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

[Malcolm Tent]

Our next step, as it turned out, required less discussion than expected. Namely, we needed to capture The Vintner and The Sommelier. But first, we needed to figure out who the hell those people WERE. The Vintner shouldn't be too tough, we were going to be introduced to all the winemakers, and I was guessing they would be among their number, but The Sommelier could be anyone. That was literally just someone who liked wine and knew a bunch about it, and we were at a fucking WINERY.


When we rejoined the group, the tour was still ongoing, and no one had noticed us slipping away under the influence of Murmur.


After a minute or two of walking, I took the opportunity to reappear from behind someone, drawing attention to myself by clearing my throat. "So, you said we could meet the winemakers?" I asked Cranston excitedly. He didn't seem to think of me as a person, but I didn't actually care what he thought about me, he couldn't ignore me with Devlan walking right beside us, and he could sneer as hard as he wanted if he'd answer my questions.


He shot me a withering glare. "The tour will proceed at the pace that I decide it should progress. If you wish to experience a faster paced tour, perhaps you can leave and come back when there is another guide available."


"Gosh, that's a good point," I said obtusely. "Hey Devlan, this guy thinks we should go away and come back later. That sound good to you?"


Devlan shrugged. "Coming back later sounds like a hassle. I figure we can just contact another winery. I hear Sudden Valley is decent., Plus they really need an influx of cash. They've been in a marketing war with some other no name winery. I bet they'd be super grateful for the investment after they used it to completely crush that other place."


Cranston went almost alarmingly pale. "I…wait, no, that's…" He started sputtering so hard I was worried he might hyperventilate.


Obviously, that had been a threat, and apparently a good one, judging by how alarmed he seemed. "Or," I continued with a cheerful smile. "We could always just go talk to those winemakers. That would probably be faster. I mean, we're already here. Do you think you could set that up for us, Cranston?"


He nodded so hard I was worried he might break his own neck. "Why, yes! Of course. I was mistaken earlier. The pace of the tour is naturally at the discretion of the customer."


Turning, he hurried along the length of the hall, guiding us through a large door as he frantically muttered into a scan ring. We took a couple of detours and roundabout turns that I suspected were designed to waste time, and finally arrived at a large hall full of silver tanks. S bunch of men and women in honest to gods lab coats were spread throughout the hall, checking guages and turning knobs.


When we entered, the one closest to the door turned to smile widely at us in greeting. He was a cheerful looking young man with curly brown hair and bushy eyebrows. "Cranston! Look what you've brought us! Guests are always welcome down here in the tombs. It gets so gloomy with only this sorry lot for company." He winked at us to let us know he was only teasing, and hurried forward to offer Devlan his hand.


Our local contact accepted the hand gracefully. "We were told you and the others down here could tell us more about the wine? I like to meet with the craftsmen who work on my products. You've no doubt heard of my organization, and our infrastructure and supply chains could be a huge boon to an operation like this, but I only act for mutual profit."


"Of course," the man preened. "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Graham, and I'm the Chief Vintner here. My background is in hybridized grape development and fermentation processes, and I've published quite a few papers on both topics. I can't claim to be unrivaled on this planet, but within the D-rank zone, I daresay no one comes close to my expertise. Our entire team is made up of the best and brightest, and I personally vouch for every member of my group."


I glanced around. The people nearby seemed…distracted. The were trying their best to look busy, but they were clearly paying attention to us instead of their jobs…except one.


"Who is that?" I pointed out the sole exception. A tall, pale man with sunken eyes, he had his back to us and was actually ignoring the group, as opposed to just pretending like everyone else.


Graham furrowed his eyebrows. "That's…that's one of our technicians. His name is Horace. I'm afraid he isn't particularly social, or I'd introduce you. His field of expertise is also a bit obscure, so I doubt you'd be interested in hearing about what he does. We could talk to Lucy though, she's in charge of alcohol content in the vintages. Fascinating stuff."


I wasn't sure he knew what that word meant, because it definitely wasn't, but more importantly, the fact that he didn't want us to talk to Horace made me REALLY want to make it happen. I didn't bother bringing it up, I just broke off from the group, ignoring Graham's protests, and approached the tall man.


And he was VERY tall. Like, even by my standards. However, he was also so emaciated that his limbs looked like dry branches seconds from breaking off a dead tree. "Hey, Horace right?" I asked him as I approached.


He continued to twist knobs and adjust levers on the tank, ignoring me. When I got a bit closer, he finally paused, turning his dark, sunken eyes to stare at me coldly.


"I believe," he said in a surprisingly rich voice. "That you were instructed to leave me be. It is impolite to ignore the wishes of your host." His eyes raked over me. "I can't imagine what you might wish to speak to me about, but you may keep your greetings to yourself. I have no interest in discourse. Have a pleasant day."


As he spoke, I stared into his flat black eyes. There were dark and empty, ironically somehow more reptilian than the actual snake eyes of the house girl. As I started to feel a tug, like I was falling into the darkness, a surge of power poured through the bond, a blue black blaze of righteous fury washing away the sensation.


His eyes flickered. Not literally, but in the sense of someone noticing something, and then narrowed, his lips drawing back to expose rows of razor sharp teeth that I somehow hadn't noticed before. "Heretic!" He hissed with snakelike sibilance.


I was already moving, wings exploding out from my back as my staff appeared in my hands, whirling to meet the tendrils of shadow bursting from the ground at his feet. Blue black flame burned on my staff, the light of it banishing the dark, and he howled in outrage as he leapt up to cling to the ceiling.


Cursing, I spun the staff as he drew in a large amount of shadows and sent a wave of dark spikes at me. My spinning weapon created a shield of flame, intercepting the attacks, and Callie screamed in fury as she launched herself into the air at Horace.


Everyone else just kind of froze, unable to comprehend what was happening. "Murderers!" Howled the vintner. "Slayers of the vessel!"


The vessel. Was that the title of the house girl? Callie had called her a priestess, but it seemed like she didn't find that to be an accurate or inaccurate description. She had been a priestess, maybe, but she had also been a vessel. Or the vessel. Whatever the term was. She had called them a few things. The blade of the silent, the hand of the unheard. Vessels might just be another term for the sleeper agents the void cultivated in realspace.


Given the discussion about Wendell, the stuff that house girl had said about conversion was true too. They could make more of them later on, though under what circumstances I had no idea.


Callie crashed into the vintner before I had time to think much further, her black and blue flame clad hands wrapping around his throat as she tore him off the wall and smashed him screaming into the cement floor. Everyone was panicking, screaming for help and shouting at my wife to let him go.


Stomping a foot, I triggered Behemoth. The ground melted, rising up to wrap around the struggling vintner and fully restrain him. I channeled the heretic flame through the reinforced stone as it hardened, providing a layer of Void suppression, and his howls became angrier and more frantic.


"Bethy," I told my friend calmly. "Do me a favor and shut him up."


Her Domain flexed, and above her, a pair of colossal red eyes manifested, her natural gift for hypnosis being channeled through her Domain. It was similar to something I'd seen her do before, and to feeding through the Domain. I wasn't sure it would have worked without the heretic fire suppressing him, but it was and it did, and his form went slack, eyes glazing over as he stared up at the Domain gaze.


"Seal the room!" I snapped quickly. My people spread out, defending entry points as we herded all the strangers into the center of the space. "Sorry about that folks," I said with an apologetic smile. "Local constabulary, we're apprehending a dangerous fugitive."


They all looked skeptical, which was fair, it was bullshit, but I loved being able to use the word "constabulary".


I surveyed the people in the room. My logic was simple. We needed to seal this room. Either the Sommelier and we couldn't let them escape, or they WEREN'T and we couldn't let them find out. The Vintner might provide us some info, but he seemed pretty rabid, and I somehow doubted he was going to be cooperative. If we found the other one we would have more options. Playing them against each other for motivation, making an example, there were so many possibilities.


I strode over to kneel in front of the restrained vintner. Glancing at my wife, I nodded to him. "So, we have some questions for him. Any chance you have a way to help with that?" I wasn't sure about his position in terms of the Void. Was he possessed? Was he a traitor? Was he brainwashed from a young age?


She grimaced, shaking her head. "I can suppress the Void influence, but I don't think he's being actively controlled. I think some of them might be, and the ones who are I can probably free, but the true converts like this guy…I think my options are limited."


