predator." Said Callie in my stead. She could access my skills through our bond, and was looking at it right alongside me. "It's disguised as a one square mile section of meadow. Basically a giant mouth waiting to snap shut on anything that steps…there." She pointed to a particularly sunny and inviting stretch of grass, one with no trees or flowers but that looked lush and soft."

Benny hissed. "A square mile. Someone needs to cut back on carbs."

"No monster shaming." I said with a snicker. "It's tacky. Don't worry though, I've got this. Gabe, feel like hammering in a nail for me?"

He shrugged. "Not sure what you mean by that, but I can go with the flow. What did you have in mind." I headed down the hill opposite the cliff, the alternate and much more inviting entrance to the valley, and he followed me.

"Ok. I'm going to set up an attack, and I want you to use your Path to make sure it does the job. Can you get up there?" I pointed up to a spot maybe twenty feet above the ground.

In answer, he conjured his starlight charger and swung onto its back. To my surprise, it stepped on air as easily as the ground, charging up into the sky and then stopping where I'd pointed. I gave him a thumbs up, then took a deep breath, triggering Afterburner, Mercy Kill and Mephistopheles.

I was careful about it, because the ambush predator felt strong. It was E-rank, but HIGH E-rank, and if it decided to attack it could almost definitely kill us.

To make sure that didn't happen, I called up Moonlit Night, and empowered with Afterburner, the stealth aspect of the ability was even stronger. I made sure Gabe could see through the fog, then walked over to the VERY edge of the ambush predator's range, and knelt down, putting a hand on the grass. With the stealth covering me, I triggered Pit of Despair, and then I started letting black flame seep into the dust. I controlled both meticulously, using my two still active parallels to manipulate both the dust and the flame.

Once the flame had permeated the dust, I used Dust Construction to lift it all up. The ambush predator noticed, but it couldn't sense the cause and froze up. Hammering the Dust with my willpower, I slammed it together into a twenty foot long spike of black stone roiling with black flame energy. "Now!" I called to Gabe.

Being able to see the flat platform under him at the top, he dismissed his charger and landed on it just as I released the spike and it began to fall. I saw the world shift slightly as Gabe channeled his Path of the Adamant into the falling spike, and the rod of black stone plummeted into the still open and now exposed mouth of the ambush predator.

The spike slammed into flesh at high speeds, driven by Gabe's path alongside my black flame as an explosion of powerful damaging energy, enhanced by multiple effects and channeled along the length of the dense stone slammed into it and blasted the spike into the depths of the creature.

Gabe himself leapt off at the last second, backflipping up to land on his suddenly coalescing charger as the monster screamed its death throes, fountains of rancid blood shooting up from the hole we'd left as it died.

Swinging by, Gabe caught me with a high five as he went by, and I whooped with joy as I let the fog fade away. The others hurried over to us, and whistled as they saw the results. Callie looked particularly impressed. "That's amazing. Think of how much damage an attack like that could do from higher up."

"I call it the rod from the gods." I said proudly. "But realistically that's the best I can do. Lifting that much dust is a huge strain. The higher it goes the more stress it puts on my soul. Twenty feet is about my limit, and only because I was in the process of compacting it."

She grimaced. "Ah, yeah that might be a problem. Maybe I could teleport it? We'd need something up there casting a shadow. Good idea using Gabe's Path to charge up the momentum."

"Wouldn't have done much otherwise." I said with a shrug. I offered the Adamant a grin, not that he could see it. "Damned impressive job there man."

He hopped off his horse, letting it dissolve in silver shimmers. "Hell of a payload, I just delivered it." it felt good, knowing that despite being extremely weak amongst the throngs of E-rankers, we could still get shit done, especially working together. Our Paths really were an extreme advantage at this juncture, though I suspected we'd be meeting more and more people who had them already as we approached D-rank.

"Not to rain on anyone's parade." Said Benny as he looked at the huge corpse. "But what the hell are we supposed to do with this big bastard? Killing it means we can start work right? But like…don't we need to move the body?"

I glanced at Callie, who would be making the wishes for this place. "I'm going to say no." She said after some deliberation. "We can work around it. We'll figure out something to do with it when we have time, but it's not like it'll attack. Worst case after its gone we'll fill the hole with water and make a pond or something."

"Sure, because that's not weird at all." I said with a laugh. "I can just imagine including that in the tour for prospective citizens. 'And here we have Predator Pond, which used to be the grave of a giant super predator that called this valley its lair'. That'll bring in the investors."

She just shrugged, mostly ignoring me. "Now, to get started, I think we need to take the same steps you did with the walls. Namely, we need foundations. Seven buildings as a start. The question is what we need first." She turned to Celine. "This is going to be your territory, and you have more experience with this kind of thing. What's our first building?"

The elf looked thoughtful. "I think…we need an inn. We'll need city planners, workmen, and plenty of other dedicated craftsmen. Shipping them here every day isn't cost effective. An inn would let us keep our workers close."

"That's a good idea." Callie said cheerfully. "Actually, it makes a lot of sense to consult a professional about placement. In that case, how about we focus on getting the inn up today and we can save the other foundations for once the planner arrives?" Once Celine agreed, my girlfriend clapped her hands together and rubbed them vigorously. "Aright. Let's do this. Shane, I wish for the nicest and sturdiest inn foundation we can afford. Celine will be paying for all of today's wishes with a D-ranked chit."

Wish detected. Grant wish?

The elf smiled, tossing me a particularly dense looking coin, which I caught with a surprised grunt and slipped into my ring. Heavier than it looked. I felt the power start to build and grinned as it charged to absurd levels. 'Best we could afford' meant lots of Impact. With an explosion of purple sparks a sea of light covered the entire area…where the monster body was.

When it vanished, there was a big empty hole in the shape of a well structured basement, with beams and supports that looked suspiciously like bone.

I blinked, staring down in shock. Apparently the best she could afford meant using all resources. We had a giant hole filled with powerful monster parts, and apparently the wish decided to count them as assets. I stared down at the sturdy looking foundation and then turned to Callie who looked as shocked as I did. "Well." I said cheerfully. "That solves that problem. Next wish I guess."

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Rather than jump straight to wish number two though, Callie decided to check out the basement first. The foundation was going to be important when we built the rest of the place, so it made sense to figure out the dimensions and stuff. I followed her down, curious to see what a basement made of monster would look like.

It was…surprisingly homey. The supports were made of bone, but the bone wasn't white and porous like human bones. I could still tell what it was, but the bones were black and glossy. The stairs down into the place were made of teeth, at least based on the shapes, but they were fitted together, joined into a solid series of platforms.

The floor was…leather? It had been made of some kind of hide tanned firm enough to be almost like tile. There was a slight give, but it didn't feel disturbing or anything. It reminded me of walking on rubber floors as a kid, back when Benny and I were in childcare together. Kind of springy but still hard.

Lastly was the walls, made of some sort of scales, overlapping in a surprisingly pretty shimmer of blue and green, melding into pretty images that seemed to shift and change based on where you were standing. The whole place was shockingly beautiful for a building (or part of one) made from a monster corpse.

"This is big." Said Callie with interest, pacing out the length and width of the basement. "Like…really big. Not exactly a mile like I expected though."

I pointed to the supports. "You asked for strong. It condensed the material to make sure it could hold up whatever building we end up with. Speaking of which, do you have any ideas how you're going to need to do this?"

She nodded. "Yup. First I'm using my next wish to wish for a blueprint. Having an exact layout is going to make things substantially easier." I waited, and she rolled her eyes. "Right. I wish I had a blueprint for the perfect inn for our needs." Nodding in approval, I waited until the familiar purple flame rolled across my vision.

Wish detected. Grant wish?

I confirmed, and the familiar buildup of electricity rolled across my skin. It wasn't a strong buildup, a piece of paper with a design wasn't a stretch for my power and didn't require much effort, even customized to Callie's wishes.

There was a flash of purple electricity and the light coalesced into a rolled up tube of papers, which I passed to my girlfriend.

She popped the top, sliding them out, and then carried them over to a central patch of floor and laid them out on the ground, pinning them with a few conjured rocks of shadow to keep the pages from curling. I followed her over and leaned down to get a good look.
I whistled. "Those are…extensive. Thirteen rooms, expansive kitchen, of course, training area, basement meeting hall, secret exit, there's a lot here."

She nodded. "The design is even modular. It calls for very general materials, wood, nails, and so on. We can substitute out better materials if we want something sturdier and that will last, or just use the bare minimum."

"And which one are you going with?" I asked casually. I could grant the wishes for her, but I still didn't want to influence her calls too much. You never knew when a wish would fail because of unfair compensation. I had a good idea of what she'd choose though, knowing Callie as well as I did.

Sure enough, she rolled her eyes. "Obviously we're using top of the line E-ranked materials. Or at least the best materials possible with what I have. I'm going to use four of my remaining five wishes maximizing material conjuration, and then the last one to actually put the place together. With all the mats here and a proper blueprint the actual construction should be coverable in one wish."

I nodded thoughtfully. "That seems like it would work. So, four wishes for the materials, how are you going to divide them up?"

Picking up the blueprints, she turned and headed back up the stairs, out into the meadow outside the spacious basement. "Ok, I think I've got this sorted to get the best results. First wish we'll wish for external building materials, then internal, then the roof, and finally furnishings." She turned to the others, who had approached when we came out. "That sound alright to you guys?"

Benny looked thoughtful. "If you really wanted to maximize your material quality you'd wish for them one by one. Wish for the best wood, then the best nails, and so on. But that would take more than you've got wish-wise. I think your way will get you a solid build, and should cut down on unnecessary time wastage."

"We don't need to make it impregnable anyway." She said with a laugh. "It's an inn, not a fortress. The rooms will be usable while we're here though. The layout is ten normal rooms and three suites. Obviously as the local Lady Celine gets one, and I'm claiming another. As for the third…I suspect Chelsea will get it. Political reasons." Celine nodded at that and everyone else cursed.

Callie spun, fire in her eyes. "Alright. Time to get started. I wish we had the perfect mix of materials for the outside of this Inn, both in terms of fitting the design and our own preferences." She was careful with her wording, and I nodded as the message came.

Wish detected. Grant wish?

I winced a bit at the details stat wise. The Might and Creation requirement was expected, but the real kicker was the Impact. It made sense since each of the items in question would be a fully functional real object. I confirmed, and the electricity started to build.

It started with a tingling sort of buzzing along my skin, like normal static that built and built. That was pretty normal, but something about this one felt…different. This was going to be the biggest conjuration I'd done. The wish power worked by creating custom ability templates to maximize my stat usage, which meant different wishes functioned differently, like those bindings we'd used on Weston.

This one felt strange, and I wasn't quite sure why for a moment. I felt the electricity build inside me, and I waited for it to explode from my hands or what have you, but instead it seemed to concentrate in my stomach. My eyes widened and I retracted the bottom part of my mask as my head fell back and I screamed, a beam of purple lightning streaking up into the sky.

The beam hit the clouds above us and they darkened, flickering ominously with purple light before erupting into a torrent of wrist thick bolts of lightning, all striking the spot directly in front of us. When it finally cleared, I was doubled over, hands on my knees, wheezing, and there was a huge pile of well cut black timber in front of us, shot through with odd grey crystals.

"What." I wheezed. "The actual fuck?" My voice was gravelly, like I'd just been smoking. Which I suppose I kind of had, if you considered the puff of black soot I'd just coughed up smoking.

Callie, who looked concerned, looked me over until she was sure I was ok, then she walked over to the wood. "These are fulgurites." She said as she pointed to the branching grey crystals. "The wood is probably some kind of lightning material." She leaned over, making an interested sound. "There are other materials, neatly stacked and seemingly way less dramatic to make."

I considered what I knew about my ability. "You asked for the best. I'm guessing a normal conjuration wasn't enough for that material. It gave me an ability that allowed me to mobilize natural resources to make the stats I used go further. Like with the basement. It seems weird this has only just started happening though."

"Not really." Said Benny. "If I had to guess it has to do with your soul. Remember abilities can do more dramatic things and stretch the bounds of possibility more with a stronger soul. Your wishes are getting more effective for the same reason. The ability templates can be flexed further with your current soul strength."

I considered his theory, and I had to admit he might be right. The bindings on Weston had been big and dramatic, and prior to that I hadn't really pushed myself wish wise for a while. We'd been sticking with basic stat trades and attack stockpiling.

"You still up for the next one?" Callie asked worriedly. "If you need a minute we can wait."

I put a hand to my chest. "I am shocked at how little you think of me. Shocked I say." Callie just rolled her eyes, trying not to laugh.

"If you can make bad puns you're fine." She said with a teasing smirk. "In that case, I wish for the best material possible for the interior of the Inn within the confines of the budget and my preferences, one of which is that my boyfriend doesn't have to vomit lightning bolts again." She winked at me, and I laughed as the message came.

Wish detected. Grant wish?

I confirmed. Luckily her deciding not to fry my lungs didn't seem to count as compensation of any sort for me, which was fair. Not electrocuting me wasn't my idea of a bribe either. This time the electricity grounded out of my feet, and the earth churned as the materials pushed up from out of the dirt.

She wished again, this time for the roof, and then the furnishings, and by the time she finished with those we were standing in the middle of a very odd pile of random stuff including lumber, fasteners, light fixtures, and a surprising number of expensive looking filigreed doorknobs. I was panting, these creation abilities were taxing in a way I wasn't used to.

After giving me a second to catch my breath, with Benny doing his spiritual calming thing just in case it helped (it did a bit) we moved on to the last wish. "Alright." Said Callie excitedly. "Time to put it all together. I wish the materials we have her would be assembled in the manner indicated in the blueprint I wished for earlier, adjusted in any way necessary for optimal material application."

Wish detected. Grant wish?

This time I took a second before confirming and then once I did, it began. The electricity built as usual, but instead of coming out as a blast it started to radiate from my palms as a pulse. Purple lightning flowed out in circular waves, and as it hit the materials, they started to glow.

Like a magnetic draw, they started to lift into the air and move toward the foundation, gently rotating around it at first, then picking up speed as it started to draw in more and more parts. Before I knew it there was a tornado of stuff surrounding the basement, with the tip of the funnel seeming to be a zone of construction laying the materials in place.

Timber shoved itself into place, nails flew at top speed into wood with perfect accuracy, and as we watched, the Inn built itself from the ground up, visible at first, but within minutes it had sealed itself off, and everything, fixtures, furnishings and all, was gone, leaving the meadow looking perfect and pristine.

Walking up the to the new building, I knocked solidly on the door. When it held, I opened it up, stepping inside, and whistled loudly at the sheer elegance of the decor. The furnishings had looked much less impressive when they were in a pile outside. Now it was kind of a quiet understated opulence that made me glad we'd gone with this particular design. I loved it. Turning to the others, I shot them a grin. "Good news. It worked."

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"This place is fantastic!" I said in awe as I toured the halls of our new inn. We'd named it The Hearthflame Inn (my suggestion of Inn Cognito had been dismissed as stupid) and we were exploring the completed building. We'd all be sleeping here tonight, and tomorrow most of the group would had back to the Imperial Fork when the City Planner and Workmen we'd hired through Camden showed up.

Callie, who was beaming at the flawlessly constructed building, nodded sharply. "It's perfect. I love everything about it." She froze, turning to look at Celine. "I mean…I hope you like it, since this is your territory."

Smiling, the elf girl shook her head. "I'm grateful for your help developing the territory, and the Starlight Pavilion is always welcome in my borders. I know I can't actually give you the territory because of your cultivation method, but as the Lady of this territory I am always willing to shield you and yours."

That was why we were able to make wishes about this place to begin with. There was no mechanism to turn over Imperial territory to anyone but a noble. If we'd had Jobs we might have been able to switch to being nobles ourselves, but as it was that wasn't on the table.

Still, having a home was…nice. This was our place, where we belonged, and being here gave me the strength to do something I'd been thinking of doing for a long time. I'd already made my plan, but it would need to wait until later. I wanted to make sure everything went perfectly, so for now I'd just enjoy the tour, knowing the layout could only help.

I'd developed enough soul control to prevent my nervous excitement from leaking down the bond, but it was still hard to focus on what was going on, despite my interest. Still, when we reached the kitchen, even anticipation couldn't keep me from being entranced.

Black metal appliances of every size and shape lined the counters, pots and pans stacked in cupboards, knives of every shape and size, and every object you could think of to peel, press, dice, puree, blend, or otherwise destroy ingredients in cooking adjacent ways was packed into the drawers.

Turning to Callie, I smirked at her knowingly. "It occurs to me that with such an impressive kitchen at my disposal, I'll have more reason to cook."

She shrugged with faux nonchalance. "Oh, is that right? I hadn't really thought about it. Obviously an inn needs a kitchen, but this place was designed to be perfect for me, so obviously a food prep area would be a must."

"Yes, and I'm sure you pictured some nameless chef doing the preparing." I said dryly. "But if you wouldn't be too disappointed, why don't I test it out for you tonight. I can make us dinner."

Benny, who was standing behind me inspecting the fridge, turned sharply. "Oh shit, really? I haven't had your food in ages, I'd love to come over fo-ow!" He turned to Celine, who was glaring at him menacingly. "What? Why did you smack me? I was just telling him I wanted him to make some for us too."

"I thought I saw a fly." Said the elf in a deadpan voice. "In fact, it's still buzzing around. We should leave so I don't need to try to swat it again."

Sulkily, and muttering under his breath, Benny let her drag him out of the room. Celine may not know what I had planned, but it didn't take a genius to figure out it started with a romantic dinner. The others were all exploring the inn, but I suspected they'd be subtly tipped off as well, so I shouldn't have trouble getting some alone time with Callie.

Watching them go, she shot me a soft smile. "I think dinner would be wonderful." She said quietly. "We haven't had time to eat a nice home cooked meal just the two of us in a while." She reached out and took my hand. "But if you don't want to cook we can have Anna make something, I don't want you to feel obligated to feed me."

I barked out a laugh. "That ship sailed a long time ago, love. But don't you worry. I want to cook. I promise you'll love it. I do need to go out and get some things though. Can you set up a table in the basement? That should be empty enough for us to have a nice evening."

"Already done." She said with a chuckle. "Remember we're using it for meetings. Go get whatever you need, I can wait."

Pulling my mask up, I leaned down for a quick kiss before turning and heading out. The kitchen was stocked with general food stuff, but nothing specific, and aside from cooking I had something else I wanted to pick up.

I sprinted flat out to Saltzberg, so it didn't take me too long to arrive. My body being in a constant State of Grace helped. Stopping at the market I picked up the stuff for Chicken and Dumplings, one of the first dishes I ever made for Callie, and then made my second stop to grab the other essential I needed.

When I made it back, I started cooking immediately. We still had a few hours until dinner, but I wanted to do it right. It was relaxing, really. I'd forgotten how much cooking centered me. The repetition, the ritual. I could have done it faster, but that would have defeated the purpose of the whole thing. I wanted to take my time, put my all into it.

Using high end ingredients helped, but with my Lesser Cooking Mastery, I had to put a lot of time and concentration into not screwing up. I had the Impact and the stats to cook E-ranked stuff, but not nearly the Skill, so I'd made sure to get F-ranked ingredients. Even with the lower Skill level my stats should let me bluff my way past as long as I remained focused.

The Starplucker Chicken (no I don't know why it was called that but it sounded impressive as hell) was tough to cut in its uncooked form, and I admit to abusing my Eye of Revelation and my Overlay to properly cut it up, and once that was done, I had to boil it in a high ranking pot with the F-ranked stove and special Clear Mind Water that I'd bought specifically for that purpose (after searing it to seal in the flavor).

I went on like that for a while, enjoying myself as I got lost in my task. I'd been so focused on war and battle lately I'd forgotten the simple pleasures, and by the time I was done, it was already getting dark.

Leaving the food under a towel to keep it hot, I bolted for a bathroom, where I showered and got changed into clothes from my ring. Then, once I was sure I looked good without my mask (shaving, styling my hair, etcetera) I went back to the kitchen, collected the food, and took it down to the basement.

The meeting room was nice and spacious and I was able to spruce it up even more with some table cloths and candles I'd snagged while shopping. Once that was done I set the food out and plated it onto some nice chine before sending a pulse of notification through the bond to Callie.

When she came down the steps, I turned to smile at her and…froze. My jaw dropped almost to the floor as I saw her smiling up at me through her lashes. She'd gotten all dolled up, and it was clear that I was still every bit as blown away by her as the day we met. She was wearing a fancy looking black dress that draped down to her shiny black heels, a pair of black crystal earrings dangling from her lobes.

Her makeup was subtle, not that she needed any (which I'd told her a dozen times but she never listened about that kind of thing) and it drew the eye to her sparkling, intelligent blue eyes, one of the things I loved most about her.

"I…words." I blurted. Her eyebrow went up, and I coughed. "I mean. I wasn't expecting for you to get so dressed up."

She smiled shyly. "I don't know. We don't get as much time together like this as I'd like. I wanted to make it special>' She frowned. "Is it too much? I know you wanted this to be just a chill evening together. I can change."

"Don't you dare." I said with a laugh. "Now come sit down, the food will get cold." I pulled out her chair and she sat down, lighting up when she saw what I made. Her mom had used to make it for her when she was a kid, and it was one of her favorite dishes. She didn't thank me out loud, she didn't need to. I could feel the affection and adoration across the bond like a banked star. Steady and unceasing, but still powerful.

She took a bite, groaning in happiness at the taste, and snorted in confusion when she saw me staring. "What? Something on my face?"
I considered making a joke, but I decided to just start. "I wanted to talk to you about something. With all this mess with Camden and Spencer, I've been pushing pretty hard. I've been stretched to my breaking point time and again, and every single time, you're always there to pull me back. You're my rock, the center of my universe, and you make every day we have together better than the best day I ever had before you were in my life."

Her eyes widened, mouth full of her next bite of food, so I kept going, barreling on as best I could. "I know it's pretty soon. It's only been a bit over a year, and that's not too long, but…I love you. When I think about my life without you in it it's just dull and lifeless, and I can't imagine ever being happy in a world like that."

She swallowed her food, eyes stuck to me. "I love you too, Shane, you know that. But all this windup is making me nervous. Are you…" She swallowed. "Do you have something to ask me?" I wasn't surprised she'd noticed. She knew me better than anyone, and the bond made hiding the terrified pit in my stomach a pipe dream.

I got up from my chair at the table and walked over to hers, kneeling down next to her as I fished out the ring box I'd stopped to buy earlier in town. "I know it's a little early, but we've been through so much together. Life and death, happiness and sadness, and I for one can't wait to find out what tomorrow is going to bring us. I can't wait to start the rest of my life with you."

Opening the box, I showed off the bright silver band with the pitch black diamond I'd spent an entire D-ranked coin on (it was enchanted, obviously). "I love you more than anyone I've ever met. You're the other half of my soul, pretty much literally, and it would make me the happiest man alive if you'd do me the honor of being my wife." I stared into her eyes, amazed at their glow as they pulled me in like blue supernovas. "Calliope Reynolds, will you marry me?"

Her adoration and heartfelt acceptance hit me through the bond almost as hard as her tackle hit me as she threw herself at me and kissed me senseless. "Yes, you idiot." She laughed through ecstatic tears. "Why did it take you godsdamned long to ask?" She pulled me back in for another kiss, and I let the joy and peace overtake me completely. Needless to say, the food ended up getting cold.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Waking up the next morning felt…weirdly normal. Callie was with me, as per usual, though she was already awake, an abnormality in the morning for my usually grumpy girlfriend. I paused. I guessed the term was fiancee now. Damn, that was weird. Still mornings were not usually her jam. Today though, she was up before me, though still in bed, staring at her hand, or more specifically, the glittering ring that now sat on her third finger.

