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

[Malcolm Tent]

I was able to get a bit of sleep before my match. Not as much as usual, but enough that I wasn't really tired or jumpy. Despite that, I was at least a little nervous. The chances of me fighting a team member again, even with the smaller pool to draw from, were low. For the eleventh round I'd probably be up against a stranger, but that didn't help as much as I'd have thought.

Whoever this was, they had made it almost to the end of the solo rounds, which meant they were terrifyingly strong. Whether it was someone I knew or not, I could almost guarantee that my next match would be a tough one. When I arrived at the arena, Rime headed for the stands while I made my way down to the waiting area to get ready, and I couldn't help but fidget a bit with worry.

When they finally called the match to start, I strode out onto the sand on my own. Hardly my first solo fight, but the closer I got to the end the more intimidating this became. When I saw my next opponent though, I calmed down a bit.

He wasn't intimidating. Just a scruffy looking teenager with brown hair and brown eyes. He had a green shirt and red baggy pants and a relaxed, peaceful smile. "Like, hey man. It's nice to meetcha." He waved lazily. "Pretty far out we managed to get almost to the end right? My best pal got bounced out last round but I think it's pretty legit that I get the chance to keep tryin'."

His voice was a lazy, happy drawl, and it made me chuckle a bit in response, my shoulders relaxing. I didn't let my guard down, mind you, but I felt less worried. Hard to fear for your life against someone that mellow. "Yeah, it is neat. My girlfriend was in the solo rounds until last fight, when we went up against each other. Carrying on for her is pretty cool. I'm Solomon by the way. If it matters. From the Starchaser Pavilion."

The shrug he gave was nonchalant. "Matters to you, man. That's like...good enough right? I'm Norman from the Enigma Corporation." I cocked my head at him, not seeing anything corporate about him, and he gave a low laugh. "It's like, an ironic name man. We're just pals who like to travel around helping people out with weird stuff. We get that reaction a lot though, don't worry."

I laughed at his wry tone. Norman was a pretty interesting guy. "Alright." I said as my laugh ended. "Well, may the best man win, but I'm not holding back." He gave me a laconic nod, and then I triggered Moonlit Night. The whole arena filled with fog only I could see through, and I activated State of Grace and Ripple running alongside it. Kneeling down, I coated my arms in magma, triggering touch of tears after that, then stood up and started to circle.

Norman did...nothing. Like at all. He just stood there, though I could vaguely see a silver glow coalesce around him, not that it was easy to spot in the glowing backdrop of the fog. I waited, but he didn't engage at all, just waiting completely at ease, and I realized I'd run out the clock on my skills if I didn't attack first. Pushing off the ground, I bounced up into the air, then planted my foot on nothing with ripple running and shot toward his back.

I spun in a tight rotation midair as I came in, bringing my hand down at the back of his head in a spinning backfist even as I flew straight at him. Norman leaned ever so slightly forward, and my fist passed within inches of his skull as he stepped aside casually to avoid the rest of my body impacting him. I hit the sand at a skid and slid for a few feet, before turning to stare at him in confusion.

He didn't look flustered, or even aware of my presence. I triggered my overlay, checking to see how I should attack next, and got...red. All the arrows were red. That made no sense. Triggering Eye of Revelation next I tried my best to observe anything, but nothing happened. He just stood there, glowing slightly silver at the edges and staring blandly ahead. I closed in slow, keeping Eye of Revelation active, and then used Steam Arrow, spitting an arrow of boiling water at him.

Adjusting himself so slightly it was barely perceptible, he leaned back diagonally, letting the arrow pass within a hair of his skin yet again. Fuck. I tweaked the Moonlit Night skill, allowing my voice to pass through. "You have some kind of prediction ability." I said flatly. Nothing I could see to try would hit him, at least not according to my overlay. The Eye was more reactive, but it didn't spot any weaknesses in his form or anything.

Shrugging again, he smiled. "Like, I don't know man. I just move before stuff hits me. It's all instinct." His voice was placid and cheerful as ever, and unlike before, it kind of annoyed me. Being taken so lightly was bound to irritate anyone, even if I was pretty sure it was nothing personal.