Looking back at Bethy, I called out to her. "Hey, can you make him tell us stuff?"


My vampire friend shook her head. "Not this guy. His brain is weird. Slippery. I'm having trouble holding on, and there's no way I can get a good enough hold to bully him into talking. Plus even if I could, that kind of thing is risky. If he decides not to bend it could break his brain, and then he'll just turn into a drooling mess."


Nodding to them, I closed my eyes, triggering Dantalion, and let the domain roll over the entire crowd. They were close together, so I didn't have to push it far. I just needed to watch and wait, and if the Sommelier was here I would find them.


Sadly, minutes went by, and though i gleaned a lot of random information from the nearby winemakers and the other tour participants we'd picked up along the way, there was nothing that would tell me for sure if any of them were with the Void. Which meant they probably weren't. I sighed, turning to Graham with a grimace as I opened my eyes. "Alright, let's have a chat about Horace and who he spends his time with." We needed to get this done soon, because I had a feeling whatever the plan was to attack the crystal depot was coming FAST. Time for some good old fashioned detective work.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Horace, as it turned out, was NOT a social creature. He didn't spend lots of time with many people, the main suspects this time only numbered a measly three. First, we had Charles, the janitor. Charles went out of his way to talk to Horace, always reaching out and trying to be friendly…but Charles talked to basically everyone. He was an extremely friendly person according to everyone on staff, and was widely beloved.


This didn't exactly clear him of suspicion. A lot of people tend to look for someone shady or out of place when searching for a spy, but often the opposite is true.


When looking for someone gathering information, friendly and outgoing people are a better pool of suspects than people who reek of suspicion. Information gathering is about listening, empathizing, and reaching out to those around you. If you want to find a spy, don't look for the creepy loner, look for the person who is always listening but never talking, the person who is always there to lend an ear and ask thought provoking questions about you.


Sadly, being nice wasn't conclusive, and it wasn't unique among our suspects, because coming in second was Sofia. Sofia was the receptionist for the shipping portion of the winery, and was apparently the object of Horace's (and several other people's) affections.


They didn't interact that much, because he didn't often get up the courage to talk to her, but she was always happy to chat with anyone and was genuinely kind to everyone on staff. She was another integral member of the winery who could go anywhere without suspicion, and would be a perfect choice for an infiltrator.


Finally, our third suspect was Barry. Barry was, as opposed to the other two, NOT a fan of Horace. He was a rival technician who was constantly at odds with our Void captive. He was actually pretty much a stereotypical bullying co-worker, but consequently the two of them interacted a LOT. All three of these people suited multiple criteria, not just proximity but wine knowledge and general capability.


The only problem was…"None of these people are in this room.," I pointed out in annoyance. "Which means we're going to have to go look for them, and while we expected that, from what I can tell they're all in different wings of this ridiculous oversized building."


Graham nodded. He'd been a huge help up to this point, once we explained why we'd captured Horace and exactly what we were doing. Obviously my crack about being "the constabulary" wasn't a valid explanation and we'd needed to actually tell them something about our purpose, but luckily, this was the heirworld. Locals KNEW the Wyndham name, and while there was a lot of political maneuvering between the various factions, everyone here knew that a Wyndham was their only ticket out, so the locals, barring betrayal to another Wyndham subfaction, generally didn't make trouble.


"Basically," he acknowledged. "Although I wouldn't describe the area where Sofia is located as a wing, more of a central hub."


"Yes," I said dryly. "That was my point. The terminology was unpleasant."


He coughed in embarrassment. "Sorry, I have a bit of a preference for exactness. It usually helps with my job."


"You need it," Bethy said breezily. "It smells like you used Valois as the core varietal for the hybridized grape strain here. Valois is way too acidic. The common thought process is that you want a balance of acid and sugar, but that's because too many people overferment. Sugar turns into alcohol during the fermentation process, so if you're not careful you end up with a super dry red with a high alcohol content, but if you lean into the acid your final product ends up without much body."


We all stared at her. She shrugged. "I'm part maenad, I know how to make wine. You guys know this."


"Fascinating as that insight into the winemaking process is," I said decisively. "We need to figure out how to get all three of those people together, preferably here, and preferably soon. That's the only way we can try to figure out the identity of the Sommelier, and HOPEFULLY flip them so we can prevent whatever tragedy that mystery backer is planning down at the crystal depot."


"We could throw a pizza party!" Bethy exclaimed brightly. "Everyone loves a pizza party. They'd all run down here at top speed."


Graham shook his head. "Wouldn't work, Sofia is allergic to tomatoes."


"How is that your main problem with that plan?" I asked in exasperation. "Nevermind, the point is we need something subtle." I paused, an idea occurring to me. "Or something very UNsubtle. Is there some kind of emergency alert you could trigger? One we could redirect so only they got it?"


He hummed contemplatively. "I mean, there's a subset of the tanks that have delton sensors on them. Delton gas is used in the process to reduce oxygen exposure, but it's not exactly safe in large concentrations. If there's a leak and it builds up, it's not only toxic but HIGHLY combustible. The first winery building was leveled in a delton explosion, so we're extremely fastidious about proactive detection."


"Can we set off the alarm without ACTUALLY blowing ourselves up?" Abel chimed in. "Because I feel like a giant explosion would put a crimp in our plans, what with the gruesome fiery deaths."


"I could most likely survive it," I shrugged. "But yeah, probably not optimal strategically."


Luckily, it didn't seem to be an issue. "No, we just need to alter the feedback data on one of the tanks. The actual delton levels won't be affected. The tricky part will be making sure only those three get notified. The delton alarms are threaded through the whole building, and when they go off standard procedure is to head to whichever wing the leak is detected from immediately to help with the suppression. There's a bunch of air purifiers that require life energy to function, and the employees use them to clear the gas pockets before the buildup reaches critical mass."


He continued speaking, filling us in on all the details. It was actually kind of interesting. Apparently the gas had a positive charge, and when the pockets expanded enough the charged molecules started bumping into each other and creating sparks. Enough of those and BOOM.


As he spoke, I approached the tank and controls, and deployed Dantalion, slowly comparing his words to what I was detecting in the machine. To my shock, I was able to actually SENSE the information. Dantalion could scan items for knowledge, but apparently active state information like data in machines could be directly interfaced with. It wasn't anything I'd ever tried before, and it required a bit of trial and error to connect, but once that was done, I was able to actively manipulate the data flow in the measurement device.


It was an interesting application of Dantalion, which had already been one of my most useful non combat forms. Sadly, I didn't interact with much machinery, so I wasn't sure how useful it would be. If I ever had to hack someone's scan ring it might come in handy.


Regardless, it only took about twenty minutes to figure out the notification process, curate the results, and then send them out to lure in our targets.


Once that was done, we all lay in wait. It didn't take long, they arrived in short order, but we didn't attack directly. Two of these people were probably totally innocent, so it wasn't really right to just jump them. Luckily, we had considered the problem and come to a quick and easy resolution. When they entered, we had Callie waiting there for them, and when she saw them, she hosed them all down with a wave of heretic fire.


While the heretic fire COULD be used for general offense when mixed with other things, it was mainly for cleansing and damaging the void and defending the soul. Not to mention Callie, as an angel, had a substantial amount of control of what her flames did.


Sure enough, they rolled over two of the targets, the two men, without incident, and only Sofia stopped and dropped to her knees with a low groan.


I triggered Behemoth, immediately capturing her and flooding the bonds with the flame. Her eyes widened, then darted from side to side, clearly looking for a way out. She spotted the rest of us, and her face crumpled. "Graham! What's going on? Help me! What is this? I didn't do anything!"


"Ah, yes," said Abel dryly. "Screaming that it wasn't you. The first action of any innocent person."


"That's not helpful," I told him with an eye roll. Sofia relaxed, and I felt compelled to add. "He's right, obviously. You're totally guilty. It's just tacky to point it out like that." I turned to my wife. "So? What's the verdict? She's not devolving into a gibbering mess and foaming at the mouth, can we flip her?"


Callie nodded. "Yeah, she doesn't seem to be a lifer. She probably just got recruited and is still in the process of conversion. The actual time necessary to achieve it varies. Like Wendell wasn't even close." At the mention of Wendell, Sofia's fearful expression cracked, collapsing to something harder and colder. Callie grinned. "Ah, there she is. Recognized the name? I'm guessing you flipped him?"