"It's not going to disappear, you know." I said with a laugh. "That thing might not be D-ranked, but it's basically the most expensive E-ranked enchanted ring I could find."

"I guess I didn't ask about it last night, huh?" She said with interest. "So, what exactly does it do? If it's peak E-rank it must be impressive. Does it summon a swarm of meteors? Turn me into a lion? Give me wings?"

I laughed. "No, no, and if you want wings you can make them out of shadows. It's a shield. It drains excess energy from you when you're in peak condition, just overflow that would go to waste, and stockpiles it for a single use defensive charge. The shield itself will stop a single blow from a Master, though it'll break right after."

"Shane, that must have cost a fortune!" She said in shock. "I love it, but you didn't need to spend so much."

Shrugging, I gave her a sappy grin. "It's self defense. Had to make sure that shield was strong enough. My heart is in there, after all." I felt the love and contentment through the bond as she threw herself at me, pinning me to the bed and kissing me senseless. I finally managed to pull away, laughing breathlessly. "Alright enough of that. We've got big plans today. Meetings with the city planner and the workmen."

Laughing, she sat up, stretching expansively. Standing, she snapped her fingers and her costume was suddenly wrapped around her. It was one of the more useful tricks that a spatial ring allowed for. Callie's was still on her left ring finger, opposite the engagement ring. "Fine." She said grumpily. "But if you're going to make me get up I want breakfast."

"You know." I said, climbing out of bed and letting my armor cover me with the same snap. "When we're married, your pouting is probably going to get less effective."

She grinned widely at me. "And YOU know that the bond lets me feel it when you lie. Now mush, go make us breakfast. I'm in the mood for crepes." She made a shooing motion with her fingers and I laughed, rolling my eyes as I headed downstairs to the kitchen.

Cooking this morning was even more relaxing that yesterday. I just felt so…happy. Like nothing could bring me down. This was the happiest I'd ever been in my life. Getting stronger was great, and I'd had some impressive victories, but this…this was a new level of joy. It was like I'd taken a bath in contentment.

Callie came into the room, plopping down on a stool to watch me cook, and didn't say a word, just kind of smiled, playing with her ring absently. I could feel everything she was feeling, and vice versa, neither of us wanted to hide something like this from the other.

"Wow, you two are even more sappy than usual-" Came Jessie's voice as she entered the kitchen, but she cut off, the sound of breaking glass drawing my gaze to where she stood frozen, staring at Callie's hand. "Is that?" Smirking, my fiancee nodded and Jessie squealed in excitement, hurling herself across the room at as.

I fumbled, yelping in panic. "Hot pan, hot PAN." I managed to save the crepe from burning without lighting myself on fire with F-ranked stove flames, tossing it to the plate next to the frying pan as Jessie squeezed us both hard enough to make our ribs creak. "Yes, we're super happy about it too, but it'll be tough for you to be in the wedding if you crush us like soda cans."

She released us both immediately, wheeling on Callie. "Tell me everything. I want reenactments. Benny is going to be so jealous I found out first."

"Found out what?" Came my best friend's voice as he walked into the room. "Because I told you last time, Shane's love of otters is not a secret and I doubt whatever you're talking about this time is either." Jessie just grinned, grabbing Callie's hand and holding it up triumphantly. He wheeled on me. "Rat bastard! I had next year in the poll!"

Celine breezed in past him, stopping to hold out her hand as he grudgingly dropped a few F-ranked chits into her waiting palm. "That, my love, is because you're almost as dense as he is about matters of the heart." She smiled at us both brilliantly. "Congratulations, to both of you. It's been a long time coming."

"She's right." Said Benny with a shrug. "You're basically married already. Maybe this will stop all the sickening cuteness."

Rolling my eyes, I gestured to the table. "Benny, why don't you put out plates, Cal, you and Jessie go tell everyone else. I've only been through the reveal twice and I'm already getting exhausted."

Callie snickered, popping to her feet and planting a kiss on my maskless cheek. I was wearing my armor but I'd left the crown and mask off. I was home, so it was alright to walk around without it. That felt pretty good to think. "Alright, I'll let you cook. I'd like mine with blueberries, please."

I just laughed as the two of them took off, anxious to tell everyone else, including probably my sister. For now though, I just enjoyed the cooking process as my best friend sat beside me, silent for a minute before he finally figured out what to say.

"You're getting married." He said simply. His tone was disbelieving, but happy, and I knew he approved. "That's…damn, Shane. Holy shit. I mean, I get it, you love her, but still, that's a lot. Was it hard to ask?"

I snorted. "I felt like I was going to throw up all day. I'd like to say I thought it out, planned it meticulously but…I kind of just decided it was time and went with it."

"Of course you did." He said with an eye roll. "It's what you do. But it doesn't sound like you regret it at all. Which is a good sign I'd say. Did you figure out who's going to be in the wedding yet? Or where you're having it?"

It was my turn for an eye roll. "I mean, I obviously already have my best man picked out, dipshit. But the wedding won't be right away. We have the conclave coming up, and that'll be a whole big mess. We're thinking after that. As for where…probably Callus. Callie's mom is there, and I want Maria to come of course, and Stella and Ian."

"Mom and dad will want to be there." He said with a nod. Then paused. "Well, dad will want to be there. Mom will find out what rank you are and how much influence you have and probably try to spin it into some kind of business expansion."

That got a laugh out of me. "I'm sure, but I don't mind. Besides, you're E-rank too. She doesn't need my influence to be sitting pretty. Don't forget we're already top of the charts for Callus, and that's assuming we don't manage D-rank before we show up. I think Callie might do it out of sheer spite so she can lord it over her dad."

"That does sound like her." He chuckled. "You're going to have to work your ass up to keep up with your godslayer girlfriend."

I just shook my head. "We have to get through this shitshow first." I said with a sigh. "Spencer is going to try to kill us, and I'm definitely going to do the same." My voice hardened. "He's too dangerous to leave alive. I won't feel safe leaving this planet unless he's dead." The way he'd looked at Callie, hell the way he'd looked at me. One of us wasn't getting off this rock.

"Agreed." Said Benny coldly. And we shared a brief look, acknowledging how much things had changed. We'd just been talking about my wedding and now we were planning to kill someone. Sure, he definitely deserved it, but it was still a bit surreal. "I'm working on procuring the enhancement artifacts I need. Should have them by the time the month long protections end."

That was good. I'd been a bit worried, though I was sure Benny had benefited from the giant stone golem thing we'd pulled off. It was damned impressive. I had to check my stats actually, I hadn't bothered but I was sure they'd gone up. It would be nice to see after the whole mess with the battle. I was starting to feel weak again.

Tricks aside, I wasn't even close to a power player in the E-rank community. My powerful soul let me pull of some serious bullshit, but it didn't mean I wouldn't be capable of way more with the stats to back it up. Stats were the most important thing an Ascendant could have. More than Skills or anything but abilities honestly.

There was some noise and I turned to see a small stampede of people coming into the kitchen. Bethy and Chelsea and Gabe and Cark and Cass, who I guessed had made their way over with Zeke all tumbled in grinning and congratulating and clapping me on the back. My uncle caught my eye and smiled, nodding slightly as he headed to the table to sit and wait for the crepes.

I was just finishing them up, so I plated some for everyone (only one or two because I hadn't been cooking for the whole inn) and sat down to eat myself, grinning at all the excited chattering.

This was almost as amazing as Callie saying yes. Being here together, with my family and friends, talking about the wedding. It was…perfect.

Which was of course when the city planner and the work crew showed up. Callie hopped up, devouring her last crepe like a taco and kissing me on the cheek (I had to wipe syrup off my face) as she ran out to meet them with Celine.

I finished eating and headed out to find them all clustered up in the front yard, listening to a small, round bellied man with a warm smile and a close cropped black beard point out important landmarks and fill them in on his thoughts about where everything should go. Stopping a few feet away I waited and listened, interested to hear his thoughts on things.

When I realized those thoughts were boring, I tuned them out and turned to run my eyes over the valley, taking in the amazing idyllic scenery.

Zeke stepped up next to me. "Congrats kid." He said with a soft smile. "Your mom is going to flip her lid." His cheek twitched as the mark on his forehead flared and he rolled his eyes, but the geas didn't actually manifest. "You're having it back on Callus?"

"Of course." I said with a smile. "Anyone who wants to come can drag their happy ass to my neck of the woods. Not that I assume everyone will make it." My smile wilted a bit. "People are busy." Neither of us said anything else after that, we both knew I was right, and we just stood and watched the scenery.

Somehow, it all looked different today. I wasn't sure why, but I could feel a sort of hum of destiny around it. That was part of why I'd proposed here. Fate sense, divination, who knew. I'd just gotten a feeling. I didn't know what caused that, but I was betting the place could become special. I couldn't wait to help turn it into something amazing. A month would be plenty of time. Spencer wouldn't know what hit him.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Because of all the planning, I decided to slip off on my own to relax and assimilate some stats. I'd been suppressing some income stat gains for a while, and now that I had some down time I was more than happy to let them roll.

That was one amazing thing about having a stronger soul. The control I had over how and when I received my stats. I'd know of course, that E-rankers especially were capable of this, because I'd seen it first hand. Back on Callus, I'd seen the E-rankers in charge delay stat gains until after the scavenger hunt, same thing with the Moonsong Glade.

I'd known it was soul related, but I hadn't really equated it with my own growing ability to restrain myself stat wise, even though the connection should have been obvious.

Now that I thought about it though I could see small facets of that ability, and the limitations of it. I knew for instance, that it was impossible to use your soul to prevent someone else from gaining stats. I also knew the power of contracts. We'd all agreed to be in that scavenger hunt, and as such, had given permission for the Academy to fuck with stat allocation to maximize gains.

I wondered if I was capable of holding back stat gains for hundreds if not thousands of G-rankers…and then I realized that yeah, I probably was.

G-rankers got a few points here and there, but nothing like the hundreds or thousands I got when a huge windfall landed on my head. Not to mention the massive Impact disparity might lessen the strain on my soul, I wasn't sure about that though.

But it was clear that getting random point bumps mid battle or when you were busy was a liability, and the higher you got up the ladder the more necessary that kind of control was. Smiling and exhaling slowly, I relaxed a clenched part of my soul I had barely even realized I was holding, and I felt the last few weeks of renown hit me all at once.

With my increased familiarity with stats and Skill, I was able to almost feel the secondary effects, like the muscles getting stronger, as the points infused my body, I blinked at the extreme amount of points compared to my usual.

Some of them I got. Creation for example had gotten a full thousand points. That was odd given the limitations of the local landscape where Empire citizens wouldn't generate too much, but I supposed plenty of people might be watching what I was doing after my previous escapades. It was possible some of them had been spreading information about my new construction hobby. That or the construction of the giant stone golem battlesuit during my fight with Weston.

Three hundred Might made sense, since I HAD helped kill a D-ranker, even if indirectly. Nothing like I'd have gotten if I'd offed him personally like Callen, but it was a solid bump, and the five hundred Fantasy probably had something to do with those crazy ass chains I'd used to help bind the bastard.
The two hundred forty Vitality was most likely for surviving the fight, even suppressed. A hit from him should have straight up snuffed me out like a candle.

Finishing up, I looked over my stats, a grand total of fourteen thousand eight hundred points. Even a month ago this would have been an unimaginable windfall, but it was clear that after hitting E-rank, the real grind began. I had a LOT of points to gain before I was ready to become a Master.

"There you are." Said a voice, jerking me out of my reverie. I looked up to see Abel standing over me, looking as relaxed as ever. "Saw you slip off and figured you might be getting some training done. Or you were just getting bored of the building talk."

I laughed ruefully, plopping down next to a fruit tree. Abel sat beside me and, without looking up, smacked an elbow into the trunk, catching an apple as it fell from the branches without even looking.

"You realize we can throw small buildings right?" I asked in amusement. "That's not really an impressive trick. Why bother with the showmanship?"

"You're talking about it, aren't ya?" I blinked, having no real response to that. "Mostly I was here to check on you. After that big mess with the invasion, I know it's probably tempting to bury yourself in pre matrimonial bliss, but distracting yourself from that shit only works for so long. Not to bring down the mood, but if you need to talk, I'm happy to listen without you killing the buzz for everyone else."

That wasn't what I expected at all. "I'm…kind of shocked, honestly. I expected you to be all like 'suck it up, people die, go punch something until you feel better'." I put on a semi-manic tone, imitating my mentor, and he snorted at the attempt.

"I don't sound like that." He said with a laugh. "But in any case, that's shitty advice. Losing people sucks, I've been there. It hurts no matter how much it happens. That's why I don't bother caring about more than a few relatively hard to kill people."

I stared at him. "You're saying…it grinds you down? Even you? I thought all this combat shit was your life?"

"Oh it is." He agreed. "Loss sucks for everyone, but I'm…I'm built different. I don't say that as a flex, or as some kind of brag, it's just true. Do you know why I'm as strong as I am?"

Laughing, I rolled my eyes. "You gave me this speech, it's because you don't care what anyone thinks." My mentor's rant was still firmly fixed in my mind even after months. I knew his reasoning, and as much as I didn't agree exactly, it worked for him.

"False." He rebutted. "I told you HOW I got strong, I didn't tell you why. Do you know why?"
"Because you're a punch happy lunatic?" I said, half jokingly.

He snorted. "You bet your ass that's why." He said bluntly. "I'm like this because I LOVE fighting. I love combat, I love hardship, I even love pain. Hurting makes me feel alive, it lets me know that I'm getting stronger. Every ache, every twinge, its all part of a beautiful song my body sings, a beautiful symphony of creation and destruction where every note works to make me more than I currently am."

"Damn." I said in shock. "That's almost poetic. But I'm sure there are other people who love to train, why aren't they as strong as you."

He shrugged. "Some of them are. But it's not as common as you think. My point isn't that being like that makes me awesome though, even if I think it does. It's a matter of mindset. You like fighting don't you? Like to feel you blood pumping as you crush your enemies?"

"Sure." I said uncertainly. "It's something I enjoy doing once in a while. I'm not going to make it my life, I need time to decompress sometimes."

Pointing at me, he snapped his fingers. "There." He said with a nod. "That's the difference. You like to fight, it's fun for you, but it's exhausting. Mentally, emotionally, you need time to recover, time to build back up. Your body can handle a ton more than you put it through, but your mind isn't ready for non stop grinding."

"And yours is?" I said, half disbelievingly. "You're just some kind of machine that never needs to recover and has no mental strain?" It would have sounded ridiculous from anyone else, but if anyone could make that claim it would be Abel.

To my surprise, he shook his head. "Of course not. People like that don't exist. Everyone gets run down, everyone has problems at some point. Everyone feels pain and fear and exhaustion, even me. I'm not some ultimate warrior that can't be defeated and needs no rest. I like to relax as much as the next guy."

"So what the hell are you talking about?" I asked in irritation. "You said that's the difference between us."

Laughing, he just shook his head. "Because it IS the difference. The difference isn't that I don't feel strain though, it's what I consider relaxing in the first place. Fighting isn't strain, it doesn't push me or wear me out. Fighting is what I live, it's what I breathe. Fights are what I DO to decompress. Training is how I vacation. I LIVE for this shit."

"How is that any different?" I said owlishly. "You just…don't get worn down because you like it?"

He nodded, pleased. "Exactly. People need downtime. Mental health is a real thing, and no one is an island. All that cliche bullshit. But that only applies when you get worn down to begin with. It's like pain. Getting your nose broken sucks, unless you're a masochist, and then maybe it's a good time. It's a matter of perspective. Like I said, I'm just built different. My point wasn't a speech about how great I am though, it's that I KNOW I'm built different and I adjust my expectations accordingly."

"So you think I need to let off some steam about all the death and destruction instead of burying it in good news?" I said quietly.

Another shrug. "Maybe, or maybe you need something good to focus on. That's not my call, kid. I'm just saying I realize talking about this would be a buzzkill on your happy day, and that might stop you from being willing to bring it up. I'm here to listen if you need to vent but don't want to bring the others down."

"Callie-" I started, but he cut me off immediately.

"Callie has her own shit to deal with, and don't forget I have a bond just like yours." He said bluntly. "I know you well enough to know you wouldn't want to bring her down after cheering her up, and I know the bond well enough to know you can avoid it."

I deflated a bit. He was right. I'd been avoiding thinking about all the losses specifically to prevent my bad mood from infecting my fiancee. She was already reeling from Perit's death, even after all this time, I didn't want her dwelling on who had been killed in this mess. We hadn't lost any of our group members, thankfully, but it was still hard to think about.

"Anyone ever tell you you're a dick?" I asked flatly as I made a mental effort to block off the bond so Callie didn't get a heaping helping of guilt and self recrimination.

Abel just burst out laughing. "No." He said sarcastically. "You're the first person to ever say that to me. I'm shocked I tell you, shocked." I glared at him, and despite my mask covering my whole face, he seemed to get how I felt. He grinned at me. "You're thinking about dropping me in one of those dust pits right now huh?"

I clicked my tongue. "Yeah, but you're too close. You'de probably either avoid it or drag me in." I scowled. "You sat right next to me for that exact reason didn't you? So I wouldn't drop you in a hole?"

"Maybe." He said, shrugging expansively. "Who knows. Regardless, I'm just sitting here, minding my own business. I figure you have another hour or two before they finish planning everything out and the missus comes looking for you. Personally I think I'll just sit here eating my apple, but if someone started talking I couldn't exactly tune them out."

Sighing, I shook my head. "You know, you are simultaneously the best and worst teacher I've ever had."

He nodded seriously. "Disappointingly impressive." He said humbly. "It's my sweet spot. Now stop asking my questions and let me eat this apple. Your turn to talk." He took another loud bite, averting his eyes and I smiled. It was nice to know I could vent to somebody. So I did. By the time Callie came looking for me I was feeling a lot better. For someone who didn't care about people Abel was kind of a people person. Who knew?

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"Are you sure this was a good use of wishes?" I asked Callie as I rolled my shiny new D-ranked chit over my knuckles. "Because we can just like…manifest buildings. We have a month, it's not like there's a rush." Well, we had twenty eight days at least, but still, I'd expected the City Planner to excitedly start raising buildings overnight.

The portly man, whose name is learned was Alvus, was every bit as excited as expected, but it wasn't at the thought of instant buildings, it was at the FOUNDATIONS. He's heard about the way we laid out the wall and was over the moon.

When he heard my question, the jovial planner turned to smile at me. "A good question, my boy. This is the best possible use of wishes. How much do you know about Ascendant architecture."

"I know that it happens spontaneously when someone makes a wish and pays me for it." I said wryly. "Or when Benny uses Inventing, we got a pretty awesome building during a trial back in the day, should we do that again?"

His eyes went wide in panic. "No!" He shouted, waving his hands. "It is NEVER wise to Invent buildings. Inventing allows maximum use of powerful reagents and crafting materials, the more powerful the better, but also the more unpredictable. It's also nearly impossible to impose any controls on building spawns because of the way they manifest."

I raised an eyebrow. "But ours was fine. We got a cool sentry tower and a nice place to hang our hats for a while."

"I assume this took place on a low ranked planet?" He said patiently. At my nod, he chuckled weakly. "As I thought. Inventing uses ALL the ingredients available, and that includes the natural energies of the environment. Higher level planets have more of that energy, and as such, contribute more. That's not even mentioning possible structures like the Undertrek, which might influence things."

I nodded as I started to get it. "Oh. That's why you said they're unpredictable. Trying to use your soul to influence that much power would be difficult, even if I assume the actual result wouldn't surpass the level of your materials."

"Quite so." He said with a laugh. "Invented buildings can have…drastic results, even within their rank. Cursed manors, infinitely spawning machine factories, monster spawning dens, flesh pits that consume the unwary, there are an unlimited number of unpleasant outcomes to using such a risky ability on a higher rank planet."

That sucked to hear, but it meant Benny could still add some new buildings back on Callus when we eventually went home. That might be interesting.

"You were talking about Ascendant architecture?" Callie prodded, rolling her eyes at my tendency to get sidetracked. I shot her a charming grin that she couldn't see but obviously felt through the bond because her lips quirked up in a small smile, though she looked no less exasperated with me.

"Oh!" Laughed Alvus. "Quite right. My apologies. Yes, Ascendant architecture is a fascinating subject. You see, buildings are complex and require multiple skillsets, but most of those overlap within the various crafting professions. Work crews are also often staffed with people with different Jobs, a Carpenter, a Mason, a Plumber, and so on. However, the creation of a foundation is a delicate bit of work for multiple reasons."

I paused, thinking it over. "Because it's earth based? I know there are people with abilities that let them shape earth and they do big business in construction back home."

The man waggled shook his head. "It helps, but one of the main benefits of the Job system is versatility. Stable and consistent growth along with a variety of supplemental skills for your profession. No, it isn't that. What sets Ascendant architecture apart is the variety. The Skills that crafters have vary, with each main Skill being the ability that person was born with."

"And those Skills affect the outcome of a building project." I filled in. "So foundations need to be constructed differently for each one?"

He shrugged. "Need is a strong word. A basic foundation can be laid for any building. Dig out the ground and pour in the material to hold the place up, but for a true Ascendant structure, just like for Ascendants ourselves, the more solid the foundation the more you can bring out of the materials. Even with the proper crafting Skills and disciplines, with a generic foundation, you're limited in what kind of building you can make."

Thinking back to the Callus, I wondered if the Unity building in Rajak had a specialized foundation, or maybe the materials were too low level for it to matter. Still, this did explain a few things.

"Well I didn't understand the specifications you gave me." I said with a shrug. "Smart idea writing them out and wishing for foundations that matched the specs on the paper. Mind explaining what each building will be?" I glanced at Celine. "Assuming it's not like…a state secret or something." I was mostly kidding, I knew my friend would tell me if I asked, but I wanted to let her know she wasn't obligated to share.

She waved me off. "Of course not. As I said, you're always welcome here. This might be my land but it's your home."

My heart warmed at that. I trusted Celine. It might be stupid in some people's eyes to do that after she'd betrayed me, but that was WHY I trusted her. I'd seen what almost losing Benny had done to her, and seen how much she regretted it. I trusted her not to want to go through that again, and so extending her control over this territory was a calculated risk.

So far, she hadn't disappointed me. At her nod, the portly planner grinned, escorting us back to the very first foundation he'd laid. It was at the edge of the water, and represented the far boundary of the future…settlement? Complex? I wasn't sure exactly.

"To understand exactly what kind of benefit we have here, you need to understand how buildings work in the Empire." The planner said excitedly as he led us to the lakeside foundation. "Much like Jobs, there are regional variations of structures developed over time by the residents of different biomes and areas to take advantage of features."

He gestured down to the large sunken pit with the dark blue metal frame in it. "Now, these particular buildings can't be built just anywhere, they require not only special plans and materials, but special foundations that take into account the land and energies around them."

My eyes lit up. "It's like a formation!" I said with interest. "They use the natural environment as part of the enchantments."

With a snap, he pointed at me happily. "Exactly! I already mentioned this in regards to Invented buildings, but any Ascendant structure works on a similar principal. The difference is the amount of control you have with each, which is why we use Enchanters, which are the most stable form of magical crafter."