I narrowed my eyes at him, then triggered Sucking Mud and used up a shadow attack to create the Dark Swamp. The sand beneath him started to darken, but before it could happen he hopped casually back. Unfortunately for him, Dark Swamp wasn't just a quicksand trap, it could respond. He tried to shift in midair to avoid the tentacles of earth, but since the attack had been launched while he was midair, and by something that didn't actually think, he hadn't seen it coming.
With no leverage his legs were dragged back into the dark sand, and he started to sink. I charged in, attacking again with a flurry of punches and kicks to see how his defense was holding up.

Despite his immobile legs being secured from the shin down, he swayed and moved out of the way with lazy graceful ease. But this time, he also attacked back. His fist shot out at a weakness in my guard I hadn't even known was there, and I tried to get my arms in the way of the blow, barely managing thanks to the speed boosts.

There was a loud crack as the blow landed on my encased arms, crossed in front of me, and even through my armor and the magma I felt the bones rattle as I was blown backwards. I skidded over the sand, my arms barely working after the impact of that one punch.

Of course the instinctual fighter who could dodge without thinking was a Might focus. Because that would be where the fucking speed to dodge came from. I'd have guessed Perception before he explained it, but if he had no actual input, then he wouldn't be perceiving, his power would. There was probably some of that because of his reputation, but since he was so physical he probably just came across as a bruiser.

"Like, careful man." Said the relaxed monster in front of me. "I punch pretty hard. Don't want you to get hurt too bad." I grimaced, triggering a heal burst to patch my arms up as I circled. Blunt force was a bad match for my armor, but anything helped. I felt the surge of energy flood me, slowly relieving the pain in my limbs as I circled.

Norman was still sinking into the sand, but not fast. He seemed unbothered by the trap, sitting eerily still and ignoring it, which of course made it slower. The Dark Swamp was reactionary at heart. Even with the shadow attack, once it captured you it didn't keep dragging unless you tried to escape.

I needed some angle. Coming at him directly wouldn't work. Without a Perception focus, his reactions to my attacks were either ignoring the stealth completely or he was reacting at the last possible instant. Either option wasn't good for me. I was wracking my brain for what to do, when it finally dawned on me.

Triggering Mercy Kill, I used a gravity attack. The ability, boosted by Moonlit Night and Mercy Kill, landed heavily on Norman. Then I did it again, and again, and again. I stopped at four, since I only had eight of those, and then blitzed forward again to attack. State of Grace allowed me to bypass the field around him easily, and when I attacked this time, I got much closer to hitting him.

I still missed, because he was FAST, even under the pressure, but he dodged by a much narrowed margin. His placid expression finally cracked, his brow furrowing a bit. When my next attack came in at him he dodged and tried to counter, but I used Afterburner to increase my next ten attacks.

With the existing boost of speed from State of Grace added to the attacks, my fist was a blur as it raced in at his face. He dodged the first, but the second he had to divert his counter to deflect. I grunted in pain as my arm creaked under the pressure, but I ignored it. Redoubling my attacking efforts.

Norman seemed to get serious this time, his hands flying up to deflect my blows. I grimaced, because I was running out of attacks on Afterburner. I tried Steam Arrow, and the explosion of steam was much more powerful because of Afterburner. He tried to avoid it, but because of the slowing effect of the gravity and the increased power of the arrow it scored him across the face, leaving a thin burn on his cheek.

He was so stunned by the injury he froze up, and I used my tranq blows on the three punches I managed to get in on him before he had a chance to react. I tried one more, but didn't manage to land it, and my Afterburned ran out, forcing me to retreat to avoid being hit.

I panted in exhaustion as I stared at him, having gone all out even with all the stacked debuffs to keep up with this absolute beast. I was damn lucky his only trick seemed to be close combat. If he had a ranged attack he might be able to keep up with Abel. I circled slowly, waiting to see what he would do, but he just waited, unmoving, patient to the end as he let his power prepare.