Sofia sighed. "It wasn't hard. He was a pig, and kind of a loser. His ability was pathetic outside the context of our operation. He was destined to be the designated wine guy for the rest of his life, and I told him so. Honestly, the worst part was putting up with his attempts at flirting. He was a slimeball."


"Oh, are we not doing the thing where you play dumb anymore?" I said brightly. "Fantastic. I was already sick of that. Tell us what you know about the attack on the crystal depot."


She blinked at me. "I mean…not much. I'm fucking HR. My job is to taste the wine and to recruit people for the cause. You don't tell your sales girl about your military distribution. I doubt I'd even know as much as I do if Horace didn't love to brag so much. You'd think being brainwashed by extradimensional hate aliens would diminish the need to show off. It does not."


"You know about the void and you're still working for them?" I asked dryly. "That doesn't seem counterintuitive to you?"


"What, afraid I'll ruin my bright future stranded in the slums of a ruthless prison world?" she sneered. "Not like I have much to lose. I'm stuck on my Solid Path. Can't get it to form. I'll NEVER hit C-rank as I am. Maybe I'll get brainwashed, but even so, I'll have a future. Or, y'know, I would have. Except I got caught. So…sucks to beme."


That was not ideal. It meant she had no information we could use. But I had a thought. "You put the Void taint in the wine, presumably to sway others, but to actually PRODUCE the Void taint you need concentrated misery. This doesn't seem like the place for that, which means you need to be GETTING it from somewhere. Do you have shipments?"


I could smell lies, but I realized that I hadn't ASKED her if she knew where the attack was being staged from. I asked what she knew about it. And she'd said not much. Which was an incredibly subjective answer. Sure enough, at my new line of questioning, she tensed. "I…yeah. Yeah I do. I pick up the Void liquid in a cave."


"You're going to take us there," I said triumphantly. "Tonight." I turned to Devlan, who was already nodding, turning away to try to contact his incoming forces. Now that we had a possible break point, we needed to move quickly. If we couldn't prevent the initial Void attack they'd screw up OUR attack, either by taking all the crystal of forcing them to beef up security. Sofia, meanwhile, looked terrified by the whole idea. Well, she's been right after all. Sucked to be her.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

With the two traitors taken care of, we turned Horace over to Devlan. Sofia, meanwhile, led us deep into the belly of the winery in preparation for her delivery. Which brought up a question that had been nagging at me. "So…how does this work?" I asked as we walked. She was in front, and we were all prepared to end her if she stepped out of line, so she was naturally being incredibly obedient as a captive.


"What? The accumulation?" She asked cheerfully. "They send it up from the bottom of the chasm and we add it to the wine."


"Not that part," I said with a shake of my head. "From the other side. There's no logical reason to spread the wine like that unless there's some way to gather the resulting misery. Wine from one winery isn't nearly pervasive enough to be a viable infiltration strategy, so you're not weakening the city for an attack, at least not ONLY that. Which means you must be gaining something. So there's got to be some reciprocity. How are you harvesting the resulting negative emotions the wine causes."


As we talked, she led us deep into the building, and finally, we turned into a large dark warehouse, and she gestured smugly into the room as we stepped through the door. "See for yourself."


I looked around…and my jaw dropped. "This is…a bottling facility?"


"A RECYCLING plant," she corrected. "We offer cash incentives and bulk discounts if purchasers recycle their bottles with us. We even pay on an individual basis. People all over the city scour their trash for our bottles, flocking to the winery to return them to us. Normally it would be a terrible business model, but the Void taint is habit forming, so people keep buying from us, and it offsets some of the cost."


I stared at her in horrified awe. "You…you enchanted the bottles? They're some kind of gathering artifact that siphons off the generated negativity from the surroundings? And by using the recycling as an excuse you essentially force the locals to collect the accumulated despair FOR you. That's…that's so evil. And really brilliant. But mostly evil."


"What is evil?" she shrugged. "To the Void, we're evil. We muck up their peaceful universe with our noise pollution. Anyway, you guessed it. Each of these bottles accumulates despair, which can be processed into Void taint. The taint is much more refined, but is actually LESS dense than the despair, so you can make about five bottles worth of Void taint for every full bottle of despair."


"And then you transport these down to the chasm, where whoever is down there processes them and sends up full bottles of Void taint, which you then spike into the wine," I said sourly, finishing her thought. "I'm guessing there's a lot of extra too. That's probably how they made that shallowing."


Callie frowned. "That's…that's not good." I raised an eyebrow at her, and she explained. "Creating Void taint is a natural mechanism most of the time. You essentially just increase the density of misery in a given area, then add in some reactive materials like the bone coins for it to infuse. But given the size of this city and the sophistication of the operation, they aren't passively gathering the stuff. They have someone who can HARVEST and REFINE it. There's a Filthsmith down there."


"Ok, so, I don't know what that is, but I feel almost certain it's a bad thing," I said glibly as I took in her tone. "Care to educate me?"


"Filthsmiths are special Ascendants who can process Void taint," she explained. "They're like…the opposite of purification specialists. Their whole powerset revolves around corruption. Kind of like Belial, but more Void specific. Utility wise, this is extremely annoying, but their combat power is pretty scary too. They can infuse Void taint into creatures to empower them."


Grimacing, I turned to Sofia. "When exactly is the next shipment due for delivery?" I'd told her we were going tonight, but if the next dropoff was soon, it would be easier to bullshit our way close enough to investigate without being discovered.


"Tonight," she admitted. "We have pretty fast turnover, given how much Void taint needs to be processed."


"What I want to know," said Abel solemnly. "Is who OWNS this place? Because there's no way this whole thing is going on without the owner being part of it. Slipping it by the employees is one thing, but whoever this building belongs to had to have been involved in setting this up in the first place."


Sofia shrugged. "Cameron Thistle. It used to belong to his uncle Carlisle, but the old boss had a mysterious accident before I started. You might be right, honestly, but I've never seen him myself."


"Because he's a member of the City Lord's family," Devlan said in a grim tone. "He married in ages ago. Last I heard, he was in charge of the mining depot."


"So the Void have been planning this for a while," I said grimly. Which meant they either knew the vanished gods were coming, or more likely, had always been looking for ways to deal with the six and had just launched their plans early to take advantage of the war. Swell.


Shaking, my head, I focused on the present issue. "Well, how do we get this stuff to the chasm. I assume there's some kind of tunnel or something?"


This whole city was built on a cave system, so the chances of the Void having a direct route to the pickup point were high. It was the only way I could think of for them to make consistent exchanges like that without it being WAY too obvious.


Strolling over to the back of the bottling warehouse, Sofia stopped in front of a shelf, reaching up, she yanked on a couple of seemingly loose fittings and hinges, getting a series of clicks as the snapped into place, then kicked the shelf. There was a low whoosh, and the metal shelving slid in and then down, flattening as it went, the shelves clicking into place as a flight of corrugated metal stairs.


"There's a couple of carts on tracks down there," she informed us helpfully. "I load them up with bottles and then ride along to the meeting place. They unload them, reload the full bottles of Void taint, and then I bring them back for Horace to infuse into the tanks."


I nodded. "Ok, then we can head down there to meet up with them."


"You COULD…" she said slyly. "But if you did, they might notice the carts are empty. So the safest way to do it would be to go about our business as usual, then follow them back down when they returned with the bottles. Right? Like you're planning to raid the place, so you need to do recon before your people arrive."


I sighed. "Are you trying to get us to do MANUAL LABOR for you? You're our PRISONER!"


"I prefer to think of myself as an aggressive guest," she chirped. "But until you actually attack them, I'll be in danger if I don't maintain the impression that I'm still serving the cause, so I obviously need to maintain my cover if you don't want to give away the game."


Squinting at her darkly, I ground out. "Do you, by any chance, get PAID for these deliveries?"


"Of course," she said with a serious tone. "Otherwise why would I work for them? You can't function in Yettin without money, and I'm very handsomely compensated. Of course, I could refuse that payment or avoid it somehow, but that would definitely tip them off that something was wrong. I would never miss a payday."