"So, because of the wish crafter foundations." Callie said slowly. "We can use buildings that would normally only be constructable in special locations?"

He nodded excitedly. "And that is a huge advantage! Every territory has their own specialties. Some their horses, some their shipping, but these are all maximized by the nobles in charge over generations to bring out the absolute best of what their land has to offer. Because of the unique foundations you can construct, not only can we get the best of what our crafters can do, but we can go beyond that."

"Ok." I said with a laugh. "Enough buildup, what is this building going to be?"

Puffing up, he gestured to it grandly. "A pearl farm. The Delton family in Count Eston's territory are famed for their specialty pearls. Because of a special collision of natural energies and geography, they've learned to create a building that can induce and speed the growth of pearls inside a special type of clam."

I blinked at that. "Ok, that's,,,cool?" I said slowly. "Are these pearls valuable?"

"Immensely!" He gushed. "They're a special water type crafting material, and can be used to make a wide variety of expensive goods."

That did sound pretty cool. "Ok, that one is neat." I admitted. "What about the others? There are six more foundations, and can your people make the best of them?" He'd mentioned the benefits, but it sounded like we'd need more than just the foundations, which seemed to act as a pseudo environment.

"They can." He said solemnly. "But we'll need to use tomorrows wishes on blueprints. That isn't an issue though, because we can not only get the proper plans, we can wish for modified versions that take advantage of the external conditions on TOP of our constructed foundations." His excitement was palpable.

Once he was done hyperventilating from joy, he dragged me around the rest of the fledgeling village and showed me the various other useful buildings we were going to have.

I had to admit there were some cool ones there. On the other side of the lake, closer to the waterfall, there was a foundation that would become a power station, where the energy of the waterfall would be harvested to charge gems with Might that we could use in both crafting and battle.

Closer to the inn was going to be a special kind of sentry tower that could let them sense enemies and showed their positions on some kind of giant map display of the area, even having some features that showed relative strength.

There were a few that were less impressive to me. A butcher's shop that increased the speed of meat curing (also apparently the taste). A bar that made extra potent ale which I was told was imperative. And one I thought was amazing,a barracks based on one that was apparently situated on some kind of sword tomb that made training people faster when they focused on the blade.

That last one was damned impressive and I was excited to see it in action, but the last building was the one that really blew me out of the water. With Spencer coming we needed safety more than anything, which was why I was shocked when I was escorted to the long foundation at the entrance to the valley.

"This." Said the City Planner. "Will be the most complex building we construct. Even with the foundations, there are a limit to the number of buildings that can be woven into the natural flow of the world without damaging the natural energies. This won't be the last, but it will most likely be one of them, and it will be worth it."

He gestured grandly. "This, will be a Mistshroud Gate. When constructed, it will hide the entire valley in a natural concealment formation, making it invisible to anyone who doesn't pass through this archway."

"Wait…you're going to stealth the whole valley?" I gaped. "That's possible?"

He shook his head. "Well, invisible is perhaps the wrong word. Camouflage might be more accurate. It'll create an area of confusion for anyone looking. Now in order for this to work it needs to be at least D-rank, which would normally be impossible. But with the correct plans, wishes to gather materials, and specialized tools…this valley should be hidden from any but the Earl himself!"

Which meant it would be hidden completely. If the Earl tried to get involved it would violate the terms of non-interference Zeke had given him. I grinned as I stared down at the long trench with the stone and metal base of what would be my greatest defense. If we could get this done, we would have an unassailable base from which to pick off Spencer's people.

I didn't expect the sociopathic Tolbert to stick to the same back and forth doctrine as Clairdon and Camden, and this solved that problem nicely. I couldn't help but grin as I considered how best to maximize this advantage. I had so many ideas.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Staring down into the lake, I winced. "I don't really want to do this." I said to Benny. "Like, on a scale of one to ten, the amount that I want to do this is like a negative six. That's REALLY deep water." Benny stared at me blankly. "I HATE deep water. Ponds and pools and shit are fine, but I don't want to dive into a fathomless black hole."

"We have to scout it." He said bluntly. "And it's pitch dark so Callie can't use her shadows to map it. Someone needs to go down there. Someone with a special Skill that lets them see things even when it's dark."

I cursed my Eye of Revelation. "But why do we even need to go down there? It's just a random cave?"

Callie stepped up next to me. "Because there might be things down there. Valuable or dangerous things. If it's the former we can set up an expedition, or rather, Celine can, and if it's the latter she can wish to seal up the cavern so they don't get into the lake."

"And I'm the ONLY person with an advanced sensory Skill?" I glared at Callie. "I'm still not sure that whole complete darkness thing is how your power works. I could have sworn you could use your information gathering abilities in the dark."

She reached up and put her hand on my cheek lovingly. "But you can't prove it. And that's the important thing. Now take a deep breath honey, and take your bath." I blinked, and suddenly my world was upside down. As I fell into the water I saw a springboard made of shadow under where my feet had just been, and then I was diving.

I'd held my breath as I dropped in, and with my Might I could inhale enough to last me for about an hour combined with my Vitality, so I triggered Eye of Revelation and began my descent.

I didn't actually mind looking around, but if you don't complain when people make you do things they try to do it more often. Really though, as I swam down into the depths of the lake and then into the dark cavern behind the waterfall, I had to admit this was kind of nice. The serene blue water, the sugar fine sand, the waving seaweed. It was…idyllic.

When I finally reached the cave entrance though, it was like someone flipped a switch. One second it was bright and inviting, and the next I was buried in a cascading avalanche of darkness. It was oppressive and threatening, but luckily, my Eye of Revelation punched through it to reveal…

I screamed, releasing my air as I came face to face with a chalk white face, mad eyes and a wide grin stretching it to absurd tension. I grabbed my staff, lashing out at the thing, but as I blinked it was gone, my staff smashing into the rock behind it, leaving a long crack in the wall but not doing much else.

I spun, looking for whatever the hell that had been. I didn't see it. I didn't see anything really, but at the same time I saw it all. Eye of Revelation had been improved by my crown, and I could see the stats that made up the walls of the cave, and even the darkness itself, which wasn't really darkness at all. It was a creature.

The face appeared inches from mine, and I called on Mephistopheles, smashing my skull into the chalk white abomination. There was an explosion of black flame and I felt the water around me vibrate with an inhuman scream.

The darkness retreated, fleeing from the damage and leaving me in a bubble of light in the center of the cloud of black. I wished I'd had Callie at least TRY to take a look. She'd have noticed this thing. I grimaced. The dark was a monster. The face was a manifestation of it, but the blackness itself was the beast's true form.

Sadly, Mephistopheles, while impressive, wasn't particularly suited to this task. Large diffuse enemies were the opposite of what it was good for. I considered using Belial, but I eventually settled on a more circumspect method of moving forward.

Swimming down, I planted my feet on the stone of the shaft, triggering Mornax. My body turned heavy, dense, and nearly invulnerable at my own rank. The cavern tunnel was at an incline but it was still angled, so I could walk along the bottom, feet planted to the rock. I started moving forward.

Based on my Eye of Revelation, the darkness wasn't just around me, it continued down into the cave. Mornax wasn't made to leave the earth, but since one of my feet was on the ground at all times I was able to push the Skill to function. I walked along the dark tunnel, safe in my defensive form.

The face manifested a few more times, but never close enough to reach. It had tasted pain when I gave it that headbut, and it wanted to avoid another helping.

Finally, I reached the edge of the tunnel, and, very carefully so I didn't lose contact with the rock, I climbed out of the pond in a pitch black cavern. Once I was free, I looked around, unable to make out anything.

The cavern was too big for me to see properly, too dark for me to see much at all actually. Where earlier I could see the dark monster thing because of the light that should have been in the tunnel, now I was well and truly in the dark. I grinned, and without hesitation, triggered Moonlit Night.

A wide, dense fog filled the area, and in that fog I could see everything, easily able to make out the well lit cavern in the glowing fog. I could also see wisps of dark in the fog, but the formerly cohesive dark monster had dissolved into floating bits of wayward black, as if it was confused by the lack of sensory input.
Now that I could think and see properly (and wasn't surrounded by randomly appearing creepy faces, I was able to get a good look around as I slowly walked through the cavern. It took me a good thirty minutes to look around. At one point I got a worried pulse from the bond, but sent back reassurance so Callie knew I was fine. "I'm all good, love." I mentally informed her. "Something weird down here, but it can't hurt me."

Which was true. In fact, with Moonlit Night up, it couldn't even find me. The radius of the fog was a bit wider than usual, about fifty feet, and because of the stealth the monster didn't seem to be able to navigate or even stick together.

After looking around for a while, I finally found the center of both the chamber and, if I wasn't mistaken, the monster.

Lying in the center of the cavern was a small black building. Well, calling it a building wasn't really accurate. More like a roof over a an altar with no walls. In the center of the altar were three things. One was a knife made of black metal, one was a metallic red disk the color of fresh blood with a bird on it, and one was a silver cup, which appeared to be spewing black smoke out the top.

The smoke rolled across the altar, not quite high enough to obscure the other two, and onto the floor where it spread out into the cavern. I was able to drop the fog when I got close to the altar, because aside from the creeping carpet of the stuff on the floor the smoke didn't appear within about a ten foot radius of the thing.

"Gods damn it." I said to nobody. "This is a shrine." Which was bad. Because shrines meant gods. Hopefully not in any important or urgent way. This was probably just a REALLY old place. The god or gods being worshipped were hopefully dead. Permanently dead. I kept telling myself that until I almost believed it.

Walking up to the altar, I stood over the cup, peering down into it with a grimace. I had nothing for…whatever this was. I considered trying to blow it up, but that might backfire. So I decided to call in an expert. "Callie, do me a solid and send my sister down here. She can bring Callen if she's worried, the…whatever it is that's down here can't hurt a D-ranker."

She responded quickly in the affirmative, and after about ten minutes I heard footsteps approaching from the dark. I was standing in the light zone around the altar, and when Chelsea and Callen emerged from the dark.

My sister stopped, staring at the shrine. "Gods damn it." She unknowingly echoed. "That's a shrine, isn't it?"

"Your powers of deduction astound me." I said dryly. "But I mostly want to know if you can stop…that." I gestured vaguely at the cup. "I considered blowing it up, but I wasn't sure what would happen."
She snorted. "Monkeys and typewriters I guess." She shot me a grin to let me know she was teasing and we both snickered. Chelsea was trying to relate to me the way she saw Benny and I interact, and the friendly teasing was new, but I didn't mind it. Striding up to the cup she leaned over and sniffed it. "It smells like watermelon."

"Is that important?" I asked eagerly. Did she know what this was? Maybe it was some powerful ancient artifact.

She shot me a confused look. "No. It's just weird. I like to read, I'm not a walking library. These artifacts probably predate the Empire settling on this planet. It would be insane for me to know what they do or mean." She pointed at the cup. "THAT, however, I can tell is…bad. Not how bad, but my power doesn't like it."

"Well it's an evil dark smoke monster." I said casually. "It makes sense that your flame of purification wouldn't be a fan."

She shook her head. "Not that power." My eyes widened. My sister's alternate ability was one inherited from our grandmother by way of her own mother, the goddess Black Sorrow. I didn't know what it meant for that to be the case, but it was probably important.

Holding out a hand, a white flame flickered into existence on her palm, shimmering with an opalescent array of colors around the edges. Without hesitating, she shoved it into the cup.

There was a shudder and then a sort of pause, and then a scream issued out from the cup. White flame ignited the smoke, rolling over the altar and then down across the floor. I had to cover my eyes as the darkness in the whole room ignited like gasoline after someone dropped a match.

I felt heat around us for a flash and then it receded. When I opened my eyes, I could see the cavern clearly, and I gaped at what I found. Up on small plateaus of rock, I saw a dozen or so buildings made of black stone. They all looked to be in perfect condition, untouched by time or wear, without even any dust.

"I have good news and bad news." I told my sister. "The good news is that you're going to be getting out of the library for a while. The bad news is you're the closest thing to a historian we have, so you're going to be looking into this."

Fate sense guided us all, but it seemed to guide me more than most. While this clearly wasn't some imminent threat that needed dealing with right now, I couldn't shake the instinct from my Fatewalker class that this was an important place. The thing that was worshipped here probably wasn't Hatescream, but it might be one of the other gods he was bringing back. We needed as much information as we could get. Thank the gods I wasn't a researcher.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Getting everyone else down into the cavern was simple. After the dark thing had been destroyed, it was just a lazy swim down. Once everyone arrived, we sent out teams to explore the place. My century and Callie's had been turned over to us for defense of the settlement, so we had two hundred F-rankers ready and able to explore, and we put them to work.

Luckily, we found out pretty quickly that the cavern had no other entrances. It made sense, this place was untouched by time or anything else. I wondered if it counted as part of the Undertrek, or if it was just its own thing.

Standing in front of the shrine, I frowned down at the items on top of it, then looked over at Zeke. "You were the only one who might be able to identify this stuff, do we need to pay?"

He shook his head. "No. This isn't directly related to the competition, and is totally out of your depth, not to mention it might impact my duty to protect Chelsea. I'll take a look at them, but honestly…I wouldn't hold your breath. These are sealed items, but they have weight to them. At least A-rank, probably higher."

"Sealed items?" I asked with interest. "Like how I can seal my staff so it isn't so heavy? How did Chelsea destroy the monster then?"

Nodding, he locked his eyes on the medallion, cup, and, knife. "Similar. And the thing she killed wasn't part of these items. If I had to guess it was some kind of shadow elemental or fragment of darkness that fell into the cup and mutated. It was young, only having barely attained any sort of power."

I nodded slowly. "Ok, well then we should know what these are. Why is you Identify Skill so high anyway, I don't think I ever asked?"

He shrugged. "Any decent crafter needs Identify. Sometimes you take a risk or get some inspiration while you're working and need to see the exact result. I went through a lot of masks to get where I am now."

"Alright, so…what can you tell me about these?" I gestured back to the items. "Anything helps."

Nodding, he raised his hands, hovering them over the items. Before he could do anything though, he stopped, then reached into his coat and pulled out a mask. One of his combat masks, though I didn't know which one. He slipped it over his face, then gestured for me to step back.

As he raised his hands, there was a flash of black, and the dark liquid in the silver cup shot out like tentacles, wrapping around his wrists. There was a flash and white opalescent flame leapt up from the spot where the tentacles had touched, the liquid shrieking and pulling back.

"Please, like I wasn't expecting that." Zeke said derisively. "A-rank then, but weakened. Let's see what we can see."

There was a pause, and then he hissed, stepping back quickly. "Sacrificial items. All three of them. They're part of a set. The knife wounds the soul, draining it out with the blood, the cup converts the blood and spirit into power, and the medallion goes in the cup to soak up the energy."

I nodded slowly. "What's the medallion for though? Like is it just a battery?"

"Like I said, sacrifice. It's the emblem of a god." I winced, my guesses being confirmed. When I stared at him, waiting, he just shrugged. "I have no idea WHICH god. Not one I know of. I know it's not any of the six, and it's not Hatescream."

I stared down at the items worriedly. "Can you purify it with the flames from the mask?" I asked cautiously. "I don't really want to just leave these here. Who knows what they could do."

He shook his head. "Not even close. The liquid that tried to grab me is left over dregs after the medallion absorbed most of the power. These are A-rank sacrificial tools. Granted, I'm guessing there used to be a LOT of them lying around, but still. They're out of my depth. Luckily, containment and purification are not the same thing."

Snapping his fingers, he flicked his hand and a huge trunk appeared in the air, slamming down with a thump. He threw it open and started rummaging around, Finally he pulled out a bowl, then emptied a series of vials into it. "You're going to want to stand back."

I did, and he walked around behind the shrine, then flicked a finger and a burst of flames condensed into a hand smacked out and knocked the items off the altar. I heard a few wet plops, and then an explosions of darkness burst up from the bowl in a torrent of horrifying black shot through with an evil red light.

We stood there, taking cover, for about ten minutes, and when it finally ended, I let out a sigh of relief. "What the fuck was THAT?" I shouted at my uncle, who was standing up and wiping off his coat.

"Little mix I use to temporarily disarm failed products to be disposed of." He sounded nonchalant. "Expensive as hell, but when you work with A-ranked materials you need a backup plan. The base is void essence, and the rest is a proprietary mix of shade lurker blood, hope pheonix feather dust, and spinal fluid from an astral ravager."

I stared at the now opaque liquid, which looked an almost uncomfortable shade of grey. "And it…neutralizes them?"

"Temporarily." He reiterated. "But that's where this comes in." He walked over and dug back into the trunk, pulling out a heavy black stone box, which he thumped on the ground. Pulling a key from a pocket, he unlocked the huge dark metal padlock on the chains wrapping the box. Once he'd unwound them all he paused. Walking back over to the trunk he pulled out another vial, this one full of golden glowing liquid.

Walking back to the box, he gingerly kicked it open. As soon as he did, there was a boom and a massive purple serpent far too big for the opening exploded outward, rearing back as if to strike. Zeke hurled the vial, not even unstoppering it, and it burst on the snake, golden fluid drenching it.

The monster roared, smoke rising from its face as it dove back into the box, which just lay there, open, as if nothing was wrong with it. Zeke walked over, picked up the bowl, then dropped it into the box and kicked the lid shut. He re-wrapped it with chains, then locked the padlock and carried back over and dropped it back in the trunk.

"There. Safe as houses." He said happily.

I was frozen, staring at him in terror. "What the fuck was THAT?"

"Prank." He shrugged nonchalantly. "It's a Cosmic Rot Viper I bought ages ago as an egg. I was going to leave it in your dad's sink when I saw him next. Don't worry, it's only barely B-rank and it's starving."

I sputtered, trying to figure out which part of that I should address first. "What did you throw on it?"

He held up the vial. "Sunlight Sherry. They make this stuff out of real stars. Not like, good ones, obviously. I'm not wasting decent liquor on scaring off a snake. Rot Vipers are dark aligned creatures. They're particularly sensitive to starlight, hence the Cosmic tag."

"Fine." I said, shaking my head. "We can talk about that later. What about the items, what did you put them in?"

"Berenthar Box." He said seriously. "The Berenthar family specialize in secure storage items. Their big Vaults are prohibitively expensive, but some of the smaller lock boxes are affordable. It's made of some strange stone mix they created themselves."

I nodded in relief. "Alright. So they're safe for now. What are you going to do with them?"

"Hand them over to someone from the WCP." He said bluntly. "I don't need this kind of trouble. There should be at least a representative at the Conclave, if not the Wishmaster himself. The current one, the old man doesn't really do day trips."

"You don't think the gods will show up in person?" I asked. I'd kind of assumed for something this important they'd put in an appearance.

Zeke just laughed. "No. I don't. Remember that the original Wishmaster doesn't even run the family anymore. Aiden will probably show. The Revenant will send one of his popes, same for Black Sorrow, the Emperor will send one of the Kings, and the Queen will probably send one of her own nobles."

It was nice to get a straight answer from my uncle. Zeke could talk to me about the gods because they were so absurdly above my weight class they didn't trip his geas. It was less like telling me political details and more like telling me which city was about to be hit by a hurricane.

"This is kind of important though, isn't it?" I said angrily. "There are enemy gods out there plotting destroy our whole way of life."

Zeke shook his head. "It's complicated. I don't understand it all myself, but gods aren't…like us. I told you once that I-rankers don't count as real Ascendants. Well, H-rankers aren't really much better. You remember being I and H-ranked right? Did you feel much different than a normal person?"

"Not really." I said with a shrug. "A point or two of Impact isn't a big deal."

He nodded. "Right. Ten points, when you hit G-rank, that's when the differences became apparent. Ten. You saw the same thing at a hundred. D-rankers are a different breed. They're just a higher form of life, and it takes something absurd for any lower ranked Ascendant to kill one."

I followed his train of thought. "That's why gods become gods at a thousand Impact. It's another watershed. The next step up the lifeform ladder. Does it really matter that much?"

He gestured around us. "That touches on things you aren't ready to know yet. The short answer is yes. It matters. Effectiveness aside, the sheer amount of stats combined with the pure power of a Mirror soul is…it defies description. I've never seen a god in battle before and I hope I don't for a long time."

"So what does this have to do with the conclave?" I asked. "Are you worried they might fight?"

I was actually scared of his answer, but he shook his head. "No. The Wishmaster, Emperor, and the Queen would prevent any squabbling Between Black Sorrow and the Revenant, who are the only ones likely to start anything. It's not that I'm worried about what they might do, it's that they don't NEED to be there."

"You're saying they all have methods of making their will known and keeping track of what happens." I said, finally getting it.

"Basically." He confirmed."Besides which, they'll probably already be moving when the conclave begins. You don't get to be a god by sitting around and waiting to see what happens. The six have dealt with other gods before. Maybe not quite so many, but they know what they're doing. The conclave is more to iron out cooperation than anything."

It made me wonder exactly how things worked behind the scenes. And who would be coming to the conclave? Would I meet my grandfather there? Would my dad show up? Did I want him to? Turning back to the buildings around us, I considered my earlier instinct about this place, about the god they worshipped here.

If this was a place where one of the five gods Hatescream had brought back had been venerated, maybe we could learn more about them. Learn their weaknesses, and be a bit more prepared when the war came. In any case we needed more info, and I hoped my sister and the others could get it for us. Knowledge was power, and we needed all the power we could get.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Walking through the darkened miniature city below our territory, I scanned the ground carefully with Eye of Revelation. "This is stupid." I grumbled. "I'm not a metal detector. I get not wanting to waste wishes on this, and dedicating todays to getting the plans for the town was fine, I got paid either way, but why does that mean I have to walk around using Eye of Revelation on everything?" I was up to three D-ranked chits now, and was building a nice little fortune, I was planning to use at the conclave.

"Because we need more context." Callie said seriously as she trailed behind me. " We can't waste wishes with only twenty seven days left. Whatever that dark thing was protected the buildings and the shrine, but it was a mutation, which means there's a good chance whatever happened here that drove off all the people happened before it came into existence."

"Yeah, but why does that matter?" I held up a small basket. "So far we found six forks, eight plates, what looks like a very dirty sponge, and a rock with a face painted on it."

She winced. "Yeah, but at least Chelsea seemed excited about the rock. She seems sure it means something." Her upbeat tone fell a bit flat when I noticed that she was trying not to snicker, but at least she tried.

"Yeah, it means she needs a hobby." I said flatly. "I get why this place might be important, but it's just demeaning to have to-" I stopped. "Hold on, what's that?" I pointed off to one side, indicating a bump in the dirt. My Eye of Revelation showed me something interesting. I knelt down, dusting off the layer of dirt to reveal…a mask.

I reached for it, but Callie slapped my hand away. "Are you crazy?" She snapped. "The mask on your FACE eats people, and that thing looks evil as shit. Call your uncle."

"Ah." I said as I pulled my hand back. "That's a great point." Throwing my head back I bellowed. "Hey! Zeke!" Callie jumped, glaring at me, and I shrugged. "What? You said to call him. Pick a lane."

She held up her hand angrily. "On your scan ring!" She snarled. "Not in my EAR!"

Before I could respond, I heard a cough and turned to see my uncle standing there, looking bored. "What do you want?" He asked in annoyance. "I was teaching Cas how to play Straga."

I groaned. "Don't teach her that. I still have nightmares about taking lessons as a kid. That game is a mess." At Callie's confused look, I sighed. "It's like chess, only you play it on eight boards and usually with four players. Zeke can play three sides himself, and often does, but it's nightmarishly complicated."