And I did nothing. I sat there, waiting, and let him prepare. I was weakened because of Afterburner, and exhausted from the fight, and there was no need for me to attack. Norman's weakness was his strength. The ability to sit still and remain unconcerned while he trusted his power to predict any attacks.

A minute passed, then two, he kept sinking, but only got to mid thigh. I just waited. I'd won this already, and it was only proven when I heard the first faint snore. I grinned. Those tranq blows were supercharged by a bunch of buffs as well as stacked, and I'd known they would do the job.

I raised a hand to signal the end of the match, and when he didn't move or respond for a minute they called it. I groaned, debating healing him but realizing I'd only managed a few glancing blows anyway so it wasn't needed. As he stirred awake I held out a hand and let Dark Swamp fade, pulling him up out of the sand. He grinned it me. "Like, wow man, that was a pretty cool nap. Shame I lost, but nice moves."

Laughing I returned the sentiment and we traded numbers, Norman saying he could use the occasional knock out to get some rest since the nap had been so peaceful. I was happy to make a connection with such a badass. Turning to leave though, I felt a pang of fear knowing the next fight would be even worse. I'd need to bring my A game to win that. I had two more days, it was time to finally rank up my DS Mastery.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Time. Something I'd had plenty of in the last few rounds, but not enough of to accomplish a goal I was now planning to accomplish in just a few days. I needed to finish my last two upgrades, then synergize DS Mastery with Enchanting permanently to hopefully eliminate the whole charges thing completely. It would be nice not to have to count my attacks during combat.

But to do that, I needed to figure out a possible synergy for Earthseeking and Sucking Mud. Which gave me an idea. Well, I had an idea for Sucking Mud. I decided to go track down Callie, to ask her for some advice on something I thought might help out.

I found her lying on the couch, watching the scan box with Cass, looking bored and amused in equal measures as the younger girl cheered at the cartoon currently displayed on the screen. The wolves were inside, the four of them sprawled about the living room, with Jin acting as a pillow for my girlfriend while Rellia played the same role for Cass.

Slumping down next to her, I smirked at her boredom. "So, not much to do? I figured you would have work today."

She just shook her head with a sigh. "Nope. With so many visitors in town jobs have been getting thin. I can pick up a decent bit of work every few days, but since I don't have any crafting skills or anything jobs are hard to come by. Benny's been getting a ton of jobs as a crafter, even if Inventing is far less useful and precise. So, what brings you down here so close to the next fight?"

I'd been excited to share my idea, and when she asked I jumped on the chance to mention it. "I want to talk about traps." I announced grandly. I had a bad habit of waiting for my turn to talk when I was excited, rather than really listening, and I had definitely been doing that, but this idea would solve a lot of my problems.

She gave me an amused smirk. "Is this your way of telling me that I'm smothering you? Because I thought things were going pretty well."

I rolled my eyes. "Only in the literal sense that you sometimes choke the life out of me in your sleep, but that's why I'm the big spoon. No, I mean I want you to teach me about traps. Like...the Minor Trap Mastery Skill. I've seen enough of how it works to be close, I just need some basic lessons. Even though you wished for it you can still teach me manually, and I've been around for a LOT of your trap making."

Mulling it over, she nodded. "I could see how you might have an easy time picking it up. It is just a Minor Skill, and with your Focus you wouldn't have any trouble with the knowledge. I'm guessing this plays into your prep for next round somehow?"

The whole non interference thing was kind of out the window since the last two people in the tournament besides me were Mel and Abel, who didn't care. Still, I wanted to play things close to the vest, so I just nodded. Callie slumped back in annoyance, groaning loudly, only to be shushed by Cass. "Sorry sweetie." She told the younger girl with a wince, before turning her gaze to me. "This is going to be annoying, but fine, meet me in the training room, I need to get a few things."

She hopped to her feet, strolling off, and Jin sat up, glaring at me for taking away the warm person he was cuddling with. I raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, I've been there. But I have training to do. SOME of us don't just get to become house dogs after a little while. Watch your show." He snorted dismissively at me before refocusing on the cartoon projected from the scan box.