Devlan whistled in awe. "Damn, that's not bad. Blackmailing your captors into doing your work for you. Talk to me if you survive this, I might have a job for someone with your flexibility and cleverness." We all turned to glare at him, and he shrugged. "Game recognizes game. Being able to turn the tables on us in this citation is impressive. Plus she's right. Our forces won't be gathered for hours yet, and the more information we can get on their base the better we can do with our initial raid."


More than that, if we could take them out fast enough, we could identify and capitalize on whatever weakness they were planning to exploit in the depot. Hopefully less violently, considering they were the Void and were probably planning to kill a bunch of people, but still, it would make our job MUCH easier.


So, with a sight, we got to work. Abel and I started the process of lifting and transporting the crates. They weren't exactly heavy in the traditional sense, but they were still D-rank crates, so the weight of the Impact was still there. And there were a LOT of them. The carts were actually more like train cars, and we had to fill every single one. The crates were stacked to the ceiling and there were easily thousands of them across the several cars. Even with our whole group helping it took like an hour.


When we finally finished, we climbed onto one of the cars that hadn't been completely filled, and I triggered Murmur, covering us all and completely erasing all traces of our existence. I left Sofia visible, obviously, and once we were all set, she forced us to wait another two hours to justify her own bottle loading speed, something that enraged Abel and made Devlan laugh.


Finally, she tapped a button on the panel in the car we were in, and the cars all took off down the track at a decent clip. We spend maybe a half hour on the route, making multiple turns and doubling back several times, before we finally pulled to a stop in a big open cavern. Off the cavern was a web bridge, and to my surprise, an entire dock structure had been secured into the wall of the cliff, with a similar platform to the one in the fortress (albeit much higher quality and much more modern) hanging out over the abyss below.


As we dismounted, Sofia strode confidently up to the man in the bowler hat waiting for us. He had a round pale face (though it had a perpetual blush around the cheeks), a bushy mustache, and crafty look in his blue eyes. "Terrance," she said with a sigh. "Nice to see you, as always. You have my money?"


The man pouted, which was not a good look on him. "Sofia, must you be so cold? We're co-workers. I think you'd like me if you got to know me. I can advance you next shipment's pay if you'd like to use it to share a meal." He gave her a slimy smile that I suspected was meant to be ingratiating.


"Sadly, you'd have to pay me at least triple that to convince me to spend more than a few minutes in your presence, so there wouldn't be any left over for the food." Her tone was icy and poisonously sweet, like a cyanide popsicle.


His eyes flashed in anger, but he didn't let it show on his face, maintaining an indulgent smile. "Very well, perhaps next time. Boys!" He snapped, and about a dozen hunched, furry creatures with black, matted fur and flowing blue eyes loped off the platform towards the cars. They began unloading them, stacking the crates on the empty rock floor of the chamber before returning to pick up yet more crates from the platform and carry them back to replace the ones in the cars.


As they did so, I escorted my people over to the lift platform, this one the size of a large room, and we took up a position in the corner of the lift. When they finished loading the new bottles and stashed the old one in the platform with us, the round faced man smiled snidely at Sofia, and then returned to the lift, throwing a lever. The last thing I saw as we descended into the abyss was the woman counting her money. Maybe it didn't suck to be her after all.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The lift lowered slowly. I didn't know why, maybe it was because of the attraction force from the infinity crystals, but clearly, they were wary about us descending too quick. Terrence the bowler hat guy was clearly unenthused with this pace, as he sat unhappily on the box nearest to the center, muttering to either himself or the…Void weres? Whatever the hunched furry things were.


"Cocky little bitch," he hissed as he kicked casually out at one of the monsters. "Thinks she's so special because she gets to come and go. Thinks she's too good for me. Once this job is over, we'll see what's left of her." He sneered at one of the closest monsters. "You thought you were special too, didn't you mutt? I wonder if she'll turn out like you did?"


I doubted she was still around. If Sofia had any common sense she'd have booked it out of Yettin first thing. I wasn't planning on chasing her, she'd helped us get this far, and honestly I had bigger problems. But I didn't like how creepy and vindictive Terrence was, so I decided to take him out when we raided whatever was down there. Callie, detecting my emotions through the bond, nodded solemnly. Some people just deserved to die.


We listened to him seethe and whine for another half hour before the lift began to slow. "Bethy, do you mind scouting ahead?" I asked her quietly, staring intently at the mist coating the bottom of the chasm. Outside the lift, the floor of the gap was completely concealed in fog, which meant Bethy could move perfectly undetected down there, in a state of absolute stealth even more flawless than her usual sneakiness.


I was positive this was a better idea than me going in person, mostly because I could sense extreme danger from that mist. The lift seemed isolated from it, but the closer we got the more my Danger Sense screamed at me not to touch that stuff. Luckily, Bethy's mist form was pretty impervious to most things, so she should be safe to go out there. Devlan seemed to know what it was and didn't object to her going, so I took that as a good sign too.


She nodded happily. "Um, duh! Exploring a secret treasure cave sounds like so much fun! I bet there's a temple down here. Treasure caves always have temples."


I recoiled. "Don't even SAY that! Temples are the worst. I've never had a good time in a temple. If there IS a temple down here, you come back and tell us and we'll leave. Don't get close to it, they're always really weird and dangerous." She pouted, but I repeated myself firmly. "Bethy. Seriously. This is important. It's not safe, promise if you find something like that you'll come back." I held up a hand, extending my little finger. "Pinky promise."


Gasping, Bethy flinched. "That's…so excessive." At my implacable, silence, she sighed and extended her hand, locking her pinky with mine. Then, as we finally came to a stop, she turned to mist and flowed out of the lift.


"Pinky promise?" Said Abel acidly. "Seriously?"


I snorted. "What do you know? Pinky promises are part of the honor of the modern age. Pinky promises, dibs, nose goes, and shotgun. These are the foundations of human trust. If you can't abide by the conventions of the honorable modern gentleman, you might as well be a beast scrambling around in the mud."


Callie sighed. "He and Benny take those kinds of things really seriously," she explained, entirely unnecessarily. "I'm still not totally sure it's not partly contract related recursion."


I rolled my eyes, but generously declined to comment on her spurious accusations. "Anyway. They're unloading the boxes, and that'll take a while. I'm hoping Bethy can get us a decent picture of what's going on out there. I can't really perceive anything outside the lift for some reason. It's like my Perception is getting lost in the mist. It just sinks in and dissolves. Even Murmur can't bypass is."


"That's infinity mist," Devlan informed me helpfully. "It's…hard to explain. Think of it like every drop of water is a VERY small pocket dimension. Like…an inch, maybe. They congregate together into that mist around infinity crystals, as a byproduct of their existence. Most Perception abilities don't work around them."


I cursed internally. I was familiar with the mechanism, it reminded me of the space isolation trick our friend Anna had used back during our army training in the empire. I knew spatial phenomena could cause problems with stealth and Perception, but I hadn't realized it would be an issue down here. "What about Bethy?" I asked worriedly. "She's mist right now, is she going to be swallowed up by the pocket dimensions?"


"She won't be affected," he assured me. "That's part of the reason I recruited you to help me move the crystals. She has a Domain, which is its own spatial anomaly, and a much higher level one. Her Domain is part of her, and will render her basically immune to the mist and any other side effects of the crystals."


I sighed in relief. "Alright, good. Once she gets back, she can take us further in. They have to have some way to resist the mist in there. Speaking of which, how are they moving through it so easily?" I gestured to the monsters unloading the crates.


"Void is the opposite of space," Callie said with a sigh. "Void energy has some strange interactions with spatial energy. I'm guessing that's what they want the infinity crystals for, so it makes sense the Void creatures would be resistant to whatever spatial erosion that mist can cause. I assume that's what it does?"


Paying closer attention, I could kind of feel it. The particles in the mist were…heavy, drawing in the space around them. That was the cause of the insane pressure in the chasm, this huge bank of infinity mist was dragging all the space above us down. It didn't seem to be affecting the actual stone around us though. I was guessing constant exposure over a long period of time had hardened the stone against to an insane degree.


In fact, I wondered if maybe this chasm hadn't been so deep to start. Maybe the mist had compressed the bottom slowly downward until it was too solid to go any deeper.