"He likes to whine about his lessons." Zeke said pitilessly. "But all you have to do is control your pieces to assault the defensive positions of the inner board, reach the center square of one of the other players, ascend to one of the two second layer boards, beat the other player who managed it, and then get to the third and final heavens board to face off for the win."

I waved him off. "Enough about your stupid six dimensional chess game. We called you here for THAT." I gestured down at the mask, and he glanced at it, eyes narrowing in interest.

He knelt down next to it. "Well now, isn't that interesting." Snapping his finger, he revealed a long wooden handle with a thin metal blade on it, one of his tools, and picked the mask up out of the first with it gingerly.

The mask looked…weird. It was made of rough, dark wood, with several parts of it lacquered in red to form a sort of fierce bird face.

"Do you know what it is?" I asked cautiously. "Like is it going to kill us?"

He shook his head. "Follow me." He said without responding to my questions. He stood and strode off toward the buildings, and we trailed behind. Once he was inside the hall where Chelsea was collecting research material, he dropped the mask on an empty table and pulled out his trunk again.

Shuffling through it, he pulled out a few books, and started skimming through them. I winced when I looked at them, the pages were basically black, the text so small and dense even I could barely read it. I saw a few small boxes that might have been pictures, and finally, Zeke located something he'd been looking for.

Reaching down to flip the mask over, he squinted at the back of it, then shook his head, slammed the book closed and repeated the action. We sat there for about fifteen minutes as he scanned books, before finally finding something he was looking for.

"Detwemer mask." He muttered, then grabbed a new book, starting to flip again. Every now and then he would mutter something else. One time it was "Khalda valley." Then after that. "Rhugash ruins." Finally he came to the last thing he needed, grimacing and nodding before saying. "The Cardinal Cult."

"Was that aimed at us?" I asked after he didn't go back to looking. "Because you've just been sitting and muttering for like a half hour, so it's hard to tell."

He shrugged. "Had to check something. As an artisan I've studied masks made all across history and all throughout the universe. I'm not an expert on ancient cultures or religions, but I AM an expert on masks, and I know where to look for information on them."

We'd expected that, it was part of why I called him, I gestured for him to continue. "Yeah, we got that. WHAT information."

He snorted. "Kids these days have no respect for a dramatic buildup. Fine, I'd seen work like this before, The Detwemers made them, but when I checked it turned out they got the design from some old ruins in the Khalda valley, that place was built on the ruins of the Rhugash. They used the masks for a few centuries but originally they came from the old state religion of the place. The Cardinal Cult."

"The ancient cult used the word 'Cardinal'?" I asked in disbelief.

Pausing, he admitted. "Well, the exact translation is 'bright colored bird with feathers of blood' but Cardinal is pretty close. Plus the alliteration sounds better. But yes, the Cardinal Cult. I don't have much on them, the masks they used weren't a huge part of the religious rites, but what little I know matches up with the other stuff we found."

I turned to my sister. "Ok, what do you know about the Cardinal Cult?"

She just stared at me. "Shane, I'm slightly nerdy, as we've discussed before I am NOT an encyclopedia. I have no clue who or what they are." She paused. "But I might know someone who would."

Without explanation, she got up and all but sprinted out of the room, Callen following her with a sigh as I glanced at Callie in confusion. Of course I figured it out pretty quickly, but wasn't able to confirm it until about an hour later when she came back in. By the time she got back she found us combing through Zeke's books again (I was using a magnifying glass), and had Anna's friend Syl from the library with her.

The tiny blonde woman from the library was a member of the History Hunters, an Archivist faction that searched for historical documentation for an S-ranked force called the Vikram family. She was scowling as Chelsea dragged her in. "What are you doing, Anders. If you found some ruins you just had to tell me. I'd have scheduled…" She trailed off as she came into the room, where all the various odds and ends I'd found had ended up.

"See." Said Chelsea smugly. "I told you there's interesting stuff down here. You're lucky I'm letting you in on this dig."

The blonde stepped forward, poking at a few things. "I'm not familiar with this style of pottery." She said, touching one of the plates. "It's Rakian glazing practices, but the molding of the clay is Veltish." She leaned down, pulling out a small brush as she started dusting off some of the dirtier parts of the dish.

Chelsea stared at her, sighing. "You can study all of this later Syl. We need your input on this." She grabbed the smaller woman, physically turning her body by the shoulders to look at the mask.

Syl had started to get annoyed, but once she saw the mask her expression became interested. "Is that Khaldish?"

"Not originally." I said absently, passing her the book and magnifying glass. We'd marked the passages we'd found on the masks, and she scanned them in fascination. "Where did you get these texts?" She demanded. "This one is a Malkan Artificium. I didn't even know there were any of these left intact. And this one is some kind of porcelain sculpting text from the Drellan Empire."

I blinked. "How many cultures were there before the five factions."

"A lot." Answered Zeke, Chelsea, and Syl in unison. The librarian picked up the explanation after that. "Almost every planet we've terraformed had some other people living on it at one time. Especially higher ranked ones. Just look at the other gods, who do you think worshipped them."

I nodded. "Like the Aetherbright Empire." I said, happy to know something.

Syl whirled on me. "Like the WHAT?" She snapped. "Because I've met probably ten people who have HEARD of the Aetherbright empire, and two of them are S-ranked Historians."

"I've been there." I shrugged. "Or at least some ruins. But that's not important. Do you know anything about the Cardinal Cult?" I tried to refocus her on the task at hand, and despite her glare which promised later conversation, it seemed to work.

She snapped her fingers, and a book appeared. Then another. Then about ten more. She made a pile on the table.

"First of all." She said bluntly. "Cardinal cult is a mistranslation. The word means 'bright red bird with feathers of blood'. That's important, because while I've never heard of the Cardinal Cult, I HAVE seen that word before. Or at least that phrasing."

She leafed through her books for a bit until she found something, then scribbled a few notes on some paper and did it again. Finally, she spun it around., showing us the writing. "I've cobbled together a few different sources, but I have an eidetic memory, and this tickled a few keys for me. From what I can tell, you're dealing with this being."

"The Lady of Lamentations?" I asked as I squinted at the page. "That sounds…morbid. She's a god?"

"Well they don't call her that. But the descriptions basically confirm it." She agreed. "Her name is Felicity, and she appears to be some kind of goddess of torment." She pointed out a few of the references, and as I read them, my blood drained from my face.

I pointed at a line. "Your notes on that aren't clear." I said as a cold feeling of dread settled in my stomach. "You mentioned associates, what's the translation of this one. It says Bellow of Loathing." I could think of another way to say that, and I desperately hoped I was mistaken. She read over it, then crossed a few things out.

"My mistake." She said casually. "I misconjugated. Contextually that's not supposed to be an angry action, but a fearful one. Scream, not bellow. Which changes the sentence structure. It means that other word should be-"

"Hate." I said flatly. "The word is supposed to be one title. Hatescream." Looked like we found a connection to this place just like my instincts told me. I looked at Callie, who took my hand in worry as I turned back to Syl. "We need you to pass this up the chain of your organization." Chelsea could contact mom to have her follow up, but this needed to be checked. I was pretty sure we'd just found the identity of one of the other enemy gods.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

A week flew by, leaving me at twenty days remaining and up to ten D-ranked chits. We put every single wish into building, setting foundations and getting plans, with the occasional wish for a full building to be built when we were dealing with things like houses and markets. With all that out of the way though, the construction workers made great time, and by the time we hit one week the territory was starting to LOOK like a real town.

"This place is really shaping up." Benny said, echoing my thoughts unknowingly from where he sat next to me on the hill overlooking the valley. All of us were lying out enjoying the sun which managed to come through the concealment formation on the wall perfectly despite us having confirmed the valley wasn't visible from outside.

Callie, who was laying in the grass on my other side nodded. "It does look good. I'm still worried about Spencer attacking though. We got lucky last time. The chances of us pulling off another D-rank kill are infinitesimal. We have two D-rankers on our side now, but who knows how many Spencer has?"

"I don't think it's just two." I disagreed. "Clairdon's territory was rich as hell. A lot of the payouts Camden promised hinged on success, but he's had it. With a month to dig up assets I'm betting he'll be able to hire a few more for backup."

Jessie made a sound of agreement. "Plus you can tell how well this place is going based on how close to ranking up Celine is getting."

"I think it's nice." Said Bethy from further down. "The cats love the buildings here. They say they make excellent scratching posts." She seemed…lighter, recently. Like she'd always been a bit wacky, but that had been almost forced. Her manic exuberance had calmed somewhat, and while I would never call the tiny vampire NORMAL exactly, she seemed like she was having more fun.

Which I was happy about until I processed what she said. "Wait, was that YOU?" I snapped, sitting up to glare at the vampire. "The contractors have been furious because something keeps carving up the materials."

"No!" She said, looking offended. "It was Donuts. He's been acting out because Luggage has been getting more attention."

Gabe cleared his throat. "Um, Bethy, I think it might be more that he's been being terrorized by Chalk. Randall is getting harder to push around. The cats are E-rank now too, but they're smaller and weaker."

We all turned to my sister, who was snuggling her rabbit. She shrugged. "Chalk gets jealous of other animals. We've been working on it. Speaking of work, I heard Nat has been over at Camden's helping out. Anyone talked to her?"

"I have." Said Jessie. "She's been doing…better. Not amazing, but better. This mess has given her something to focus on besides losing Perit. Camden has been a machine preparing for Spencer's attack. He has a lot to lose now that he's actually taken over Clairdon's territory. Speaking of…" She looked at me. "Do we have a plan?"

"We do." I said delightedly. "In fact, it's one of my better plans. Spencer is rich, entrenched, and willing and able to declare war on two different territories at once. I considered dozens of potential defensive options…and then I realized, defense is the wrong way to go."

Benny turned to face me with a flat look. "What?"

"Think about it." I said excitedly. "We just got these new territories, we have a month to prepare, we used walls to beat the lions. There are so many indicators that we're going to be taking a defensive stance in the upcoming battle. In fact, just about the only thing Spencer can reasonably count on is that we're going to be reacting and not acting."

He threw his hands in the air. "You don't get to just state common sense things like they're an example of us being predictable and then claim we should do the opposite to throw off the bad guy? That's not clever, it's five year old logic." He turned on Callie. "Just because you're marrying him doesn't mean you need to agree to all his stupid ideas now!"

"I talked him out of the meteor plan didn't I?" She said with an eye roll. "Hear him out though, this one isn't really as stupid as it seems. He actually thought things out."

When Benny finally looked back to me, I grinned. "Ok, so first off Anna will be the one doing the deed. With a few supplementary Skills and artifacts to enhance her stealth abilities, and a decent weapon, taking out Spencer should be easy."

"There's no way he doesn't have a dozen different countermeasures for that." Benny said slowly. Not like he was rejecting the idea, but like he was trying to work through problems.

"Yup." I confirmed. "But we have a workaround. He can't use any items more than two ranks higher than he is. In fact, even using anything C-rank will be tough. The difference between soul strain from E to D is substantial as we've seen. The main issue is that even shutting down the security is going to set it off. We need to give him something else to focus on while she gets in position."

He groaned. "You mean that we need to break into his manor in parallel with the assassin we're sending and get noticed, possibly putting ourselves in mortal peril, so we be BAIT?"

"Exactly." I nodded. "And bait is a good word. We need him to remove himself from the built in security, and he's a vicious little fuck. He'll come out to kill us personally, just to demonstrate he's the better man."

Callie spoke up to reassure everyone. "Don't worry. We have an actual plan, and we'll be using wishes to support. Every step will meticulously controlled and influenced externally to give us the best chance of pulling this off. It's safer than it sounds."

She was right. We'd been planning out step by step instructions for everyone, using a combination of Callie's spying, and Anna's sources. Callie was even going to consult Nat to try and squeeze out what few bits of information she could glean around the inherent disadvantage wishes had towards secrets.

We were doing our best to confirm who, what, when , why, and where. All the mercs Spencer had would be uncovered, as would their abilities, placement, schedules, motivations, and locations. With all that info, we'd be able to plan everything out perfectly. Breaking in, securing a room, setting our trap and then making sure they discovered us and came after us would become infinitely simpler.

"So…did you guys tell Anna about this?" Asked Jessie. "Because we might need her input."

I nodded. "We brought her in last visit. The valley is the only safe place to talk about this stuff. The defenses protect from notice, which is its own form of isolation, plus Celine had a blank room like Camden's set up below the inn."

"So…why aren't we there right now?" Asked Bethy curiously.

I shrugged. "No point. Anna isn't here so there's no reason to spy, especially not at a level that would get past the wall." I glanced up at the hulking structure that created the obfuscation effects over the valley. "Anyway, this stay between us. We need to keep this on the DL because the valley is still going to be fielding a defense."

"You're worried about what Camden said about traitors." Callie said softly. "You don't want anyone knowing to minimize risk."

"Basically." i admitted. "But its more than that. Since Celine is the owner of this territory we aren't expected to be front and center. She is, and Benny will be with her, but the rest of us don't need-"

Benny smashed a fist into the ground. "You want to repeat that again?" He said quietly.

"I said." I repeated slowly, purposefully dragging it out to piss him off. "That you aren't coming with us. If everyone important vanishes at once it'll be obvious. It'll be me, Callie, Bethy, Abel, and Mel."

Chelsea's head snapped around. "Wait what? I'm not going? That's absurd!"

"Of course you aren't." I said patiently. "Callen needs to make an appearance here, or if necessary at Camden's place if they don't find the valley. He'll be tracked without a doubt. Anna will be too, but we're taking steps. We can't take both of our best D-rankers with us, it would draw far too much attention. Same with Gabe."

The Adamant looked upset, but he knew I was right, so he didn't argue. Chelsea didn't have any such compunctions, but I dismantled her points pretty easily, and eventually she had to admit staying behind was the smarter call. Even if she hated it.

"You're doing your research?" She finally asked when she'd given in. "Like, blueprints and detailed plans? I know how much you like to wing it." She smirked at Bethy, who gave her a fang filled grin and a wink. "But that isn't going to cut it here. You've gotten a few rough outlines for dealing with any problems that come up, but you need for info."

"You can even help." I consoled her. "Talk to Anna next time she's here. Ask her if there's anything you can do. I'm sure your nerdiness will come in handy somehow. Like you probably know how like…deadbolts work, or whatever."

Everyone looked at me. "Shane…do you…not know how deadbolts work?"

"What?" I was surprised. "Nobody does. They're some scientific bullshit with magnets or something."

Callie sighed, pinching her nose. "Honey, no."

Benny, meanwhile, was snickering. "Dude, it's literally a crossbar inside the door. You turn the knob and it shoves a piece of metal between the door itself and the frame, holding them in line with each other."

"Duh." I snorted, looking away and grateful my face was covered. "I was…totally messing with you guys." I let out a bark of strained laughter. "I can't believe you bought that. You're all so easy to trick."

Callie patted me on my shoulder consolingly. "It's ok, hon. We all have little things that we never learned for one reason or another that seem obvious to other people."

"Fine." I grumbled. "But we never locked our doors. Probably because Zeke was B-ranked. All the buildings I've been in that did have locks used electronic fasteners." I climbed to my feet, dusting myself off. "Anyway, this is lame. Who wants to go watch the rookies get their asses kicked in the sword barracks."

That seemed to distract them all well enough, and we all hopped up, heading to take in the site of the two hundred soldiers Callie and I had brought with us when we came receiving training. They were technically ours, not Celine's but she'd signed mercenary contracts with us and we were using this place as a garrison. Paying for room and board with manpower made this a business arrangement, which removed any of the obligations that might have interfered in the wishes Celine had been making.

Looking around, I took in the sight of the village, beautiful, peaceful, and new. I'd never been somewhere so serene, though that had something to do with Callie too. I'd been chatting with Abel about the losses in the first battle and was feeling much better lately, and this place had definitely been part of that process.

Soon though, it would be time to go. After the fight with Spencer we only had another month before we had to leave. The trip to the conclave would take time, and we only had six months on Stratholme total, though it felt like it'd been much longer.

For the first time though, I wasn't worried about what was coming. God wars, evil deities, assassins, or cultists. I'd dealt with it all before. Soon enough I'd be a Master, and a real power player in this universe. And I wasn't alone either. I had my friends by my side, and I truly believed there was nothing that could stop us.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The next three weeks were consumed by work. Wishes, both to myself and Nat, paid for with money that I was going to desperately need soon enough, finished up the construction of the new territory (which Celine named Bennington in what I was SURE was an obvious troll) and got all the information we needed for the attack.

The last few weeks had been surprisingly good for my progress. Since we were coming up on the big fight I'd not only netted myself another twenty D-ranked chits of spending money, but with legends of my feats spreading even further, gathered another twelve hundred stat points, three hundred Might, two hundred Perception, two hundred Fantasy, and five hundred Focus. Bringing me up to sixteen thousand total.

Wishmaster candidate status. E-rank. Ability: Expert Wish- Seven times a day grant an Expert wish in return for proper compensation. Wish must be feasibly achievable by the candidate's own efforts within a three day period with current statistics.

Expert Path of the Doom Sovereign- A Solid Path toward a great destiny.

Might-4005
Impact-65
Fantasy-2250
Vitality-2902
Focus-2020
Perception-2204
Creation-2554
Progress to next rank:16000/100000
Soul strength- Sapphire Soul Body


Stored:7 shadow attacks, 10 shadow jump (seven in reserve), 10 Stealth charges, 0 fire attacks, 10 triple strenth tranq blows (ten in reserve), 0 triple strength density shifted attacks. 10 spider leg attacks (ten in reserve), 0 heal bursts (3 reserve), 3 gravity attacks, 10 shadow clone (2 in reserve), 19 scan heals (I-rank ability so Shane can hold more)

Pet- Wolf named Jin

Financial resources:10 E-rank chits 30 D-ranked(worth 100 E-ranked, past master rank is a watershed)


Skills: Expert Path of the Doom Sovereign, Lesser Valtek Mastery, Lesser Cooking Mastery, Lesser Inventing Mastery, Beginner Balam Mastery, Minor Piano Mastery, Minor Guitar Mastery, Minor First Aid Mastery, Intermediate Paired Dueling, Expert Dust Construction Mastery

DS Subskills. Monk: Stone Limb, Moonlit Night, Consecration of Flame, Ripple Running, State of Grace, Steam Arrow, Afterburner, Pit of Despair, Mountain Stance.

Rogue: Mercy Kill, Double Trouble, Touch of Tears, Flurry of Blows, Heavy hands, Marked for Death, False Fatality

Diviner: Overlay, Song of the Soil, Rhythm of the Wild, Eye of Revelation, Danger Sense, Piece of Mind



Goetia Staff Art: First form- Belial. Touch of Tears, Stone Limb, Consecration of Flames
Second Form- Mephistopheles. Consecration of Flame, Afterburner, Mercy Kill, Marked for Death.
Third form- Mornax. Stone Limb, Triple Strength Density Shifting (x10 F-rank stored attacks), Mountain Stance


Turning to Callie, I raised an eyebrow. "Tomorrow is the big day. Are we completely prepared?" We'd acquired so much information, but I'd delegated a lot of the actual planning to the researchers. I didn't have as much experience with any of this as Anna did, and she was the main influence.

"Yup." She said grimly. "And the divination wishes were able to confirm their tactics. Secrets are expensive, but yes or no questions can really help narrow down information in a set window. Since we knew they'd be attacking right after the month protection period was up, we had enough to flush out some details."

Nat had been consulted for a lot of that, and I was glad Celine was rich, because she'd been spending like crazy for this, as had Camden. Speaking of which. "Will Camden need any help? Can we afford to send it?"

Anna, who was here with us preparing for tomorrow's operation, nodded. "He will, and you can. Celine spent a few wishes shoring up the anonymity of this place. With your shielding in place it's a lot easier to make sure no one finds it. All she had to do was pay for it in short blocks of time, and she can afford to dispatch the Garrisoned forces here to Camden's aid."

I whistled at that. "Damn. That's clever. Must have been pretty pricey though. Are you going to use the stealth capability to ambush Spencer's forces once they're mid-attack?"

"Of course." The D-ranker said with a grin. "And Callen will be attacking right alongside them. You have the plans now, study them, learn your part. We'll be hitting them tomorrow at three forty six in the morning. According to our divinations from Nat that's when the most of them will be asleep."

Divination meaning lots of yes no questions based on the specific time blocks we'd already identified. Knowing exactly when they were coming was definitely a big help. It got around the weaknesses that usually prevented us from using wishes for info gathering. I just wished things were always this convenient.

Once they left, I turned to Callie. "Ok, this is going to be a mess. My part is simple…kind of, but your mobility means you'll be separated from me and disabling some of the security alone, and I don't like it. Anna is going to be using those Impact soaking straw dolls to draw off the only remaining D-rank guard, but there's still lots of danger from stronger E-rankers."

She beamed at me. "Now you know how I feel when you go do dumb shit." She put her arms around me, leaning her head on my chest. "But seriously, I'll be fine. We've planned this meticulously down to the second. Just stick to the plan and we'll get Anna her shot. Once Spencer is dead all this ends."

"Then we can start wedding planning." I said with a grin. "I mean, we have the conclave first, but we'll be en route for a while after the Necromedes picks us up. We can use that time to decide on things like location and cake flavor. You know, the important stuff."

"I thought we were having it at my mom's house?" She asked. "That's the cheapest option right?"

I shrugged. "Have you even started on your guest list? We've met a lot of people since leaving home. Even if we kept it to the Pavilion members we couldn't fit. Not to mention all the friends we made at the Bazaar, in the glade, HERE. Mom will want to come, obviously, and I bet Killian will stop by."

"Damn it." She cursed. "This is going to be a whole big thing." Then she paused. "Hey, you're distracting me!" She accused.

"I'm distracting myself." I admitted. "I'm worried. Your stats are probably way up by this point, can you at least show me how much you grew over the last month? With the conclave coming up I'm betting stories about godslayers are going like gangbusters."

She grinned at me. "I wanted to keep it a surprise. I even locked down the bond so you didn't notice the jump. It's been crazy. Three thousand Might, two thousand Perception, four thousand Fantasy, and a thousand Creation. A full ten thousand points,though I'm rounding a bit! I think if anything spread of my story took some time to build up." Her smile dropped. "Just a shame its a drop in the bucket." She passed me a listing of her stats.

Calliope Reynolds: E-rank. Ability: Expert Abyssal Infiltration- Enter the shadows and emerge where you will within range, shape the darkness to your call, moving it as if it were part of your body, and even extend your senses through the shadows to spy on your enemies.

Might-7350
Impact-65
Vitality-742
Fantasy-8105
Focus-908
Perception-6375
Creation-1485
Progress to next rank: 25210/100000

Soul strength- Sapphire Soul Body
Pet-Wolf named Rellia

Skills: Minor Tracking, Minor Dual Dagger Mastery, Beginner Stealth, Beginner Trap Mastery, Beginner Disguise, Lesser Balam Mastery, Intermediate Shadow Manipulation Mastery. Intermediate Paired Dueling.
Path of the Abyss-Illusory.

I whistled. "Seven thousand Might? That's insane. "And eight thousand Fantasy. Man the stories about that must be nuts to drive that one so high. But it's hardly a drop in the bucket, Cal. Twenty five thousand! You're a quarter of the way to D-rank. I'm jealous as hell. Not to mention the boost you'll get off marrying me."

Smacking my shoulder, she scowled at me. "That's not why I said yes and you know it!"

"Of course I do." I said soothingly. "But it's true. The wedding is going to bump both of us up a ton. All the high rankers that'll be coming? There will be stories all over. And I'm glad. The stronger you get the safer you are. I don't consider you benefitting from us getting married a bad thing."

We'd had this conversation before, and it never failed to put a scowl on her face. "I don't like it." She repeated for the tenth time. "That's why I wanted to do a small ceremony at my moms. I don't want people thinking I'm some ladder climber. Making a big deal out of the wedding for attention seems like something my dad would do."

I pulled her close. "We're getting married because we love each other and because we want to be together forever. You didn't even think of the wedding benefits until I mentioned them, which I know because I felt your surprise when I brought it up. It would be stupid to avoid it just because your dad would approve."

"I know." She muttered. "I guess it's unavoidable."

"Besides." I said with a grin. "I'm the one marrying a godslayer. If anything I'm getting the better end of this deal. With the war blowing up your story like it is, I'm gonna rake in some serious points for landing you." I said in the most dramatic voice possible. "Maybe I should retire and let you become a god while I live a life of indulgent luxury."

Callie just rolled her eyes. "Right." She said sarcastically. "Because I'm definitely guaranteed to become a goddess. Because I'M the one with a foot halfway into B-rank already. I'm not even sure I'll manage to hit C."

She'd been worrying about her Path lately. We'd talked over how I'd gotten DS Mastery to a Solid Path, but my experience was hardly usual. I was pretty sure just shoving Skills willy nilly into one big super Skill normally wouldn't have worked. Especially knowing what I did about proper Skill construction. I was convinced it had been a fluke.

That didn't help her calm down, since her own Path was still Illusionary (something I'd repeatedly told her was completely normal and even advanced for her rank). "Look, get to Master and THEN worry about it. Besides I don't think B-rank is going to be as easy as the earlier ranks." At her flat stare I grimaced. "Ok, not easy…straightforward. Zeke has implied it gets more complex."

The one thing I knew was that learning to make Skills properly was going to be important, and I'd been working on it for a while, taking apart and rebuilding the worst of my Skills to be more efficient.

She sighed, cuddling into my side. "I miss back when things were simple. Catch a serial killer running around our small town."

"Well…I mean, I almost got butchered with a snack knife." I said. "So maybe not THAT simple."

Snorting, she shook her head. "You can't let me have my misplaced nostalgia? You're a terrible boyfriend." She stuck out her tongue at me and I couldn't help but laugh at her antics.

"Fiance." I reminded her with a grin. "And how about I cook us dinner to make up for it. I got fresh clams for linguine." I'd been planning to surprise her before the big day, but the immediate light in her eyes told me telling her now was a good choice.

Grabbing her hand, I pulled her after me out of the basement of the inn, off toward the kitchen where I would put dinner together. Despite the big mess tomorrow though, I felt at ease. Risk was always present, but Callie and I were on the right track, and as long as we were all together we could do this. I forced myself to temper that confidence so I didn't overlook any important details, but I held onto the sentiment. I had a feeling I'd need it.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

We slipped out of the valley at two forty five the next morning. It was a simple thing to do, we had Anna, Callie, and Bethy with us, and the latter's domain made what might have been a risky exfiltration easy as pie. We didn't speak for about ten minutes as we walked the miles between the valley and Spencer's estate, but when we finally got to the edge of the property, we stopped for a powwow.

"What the fuck was that?" I hissed, spinning on Anna. "I thought they didn't know where we were. We passed ten different search parties!"

She shrugged. "I said they didn't know, not that they didn't care. I didn't expect them to put in that much effort though." She glanced at Bethy. "That Domain of yours is damned useful. I didn't know it worked with stealth."

"It's a vampire thing." Said Bethy casually. "Stealth is one of the powers attributed to us. Vampirism is a flexible and powerful trait. I'm totally awesome at making stuff go whoosh!" She waved her hands dramatically. "And just disappear. Illusions are easy, so I made us all like ghosts."

I chuckled. "You scare me sometimes." I told my friend. "But I'm glad you're on our side. Speaking of which, you and Abel are first up on the docket. Anna will be filling you in on the details, but you'll be getting us through before we all split up to do our parts."

Anna nodded, gesturing ahead of us. "This is the weakest spot in the ward scheme. There are detection enchantments, combat enchantments, and a few shields mixed in there, but the foundation for the manor can't hold an unlimited amount of magic. They already had extensive wards, and while Spencer paid to tune them up there was only so much he could do."

Reaching into a bag hanging on her belt, she pulled out a handful of powder and blew it lightly. The crystalline sand flared out in a small cloud, and before our eyes landed gently on a series of multi-colored sparks where enchantments were standing. My Eye of Revelation could make out most of them, but there were a few even I hadn't been able to spot.

"This." She said, gesturing to the bag. "Is all seeing mirror dust. It's rare and hard to make. You need to enchant a mirror with truesight, then crush it into powder without breaking that enchantment. The preparation method is complicated."

Bethy clapped happily. "It's so pretty. I want some, can you get it for me? I could use to make murals in the air!"

"No. It's expensive." Said Anna in exasperation. "But it did its job. You can see the gaps between the wards. Can you do your part?" She gestured to a series of complicated and twisty avenues where we could see space between the overlapping defenses. Some of them were big enough to squeeze through, some of them were the size of a pin. Luckily, that was what we'd brought Bethy and Abel for.
Bethy turned to my mentor. "You ready for this Alice?" She said lightly. "It's going to be tough." He didn't even bother to respond verbally, just nodding, and she closed her eyes, stepping up next to him and expanding her Domain until we were all inside. "You're up." She said tightly. "I won't be able to allow your ability to affect this for long, so hurry up."

Grinning, Abel raised his hands, spreading them slowly and then pushing them in. Around us a large area of lubricated space manifested, and as he brought his hands together, it compacted, shrinking until his palms were cupped around an orb shaped space and the spatial distortion was perfectly overlaid on the Domain.

Instead of stopping, he continued to compact it, pressing and slowly shrinking US, using the separated nature of the domain and his own spatial powers to slowly warp the area we were standing in. Then he started to push forward. The sphere changed shape, becoming a snake and I could feel a stretch and pull as he slowly slithered us forward.

Shrinking, twisting, turning, I felt like I was in kaleidoscope and a blender all at once, we warped and shifted, the Domain being reshaped and slipping between the wards in a way that neither Bethy nor Abel couldn't have managed alone. Finally, we touched down in an open space Anna had pointed out, and Abel dropped, wheezing, Mel catching him as Bethy let the Domain fade with a quiet grunt of effort.

"We're in." Said Bethy solemnly. We all just stared at her and she pouted. "What? I've always wanted to say that. I think I earned it."

I chuckled. "Agreed. So everyone has their own mission. No need to go over them again, split up and get it done." I looked at Callie. "Be careful with those straw dolls. Use the shadows to activate them at a distance, because that D-ranker will be on you within a second once that aura pops."

"I thought we weren't restating people's jobs." She said with a smirk. "I love you too honey. Be safe down there." She pecked me on the cheek through my mask and then stepped into the shadows, vanishing. Anna went after, with Bethy giving a toothy smile and erupting into a cloud of surprisingly stealthy winged cats.

Abel hunkered down to wait, sheltering under a nearby tree. Mel gave me a nod. "Wish I was coming with you on this." She said. "It's right up my alley. But he's wiped out, and he needs me."

"I knew this was a solo op for me." I said with a smile. "Don't sweat it. I'll make sure everything goes as planned." Waving, I turned and tapped into Callie's Stealth, her Perception letting me make me way unseen. Past the wards no one would be looking for sneaking, so unless someone tripped over me I should be fine. Fortified positions were the worst for anti-stealth, according to Anna, because they got used to relying on preventative measures like wards and didn't do regular sweeps.

Despite that, I still had to be careful. A long, slow walk into the manor, Eye of Revelation letting me slip by the sparse wards inside. They may not take security seriously enough, but it wasn't nonexistent. We'd gotten our hands on the blueprints, and I knew exactly which way to go, so with a bit of careful stepping (sometimes on the ceiling with State of Grace) I eventually made it to a door that led to the basement.

Unlike us, Spencer didn't have access to wishes to magically build a whole town in a month. He might have been able to pay to have it rushed, but it would take away from his funds for hiring soldiers. Instead, he'd reoutfitted this building, and we'd been able to get nearly up to date blueprints and then tweak them with wishes so we knew all the details.

Slipping through the door, I made my way down into the dark, easily able to see with my Eye of Revelation. The basement was actually pretty nice, but I knew where to go, so I avoided the finished parts, heading to the back to a crawlspace that took me to a room under the finished floor.

The whole place was full of running water, acting as a sort of sewer culvert, with multiple pools of water draining in and then back out. I couldn't smell anything, but that might just be my mask. Walking out onto the dirt floor between the six stone troughs where the water poured in, I looked around, noting multiple pillars in different positions.

Counting them, I came to one in particular. Putting a hand on it I closed my eyes and activated Pit of Despair. I had to shape it, altering the dust so only specific parts of the pillar came out. We knew exactly where Spencer would be, but I had to carefully execute this part of the plan in order to roust him to the area where Bethy was setting the traps we'd prepared.

Forty five degrees, two feet up at an angle. Apply a bit of poison fire. I moved on to the next pillar on the list. Same thing. Slight modification that wouldn't bring it down, but would weaken it. The contractor we'd hired to do the math on this had been given a wish and paid with his memory, but none of us understood construction enough to do it ourselves.

After weakening the six pillars indicated, I walked over to the steps, climbed up and then hung down from the crawlspace to get line of sight on the area in the middle of the dirt. Taking a long, slow breath, I focused and then created a pit of despair in a very precise spot I'd measured out with paces.

The ground warped, and I lifted the dust out with my Dust Construction, pulling it to me where I used it to create a new makeshift pillar near my hatch as I'd asked the contractor to plan out. I didn't want to end up screwed along with the people that were about to be caught in this.

There was a shift in the ground, dirt moving and buckling, and then there was a loud crack, then another, then four more as the weakened supports gave out in exactly the right order, and a full fucking QUARTER of the house collapsed into a giant sinkhole. Not even waiting, I booked it, taking the entrance out of the basement opposite the collapsed section as I headed for the dining room where Bethy was waiting.

I felt a shift and Callie appeared next to me, grinning. We didn't speak aloud, but I checked in on her mentally and she flooded the bond with excitement and triumph. She'd planted the dolls to draw off the D-ranker, as well as compromising the wards in a few key locations that would confuse any leftover defenders trying to react.

We hit the dining room at a dead sprint, finding Bethy waiting for us with Luggage out to defend her. She still looked exhausted, clearly having used up a lot of energy arming everything. On the far end of the room I could see a busted wall where a section of flooring had slid at an angle bursting through and setting up an entrance directly into the room.

The whole place was covered in dust, and I waited cautiously as Spencer and a squad of E-rankers made their way carefully toward us. They couldn't see the traps, but clearly one of them had some kind of danger sense of their own, because they stopped on the edge of the floor section ramp without touching the tiles of the room.

Spencer grinned, clapping slowly. "Very nice." He said sincerely. "I expected you to hole up on the defense, but you brought the fight to me. I can only assume that little collapse was supposed to injure me?" He spread his arms, showing off a glowing golden vest. "Because it might have, if not for my defenses."

We'd known about that, but the traps to deactivate his defensive artifacts were in the room itself, so we'd need to bait him out.

"What can I say?" I told him with a shrug. "Crushing usually works on insects."

His smile tightened, before he waved my comment away. "Oh well, these are your last words. Go on then. Feel free to say what you like. Maybe you have some speech locked and loaded about how I'm a monster, I'm sure Camden has told you plenty."

"He has." I agreed. "But I don't really need him to tell me what I already know. In fact, I just realized I don't need to have this conversation at all." He gave me a politely quizzical look, and I grinned back before looking down and triggering Pit of Despair. As he dropped onto the floor of the dining room, I flexed Dust Construction, creating a dozen spikes that I sent slamming into his guards at random just to sew confusion.

When his feet landed, there was an explosion of magical force as the golden light of the vest faded, and Spencer's eyes went wide as he stared down the formerly active defense…and that was when all hell broke loose.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

We waited for a second after he hit the ground, hoping to see him just spontaneously die, but when that failed I cursed under my breath and shifted gears. "That's plan B then" I sent to Callie mentally.

I'd really hoped we wouldn't have to use plan B. This particular part of the plan was hands down the most uncontrollable. We'd machined things down to the smallest detail we could, but when we were doing the planning we ran into a snag.

After Callie set the straw dolls in place as bait. We'd only have a minute or two of lead time tops on their D-ranker. We were hoping they'd be so distracted by the collapse and what felt like a dozen D-ranked attackers popping up that they wouldn't think to check on Spencer.

In that scenario Anna would backstab him out of nowhere. However, if things fell through the second plan was to overlap herself with one of the dolls and use it as a distraction to attack and possibly kill the D-ranked guard.

Since she wasn't here, that meant plan B version two, which meant she'd missing the instant kill on the backstab but had caught their attention and was drawing it off so we could finish things.

This was fine. We had Bethy, who was a monster, and Callie and I worked well together. Plus I'd impaled six of the guards with my spikes which should at least slow them down.

To make best use of our element of surprise, once I realized we wouldn't be taking him out quickly, I triggered Moonlit Night, flooding the room with fog.Within seconds, everything disappeared. Callie was connected to me through the bond so it was easy to allow her to see through the fog, and Bethy was close by so including her was simple enough, barely any strain on my soul.

Without a sound, Bethy dispersed into her cat swarm, streaking out to land on all six of the impaled guards. Each of them was covered in several cats, and within second I heard them start to scream as they collapsed to the floor, twitching as their stats were consumed. It was easy enough to tweak the fog to allow the screams to carry, travelling to the others through the cloak of mist.

Valk had mentioned how terrible it was, and he'd been kind of twitchy about the experience, but given Bethy's demeanor I kind of assumed it wouldn't be that bad. I'd been wrong.

Stats were a part of us, fragments of the whole that made us up, and hearing them torn away…the screaming was terrifying, primal and heart wrenching as she ripped out pieces of who and what they were. No wonder she refused to do this to Gabe, it was terrifying.

Even Spencer, who had gotten his groove back quickly after losing his defenses, seemed genuinely disturbed by the sound of his people being fed on. I understood better now why Morgan Lark was considered so terrifying. Sure, he was scary and tough, but so were plenty of others. This though. This was what people were REALLY afraid of. No wonder Bethy hated doing this.
I felt bad asking her to feed like this when she'd just gotten better control. I hadn't know how traumatic it was going to be, but I didn't have to for a pity party. I had to take advantage of this gap.

Triggering Mephistopheles and Belial, I lunged forward, my staff lashing out in a straight thrust, the cap on the end aimed right at where Spencer was standing.

Only to slam into one of the remaining six guards as he dove in front of the blow. The explosion of black flame ripped a hole in him, and I watched him collapse to the ground screaming as the corrosion spread. The multiple amplifications of the two forms stacked on top of each other, increasing their effectiveness.

It wasn't enough to kill him, he was a strong E-ranker, and despite being completely unprepared to intercept the attack (some more of Spencer's oathbinding I assumed) he was able to drag himself off to the side.

Meanwhile, the second he bought them allowed the other five guards to form up around their boss, and I grimaced as I realized that I wouldn't be able to sucker punch him to end this.

I started to circle, muffling my steps with stealth, looking for an opening. The screaming was still going on, and I wondered exactly how much she was taking from them. How much COULD she take? There had to be limits.

Examining the situation I considered my options. Dust Construction was out, unfortunately. The floor in here wasn't thick enough for it to be a valid sea of dust for me to move in. I'd just end up dropping us into the basement, which I didn't want to do because it would entirely nullify the traps we'd set up.

With that off the table, I needed to lean into something else. Some other area where I had an advantage. Which meant Impact. I had several more points than the rest of these E-rankers, making me a bit more durable, and I had a method of taking advantage of that.

Blurring forward, I planted my feet in Spencers eyeline, then sent a message to Callie as I dropped the fog in front of him and his people, calling on Mornax. My body turned to stone as I took up a defensive stance, waiting for them to notice me. While I could move slightly step by step, it wasn't fast, and trying to do it in combat wouldn't work on this many people.

If I tried to engage I wouldn't be able to hold their attention, but luckily, I didn't need to. I was the only visible enemy in an impenetrable fog bank full of the screams of their colleagues and I was standing five feet away holding a weapon. Not a single one of them even considered holding back, and every single member of Spencer's entourage attacked instantly and without mercy.

The screaming and fog were scary, but seeing me stand there and tank every one of their blows without flinching (between my armor and all the boosts to defense they couldn't even scratch me with off the cuff attacks, and they were all too panicked to stop and try something with buildup) really put them back on their heels. That was good because it hurt like a bitch despite not damaging me.

My hands flew, my staff intercepting and deflecting attacks where it could. I made sure to make plenty of contact with both the fighters and their attacks, draining life energy into my staff. Finally, after a minute or two, I hauled it back like a spear and hurled it at Spencer's head. I condensed every bit of black flame into it that I could manage, having dropped Belial but still using Mephistopheles alongside Mornax.

He saw it coming and sidestepped it easily, letting it sail by without worry before turning to grin at me. "Is that it?" He asked snidely. "All that-" His words cut off as my staff, wielded by Callie, smashed into the arm that he'd barely gotten up in time. An explosion of death energy and black flame consumed the limb, and as the others spun to protect him, I activated Pit of Despair at last.

The E-rankers dropped through the floor, finally in position away from him because of their assault on me, and I blurred forward at the panicking psychopath.

Callie had emerged from the shadows behind him, caught my staff, and then turned it on him, and she was able to pass it back just as easily. Dropping Mornax, I slipped back into Belial alongside my still active Mephistopheles before triggering an old favorite, Flurry of Blows, along with Afterburner.

My staff struck out like dark wooden lightning through the clouds of fog that had rolled back in with my assault.

I had to hand it to spencer, even stripped of his defensive artifacts and guards, he was no slouch. He practiced some kind of weird trusting martial art that left behind after images, and only every few blows landed. He had a wicked looking dark knife he'd pulled that seemed genuinely threatening and he was waving it around to make space.

Each hit slowed him down though, and I could see the erosion from the black flame and corrosive energy tearing away at him.

Despite all that, I could feel the guards heading back. Dropping my two forms, I switched back to Mornax and hurled myself directly at him, tackling him to the ground. Callie screamed in concern as the knife vanished into my chest, my hands planted on the ground to maintain my stone form, pinning him to the ground.

Howling with rage, she streaked down on the struggling Tolbert, slamming a blade of shadow through his eye socket and into his brain, and I felt her pull on Mephistopheles briefly as an explosion of black flame consumed his brain, exploding out through his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.

"Shane!' She screamed as she flipped me over, terrified and searching my chest for damage. Of which there was…none. I grinned at her through my mask. "You seem upset, everything ok?"

The dagger, which was on the floor, roiled with awful looking energy. Neither of us wanted to touch it, but she gestured down at it emphatically. "I…I saw him stab you. He drove that thing right into your chest. Your armor didn't even slow it down."

I stood up, gesturing down to an empty hole in my torso. "True." I said happily. "In point of fact, nothing slowed it down. Because it didn't hit anything but air." Waving my hand, I resealed the hole, allowing it to resume the form of stone. "Pit of Despair plus Dust Construction." I said with a grin. "Because my body was made of stone."

Putting my arms around her, I pulled her close…and paused when a series of attacks slammed into my back. Rolling my eyes, I turned slowly to look at the guards, who had just gotten back.

"I'm sorry." I said in annoyance. "Who exactly are you working for?" I pointed at Spencer. "Because that guy is dead, so your whole army will be falling apart momentarily. If I were you I'd bail before Camden and Celine's people start hunting down stragglers. Maybe spread the word if you have any friends among the armies."

They stared at me in fear, then turned and booked it out of the room, the fog having faded and none of them bothering to try to help the feebly weeping men Bethy had torn into. They all looked…bad. Thin to the point of emaciation.

Bethy herself was huddled in the corner, blood all over her face, pressing her manacles over her eyes. I nodded to Callie when she shot me a questioning look, and she went over to help our friend, having to sooth Luggage who was standing guard.

"She looks like shit." I heard from behind me, and turned to see Anna limping into the room, a long gash over one eye and a split lip. She was holding her ribs like they were broken, and I snorted a bit at the comment.

"You're one to talk." I laughed. "Glad to see you're ok though. I think we're going to be tied up here for a bit, do me a favor and let Camden know what happened. He might be able to defuse the situation a bit, and I don't trust those guards further than I could throw this house."

She nodded, reaching into her pocket, and withdrew a piece of paper. Pressing it to the wall she scrawled a note, then put it in an envelope and and stamped it with a black wax seal. The message was consumed in fire and she turned to nod to me before slumping down against the wall.

Looking around, I took in the damaged Dining Room and sighed. This place was going to be a pain to repair and disarm. I was just glad it wasn't my job. No…my job was done. And I couldn't be more relieved.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"Alright." I said after a minute or two letting everyone recover. "I think we should get moving. Things should be over, but that doesn't mean we won't run into looters or something, I bet people will start picking this place clean soon."

Callie nodded. "Good point. So what's our next move?"

"Looting." I responded bluntly. "We're going to pick this place clean." Despite being mildly traumatized, Bethy let out a wet giggle, wiping her face as she looked up. I could see a lambent red glow in her irises, but it was incredibly faint.

I offered her a hand. "You ok?" I asked cautiously. "Because I didn't realize that was going to be so bad."

She shook her head. "Feeding from multiple people at once like that was…rough. I take more than just stats when I drink. So many different inputs, so much pain from so many people at once…I've never done that before. And I don't want to do it again."

Callie reached down and pulled her into a quick hug, offering a soft smile. "We know. We'll do our best to make sure we never need your help for something like that again. Right Shane?"

"Definitely." I said with a nod. "If I'd know it would be so hard for you I wouldn't have asked." Not to mention how terrifying it was going to be. I was still shuddering on the inside from the screams, but I wasn't going to say that, because I wasn't an insensitive idiot. Bethy was already feeling bad enough.

Deciding that changing the subject would be better, I turned to Anna. "So what happened with the D-ranker anyway? I take it from the timing he noticed what was going on, but even then you had a lot of advantages. Why not just take him out and show up late?" I'd been kind of hoping for a backstab on Anna's part to put down the other D-ranker fast.

She grimaced. "He was a Centurion with an Iron Body ability. Tanky as hell and the worst possible opponent for me. I tried to stick a knife in him from behind and missed. Luckily I had access to a pretty nasty poison."

"Wait." I blinked. "You mean…the wolfhornigator venom? I know I gave you my vials, but it shouldn't have an effect on a D-ranker."

She grinned. "It wouldn't have. At least not until I distilled it and sifted out that nasty corrosive energy inside it. Took me a few vials of the stuff just to make a couple drops, but I infused them into a nast dagger I had that soaks up poisons and it made a world of difference. The dagger itself actually amplifies poison efficacy."

"And that killed him?" I said incredulously. Those wolfhornigators had been nasty, but not THAT nasty. Unless Belial had helped more than I'd though when I was dealing with the venom."
Anna just grinned. "Not quickly. But enough ant bites will kill an elephant. I spent about fifteen minutes cutting into him. The first dozen didn't do much, but the more little nicks I made the more poison got in."