Whatever the case, this lift was warded against the mist somehow, so we could only stay and wait for Bethy. "How did you expect us to rob the depot with this shit around?" I asked Devlan. "Just relying on Bethy?"


"Mostly," he admitted. "But there's also some warded passages that allow people to move around down here. It took us DECADES to get any sort of information on the security arrangements, and that's basically all we know. We'll need your vampire friend to pull off this raid, but the mist is thicker than I thought, so we might be in luck. It SHOULD isolate our attack on their base so the depot won't notice it."


That was probably the only silver lining here. I'd been worrying about whether we could pull this off. Still, I was feeling better about this raid. Bethy was basically the perfect counter to this mist, and without her this place would be basically unassailable. There was no way there people had maintained any vigilance at the bottom of this giant ass chasm surrounded by crushing death mist.


We waited for the monsters to finish unloading the lift, with Terrence sitting around shouting insults and throwing things at them. Honestly I was feeling bad for the creatures, they looked kind of confused, and despite being Void monsters they didn't seem hostile. Knowing they might have been people before maybe made them more sympathetic, but still, the whole scene convinced me even more thoroughly that Terrence deserved to die.


When the crates were done, Terrence sneered at the monsters and chased them away from the entrance, then slipped on a ring. The ring was pitch black, and as he put it on, a black mist emerged from the band that flowed over his body. A very familiar black mist with a very unsettling feeling coming off it.


As he stepped into the infinity mist, the black mist from the ring clashed against it, creating a sound like water poured into a hot pan, but he remained otherwise unharmed as he strode into the depths of the fog.


Only minutes later, some mist slipped through the entrance of the lift, undisturbed by whatever force was keeping the infinity mist out of the lift. Within moments, it reformed into Bethy, who was hopping up and down yelping. "Ouch, ouch, ouch! Pins and needles, pins and needles EVERYWHERE! Gods WHY?"


"Bethy?" I asked worriedly. "Are you ok?"


She shook her whole body like a wet dog. "Ouch. I'm fine. It just stings. Like my whole body fell asleep when it was mist. Give me a second." She breathed through the pain, hissing in discomfort for another minute, and then finally sighed in relief. "Alright. It's gone. That SUCKED. This place is terrible. And there wasn't even a temple, just a dumb house in the middle of a cave."


"A house?" I asked with interest. "Is the area around it clear of mist?"


She nodded absently. "Yeah, there's a big open space surrounding it. The house is small, but pretty nice. I saw that jerk in the hat go in there a minute or two ago. I guess thats where the boss guy is."


"I'd assume so," I said with a grimace. "Look, I don't want to ask but…"


"You want me to carry you guys into the empty space?" She asked, her smile knowing. "I figured. I'm not too worried about it. The mist doesn't feel good, but it didn't damage me or anything, it just stings. Sit tight guys!" There was a flicker, and we were standing in a field of black grass outside a castle under a blood red sky.


We waited for only a few minutes before another flicker had us standing in a cave, positioned behind a large rock. Off to one side, I could see a wall of mist. On closer inspection, I realized the "wall" was more of a fabric, with thin tendrils of mist woven into a strange pattern.


"Formation," I said with dawning understanding. "They aren't stopping the mist, they're using it to stop itself, directing it into a formation that creates the warding effect. That's smart." I glanced around, worried someone might have noticed us. As soon as we appeared I'd applied Murmur, but it was highly possible someone noticed our appearance before I triggered it. Luckily, Bethy had set us down behind a rock that blocked us from view, so we were pretty safe from notice.


"Alright," I told my friends as we stepped out into the cave. "Time to poke around. Obviously stay close, but point out anything you notice. We're going to put together a comprehensive map of this place for our team when they arrive."


Everyone nodded, and we emerged from behind the rock, doing a circuit of the empty cavern, slowly closing in on the house. Sure enough, that had been a smart call. While they didn't maintain vigilance that I could see, they DID have passive traps set up. Murmur allowed us to bypass them, but I had to slow down, processing the information needed to detect each trap as we went closer.


Finally, we arrived outside the house, and I posted up next to the window, looking in to find an older man with a lionlike mane of grey hair and a neatly trimmed goatee sitting at a table, already working on a wine bottle he appeared to be siphoning black mist out of.


I let Murmur seep into the area, slowly learning more and more about the place, but when it became clear he wasn't going to do anything else, I stepped back and turned to my friends. "Ok, that should be everything. Lets get back up to the surface to meet with Devlan's people. I want to get this raid finished as soon as possible." After that…we had some crystals to steal.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

We arranged for the incoming backup to meet us at the club. I'd wanted to send them to the top of the lift, but without access to the winery, there wasn't an easy way to find that spot in the caves, and them entering the way we had might tip off the Filthsmith.


Honestly, it was way more people than we needed for the raid on the Void tainted base. But it definitely wasn't more than we needed for the depot…which made me wonder, had we missed some of the Filthsmith's assets? Did he have a secret army up his sleeve? Our scan had been thorough, but I hadn't detected anything that would let him contend with such a huge force. I was missing something.


The incoming D-rankers weren't as many as expected. Only a hundred had been called from the surrounding spoke cities, but they were all peak D-rank, and all with a Solid Path as far as I could tell.


"So, you're expecting us to…what?" Demanded a tall red haired man with wild spikes. "Attack a random Void outpost for no reason?"


Devlan sneered at him. "No, Clement, we expect you to follow orders. The boss sent you here to back us up, and as such, you're intended to actually ACT as backup. You'll do as instructed, and let us worry about the Void. We have experts on hand to take care of it."


That seemed to shut him up, to my amazement, and we all filed into Bethy's Domain, preparing to set off. Sure enough, Bethy was able to get down through the winery and into the caves without trouble, infiltrating as mist, and within about an hour we were back down in the cavern, stationed behind that same rock. Bethy only let a few of us out, since if we brought everyone it would be way too obvious someone was there, but with just a few I was able to use Murmur to protect us.


Once we'd scoped everything out, we started slowly releasing people, letting me cover them with Murmur little bits at a time. As we did, we gameplanned.


We made a rough outline of what we should do, and when everyone was out and prepared (I was BARELY able to hold on with five hundred people inside my domain), I proceeded with the first part of the plan. Wrath.


Specifically, I created a massive lake of burning ash infused with the heretic fire surrounding the house, using Chelsea's diagram to merge together the various powers closest to me to let me REALLY pour in the fire. Before our eyes, the ground began to dissolve, disintegrating into dust, and the air around it began to heat up as the heretic fire infused it alongside the destructive flames of Mephistopheles.


As we did this, I dropped Murmur, both out of necessity and because I didn't need it anymore. All five hundred of my people blitzed forward. The ring of ash surrounding the house was maybe one or two hundred feet, and they all knew about it in advance, so they were more than up to just jumping it.


The reason I'd used the attack, aside from environmental advantage, was because Murmur had finally picked up on some of the defenses I'd missed last time. Knowing they had to be there, I knew there were only so many places that I hadn't examined. Sure enough, I'd found that there were more of those Void monsters. Hundreds of them. All sleeping under the ground in stasis.


Wrath tore through their ranks, burning a majority of them alive. I winced at the necessity, since I had no idea if they could be saved from the Void, but I suspected they were a lost cause at this point, and we didn't exactly have the time to experiment.


It was a good thing I'd done that though, because it quickly became clear that underground wasn't the only place there were hiding. There was an inhuman screech from above us, and I looked up to see stalactites crumbling away, hunched hairy forms emerging from above, these ones with wings that they spread as they dropped down on us, gliding toward my advancing forces.


To my shock, several burning hands also erupted from the ash, and at least a dozen of the monsters ACTUALLY managed to climb out of the mire.


Callie grimaced from beside me. "My heretic fire isn't dense enough. It needs to be refined. Just like normal flame, there are levels of intensity. Mine is fine for ethereal stuff and basic Void spawn, but these things have been BAKED in Void taint. Seemingly for years. There's almost no human left, but there's also not…anything else. It's just like layers of Void."


I grimaced. Elder Voidspawn, swell. Sighing, I spun up my staff, ready to attack, and moved to head out to meet them.


This time though, I didn't merge my power with the others. I'd been noticing lately that my combat strategy had become almost exclusively group based. That was good, because it let me utilize my people to the largest extent, taking advantage of my biggest advantage as a candidate…but I was still an Ascendant. Not being able to actively contribute to combat was starting to bother me a lot.


Which was why I was about to debut something I'd been working on for quite a while. A new form specialized in single combat. Or rather, a new pseudo Domain.


I started with Sammael, obviously, added a dash of Mephistopheles, then Mornax and Agares, added some heretic fire, threw in Afterburner to make it spicy, and then, I started to SHAPE. Instead of just throwing it all into a blender, I decided to craft my narrative for this form as I went. A blink had me inside the library, and I cleared the table, grabbing a bunch of different volumes.


Writing out the details didn't take long, I'd been considering this for ages. Being able to do it so quickly was entirely a factor of the library and the staff, which I used to process all the information that I needed.


My eyes, opened, and my staff flashed as I took to the air, and I blurred through space, appearing behind a pair of monsters, grinning like a lunatic as they literally fell to pieces.


I swung my staff, flicking sizzling blood off the new addition at the end. A blade of amplified and condensed destructive fire, mixed with heretic flame and amplified by Afterburner. It was shaped from burning ash, sharpened to a razors edge, and blazing with the most deadly power I could bring to bear. Around me, dust armor was condensed in a suit of midnight armor, even bigger than my normal plate, elevating me to a legitimate seven feet, my now armored wings stretched behind me, every feather a weapon.


Mephisto's Waltz fired, and I vanished in bursts of black flame, tearing through the sky as I did. Mornax, through Sammael, extended its roots into the sky around me, giving me the defensive prowess of my Mountain Stance without needing to plant my feet, and Mephistopheles granted me explosive power even as it created an almost unblockable blade, converting my staff temporarily to a halberd.


A roar echoed through the chamber, a dozen of the monsters focusing on me and diving to attack. I didn't even blink. I brought my halberd to bear, defending flawlessly, batting them away as they rushed me. One or two got through, but they broke on my armor.


"Eighth circle of hell," I intoned devilishly. "Glory." I felt AMAZING. The power thundering through me was beyond what I could have imagined in a single combat ability. I'd lucked into that effect, by making Glory a body amplification ability through Mephistopheles and Sammael, but more than that, through iterating with the staff. Wisdom of Solomon hadn't just combined the abilities, it had combined them PERFECTLY.


Mornax didn't just strengthen my shell, it had infused my bones, amplifying the upper limits of what my body could handle, even as Sammael, Afterburner, and Mephistopheles POURED physical power into me to fill that reservoir.


Most of my abilities had tricks to them, unique twists, but Glory wasn't like that at all. It was just overwhelming physical domination. Raw strength exploding inside every cell like a miniature sun of black destructive fire. I roared in exultation, flickering across the battlefield, tearing through any monsters I found. The heretic fire made it SO simple, just a flick of my weapon would turn them to mincemeat.


I spun, raising my weapon, and stopped cold. Callie was hovering nearby, wings beating and a concerned look on her face. I grimaced, shaking my head a bit and forcing down that bit of recursion. I hadn't meant to do that. Using the Wisdom of Solomon to iterate a form I had already started assembling had overwhelmed me for a second. All that mythology filling up the design so quickly had kind of swept me away.


"Sorry," I chuckled as I let myself drift to the ground.


She shrugged. "You're good, had me worried for a second but you brought it back." She grinned wickedly. "Not to mention how BADASS that was, you tore through those things like a sledgehammer through wet paper." She gestured around us at the shredded remains of the monsters. "But we need you to fix that lake of fire so we can get to the base. We could jump it, but there's not enough room to land five hundred people."


I laughed, scratching my head with embarrassment as I turned and dismissed Wrath. I kept Glory active as I touched down and approached the house. Abel whistled as he caught up to us, covered in blood and grinning like a maniac. "Wow, that was bracing. We should do this more often. Bitchin' form by the way, Shane. I want to fight it."


"Maybe some other time," I said dryly. "Kind of busy right now. Mel, can you put a leash on him?"


The red masked fire mistress had been hanging back with Chelsea for their combo attack, but once we'd taken out most of the monsters, she'd quickly approached. She snorted helplessly. "Don't I wish. But sadly no. It's like owning a particularly absentminded cat. He does whatever he wants, but luckily he often forgets what that IS, so I can usually steer him. During combat though, he's laser focused, even if I wish he wasn't."


"What a hurtful thing to say!" He hasped in faux outrage. "I have NEVER been so…sorry this is boring me can I punch something yet?"


We all laughed. The sole exception, Callie, sighed as she stepped closer to the small house. She reached up to run her hand over the area ahead of us, and it ignited with blue black flame as it got close. She pulled it back with an annoyed hiss. "Nope. Because we can't get in. This place is surrounded with a sphere of hyperdense Void taint. I can burn it off, but it'll take ages. Classic Filthsmith." She turned to my sister with a vindictive grin. "You ready?"


Chelsea snorted. "I was born ready. Get everyone prepared. How many fire users do we have down here?"


"Plenty," my wife said gleefully. "As many as you can handle."


We put out the call, and a hundred or so people approached, grouping up near my sister. She raised her arms, manifesting her diagram, and I felt power being pulled out of me. I gave freely, pouring both heretic fire and Afterburner into the working.


Mel stepped forward, crafting a giant spike in the air above us from flame. Heretic fire, flames of purification, every possible flame poured into the spike, slightly strengthening it without actually robbing it of its inherent nature. Finally, Mel shifted the giant construct over the top of the house, aiming the point of the spike down at it on an angle.


My wife turned to Abel, beaming smugly as she gestured to the angled spike, a big flat area at the top clearly made for striking. "Now," she said vindictively as her eyes pierced the base, staring at the FIlthsmith through his defenses. "NOW, you can punch something."

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The sphere of pure Void corruption (or was that an oxymoron?) cracked like an egg under the spike as Abel's Ragam Blood Body hammered it in with a devastating punch. On contact, it split, and the spike dissolved, consumed along with the Void taint as both of them burned off. Inside, the Filthsmith stared in horror as we kicked the door in, rushing inside.


Stomping my foot, I triggered Agares, dissolving the floor and using the dust to form the same shackles I'd used earlier, infused with heretic fire.


Freezing, his eyes widened, and he jerked against the bonds several times before stopping, staring mutinously around at us. "What ARE you people?" He demanded. "This is…this is preposterous. All of our countermeasures, our defenses, you just…ignored them. What have you DONE? How DARE you?" His eyes finally focused on the bindings, and they widened even more. "What? You're…HERETIC! HERETICS IN THE CHASM!" His voice rose in pitch, becoming a screech of alarm, like he was trying to notify someone we were here.


Which…he didn't. Even if there had been anyone to listen, I had us under Murmur. Nothing he was saying was going anywhere.


I sighed, turning to Bethy. "Think you could do the thing?"


She shrugged, turning to stare at him. Behind her, her Domain expanded, taking the form of a pair of blood red eyes. The eyes bore down on the man, burning into his soul, and I was standing so close I could FEEL the pressure she was putting him under.


Shockingly though, he didn't buckle. He just sneered at us. "Pathetic parasite. My mind belongs to the great darkness beyond the stars. I have been subjected to sights and knowledge your feeble mind can't even begin to comprehend. Your paltry mind tricks cannot breach the sanctity of my enlightened brain."


I walked up to him, humming as I leaned down to look into his eyes. Then I hauled back and slapped him across the face with a blue black flaming hand. He squawked falling over backwards. Everyone stared at me, and I shrugged. "What? Sometimes stuff starts working when you hit it." Especially given the heretic fire. I hadn't slapped him that hard anyway.


"Anyone have lightning powers?" asked my mentor brightly. "We could try turning him off and back on again."


"Love the energy," I complimented him. "Not super ok with killing an unarmed captive, even temporarily, but great stuff. If you want to kill someone go off Terrence. He's on my list anyway." I paused, looking around. "Actually where IS Terrence?"


My sister raised her hand. "If you're talking about the guy with the bowler hat that was me. Sorry. I knocked him into the lake of fire. He never came back up."


"Sucks for you," I told Abel mercilessly. "Looks like Chelsea beat you to it."


He shrugged. "Not really my scene anyway. I was mostly joking about killing this one. Senseless death is such a waste. I like my deaths to make sense. Stick me in a ring and only let one of us leave. That's the good shit."