"What happened with the straw dolls?" I asked worriedly. "I mean, we set them up in very specific places. Not only would he have had to run all over to find them, Callie sabotaged a bunch of the defenses in certain spots before she placed them so there would be buildup of wounded soldiers to distract him."

Nodding sagely, Anna said. "Ah, but we made one key mistake." At my cocked head she clarified. "He was an asshole, he didn't care about any of the rest of those soldiers."

"Damn." I said with a sigh. "Oh well, that's what plan B's are for. Now, lets get going. I remember seeing a storeroom on the blueprints that I don't think anyone will have gotten to yet. Not sure whats in it, but I bet its pricey."

Callie's head jerked up, eyes glinting as she heard me mention loot. I swear that girl loved loot almost as much as me. I just grinned, turning and heading off as she scrambled after me. We had a good idea where we were going, heading being easy to figure out between knowing where the room was and the careful collapse of a big section of the manor. Landmarks made navigating easier for everyone.

We came down the hall, then eventually stopped at a door. I gestured for them to follow me and we went back down into the basement, and headed down a side corridor. The collapse had cut off a big chunk of the place, but not all of it. We were able to move around pretty easily with my mental map.

Finally we came to an out of the way room in the basement, when we arrived, I gestured for them to shut the door and stand back. At first glance this was just a closet, but once they had moved out of the way I turned my gaze up, staring at the floor.

I triggered Pit of Despair and then Dust Construction, catching the disintegrating floor sections and smoothing and shaping them before returning them to stone.

Once I finished, I turned to Callie with a grin, bowing deeply as I gestured to the now neat and stable staircase leading up into the second floor where the store room was.

Grinning like a loon, Callie practically skipped up the steps, much to the amusement of our other two companions. When I reached the second floor though, I whistled in awe. Callie had stopped and was staring at the room in awe, and I couldn't blame her.

Materials lined the room. Stacks of expensive looking metals, wood piles, gems, and various other construction odds and ends, all of which would make the creation of more buildings in the village all but free. And it wasn't wish based so we could just donate it, or better yet Callie could wish for plans for herself and have them design us a nice guild hall or something.

This whole experience had shown me that my power might not be QUITE as strict with the whole 'not benefiting' thing as I'd thought, but it was a better safe than sorry kind of thing. I had no clue where the line was with that, and I'd rather be cautious than have a bunch of wishes get nixed because of unfair compensation.

"Alright." I said loudly. "Start getting this stuff in your rings, and I'll close up the floor behind us when we leave. No dragging your feet either. Someone is going to be here soon, and it would be better for us if there was no sign of us. Word gets out we stole a bunch of stuff and we'll need to fight our way back to our own territory."

They all nodded, and started stockpiling the materials, stuffing them away into their spatial storage. We all had plenty of room, so it didn't take too long. We finished up and hurried back down the steps, and I used Pit of Despair again before taking control and closing up the floor.

Making sure it was in good shape, I grinned at the others. "Alright, we're good people, let's move. Abel and Mel should be safe from sucker punches behind the wards, since no one but us is likely to take that route, but they could still get pinned down from this side."

We took off, taking the same hallways I'd taken to get here, with Callie and Anna covering us stealth wise. Bethy seemed…shaky, and pale, even for her. I was a bit worried, and wanted to get her to Jessie to look over and perhaps fuss over a bit. Our healer always knew how to make anyone feel better.

When we arrived at the spot we'd left the others, they were still there, standing around. Abel looked annoyed. "This was boring." He said in irritation. "We just stood here and nothing happened. This whole thing was too easy."

"No.'' I said with an eyeroll. "It was carefully planned. We made sure to account for…" I trailed off suspiciously, looking around. "MOST things that could go wrong." No use tempting fate. "And this was our reward." That didn't feel like enough to offset the jinx, so I knocked on the tree they'd been standing under.

He shrugged. "Whatever. This next part is tough enough to be amusing, and maybe we'll trip over some defectors on the way out." he turned to Bethy. "You ready for this?"

"Sure thing." She smiled wanly. "I've got your back. Just let me get the domain in place."

We all frowned worriedly. Bethy hadn't come up with a stupid fake name for Abel. That wasn't like her. She loved teasing my mentor. And he always made sure to pretend to get all out of sorts about it because he knew it made her smile.

Great, I'd potentially traumatized my friend. My sister was going to kill me, as I wasn't worried enough. She got her Domain up and then I nodded to Abel, who seemed to hesitate before finally recreating the process of overlapping his spatial alteration with the Domain and then slowly snaking us between the wards.

When we got out, I let myself relax a bit. We headed back toward our territory, but apart from stealth we didn't really do much to hide. We were finished.

I put my arm around Callie. "Ok, that was rough, but we got through it fine. We planned everything out perfectly. And there was no blowba-" I was cut off by an explosion of flames in the shape of a giant sword construct appearing above us and smashing down towards my head, ready to bisect me.

It was so fast I couldn't even think, let alone move. Luckily I didn't have to. A massive square shield I recognized from back on Callus appeared around us, and while the blade punched through it, the momentum slowed, grinding the sword to a halt only a foot or two from my upturned face. My eyes were wide as I looked around, trying to find the source, finally locating a man standing in the air above us, looking down at me coldly.

"You killed my son." The man said flatly. "MY son." He said it strangely. Not like he was sad, but like I had crossed some sort of line. "Show yourself, guardian. Lest you think I fear your skulduggery."

Zeke appeared across from him, dressed in a set of long robes with a porcelain mask on his face. Despite the outfit I knew it was him. I'd recognize him anywhere. "Do you know what you're doing? Whose kid that is? Because I don't think you do. What kind of Duke takes a swing at an E-ranker?"

I felt my blood grow cold. Duke. I could feel his power, feel it eclipsed mine by a huge margin, but I hadn't realized it was by THAT much. Dukes were A-rankers. I'd seen Zeke kill an A-ranker before, but those had been punk ass pirates, not real A-rankers from one of the five core factions. This guy was a fucking problem.

In fact, judging by how strong A-rankers were and their sheer stat value, combined with how long it took him to get here, he might have come from another PLANET when he found out his son had been killed.

"He killed my son." Said the Duke. "He dies. If his parents have a problem they can take it up with me. Remove yourself from my path guardian, and you might survive."

Zeke stared at him for a few seconds, then slowly reached up and cracked his neck, first one way, then the other. "Bite my ass." He said bluntly. "You want to touch my nephew, you go through me. Your kid was a psycho anyway."

The duke's grim face finally stretched into an ugly smile. "I was hoping you would say that." Reaching down to his hip, he drew a small rapier, a sharp, fancy looking black with a gilded hilt set with gems. Taking up a fencing stance, he nodded at my uncle. "I'll give you attack priority. Make your move." Standing below a burning simulacrum of that very sword, I stared in fear at my uncle hovering above us. I wasn't sure we could get out of this. It all depended on Zeke. I just hoped he would be ok.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"This is bad." I said bluntly to Callie and the others. "Like, worse than most things. On a scale of one to ten this is like a fifteen." I knew that because I could see Zeke standing up there. I could hear him talk. And he didn't sound confident or laid back. He sounded ANGRY.

That wasn't good. If Zeke was angry he was affected, which meant he was worried, and if Zeke was worried, it was because he might lose.

Which didn't seem…possible. Zeke was Zeke. He was an irresponsible drunk who never took anything seriously, but he was also a supreme badass who never lost a fight. Forgetting that if he lost we would all probably die, HE would die. I didn't want to lost my uncle. I almost tried to tell him to run, to leave me and go get Chelsea out of here, or to take Callie and the others and let the Duke have me.

But…I didn't. Because it wouldn't do any good. We'd all been party to his son's death and he'd come for all of us. Maybe not Bethy, because there had to be a limit to the amount of revenge crazy someone could be, but running would just leave an opening for him to use.

"Stay in the shield." I told the others seriously. "He's an A-ranker with probably some mobility Skill. There's nowhere we can reach that is safer than here."

I tried to think of some way to help. Maybe some wishes or something…but this guy was so far out of my league we weren't even playing the same game, and even stacking the strongest wishes any of us could make was unlikely to slow him down for even an instant.

All I could do was watch, helplessly, and hope that Zeke could pull off another miracle. I'd seen him fight up before, and he could do it again.

Staring hard for a moment, the Duke sat stoically before nodding. "I am Duke Crassus Tolbert, third son of Pericles Tolbert. Your charge is guilty of slaying my only son."

I glared up at him, so angry that I didn't even bother to keep quiet in the face of overwhelming power. "He was your kid? You know he killed your daughter right? Do you even care?"

"Be silent, boy!" Hissed the Duke. "You know not of what you speak. Of course I knew. My son was not as devious as he thought himself. What he did…it went beyond the everyday cruelties of our house. It was a monstrous act."

I threw my hands up. "Then why are you trying to kill me? I did you a favor, did you really want that lunatic getting named heir?"

"I knew." He said simply. "But my wife did not. Would not believe it. Losing our daughter so young nearly broke her. Losing a son would have finished the job. His japery was enough for her to hold onto, and so I allowed it."

I gestured around us. "And all this?" I demanded. "The stone lions, the murder attempts on Camden?"

"Don't mistake me boy." He said coldly. "My disdain for my son was founded in his senseless cruelty. Killing a child, your own sister, it's an abomination. Because a child is no threat. No competition. Killing my nephew is a justified course of action."

I was incensed, and about to respond, when a web of dark chains erupted from the ground, wrapping the Duke tightly in black metal. He frowned and started to strain at them, but looking close I could see something terrible about the chains. Something hungry. Just like the fight with the elf archer, my uncle was stacking the effects of two masks together.

The conceptual erosion, the decomposing and rotting, it didn't effect the chains, but strongly impacted the Duke. His eyes widened, hissing in outrage, and his eyes flashed as his blade danced out, taking apart the chains like a hot knife cleaving butter.

Beneath the metal, I saw his clothing burned and tattered, and quickly fading burns on his skin from the energy.

"Was that a-" his mockery was cut off as an arrow the size of a bus, flickering with the white flames of purification, slammed into him from above. There was still dark energy gathered in the air from the chains, and like before, the two colliding energies detonated, exploding in a massive cloud of unchecked destruction.

Zeke, who I'd though had been standing across from the Duke, stood a few dozen feet above us, drawing back a familiar bow, specifically the one the elf archer had used during our trip to the ruined soul temple.

The version of Zeke we'd been talking to just hung there at the edge of the cloud silently, and I grinned as I realized Zeke had put my distraction to good use.

I grinned up at the cloud, ready to see a corpse or a seriously injured Duke, but my smile dropped off my face as I took in the scene before me.

The Duke stood impassively, hand at his side gripping his sword. His other arm was raised, and while it was definitely burned and bloody, it seemed to be the only part of him that had taken any damage.

"Fucking Duellists." Spat Zeke in annoyance. "Don't think twice about giving up your off hand. I thought I'd at least remove the damned thing."

The Duke examined his arm. "This will be expensive to repair." He said, in a voice like someone discussing the weather. "I suspect you've got enough treasures on your person to compensate me, however. You can take pride in dealing such an injury to me."

Zeke chuckled. "Oh I'm not done yet. Did you think that was all I had?"

The Duke gestured to Zeke's face, "I think you've overdrafted at least one of your masks. I can see the cracks from here. Had I to guess it was those chains. I suspect they weren't built to support the all consuming hatred of a goddess."

This wasn't going well. That had been one of Zeke's biggest punches, and somehow I didn't think his mask on face trick would work this time. I was pretty sure that arrow had actually been THREE masks, one of them A-rank and it had barely done any damage at all.

Drawing his sword, the Duke performed a fencer's salute to my uncle. "You've proved yourself a worthy foe. But I'm afraid this is over."

There was a sudden absence of a form, too fast to even be considered a flicker of motion, and an explosion of force that shattered both the flaming sword construct and the shield it was stuck in.

I shot a panicked glance from the fragmenting light up to my uncle, and sighed in relief as I saw him still standing. Hanging in the air, my uncle had a familiar block box playing with red lightning in front of him. Chains of enshrining darkness wrapped the box like a magic trick, and plunging right through the middle of it was the Duke's sword.

Whatever the thing was made of, it had punched clean through, but stopped inches from Zeke's chest, though it looked like he was having trouble holding it in place.

I'd seen him use that box to ricochet attacks from high level bishops, and that was without the chains. The Duke looked impressed. "I've rarely seen such a powerful application of B-ranked Skill." He praised. "It's a shame to have to kill you. I'm imp-" He didn't get to finish with his comment as another arrow speared down from above, and the Zeke holding the box vanished, leaving it floating in midair.

Then the box came apart, and I looked up to see it appear in the hands of another Zeke. Calmly, almost in slow motion, Zeke drew four masks from the air, and slapped one of them on top of each face of the box. "You were wrong earlier." He said to the Duke. "THIS is what it looks like when I overload a mask."

He hurled the box, and it spun towards the Duke, whose eyes widened in fear as he blurred toward it. I assume he wanted to hit it before it detonated on its own, and his sword, now glowing with golden flames, slammed tip first into the rotating box of darkness.

When it pierced the closest mask, there was a wailing screech as black energy started to seep from the object, then from the other side as white flame flickered free of the spot on the other side where it had pierced through. On either side, the other two masks flashed and the box expanded, chains wrapping tightly around the exterior, trapping the Duke inside.

There was a cacophonous boom and the ground lurched, and I saw cracks begging to spread of the box and chains as they disintegrated releasing plumes of ash and smoke out into the air.

Zeke stood above us, panting. "Ow." He spat. "I hate backlashing my masks like that. Pain aside, do you know how long it takes to replace those?" When there was no answer, he snarled, about to say something else before a colossal flame rapier bisected him.

Or tried to. The blade split another illusion. The smoke cleared, and I saw The Duke glaring up at Zeke, fury etched on his face. He was holding the sword in the wounded arm Zeke had speared last time, and most of his body was raw like he'd had a terrible sunburn times a hundred.

Of his other arm, the one he'd been wielding the sword with before, there was no sign, just a burned stump, and his breathing was heavy and irregular. "Wily." He snarled, eyes glancing around, trying to find Zeke. "Destroying the masks to increase their output. A resourceful trick, but one only used once. Now you've lost a full third of your strength. I may be diminished, but you are much moreso. I can kill you without an arm."

"Maybe." Called Zeke's voice. We all whirled to see him standing on a tree branch, holding a black book with a pair of silver masks on the cover. In his hand was a pitch black quill that shone with a glassy texture. Obsidian. "Or maybe you're about to to help me make a jump I've been meaning to make for a long time."

The Duke's face went pale. "Did you just…" He trailed off. "Are you insane? You know the consequences of using an uncertain event as the final page of your Chronicle." Zeke snapped the book shut, and the air around us changed.

I considered opening my Eye of Revelation, but quickly decided it wouldn't be wise. The black book started to shimmer and shine, as did the quill. Not with light, but with a metallic luster, an almost liquid effect as the two objects ceased to be Obsidian and began to shimmer into the consistency of Mercury.

That was what gave it away. The book wasn't quite a singular object, it gave me a powerful feeling of Zeke's own Skills and legend. His Path. The book was his Path, somehow made manifest, and the Mercury Quill was his SOUL somehow able to manifest itself into the real world.

The change I was seeing was his soul elevating itself from Obsidian to Mercury. Which is to say, A-rank. Whatever Zeke had just done had ranked him up, and I watched the book change and evolve as the Impact poured into him through it, pushing him and reshaping him into something…more.
I'd seen rank ups before, even one to D-rank, but watching someone become an A-ranker was different. I'd never experienced anything like it. It was like watching a star being born. Zeek barely changed physically, but somehow there was so much more of him than there had ever been.

Reaching into his robe, he pulled out a blank mask, then snapped his fingers, and a blood burned arm appeared in his hand. He squeezed and it shattered into a fine powder, which he blew towards the mask in his hand.

The mask glowed golden, then faded back to blank white, and he studied it critically. "Won't last for more than an hour without stabilizing, but that should do." His eyes turned up to the Duke as he removed his current mask, revealing a wolfish grin. "Now." He said, raising the new mask to his face.

There was a ripple and Zeke's form shifted, leaving behind an exact replica of the Duke himself, only without any of the injuries. "What was that you said about only needing one arm?" The Duke asked himself in my uncle's voice.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"What have you done?" Snapped the Duke, eyes frantic. "You've doomed yourself! To enter an event into your Chronicle before it has come to pass. You know what will happen if you fail!" Despite his words, he sounded more like he was trying to convince himself.

Sure enough, Zeke, or rather, the version of the Duke that was Zeke, looked amused. "Oh I'm so happy to hear you're worried about me. Most people would be more concerned about the identical copy of them that had to kill them to make sure his soul didn't shatter like cheap sugar glass."

The Duke flinched. "Fool!" He sneered. "So you've taken my shape. Maybe you have my stats, or over my Skills, but you don't have my equipment. What good is a duellist without a sword." He brandished his rapier with a slight wince, obviously trying to look threatening.

It explained some things. I'd been wondering why he didn't run, but he was in tatters, and if Zeke had all his abilities there was no way he could escape as wounded as he was.

He had a point about the sword though, or I thought so until the Zeke-Duke grinned. "Oh you're right. I definitely should have a weapon to take best advantage of your Skills. And I don't have a rapier." He snapped his fingers, and suddenly a MASSIVE claymore appeared in his hand, which he hefted cheerfully over his shoulder.

"Why do you have that?" The Duke spat. "And do you think you can really defeat a master duellist with that oversized hunk of iron." Despite the derision in his tone I saw his eyes locked on the huge blade.

"Maybe not." Zeke said. "Than again-" He blinked out of existence and suddenly he was smashing the blade down on the mutilated form of the original Duke. There was a crash and the damaged A-ranker was sent hurtling into the ground with a crash. "You only have one arm to block with. And it's wounded."

The Duke climbed out of the crater he'd left in the ground, glaring up at my uncle. "Imposter!" He spat. "You'll never surpass the real thing!"

"Probably not." Zeke admitted cheerfully. "But do I need to? This is math, my friend. Seventy percent as good with your abilities is still twenty percent better than a version of you operating at half capacity."

Gritting his teeth, the Duke flickered forward, rapier flashing. I stared in awe as he engaged Zeke, his single arm blurring, sword licking out like a storm of steel, so fast my eyes could barely track it. I was getting a headache just trying to follow it. Zeke wasn't, and his blade intercepted the other man's before it made contact, holding the big claymore in front of him and using small economical movements to knock aside dangerous attacks.

"How are you doing this?" Hissed the Duke. "I refuse to believe you are my equal with the blade!"

Zeke just shook his head. "I'm not." He said with a sigh. "But right now, neither are you. You're slowed from injury and blood loss, and while I don't have the kind of training you do, I DO have your Sword Skill.Lucky I had this A-ranked sword I picked up traveling, or this might have gotten awkward."

"I refuse to lose to a cheap copy!" The noble howled. "I will not be killed by a pretender wearing my face! You'll have t-" There was a flash of light, and he stopped talking, he coughed, blood leaking from between his lips, and looked down. A golden arrow was sticking through his chest. "What? That's not…"

He plummeted from the air, slamming into the ground with a bang and leaving another crater, this one smaller. Zeke put the sword away and followed him down. Peeling away the mask, he laid it on the Duke's face.

The Duke's body cracked and dissolved, turning to golden dust that flowed into the mask. Setting it on the ground, Zeke started taking out vials and bottles, then a set of brushes and chisels. He laid it all on the ground and began working on the mask, carving and painting and filling in details.

None of us moved, frozen in place, transfixed by the sight of a soul of Mercury captured and stuffed into the mask. He worked on it for about fifteen minutes before he finally stopped, sighing as he gingerly picked it up and set it in a box that he then closed and stashed away.

"That should do it." He muttered. "Cut it kind of close there." He glanced up at the hooded figure with the bow. "You come back too. All of you. I have four replacements to make and several upgrades planned." He snapped and the figured collapsed, the robe wrapping the mask and the whole thing flying back to his hand. Six more masks returned and he stashed them all away.

He turned to us. "You can move now." He said wryly. "Thanks for not trying to run off. You'd probably have died."

"We assumed." I said as we approached, staring at the spot where the Duke had been. "Is killing him going to cause a problem? Because I feel like it's not ok to just show up in Empire territory and off an A-ranker from a major force."

He waved it off. "He attacked you directly. Taking issue with his death would mean taking issue with the candidacy process. It's why guardians exist. Granted I'm stronger than most, which is why I'm so limited, but still, just doing my job."

I'd never considered that. I'd seen Nat's guardian and she wasn't anything special in the grand scheme of things. Zeke was far and away more impressive, plus Nat's guardian was from another Branch. Was the reason for Zeke's absurdly strict geas that it was necessary for dad to leave him with me? It made me rethink a lot of things. Though speak of the geas. "Can you tell me what…" I gestured around us. "That was? Or is that cultivation shit you can't share."

I tried to keep my tone even, but Zeke knew me well enough to know when I was pissed. Callie put a hand on my shoulder. "Shane, honey." She said lightly. "Maybe now isn't the time for that conversation."

"No, he's right." Zeke said, shaking his head. "This falls into the 'so high level I'm allowed to talk about it' category, and you could use some context here. We should get somewhere safe before we talk. How about the Inn?" He glanced at Anna. "The Imperial Fork I mean, it's closest, and you have that safe room Shane installed."

Anna looked…green. Half horrified half in awe as she stared at Zeke. Like she was standing in front of a wild tiger. It took her a second to process everything, but she eventually nodded dully, and we all headed for Saltzburg, which was pretty close by.

I hadn't really noticed how far we'd traveled to get to Spencer's place, but we'd gotten near town, and it wasn't a long walk to Anna's place. When we entered, she waved off her niece and led us to the back and then down into the secret room she'd wished for. Once we were inside she activated a device I recognized as one of the isolators Camden had been using.

"Alright." I said once the field went up. "That should be enough. You're the only A-ranker on the planet, and that's the best security we can get, so why don't you tell me what the hell that was about?"

He blew out a breath. "Alright." He said after a momentary pause. "I assume you're asking about the comment he made about me dying?"

"No shit." I snapped. "What did you do? If your soul shattered we could never bring you back. Not unless you managed to get a Mirror Soul Body, which I know from seeing yours earlier you didn't!"

He smiled at me. "You're learning. Good. To explain what I did, you'll have to understand how I did it, and to understand that, you'll need to understand what B-rank is."

I blinked. I'd been curious about this for ages but he'd kept putting me off. I wondered if seeing him do that had been some kind of condition in the geas. It must have been, or he wouldn't be telling me this. "So you're finally going to tell me how to reach B-rank?"

"Yes, but you can't try to do it." He warned. "There's a reason B-rank is so high up. Trying too soon is dangerous. To reach B-rank, you need to condense your Solid Path inside your soul to create a Chronicle. It's a book that you use to record a hundred of your most important deeds. Your soul is needed to fill in pages, as you saw, which means it has to be formed inside you."
I raised a brow at that. "But yours wasn't?" I asked cautiously. "And why record them at all? What does a Chronicle do?"

"Short answer? It's a method to control recursion." He said with a shrug. "By carefully selecting your deeds you can shape the way outside perception changes you. It allows you to more closely align your stats and the renown that shapes them with your soul in preparation for S-rank."

That sounded amazing, and I was so tempted to try to form one, but he'd just told me how dangerous it was so I just focused on what I'd seen. "You said it's in your soul. So how was yours outside? And what did you do with it that was so dangerous?"

"I've been at the peak of B-rank stat wise for a while." He admitted. "And at ninety nine of one hundred pages Chronicled. But the legends you write in a chronicle have to be true. If they're not the book destabilizes and shatters, and since a Solid Path is part of your soul…"

I nodded. "You die." I said hollowly. "That's what he meant about doing it early. You gambled your advancement to A-rank when you did that. If you hadn't killed him you'd have failed and died." My tone was flat and angry, and I glared at him, willing to hear how pissed I was he'd taken that risk.

"I did." He said unapologetically. "And would again. If I hadn't done that I would have died. You would have died."

I growled in frustration. "Ok, well what about now? Your Chronicle is filled in and you're an A-ranker, so what do you do next? How do you continue to…what was it you said? Align your renown more closely with your soul in preparation for S-rank?"

"That's none of your concern." He stated bluntly. "I've already told you more than you needed toi know. We're done." He stood up, and I was confused. Why even bother to tell me this? Why not just blow me off if he was only going to answer a handful of questions. He headed for the exit, but before he got halfway he stopped.

As if stating an afterthought, he tossed one last comment over his shoulder. "Oh, by the way. Forming a Chronicle isn't something just anyone can do. The more perfected the Skill your Solid Path is based on the better your chances of managing." He stopped talking, teeth snapping shut so loudly I heard it from where I was sitting.

He strode forward stiffly, looking like he was in pain, and I stared after him in shock. The geas, he'd tripped the geas. And judging by this whole conversation he'd done it on purpose, using the farce of answering my questions to slip me extra info.

Sighing, I shot a sad smile after my uncle as Callie put her arm around me. I was so glad he was safe, and he was still doing his best to help me even after all that. The old man might not say it much, but he showed how much he loved me every day. I was damned lucky to have him in my family. Someday I was going to pay him back for all this. I swore it to myself.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

We met up with the others back at the valley (I still refused to use the term Bennington, because it was stupid and definitely not because I was jealous I didn't have a town named after me) and I just felt…exhausted. It was strange, really, I'd been fine for the whole month, time with Callie and training and building had distracted me from the enormity of the situation.

Now that it was over though, I felt drained. It was like holding your breath for a long time. At first it was no big deal, but once you let it out you realized how hard it had been to hold it in to begin with.

"How is everyone doing?" I asked as I slumped down at the table under the inn. "I know everything was a bit crazy, but it looks like we all came out of it ok."

I looked around, happy to see all my friends, stronger and better geared than when we arrived. Benny looked as exhausted as I felt. "Fine." He said with a sigh. "We didn't lose anyone else that we knew, thankfully, and obviously no one in the team died. But this has been rough. Now that it's over what's the plan?"

"We've got about a month left." I said with a sigh. "Before the Necromedes gets back and we head for the conclave. I kind of figured we'd the usual. Help Celine build up the village, train, spend time with everyone. One way or another someone is going to stay here."

Nat raised her hand, drawing lots of attention. "I'll do it." She said flatly. "I just…I can't do this anymore Shane. I've been trying, helping out with wishes, but it's just not the same. This was supposed to be a trip with my closest friends. I never really expected to win or even get close, and you outstripping me so badly shows that was the right attitude. But I'm just…tired."

I sighed, nodding. Nat had been withdrawn, quiet, and generally cold since Perit died. Not that I blamed her, I'd be a mess if I lost Benny, but this wasn't exactly out of left field.

Celine spoke up. "I've already talked with Natalie about this. I'm fine with making her my seneschal and giving her the power to operate in my stead. We've agreed to sign a contract where she grants me he wishes going forward for a stipend, payment for a job rather than ownership of the land so there's no conflict. She's going to be remaining here indefinitely."

"As will I." Said Valk, to no one's surprise. "It's been an honor to travel with all of you. To learn and grow and fight with each of you." He said, his eyes trailing over Abel, Gabe, Bethy, and the rest of us. "But my place is here with Natalie."

Chelsea, who had been silent this whole time, sniffed a bit, and I looked at my sister in concern. "Sorry." She said, wiping her face. "It's just…I was really hoping to get to know you better. We're family after all. But I know you've been going through a lot so I steered clear and now I kind of wish I'd pushed you."

Smiling widely, Nat stood and walked over to give my sister a big hug. "Hey, none of that. You know you guys are always welcome here, and you're even taking my boss with you. Come back any time. Plus there's no possible way I'm missing my cousin's wedding, so Celine will need to find someone to take over for me when that rolls around."

"Which will be a little while." Said Callie. "But not too long. After the Conclave at least. You're welcome of course." She said, giving my cousin a tight hug. Under her breath, I heard her mutter. "I'm sorry."

Nat just squeezed her back, pulling away with a sad smile. "I've told you I don't blame you for what happened. Just keep your man in line." She raised a brow at me. "No slacking off little cousin, you're definitely going to rank up before I will, and I expect you to be ready to bring my friend back as soon as you have the stats for it."

Not that we knew when that would be. All I knew was that it required a version of the wish ability higher than my current one.

"What about your guardian?" I asked. "Zeke took over for this trip since he was already watching Chelsea and mom decided to send her back to the WCP as a messenger, but with us leaving who is going to look out for you?"

She chuckled. "I think I'm going to officially drop out of the running. I won't need a guardian. Like I said, I'm just done."

I was next up for a hug. She squeezed me so tight my ribs creaked, but when she pulled back I could see tears in her eyes. "I want you to know I don't regret coming with you at all. I've seen and done amazing things, and I couldn't have done most of them without you. Even among candidates you're something special, little cousin. Don't give up, I really think you can make it."

"Ok, I feel like this premature." Laughed Valk. "They aren't leaving for a month. The heartbreaking goodbyes should wait until it's actually goodbye. Otherwise you won't have anything to say day of."

Nat looked embarrassed. "I'm trying to have a moment here, shut up." She pouted. We all laughed, and I gestured upstairs.

"How about I make us all something to eat and we talk over what to do for the next month over dinner." Everyone cheered, and I grinned as they followed me up into the kitchen. To my surprise, I found Zeke and Cass there, the little girl running to tackle hug her brother as my uncle grinned at me.

Callie snickered. "Shane didn't even know he'd be cooking until just now. If not for the kid I'd assume you ran or teleported, but you just knew him well enough to predict it huh?" She shook her head in exasperation. "I have much to learn."
"I don't like this." I said bluntly. "The two of you conspiring brings imbalance to my life. Stay in your lanes."

Zeke snorted. "Mouthy for a cook, aren't you." He shot Callie a conspiratorial look. "Is all the attitude really worth it? Personally I got sick of him when he was about five, and sticking around has been rough for me ever since."

I flipped him off as Callie started giggling. "I think you're misremembering the past. I hear that's common for people your age. Luckily we have access to a historian, maybe we can find some cave paintings of what it was like when you were our age."

"Old jokes?" He sneered. "You can do better than that. Anyway, you going to try to buff up the village? Or are you thinking of just leaving it to Nat since she's staying." At my questioning look he just rolled his eyes. "What? Like I wasn't going to figure it out? Honestly I'm proud of the kid. Not many of your candidates are smart enough to call it quits before things get bad."

I nodded. "She's contracted to help, so I figured I'd leave it to her. Honestly I'm not sure why giving up the territory to Celine even worked. I was half expecting my ability to veto the village building wishes."

"It's because you're leaving." He said simply. "You might be a bit attached, but in the end you're not staying. Even if you planned on maybe having her give it to you later on, since that can't happen and you're not sticking around you don't really consider it yours, so upgrading it isn't really a benefit to you."

That did make some sense. "Anyway, what am I making for dinner?" I asked with exasperation. I saw a bunch of people start to speak, but a voice cut through the din.

"Quesadillas!" Shouted Cass at the top of her lungs. "Everybody likes cheese, and you can put different meats on everyone's if they want it and we can have it with sour cream and maybe some salsa and some juice to wash it down." Ah, children, masters of the run on sentence. Even I was short of breath listening to that, but I smiled and nodded.

The others looked annoyed but I shrugged. "Sorry everyone, first come first served. Cass gets to pick tonight."

Callie looked murderous, but Zeke just snickered at everyone else's misfortune. My bride to be glared at me imperiously. "You're making guacamole, right?"

"Yes dear." I said innocently, trying to hide my laughter that she'd been outdone by a nine year old."

Nat came over to sit next to me as I cooked, while everyone else cleared off the table from the earlier meal the inn guests had. "So, how are you doing?" She asked in a small voice, and for the first time since Perit died, I saw a little bit of my exuberant cousin under the sadness. It was nice to see that spark back in her eyes, even if it was because she was worried about me."

"I just don't know if I can do this." I said in a somber voice. "I mean, how will I feed myself? Pick out my clothing? What about walking? Without you there to tell me I might forget which order my feet move in. Is it left left right?" I'd cracked and started snickering halfway through my diatribe, and by the time I was done she was rolling her eyes as I dissolved into laughter.

If not for her lips twitching I might have bought her glare. "Dick. See if I ever check on you again. I was just seeing if you were ok with me leaving."

I put an arm over her shoulder, pulling her in for a side hug while I cooked one handed. "I know, and I'll miss you. You were the first family member I ever met as an adult. But I'm not selfish enough to ask you to stay if it's hurting you. Besides, you were totally right, we can come visit you whenever we want."

She nodded stiffly, staring at the wall in a way I suspected had more to do with staving off tears than any desire to see something in front of her.

"You've grown up a lot." She said quietly. "I remember that kid I met at the circus, and he wasn't a patch on you. But you didn't lose the part of you that feels compassion. That wants to help people. The part of you that wouldn't kill Satala even though her mom wanted us dead."

I shrugged. "That's all Callie. She keeps me on the straight and narrow, you know that."

"No!" She snapped. "That was YOU Shane. It was your heart. And I hope you don't ever lose that. We've got a lot of scary people in the family, but not to many heroes. You're the closest I've seen, and you better hold onto that. If you come back here and you're some ruthless dickbag I'm going to punch you in the throat."

I laughed at that. "Alright, I'll do my best. I should be fine, Callie won't let me drift too far. But I'll do my best to make you proud."

She reached up over my crown, having to stand on her toes to reach, and tousled my hair. "You always made me proud, Shane. You make a lot of people proud, they're just too obnoxious to actually tell you so." She turned and stuck her tongue out at Zeke, who sniffed and turned his head away, barely hiding a smile.

Rejoining the others, she left me to cook, and I went ahead and finished up cooking dinner, bringing it to the table for everyone as I sat down to eat. Looking around with a smile, I felt my heart soar. Goodbyes or not, my family was pretty great. We'd survived. We'd thrived. Now we'd enjoy our month together before we made our way to the next adventure.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

A month flew by. I was pretty shocked at exactly how quickly it had gone. Spending time with Chelsea and Nat, as well as wedding planning and helping with the construction. It occurred to me the next day that I really could use the money from working on the village, so I'd ended up pitching in to prepare for the Conclave.


It was being held on a big floating continent in neutral territory between three factions, which was pretty cool, and the place hosted a pretty big cross section of people from multiple factions and tons of objects to sell or buy.


That was all a problem for future Shane though, because for now all our time was up and we needed to get ready to go. "Alright, does everyone have anything?" I asked anxiously, sweeping my room to make sure I hadn't left anything behind. "Because if you forget something it's going to be ages before we can come get it."


"Yes, MOM." Said Benny exasperatedly. "We went over all our stuff, it helps that we use extra dimensional pocket spaces that can hold houses worth of items that sits in a ring on our fingers and weighs nothing."


I just snorted. "You say that like you've never forgotten anything in your life. You'd forget your head if you didn't have it stuck up your ass."


He flipped me off and ignored as everyone else snickered. I gave Nat another hug, telling her to keep in touch and wishing her good luck. Then I turned to Zeke. "Ok so when are we leaving? Do you know when and where we need to meet up with the shuttle?"


"KIllian is in the system." He nodded. "Told me when he'd be here about an hour ago. We still have a few minutes and it isn't far from here. You have time to say your goodbyes."


Nat shook her head. "He already did. They all did. I'll miss them but they should go." She turned to Celine. "I'll take care of the valley for you, you're already E-rank so you won't need to collect the renown for a while. You can't do it from a distance right?"


"If there's a way, I don't know it." Celine acknowledged. "Since it needs to be distributed to the residents. Just keep a stockpile of the stones they use to transport it. I'll collect it next time I'm here. I appreciate you staying to keep an eye out."


She nodded, and after one last round of farewells we all tromped out of the inn, headed for the forest where Zeke had indicated we'd be meeting our shuttle.


I fell in next to Benny. "So…going to be weird being in transit again. You thinking about buckling down on training? You've been getting some decent point income from renown based on some of our other adventures, but I'm not against helping you blitz a bit."


"Nah." he said with a laugh. "We're going to be at E-rank for a while. I'm not rushed. I get why you might feel that way, but the Conclave is going to be full of people too tough for us. Might as well take our time, since even hurrying won't bridge the gap."


I made a sound of acknowledgement. I didn't disagree. Plus D-rank was when my guardianship ended. After I became a master I'd be on my own. No more Zeke to keep me safe, though I wasn't sure if he would leave or just keep hanging around as an asset. It was something I'd been afraid to ask him up to this point.


Now that he was A-rank, having him with us would be the safest possible thing. Not to mention I was kind of worried about him leaving and missing my wedding. I didn't expect dad to be there, but I wanted Zeke to come. I needed him there, after everything we'd all been through. I knew I was being stupid, but it felt like him being my guardian was the best way to make that happen.


On the other hand, I was a bit worried about E-rank. This was the most dangerous time in my candidacy. The jump from E to D-rank was quantitative as well as qualitative, and killing up ranks with that gap between the two was all but impossible. Without Zeke being able to intervene, masters were a huge danger to all of us.


I shook off my thoughts. "I get that. So you'll just let the passive income boost you? Going to spend some time with your lady?"


"Yeah." he said with a mock glare. "Because SOME moron went out of his way to up the ante by proposing and made the rest of us look bad. Now I have to keep things fresh or else I look like an inconsiderate dick because I'm not writing her sonnets or some shit."


I clapped him on the hand supportively. "Hey, don't talk down about yourself like that. You're perfectly capable of looking like an inconsiderate dick all on your own." He rolled his eyes and slapped my hand away, and I just grinned.


"Be nice to see the puppies again." He said after a moment of comfortable silence. "It's been ages. I know Jessie has been missing them like crazy."


I snorted. "Callie too. And I admit it's great having Jin around to cuddle with. It's sad we left them so far behind. I wish there was a way to rank them up faster. Bethy and Jessie have their power sets for that, but for us the pups are just pets."


"Sucks." Agreed Benny. "How badass would we look riding wolves everywhere?"


I laughed at that. "So badass. I actually tried that a few times. It's pretty awesome. And they use Might better for travel than we do. I'm really jealous of Gabe sometimes, with his crazy starlight horse thing."


"True." Agreed Benny. "But hey, at least that means we get to send him to do stuff instead of going ourselves. That's a plus." We both laughed as we saw Gabe up ahead, turning to shoot us a dark look that didn't really seem all that dark. He was pretty obviously trying not to smile, and it made it made us laugh all the harder.


When we reached the clearing in question, the shuttle was already there, and to my surprise, Blake was there to meet us. Killian's son looked us over. "You're already E-rank? You bastards."


"It's ok." I said kindly. "You too will someday be powerful and impressive like us. Instead of being a loser who lives in his dad's basement." I winked to show I was messing with him, and he laughed, rolling his eyes but not engaging.


Callie smacked my shoulder with a snort. "Be nice. Is Sasha still onboard, I was hoping to talk to her about…things." She flushed a bit and I didn't bother fighting a grin since no one could see it anyway. I like that she was so excited about everything.


Sadly, Blake shook his head. "Nah, she disembarked a while ago. She left word she'd meet up with you at the Conclave, she'll be attending personally. She wasn't sure about her father though."


I wasn't really sure if he knew she was my mom, or if he was just fulfilling orders as she'd left them. It was hard to keep track of that kind of thing. Zeke looked around in annoyance as we entered the shuttle. "Killian can't even come and greet an old friend? I see how it is. No time for all us little people now that he's a big shot spacefaring badass."


Blake brightened. "Oh, he thought you might say that, so he left me a message to give you." he pulled out an honest to gods scroll, unfurling it and clearing his throat. "He says. 'Yeah, pretty much. Shut up.' And nothing else." He handed the scroll to Zeke, who took it and read over it before wadding it up and throwing it into a trash can.


"Someday." he told Blake kindly. "You're going to get older and end up more like your dad. When that day comes, I want you to remember something very important. Your dad is not funny. And you probably won't be either. Even if it seems to you like you are. It'll be an illusion, don't believe it."


I tried not to snicker at his obvious saltiness, but I failed, and he turned to glare at me. "Hey, don't look at me, I thought it was hilarious."


"Where did I go wrong." He bemoaned. "How did I fail so badly in raising you."


I didn't even try to hide my snicker this time. "Being drunk most of the day and leaving me to my own devices a large percentage of the time might have been a bad start. Not that I'm complaining."


"That's how you teach someone independence." He said loftily. "Plus it's not like I didn't have an eye on you from a distance. Even if you didn't notice it at the time."


The shuttle lifted off, and Bethy, who was standing by the open side of the conveyance near the transparent shielding, stared at the receding ground with a whoop of excitement. "That's so cool! I wish I could fly like this." At all of our deadpan glances she shrugged. "I mean like, high up. My kitty storm form only goes up a few hundred feet. Cats are NOT designed for high altitudes."


That was fair. "So." I said turning to the others. "Any big plans for the trip? It'll be a few months on the ship. I'm probably going to relax aside from doing some points stockpiling. Well, relax and wedding plan. We have a lot to figure out." I turned to Blake. "Speaking of, do you and your dad want to come to our wedding? I proposed to Callie back on Stratholme."


She giddily showed off her ring, and he made the proper appreciative sounds. "Congrats man." He finally said. "I'll pass on the invitation. I know I'd love to come. Where will it be?"


"Callus." I said without hesitation. "Our home planet. It's kind of small, on the edge of Cult territory in the Conglomerate, but it's a pretty cool place. Callie's mom is there and we want her to be in the wedding, plus lots of friends. It's going to be a big deal." I knew just having my mom there would make it a crazy affair, now Zeke was A-rank too.


Chances were good the Unity would send someone to keep tabs, and if Killian came that would blow things up even more. A-rankers all over the place. It was going to draw all sorts of attention, and I really did like that Callie would probably get a renown boost of this. I would too, but that was less important. I had wishes after all. Making Callie stronger was what mattered most.


As we approached the hulking mass of the Necromedes, I couldn't help but wish the Conclave was already over. I was ready to start my new life, to be happy for a while. But since that seemed unlikely. But hey, at least Callie was excited. She was insistent she was going to buy her wedding dress at the Conclave.


I glanced over to her, sitting happily chatting with my sister, and my heart warmed. I'd been through so much since becoming an Ascendant. I'd been in so much danger, lost people, been through agony I couldn't describe.


But I hadn't been alone. Not since that night in the scavenger hunt when she told me she wanted to be together. No matter what came next I'd be ready for it. We all would. Gods, monsters, whatever the danger. We'd face it together. As a family. And honestly? I felt kind of bad for whatever got in our way. Making my way over I sat down next to her and put an arm around her shoulders, ready for the next step in our journey.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Four months went by faster than I'd expected. Our last journey had been almost eternal in comparison, probably because aside from wishes I hadn't really done much training at all. I'd just…lived. Spent time with Callie, gotten to know my sister. The small bit of actual training I'd done had mostly been fun stuff like the occasional spar with Abel or Gabe or Bethy.

Benny had spent most of his time with Celine, not that I blamed him, though he did join us for some of the sparring sessions when he was free. It was peaceful and, as I slowly came to realize, necessary.

The Empire had been a great experience and one that had taught me quite a bit, but it had also been extremely draining. Constant learning and fighting. We'd been given our own armies basically (we'd rented them to Nat while we were gone for forty D-rank chits which Celine had footed the bill for, leaving me at eighty and Callie at twenty) learned to command them, fought against some terrifying people, and even killed a D-ranker.

After all that, taking a few months to decompress and relax was just what the doctor ordered,our month of downtime before leaving was nice, but it still felt…fraught. The journey was just that. A journey. Nothing we had to concern ourselves with.

Now we were finally arriving, and it was sad to see an end to all the leisure time, even if the thought of what was coming was both exciting and terrifying. Which was how I found myself standing next to Callie and Chelsea in the same room we'd used to view Zeke's fight with the elven archer all those months ago.

"So…that's Tricorn huh?" I asked, staring at the colossal three cornered continent floating in space. "It reminds me of the bazaar we went to for the moonsong glade."

"Not even close." Said Zeke as he stepped up next to me. "Tricorn is a permanent structure, unlike the bazaar. It's C-ranked, like Stratholme, and is considered one of the most integral trade hubs in the five faction alliance. It sits on the corner of Church, Fairyland, and Imperial territory. This is where some of the most important business in the universe gets done."

I nodded. "I can understand the need for a place like this, since all the most powerful artifacts and objects are made and sold in galactic centers where forces have the strongest grip. What about the WCP?"

"Not really a factor." He shrugged. "The WCP exists across faction lines, and are sort of an alternative to this kind of place. You'll note that the Cult and the Conglomerate aren't connected, and while they have people here too, their presence is less solidified. Not to mention all of this is monitored by the main governmental entities of the three factions, which means it all has to be legal."

That was one thing about the WCP that hadn't sat well with me at first. The whole 'criminal' vibe. We weren't, really, we were just pretty much unbound by any ethical or moral restrictions, which lots of people claimed was criminal because of the stigma. Still not ideal, but we weren't breaking any laws most of the time, at least that I'd seen. The reminder that some aspects of the organization was extralegal wasn't exactly a welcome one.

I took a long breath. "I think I might try to change that aspect of things. Not completely, granted, because we need the networks to function, but trying to limit the activities of the Palace a bit might endear us more to other forces."

Zeke just chuckled. "Won't work kid. Sorry." At my confused glance, he just shook his head. "The standing Wishmaster isn't really the leader of the WCP. I mean, he is, but not unilaterally. The position is there to help a promising talent rise quickly by way of entry to the Unlucky 13. Everyone on the Unlucky 13 is an up and comer who needs the renown to grow."

"Wait." I said, crestfallen. "So I won't be able to change things? I can't fix the cuckoo bird bullshit that the family does?"

He waggled a hand. "That you might be able to swing. It's related to the candidacy and as the Wishmaster your say over matters of selection for the next round is pretty much absolute. But stuff like instituting wide reaching trade and political engagement policies? That has to go through the council."

"The council of….?" I said, having not heard anything about this before.

"Elders." He said with a shrug. "Branch leaders one and all. The S-rankers, both family and close associates. They're the strongest forces in the clan outside the old man, and we don't really bother him if we can help it."

Something about that caught my interest. "Wait…not all the S-rankers in the clan are family?"

"Of course not." He snorted. "The Wyndhams have the wish ability. Think about Benny, about me. Our clan has the most advantage in creating powerful Ascendants. Only half of the council are Wyndhams. The other half are close friends and proven associates. All under geasa to ensure loyalty, of course, but not particularly restrictive ones."

I knew there were only about a hundred S-rankers in the universe, at least ones that we'd been able to dig up information about, and knowing we had a whole council of them really shed light on how we were able to keep our autonomy despite not having our own territory.