"You're a deeply disturbing person," I informed him cheerfully. "You should seek professional help."


He hummed with interest. "Like a booking agent? That might be useful, actually."


"Call of the VOID!" screamed the Filthsmith. "I'll TALK! Just please stop BANTERING at each other! I can't take it anymore! You're so annoying!"


I flinched. "Whoa," I said in a hurt tone. "That's pretty hostile. I mean, honestly if that's your attitude I don't know if I even WANT your information anymore. I bet it's not even that important anyway."


"Shane," Callie said in a reprimanding tone. "Don't be petty. Of course you want his information."


The Filthsmith, still annoyed, blinked rapidly, his eyes fogging for a second before they cleared. Behind Bethy, the red eyes of her Domain flickered slightly in a low,soothing pattern. My wife turned to him, smiling kindly. "Mr. Smith, please. Finish your thought. I'm so sorry my husband interrupted you."


He blinked again, eyes flickered. "Of course. I…yes. I can forgive the impetuousness. How kind of you. My…thought. I was…telling you the truth about this place?"


This was a new technique Bethy had been working on with Crell before we'd split with the C-rankers. We'd known her hypnosis wasn't likely to work at all times, so the Legendary Doubt Master had been teaching our vampire a few new ways to apply those abilities.


She smiled happily at the captive. "Of course, you want to tell us everything," she said, her voice layered with soothing, enticing vibration. "How else will we know how amazing your masters are. You have to educate us on their greatness. Heretics and blasphemers like us could never understand their shining glory. But if you guide us down the right path, you could bring them even greater benefits."


"Yes," he drawled blankly. "Philistines. To show you the truth of their undying perfection would be the greatest act of merit." He smiled dopily. "You'll be so in awe of their genius. The construction of the Void Ladder will be our grea-" he didn't even finish the word. The second he uttered the phrase 'Void Ladder', he tipped back his head, cutting off the rest of his sentence with a high pitched scream as darkness erupted from his mouth, eyes, nose, and ears.


Torrents of dark energy poured from him, and Callie stepped forward, waving a hand to conjure her heretic fire to counter it, burning the stuff away as it came. It took a surprisingly long time. When it finished, she stared down at the body, looking…disturbed.


"You ok?" I asked her gently. "That was sudden, I know, but-"


"It's not that," she said worriedly. "It was the last thing he said. I know what a Void Ladder is. And if they're building one on this planet…this is bad, Shane. This is REALLY bad." Her voice was shaky, her eyes alight with panic as she tried to form coherent words for what she knew. I put a hand on her shoulder, squeezing it as I pushed my love and support through the bond. She closed her eyes, exhaling heavily, and smiled as she opened them. "Thanks hon', I really needed that."


"Any time," I beamed. "Now, how about you tell me what the hell is going on?"


Callie's disturbed look returned. "A Void Ladder is kind of the opposite of a shallow. It's a method to pull a piece of realspace into the Void. Normally it's done to places with spatial isolation like the dungeon, but the formations around the heirworld are probably enough to count."


I frowned. "I mean, why would they bother though? The Void wants to wipe out realspace to quit their territory. Why would they bring the heirworld into the Void on purpose. Isn't that just dumping a bunch of trash in their own yard?"


"It's the candidates," my wife said, her eyes widening. "Wishmaster candidates are almost impossible to get ahold of. You move around constantly, most of you have guardians, and the Void's presence in realspace is minimal. Catching one or two is maybe possible, but the strongest will most likely be protected. Godworlds are in the Void, but they're not actually OF the Void. The god in question has complete dominion, so anything inside is basically untouchable. Void invasions of godworlds rarely accomplish anything, because worst case the god can just send anyone they want to out of the Void before the local forces accomplish anything."


"Which makes this a perfect opportunity to attack us en masse," I finished with a grimace. "The heirworld is cut off from support. If it gets dragged into the Void, every candidate is at the mercy of the Void forces. There's a lot of powerful people here, but the Void is endless. Once we're over there, they can bury us in bodies."


She nodded solemnly. "We need to get in touch with your grandparents. They can alert the elders up in the station. But we can't leave now. The infinity crystals are a key component in the construction of the Void Ladder. I don't believe for a second this was the only operation targeting them. The Void always uses redundancies. I wouldn't be surprised if there were traitors embedded in the depot protection detail just in case."


"We can't contact them from down here either," I said with a grimace. "The mist makes any sort of communication impossible. Even if I used a wish, the cost would be mindboggling because of the interference, there's no way any of us have the juice to grant that wish."


Which meant we had to do this on our own and worry about reporting in later. When this had just been a slight chance of mild void subversion, I could justify keeping the WCP leadership out of it. We didn't know who had been turned, and contacting the station could be dangerous for us. But now…this was going to be a fucking nightmare. We needed help.


Not to mention I knew this wouldn't END the succession war. This was the most important tradition the Wish Curse Palace had, there was no way it would be delayed. The succession war could be moved up, but never postponed. Not even the god war had been enough reason for that.


I turned to look out the window at the boiling must being held at bay by twisting strands. "Alright. We hit the depot first, snag the crystals and keep them away from the Void. Once we finish that we get our asses topside and contact my grandparents, then head for the C-rank area. My cousin Felicity should be there, along with some of our other forces, and the backup will be helpful."


What I REALLY wanted was to speedrun to the inner zone where my parents were waiting, but I knew that I'd have to do tasks as I went to accrue points. Points were how I could recruit more locals, and I wasn't naive enough to believe that a Void invasion would make my crazy family members stop squabbling and band together. I needed to prepare for this possible calamity AND win this damned war. Fantastic.


Luckily, five hundred people couldn't fit in this fucking house, so most of them were still outside cleaning up. I was also erasing the traces of this conversation with Murmur, so no one had overheard. I turned to Devlan, the one local who HAD been involved. "So…you freaking out yet?"


He shrugged. "I don't LOVE the sound of what's going on, but I've dealt with worse. It's just the threat of death or captivity. For a chance to get off this godsforsaken rock I'd risk much more."


"Good to hear," I laughed. "Animal, I want you in charge of the locals. I trust you, and I noticed them giving you some intimidated looks. Can you keep them in line?" The redhead Clement was kind of a dick, and I didn't trust him to stay on task during this raid. The last thing we needed was some showboat going rogue. Well. Another showboat. When I went rogue it was charming and practical.


We headed outside, lining up in the formations we could cobble together before Bethy took everyone into her Domain. I had her leave Callie and I outside when she did though, just to check in. "You doing ok?" I asked her before we set off. "No pins and needles?"


She beamed at me, shaking herself all over like she was doing some weird dance. "Nope, all loosey goosey. I'm totally good to go."


Nodding, we had her bring us inside, and then we were off. She didn't share her view through the moon, which she'd explained earlier was because the visual feedback of being a mist in a weird collection of particle sized pocket dimension was jarring and uncomfortable, and that trying to display it would hurt.


As we waited, I reached down to grab my wife's hand, squeezing it tightly. This whole thing made me even more aware of how much we needed to hurry up her progression. I was going to start looking into acquiring the elixirs for D-rank, because the extra hundred thousand points was bound to help. We both needed to be stronger as soon as possible to be ready for what was coming.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

We emerged from Bethy's Domain in yet another cave. Not shocking, since we were at the bottom of a giant hole in the ground. This cave, however, was MUCH different. For one, it was bigger, lined with lights and apparatuses for mining and sorting. For another, the floor of the cave had several struts set into it, with a sort of subfloor set beneath a metal primary floor to separate the mist from the workers.


The primary floor was a series of metal platforms and walkways, beneath which we could see the mist from the open walls and tunnels surging, clearly being compressed somehow so as to keep it away from the people moving busily about the cavern.


We popped up in a back corner, behind a shed or something that was out of the main sightline of most of the rest of the room. I had us covered with Murmur almost immediately, and we started mapping out the area and deciding what our next move was going to be. It was clearly going to be an ordeal.


The first thing I noticed was how fucking DENSE the population of this cavern was. I could see dozens if not hundreds of people, and they weren't lying in wait or anything, they were legitimately just going about their days.


To me, that said that there were even MORE people around who weren't out and about, and it told me a lot about the defenses near here.


I'd been thinking about it since we left that house, and the Filthsmith had screamed to try to notify someone. Our theory that there was a redundancy was firmly supported by that fact, so whatever attack we were about to initiate was going to have to deal with the Void as well as the local forces.


"Damn, they're pretty dense in here," Abel said as we crouched behind the shed. Despite being covered by Murmur, the less I had to conceal the easier it was, so we tried to stay out of easy line of sight.


I turned to Devlan. "This is your show, you and your people did all the research on this place. So what are we looking at in terms of defenses?"


He'd actually filled me in on some of this before, but the entire premise at that point had been that we would attack later, and having to act immediately really threw off my understanding of the situation.


"Based on the timing, we should be looking at the third, sixth, and ninth guard divisions, two hundred fifty each, and first division, which is one hundred peak D-rankers. The latter are stationed here permanently, but the rest of the divisions are cycled out on the regular to ensure everyone is in a good mental state. Beyond that we're looking at a hundred mining engineers, and another three hundred miners, but it's doubtful they'll actually bother fighting."


Animal nodded. "The mines down here emit that mist constantly as they're worked. It's NOT good for the body, and every person who volunteers to mine down here is either desperate, suicidal, or a colossal amount of trouble. Debtors, prisoners, the terminally ill, none of them are the kind who will bestir themselves for the defense of their tormenters."


I grimaced. "That's…unpleasant. Any chance we can help them? Maybe purify the influence of the mist?"


"Unlikely," Devlan said with a shrug. "The damage caused by that mist is gradual, and it can be resisted for a while, but it's EXTREMELY hard to resolve. It can be considered something similar to being shredded by a million Domains. Only a very small amount, but it adds up, and most recovery methods don't work."


"This infinity crystal is nasty stuff," I grimaced. "Whatever. The depot is here, and the mining has been going on for ages. They can only move a small amount of it, so the rest must be stockpiled down here in the chasm. I assume you know WHERE it's stockpiled?"


Devlan pointed across the cavern at a large metal door set directly into the rock. "In there. Don't underestimate that vault either, being at the bottom of this chasm for so long, the mist has slowly condensed the stone to an unimaginably hard level. This whole chamber is substantially more durable than you'd expect."


I cursed internally. I'd been hoping the last chamber would be indicative of the strength of the stone. The diversion formations the Filthsmith had used had cleared the mist and I'd been able to turn the stone to dust pretty easily. After thinking about it though, I was pretty sure the reasoning for that lay in the Filthsmith himself. His Void taint was the opposite of the mist from the infinity crystals and would naturally degrade the things around it. That whole house had been warded by a sphere of that much for ages, and it probably corroded the stone, reversing the condensation.


Which gave me an idea. I turned to Callie. "Your Void Priestess powers can manifest through shadows, right? And the shadows you use should erode the infinity mist. Can you transport us inside the vault through the shadows? Bethy can carry everyone in her Domain, so you'll just be transporting her and maybe me if you need it."


She hummed contemplatively. "I mean…I think so? It'll take a lot of effort, the mist in here is really jamming me up, but if its just one or two people it should be doable. But I don't think I'll be able to get us out again. Once Bethy has her Domain full of crystals I don't think she'll be able to easily move everyone again. We'll probably need to be taken in one at a time, which will take a while."


I hadn't considered that. The mist caused discomfort and stiffness in Bethy even through her own mist form, so it would naturally have some effects on her Domain. I knew that we could still GO in the Domain, otherwise Devlan wouldn't have brought us down here, since he'd essentially be dying in exchange for the crystals, which didn't seem like his style.


Devlan sighed. "Alright, so we're going back in. Be careful entering. The first division actually lives IN the vault. They have special armor that can resist the erosion. It's prohibitively expensive to make, so they don't have much of it. If we'd breached from outside, we'd have had to deal with them rushing out to attack and joining the others. Doing it this way has advantages and disadvantages."


He nodded to us, then vanished along with Animal, Bethy pulling them both in. She turned to me. "How about you, boss-man? You going away or you going to follow us into the dark?"


"It'll be lighter on Callie if I'm in the Domain. She can pull on my strength through the bond if she needs me." Pushing my mask up, I gave my wife a quick kiss and then vanished. To my surprise, Bethy dropped me in the castle this time, in one of the spare rooms with a view out the window to the moon.


Not that it helped much, the moon went black as Bethy was swallowed into the dark with Callie. Through the bond, I felt the sensation of Callie forcing her way through the shadows with her Void access. It was staggeringly difficult. I felt like she was trying to dead lift a five hundred pound bull as a mortal with nothing but her toes. Not only was it difficult and a strain, it was hard to get a solid grip.


I had to push my power into her to help, and we finally popped through, ending up inside the vault. Quickly, I was pulled out, and Bethy pointed worriedly around us at the gathered mist. "Um, Shane, this stuff is EVERYWHERE," she looked panicked. "How do we fight them if we can't go into the mist? They have special armor, but we don't."


Frowning, I examined the area around us. I hadn't considered how much of this stuff must have accumulated in here. I figured we'd need to deal with it while we moved stuff, but the erosion took time. FIghting though, that was a different story. We were currently perched on top of a storage container, and the mist surged and roiled along the ground.


"You're going to start raiding. Let our people out on top of these things, I'll handle the erosion. I have an idea. You focus on clearing out all the crystals, and once we finish the fight you can start admitting people into your Domain one by one." I paused, considering what we'd need to do. "Can you put the crystals in the field outside and have us in the castle?"


"Sure, that's easy," she chirped. "But are you sure you've got this? I saw some of these guys coming in. They're big and that armor is scary."


I grinned humorlessly beneath my mask. "Of course. We're going to do it the same way the Filthsmith was. We're going to use the Void." I turned to my wife, who was leaning against the top of the container, panting and wheezing. "I'm going to need to tap into your Path for this honey. Leviathan and my own resistance should keep it from being too much, but I need you ready with the heretic fire if I need to be pulled out of it."


"Got it," she said tiredly. "I know what you have in mind. It's risky, but it's the only option I can see."


Nodding, I indicated that Bethy release the others onto nearby containers. Once she did, we waved her off to go gather the crystals, and I triggered the rank up effect on my staff, elevating Belial to C-rank. Then, reaching through the bond, I sank my claws into the power of Callie's Path of the Abyssal Priestess.


It was…weird. The energy in that Skill felt off, now that I knew what to look for, and I understood it was because the Skill itself ran on the Void. Or at least had it mixed in. So I pulled on that, mixing it into Belial as I did. Belial was the prince of corruption, literally created to corrode and consume, so the Void had no issue meshing with the essence of that form.


Then I pushed it outward, using the C-ranker skill to corrupt every one of our people. Belial could let me wield even other humans as a weapon, and with the Void influence infused into, there was a lot of risk of causing permanent damage…usually.


Before any long term harm could set in, I pushed all my people off their containers, dropping them into the mist. Almost immediately the Void taint started to boil off against the spatial energy, draining away the corruption even as it flowed into them. We didn't have long, but at C-rank I was able to move a sizable chunk of power with the form, so we could last long enough to do the job.


With my senses extended through so many people, I was having trouble processing, and I had to trigger Piece of Mind a few times to offset the overload, but once that was done, I was able to deploy my forces perfectly.


All across the vault, my people fell on unsuspecting armored forms in groups, outnumbered five to one and acting against a superior force deployed by one overarching mind, the first division barely stood a chance. They did better than expected, honestly, but since I knew several troop formations, I was able to deploy them liberally, overwhelming the armored figures and restraining them.


Bethy showed back up soon after to start collecting people, and I dismissed the energy as they climbed back up on the containers, all now empty. I sighed with relief as I did, ready to be DONE with this shit so I could call up for backup.


Unfortunately, before I could, I felt something massive smash into the walls nearby. Or rather, into the huge metal door, which shook like a leaf, stone dust drifting down from above. A roar sounded out behind it, and I cursed, readying for another fight. Before I could even figure out what was happening, there was a mighty screech, and the door was ripped off the hinges in a way I hadn't thought was even possible.


My eyes snapped to the form looming in the gap, a semi familiar draconic silhouette MUCH bigger than any individual person. Except this one was leaking dark energy that popped and crackled on the mist as they came in contact. "Oh, good," my wife said tiredly. "Void kobolds. That seems fun."