Then again, I didn't know a lot of things, and it had been implied before that some of the clans had their own S-rankers who had retreated from public view for one reason or another, presumably to make the attempt at godhood. How many demi-gods like Morgan Lark were out there?

Come to think of it, how did that even work? Impact was the necessary step to reach godhood. I couldn't imagine how much you'd need to spend trying to acquire more than five hundred points of Impact. Was regular renown even necessary after S-rank? Was that why most of them faded into the background?

I felt a soft bop on my head, and turned to see Callie smiling patiently at me. "Chit for your thoughts?" She said casually.

"Sorry." I said, shaking my head. "Didn't mean to space out." I glanced at the stars outside the viewing panel. "I mean…get distracted. I was just thinking about how big the universe is. Tricorn is huge, but it's nowhere near as big of important as some of the central planets. The galactic centers have main planets right? A-rank worlds?"

Zeke shook his head. "No need to worry about that. It won't be relevant to you for quite some time. Just focus on Tricorn, and why we're here." He pointed out into space where I saw other ships slowly fading into view. White and gold monoliths, dark metal monstrosities, red steel beasts, and dozens of other strange and spellbinding transports I couldn't even put words to.

"That's a lot of expensive ships." Said Zeke. "The Necromedes is a total boondoggle and some of those are even worse. No Saintships, thankfully,. Apparently even the faction leaders have enough common sense not to dangle an entire ship made of S-rank material out in the middle of space."

Killian stepped up on his other side. "The wealth on display there is worth more than one or two Saintships from an objective standpoint. Though no one would be willing to piss off that many high ranking faction members from that many forces. There are S-rankers on board I'm sure. The gods will have sent their best."

"Old man Anders is here." Zeke grimaced. "Sasha warned me before I showed up. He's never liked me much. Always considered Eli and I a bad influence. Not that he's going to do much about it here. Good to know ahead of time though."

My head jerked up. "M-My friend Chelsea's grandpa is here?" I said, catching myself before I blurted out something stupid. "That's…interesting. What about mine?"

"Malachai didn't come." He said with a sigh. "Which is a shame, because we could have used a friendly face. They sent Harrison. He's the youngest branch clan leader. Aiden's father. He likes to think that gives him a lot of influence, even though it doesn't."

Aiden was the name of the current Wishmaster, the one who was retiring to make way for whoever won my candidate selection. "Is he…like an enemy of ours?" I said carefully.

He waggled a hand. "He's not a friend. But not an enemy. I don't think he's going to try anything in such a serious situation. As the only witnesses to what happened in the Aetherbright Academy, you'll be expected to testify. We passed on everything you told us, but the bigwigs want to question you themselves."

I nodded, letting out a long breath. "Do we know who is coming from every faction? Or just those two?" I wanted to be as prepared as possible for what was coming, even if that wasn't going to be all that much in the grand scheme of things.

"No idea." Shrugged Zeke. "And they won't be here yet anyway. We made good time, we're still about a week out from the start date. You can do some shopping and make inroads with some of the other visiting factions. Maybe meet up with some old friends. I suspect several of the people you met during the Moonsong Glade incident will be present, since it's related."

I turned back to stare out at the rapidly approaching continent, and I felt Callie take my hand and give it a squeeze. It was a lot, but at the same time, knowing we'd be seeing old friends was definitely a bonus.

"What about independents?" I asked, realizing I hadn't really thought to ask. I knew they existed. The Vampire was one, and there were more than a few unaffiliated clans, like smaller versions of the WCP, that I'd learned about recently. "Are they going to have representation here?" That would be yet another powerful person I'd have to deal with meeting.

Grinning, Zeke raised a hand, pointing out the panel and into the distance. I blinked in shock at the sight of a familiar floating black metal coffin in space.

Bethy, who had just gotten to us, saw what he was pointing at and squealed with joy, bouncing up and down in place. "Daddy's here!" She cheered. "I can't wait to tell him all about my time in the army. I was the best soldier ever, he's going to be so proud!"

I was unsure Bethy had even technically BEEN a soldier, though I certainly wasn't the one who was going to tell her so. I was more worried about why the Vampire had made an appearance. Was he some kind of de facto leader for the independents?

Whatever the reason, I couldn't imagine his presence was going to have a pacifying effect on things. The gods had sent their strongest, but they were all still just S-rankers. Morgan Lark was the closest being to godhood, able to take on even a deity (albeit a young one) in pitched combat and come out ahead.

Him being here signified both how seriously everyone was taking this and how dangerous it was going to be. I knew the Vampire hated being sucked into politics and tried to avoid interacting with anyone.

Was he here because of the danger? The opportunity to fight unknown gods? I knew he could siphon stats. Could he drain a god's Impact to help himself ascend. Would they allow him a position among the factions if it meant getting his support? This was all way above my paygrade, but I knew it would be important in the future.

Regardless of all that though, I knew that this conclave was going to be a mess. This many high rankers and children and disciples of gods? The winds of fate around this place would be whipped into a frenzy, it would be like my life times a million. I just hoped they were all ready for it. I was sure I would be. I didn't have a choice.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Stepping back onto a suppressed landmass after four months on the Necromedes was a bit jarring, but we adapted much faster than the last time. "This place is…big." I said in awe. The continent was triangular, with each of the three main factions taking up a corner. The Church, The Empire, and the Fairyland. Each of them had their own section of town, and we were headed for the first.

"I can't wait to see mom!" Gushed Chelsea, pulling me along. "She's going to be so jealous I found out about the wedding first!" Zeke trailed behind us, eyes scanning the crowds lazily as if expecting an attack. I hadn't seen him this tense outside combat.

Laughing, I pulled back, forcing her to slow down. "Might be a good idea to bring my fiance along instead of leaving her to get lost in the crowd."

"Thanks." Callie said as she caught up to us. "Inhuman speed is less useful in a crowd like this. Is there a way to clear a path?" She looked uncomfortable around so many powerful Ascendants, and I didn't blame her. Everyone nearby was at LEAST E-rank, and I counted more masters than hairs on my head.

Zeke shook his head. "Not smart." He admitted. "I could probably make a hole, but these are faction elites. Chances of one of them having a spare Arch-Bishop or Duke kicking around aren't low, and I'm pretty new to this rank."

Benny jumped, spinning around with his hands coming up in a fighting stance. "Someone just tried to pick my pocket." He patted his pants and then pulled out a small rectangle. "Wait, no they put something into my pocket." He squinted at. "Karen Carllson's Kidney Collection." Grimacing, he shredded the card and dropped it on the ground. The paper turned to ash on contact, and a small lightning bolt leapt up and shocked Benny who leapt back with a yelp. "What the fuck?"

"Anti-littering enchantment." Said Zeke boredly. "Maybe don't drop your trash on giant continents co-owned by literal deities."

Benny glared at him. "You could have warned me?"

"I guess so." Said my uncle innocently. "I could also warn you that fire is hot or that you can't breathe underwater. Some things should be common sense."

I rolled my eyes, stepping between them. "Alright that's enough. Zeke is messing with you. Any of us could have made that same mistake." I paused. "I mean, we didn't, so we're definitely all going to make fun of you for it, but we could have. Thank you for your sacrifice."

"That started out so nice too." Sighed Callie. "Can we get going? I'm super nervous about this meeting." She picked at her sleeves. "Like I know she liked me fine last time, but this is totally different." She cut off, not wanting to mention my family relation directly out in the open like this. I put an arm around her as we started walking again.

"It'll be fine." I told her, giving her a squeeze with the arm I had over her shoulder. "I can't think of anyone who wouldn't be excited to have you in their family."

Chelsea grabbed her other arm. "Definitely. You're awesome. Isn't she Callen?" She glanced at her D-rank guard, who nodded lazily, not bothering to speak. The big bearded swordsman wasn't one for chatter. Gabe would have been more verbose, but he'd gone with Bethy to see her father.

That left me, Jessie, Callie, Benny, Celine, Abel, Mel, Chelsea, Zeke, and Callen. Plus assorted pets. Specifically Chalk and Randall. Ten people. It was objectively a decent sized group, but somehow it felt…small. Incomplete. Nat and Valk were missing, and they'd been a part of us. It seemed wrong.

We chattered for a while, talking about nothing, and I kept an eye on our surroundings, taking things in. As we moved toward a corner, the streets eventually started to change. Not that it was a short trip. The Tricorn was huge, and we had to take large public conveyances I hesitated to think of as busses (they were so fancy) more than a few times on the way.

Soon enough though, the streets started to change. The buildings got fancier, the construction materials used leaned more towards white stone and gold trim, with lots of columns and intricate scrollwork. Somehow I knew this was Church territory without asking.

"It's just like home!" My sister beamed. "Oh I missed the architecture. Grandpa's palace has the most lovely atrium, full of beautiful plants and wonderful fountains. The whole place is a karmic gathering formation the Judgement Pope designed for him and it's supposed to bring good luck to people who walk through it."

I couldn't even imagine what something like that was probably worth. Considering the very brief limited good luck wish back in the scavenger hunt had been so pricey…I supposed it was harder to do things like that to more powerful Ascendants and in more powerful places, but still.

"Is his palace one of those places on higher ranked worlds where the Impact is blunted to let lower rankers walk around?" I asked curiously. "If you spent a lot of time there I'd assume he made arrangements."

She shook her head. "No, that was considered a security risk. I had minders growing up who escorted me. You can use your own Impact to shield someone nearby from the pressure if you've practiced it. Sometimes it was mom, sometimes it was others. We did have our own manor in a lightened section of the city though."

It fascinated me to hear these little tidbits about Chelsea's life growing up. I'd heard some here and there, but she tried to avoid bringing up stuff like this because she worried I'd be jealous. I'd mostly moved past that though, the engagement helped put a lot of things in perspective. If I hadn't had my life I wouldn't be who or what I am now, and that sounded pretty terrible to me.

Finally, we stopped in front of a particularly fancy looking building. Chelsea checked…something on the building and then nodded. "This is it. She'll be here."

I was curious how that worked. "How can you tell where she is just by looking at the building? Is there some kind of energy signature there I can't detect?" It would be useful to know more about how that worked in case we ever had to come back on our own.

"Nope." She said cheerfully. "It's the building itself." She pointed up at the facade, where I could see the delicate scrollwork that graced all the buildings nearby. "Those little stylistic flourishes look decorative, but they're actually carefully constructed and contain messages. It's an identifier that shows what the building is for and instructions on its usage. They're a bit complicated, and they change based on a variety of factors, but knowing how to read them makes it easier to identify important strategic locations."

That sounded…complicated. "And you use these back in the Holy Dominion?" I wasn't sure why anyone would need a system like that in a protected location.

Sure enough, she shook her head. "No, only in battlefield conditions. But mom insisted I learn to read facades before I went to the Ruined Soul Temple. It's standard procedure for important officials or their family members when leaving the dominion. If you want I can teach you later, I find a lot of the symbolism fascinating."

"That sounds fun." I agreed. "We're going to be here for a while probably, so being able to navigate would be helpful, not to mention it might come in handy in the future."

Chelsea beamed at me before heading for the entrance to the building. As she approached, there was a flare of light, and a pair of lightly armored guards (both D-rankers) were suddenly standing there. "State your purpose." One of them intoned.

"Chelsea Anders." My sister said confidently. "Here to see the Saintess."

I was pretty amazed at the two guards. Not because of their ranks, I'd seen D-rankers before, but because from what little I'd just seen they used stealth in a way I hadn't seen before. I knew objectively that stealth wasn't really elemental. It was the erasure of Perception from the senses of others to allow you to move unseen.

That said, the method of that erasure tended to be flavored by certain external characteristics. When Callie used stealth she did it with the mental image of cloaking herself in shadow, as did I because the stealth I used was hers.
The guards, however, clearly used a stealth based on LIGHT. The flash had been them allowing themselves to be seen. They bent the light around them to remove themselves from visibility. How that worked with sound or other senses I had no idea, but then, I didn't really get how darkness could do it either, it just kind of did.

The whole thing made me seriously reconsider a lot of things about stealth. Rather than a discrete Skill, it seemed stealth was more of a meta Skill, a way of applying other Skills you had similar to a manipulation Skill like Callie had. I wondered how many other ways there were to erase presence, and if there was just a basic application of the stealth skill unflavored by others.

My sister, while I was having this epiphany, had approached the guards and handed them some papers to prove her identity. They had a quick back and forth before the guards retreated, allowing her inside, the rest of us on her heels.

When we passed the threshold we found ourselves inside a colossal palace, decorated in austere white and gold. "What was that about?" I asked as we followed Chelsea down a large hall she turned us into. "Why would mom need guards, especially D-rankers?"

"She wouldn't." Said my sister cheerfully. "But in order to confuse anyone trying to find and bother her, the Church put guards on every building in this district. D-rankers were the most plentiful pool of troops to draw from. If there were D-rank guards outside this building and no others it would be too obvious."

Callie blinked at her from where she'd been taking all of this in. "Wait…your mom assigned dozens if not hundreds of MASTERS to guard duty so no one would notice she was under protection and bother her?"

"Of course." Said my sister in confusion. "She's meeting with her children. Family time is important, especially since we just got Shane back. Oh, and you can all talk freely here. No one can eavesdrop with mom here, at least not without her knowing about it. Now come on, she's probably waiting for us."

At one time I might have asked how she would know we were coming, but I knew that well enough by now. She was an A-ranker. I only barely had an idea of what that entailed or the sheer volume of stats (not to mention the methods to apply them) A-rankers had. I'd seen a glimpse of it when watching Zeke fight, but I knew my uncle was much subtler than most of his peers.

Finally, we came to a doorway that led out into a large open courtyard. Above us stretched a blue sky that shouldn't be there, trees surrounded us and birds sang sweetly in the branches. My mother sat at a table near a small pond, set with plates heaped with sandwiches and other foods.

She beamed at Chelsea and me when we came in, and I felt…warm. Seeing her so happy to see us was new to me, but not unpleasant. I was still a bit conflicted about my mom, but nearly a year of time to reflect and contemplate the things I had in my life had allowed me to put everything in perspective.

Walking over I dropped into one of the chairs, Chelsea and Callie sitting on either side as I grinned at my mother, deciding to remove my mask completely rather than retracting the mouth. Raising an eyebrow at her, I simply asked. "Hey ma, what's for lunch?" I guessed there was more than one way to feel like you were home.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"Shane! Chelsea! It's so good to see you!" My mother stood and hurried over, tightly hugging both me and my sister before ushering us toward the table. "You made good time, I wasn't expecting you for at least a few more days."

I shrugged. "Killian was expecting to run into some trouble in the Aratra asteroid field. He said there's usually a contingent of bandits there. Apparently they're gone though."

To my surprise, her smile died. "Varthra's Fang is missing? That's bad news. They've held that field for almost a century. If someone ousted them I'd have expected lots of noise. I'll have someone look into it. That's Imperial territory, so hopefully the King they sent will take it seriously." Her eyes flicked to Zeke. "Looks like someone finally stopped dragging his heels. Congratulations Ezekial."

"I was not 'dragging my heels'." My uncle said in annoyance. "You know as well as I do that careful Binding of a Chronicle cuts down on the time needed to get through A-rank. SOME of us just prefer to do the work right the first time."

My mother shrugged carelessly. "The work won't get done at all if you die before you can finish. But I suppose it's academic now that you've finally made it. I heard about your final page. Not quite as dramatic as Eli's, but scribing it in advance was…brave." Her face softened. "Thank you, Ezekiel, for protecting my children at such great risk. You're a true friend, and my husband and I are both lucky to have you."

I blinked in surprise. I…hadn't known mom and dad were still married. I guessed no one had said otherwise, even when they were claiming she was dead, but it was strange to hear out loud.

Zeke just waved her off. "Don't be so serious about it. I've been taking care of one of your brats for years, what's an extra for someone as amazing as me."

Rolling her eyes, my mom reached down to the table, moving aside some of the food to reveal a long wooden box. "Well, if you don't want a thank you, I suppose I'll have to return this bottle of Autumn Honey Mead I bartered with Princess Levinia for."

"Darnalian Autumn Honey Mead?" His eyes snapped to the box. "That's…certainly interesting."

I was more interested in what she'd said before that. "Wait… a Princess came from the Fairieland? I didn't even know that was a noble rank."

"Because it's not in the Empire." Said Celine. "The Empire has Kings at S-rank, because their ruler is the Emperor. The Queen is our god, however, and as such elevating nobles to her station would be heresy. S-rankers in the Fairieland are Princes and Princesses, though we don't have many."

Mom smiled. "I've known Levi for ages, ever since we were girls. Her mother, Princess Valeria, is one of the Queen's eldest children, and an old friend of my dad's. Not all of the S-rankers in the Faerieland are the Queens children, mind, but they make up a majority. Being the child of a god comes with many benefits."

I remembered Satala, and how she'd reached A-rank so young, and my grandmother, Drowning Shade, who had been born with a mirror soul body. Benefits was an understatement.

"But that's enough business talk." My mother scolded playfully. "Sit, eat, I want to hear all about your trip. I know we exchanged the occasional missive, but that's hardly the same as hearing it in your own words over a meal." Her eyes wandered to Callie. "Besides, I hear there's big news to be shared."

I whirled on my sister. "You told!" I accused her. "You said you'd let me tell her."

"Shane." My mom chuckled. "If you think my only son could get engaged and then subsequently tell everyone around him ad nauseum for months and I wouldn't hear about it, you're dramatically underestimating my reach. Your sister said nothing. I'm sorry if I ruined the surprise though, I was just excited to congratulate you."

Callie swallowed hard from next to me. "So you're….happy, about this? Because having your blessing means a lot to me and we'd love to have you at the wedding."

"Of COURSE." My mother said emphatically. "I'm so happy for both of you. You seem like a lovely young lady. Driven, intelligent, beautiful, and completely devoted to my son." She beamed at Callie. "I'm honored to welcome you to the family, dysfunctional as it may be."

I grinned at my fiancee. "See? I told you! Anyone would be thrilled to have you as a daughter-in-law." I moved my eyes back to my mother. "And you'll come to the wedding? I know there's a lot going on with the war and-"

"Wild star eaters couldn't keep me away." She said firmly. "I'm anxious to meet your mother, Calliope, I've heard wonderful things from Ezekial."

Zeke shrugged. "She's good people. Alexander isn't so bad either. Paul is an asshole, but it'll be fun to see him thrash impotently in fury when you show up stronger than he is." It was easy to forget that as the former head of the Valen branch of the WCP Zeke would have met Paul before. They hadn't really interacted last time we were there.

"You going to bring Stella to the wedding?" I teased. "I believe we have you marked for a plus one."

He grimaced at me. "Keep your nose out of my relationships kid. Not all of us met our soulmate at eighteen. I don't really know. Anyway, do you want me to…pass a message to Eli? See if he wants to come?"

I glanced to Callie, who nodded. "You can invite him." I said after a long pause. "I doubt he'll come, but despite all his dickishness it would be good to see him again. Even if I'm not sure I'll be able to resist the urge to slug him."

"Open hand dear." My mom said kindly. "You're less likely to break something."

That surprised a laugh out of me. It also deflated some of the tension. Inviting my dad had been a hard call. Honestly I didn't want him there, but Callie told me I should. As shitty as the way he'd treated me had been, it seemed like he was acting from a place of concern for me, wanting me to stay out of the competition so I wouldn't be in danger.

It was funny, but Callie's dad was such an asshole it made it easier to put my own father's neglect in perspective. The invite would be an olive branch, not for me, but for the version of me that might someday look back on not inviting him with some regret.

We all sat down at the table, eating and catching my mom up on everything. She demanded a word for word recounting of my proposal, and I felt like I wanted a hole to open up in the ground and swallow me whole as I tried to stammer my way through it. Callie refused to let me plead forgetfulness, reminding me when I 'slipped up' and she seemed to think it was the most romantic thing ever, which I supposed was a good sign.

I got different reactions, some heartfelt and touched, some mocking, and I took them all with good humor and lots of profanity in cases where it was warranted. It was…nice.

My mom, Zeke, Chelsea, Callie, Benny, Celine, Abel, most of my best friends and family were here, and it just felt right. Once we finished the food, it was time to bring up the more formal portions of this.

"So…what's going on?" I asked my mom. "I know we're supposed to testify. What does that mean?"

She shrugged. "Nothing negative. Your grandfather will do the questioning. His flames of purification are so controlled he can burn the falsehoods from a testimony. It's one of his roles in the church. It won't harm you, just stick to the truth and the flames won't even make you sweat. It's more a formality than anything else."

"Why would we need a truth detector?" I asked in shock. "Who would make something like this up?"

Rolling her eyes, she let out a huff. "Your connection to the church has raised…concerns among some of the representatives. We suspected that might happen, it's why we always planned your attendance. Once we do this, we can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that your testimony is valid and our leverage to get things moving in terms of an alliance will be much stronger."

She was talking about the cult. They hated me, partly because of who my mother was. I wasn't sure how they'd found out, but it was one of the reasons that on top of separating us, my parents had hidden Chelsea's second power. Multiple layers of deception seemed like overkill until you remembered there were gods involved.

It made sense those lunatics would be holding things up, and if I could help brush aside the obstruction I would.

"So after the testimony the conclave starts for real?" I asked. "What does that entail. Like once they know can't we just…go all out?"

"No." Said my mother bluntly. "For one, we have to arrange deployment of forces. It'll take a while. Part of the reason the WCP is present will be to help with that. Wishes to help map troop deployments and so on. We need to know where they'll hit, when and then tailor our approach to that. Plus there's politics to take into account, making sure the troops deployed don't have an enmity with factions in the area."

I grimaced. Politics. "How will they get that info? We're talking about secrets of a divine level. The cost has to be astronomical."

"Undoubtedly." She agreed. "But that's why they sent a branch clan leader. There are very few things an S-class Ascendant with the Wish power can't afford stat wise. Especially not one who hasn't diversified his power and still has his modifier. It'll be expensive, but we can afford it."

Zeke laughed. "Not sure you can." At our glances, he shrugged. "This is…big. It wouldn't shock me if they decide that it's a good time to push for expansion. You NEED the WCP for this war if you want to win, even with the Emperor and Queen's raw power, the old man is still one of the strongest three gods."

"You think they'll ask for territory?" Mom said with a wince. "That might jam things up. No one is going to want to give the WCP more power, they're already buried in every galaxy. None of us want them establishing a solid foothold."

He shrugged. "They know that, but you know how the WCP is with leverage. Give them an inch and they take a mile, and they're going to be getting way more than an inch here. Be prepared to bleed some planets. I wouldn't be shocked if they tried charging you a few high ranking worlds."

"Even if they don't they can make them." She sighed. "Upgrading planets is far from beyond their scope."

"True." he admitted. "If they go that route they might end up taking a lot of smaller planets around the edges of a bunch of territories and trying to cobble together a system or cluster for themselves. Harrison is a scheming dick, but he's a competent one. It's probably why Aiden sent him. He knew he'd maximize the gains where Malachai might take the bigger picture into consideration."

I hadn't heard much about my paternal grandfather, but that at least didn't sound bad. Knowing he would help was a good thing at least. "So…what should we do? Until the testimony and then I guess after." I asked.

"Same thing you've been doing." Said my mother firmly. "Make friends, expand your contacts. Tricorn is a hub of power and talent and plenty of items. Figure out how best to benefit." With that said, we all lapsed into silence. It felt petty to worry about that on the eve of war, but in the end finding more people would help me get stronger. I supposed after we found a place to stay it would be time to start exploring.