When I reached the training room, I had to wait a few minutes for Callie to show up carrying a large black bag with a strap that hung over one shoulder. Slipping it off, she let the bag fall to the ground and unzipped it, starting to take out various odds and ends. Wire, spikes, springs, rope. The bag was quickly emptied as she gestured proudly at her collection. "Boom. Beginner trap maker kit."

"Ok." I drawled. "Glossing over the fact that you have a bag full of restraints that I didn't know about, which is weird since we basically share a room at this point, shouldn't you set up the traps...first? Then show me how to disarm them?" I knew a bit about traps, but not much, Callie's Skill did most of the heavy lifting in the labyrinth.

She shook her head firmly. "No. You've seen plenty of traps disarmed, and made. Now you need to make some yourself. If you can't construct them, all the theoretical knowledge in the world is pointless."

"Alright." I said with a shrug. "You're the expert. I should be able to do this, like you said, I've seen plenty of traps. Here, turn around for a minute." She gave me an amused look, but with a quiet snort, she turned her back to me. I grabbed a few supplies, some rope, a small pulley, and a net, and walked over to where the obstacle course was situated.

Cracking my knuckles confidently I started to rig up an expertly arranged trap...then stopped. I knew the basics, but that was mostly just reactions. Cause and effect stuff. I didn't know HOW a lot of them worked. I held up the rope, mulling over my options, before looping it between two posts. I tied one side down, then looped the other up around the pole and over the top, tying it loosely around the net.

Nodding happily, I stepped over my makeshift trip wire and whistled to Callie. "Alright, all done." It wasn't pretty, but it should work.

Turning around, she looked right at me, then scanned over the trap, and subsequently burst into gales of laughter. I glared at her, which made her laugh harder, and I spent the next few minutes seething as she almost fell over in fits of hysterical giggles.

When she finally got a hole of herself she wiped her eyes mirthfully. "Oh. Wow. Sorry. It's just...you were solid when we started training in Balam, and you have so many varied skillsets you seem to pick up everything fast, so I was expecting you to be...at least competent."

"You're not making this better." I complained. "What exactly is wrong with it?" I gestured to the trap. "Sure, it's simple, but at least it's functional right? When you trip the line it tugs the rope off the net and it falls on you."

She giggled again, getting it under control faster this time. "No, Shane. That's a slipknot. The jerk on the line will tighten the knot and then fling the whole thing off the side of the structure." She paused. "What is this anyway? Just a pair of posts next to a climbing wall with a protruding arm?"

I shrugged. "Salmon ladder, at least the posts are. The protruding arm is for hanging a harness when climbing I think, but who knows."

Honestly the training room was weird. Half of this stuff wasn't really that useful, and I was almost positive some of it wasn't always here. Zeke said it was a side effect of the last owner's reputation, and since he wasn't worried about it I just ignored the whole issue.

Callie chuckled, and started actually teaching. While I'd watched her process directly, there were lots of small details I didn't note just from observing. Types of knots, angles, tensile strength of certain materials and a dozen other little tricks of the trade. We worked for hours, with her filling me in on little bits of knowledge I didn't have that put things I did know into context better.

By the time we finished, she had taught me enough to make my own traps, albeit not great ones, and with my Focus and Perception, not to mention the time I'd put in, I officially got enough information figured out to officially have a Minor Trap Mastery Skill.

I slumped back against the wall with a groan. I wasn't physically tired, obviously, but doing the same menial task for hours was boring and annoying. Callie just smirked at me. "Well, seems like my work here is done, I'm going to go watch mindless cartoons and leave you to your training." She leaned down and gave me a quick peck on the lips. "Good luck on your match. I'll be there watching this time, so you'd better kick ass." She pouted at me. "If you beat me and then lose to some nobody I'm not speaking to you for a weak."

She was bluffing, and we both knew it, courtesy of the bond, but it was her way of cheering me on, and I smiled softly at her as she turned and strolled away. With her gone, I was officially done with prep work, and sat up to cross my legs. An unnecessary step but one that would at least help clear my head.

This next upgrade had a solid amount of synergy. Not as much as the herbalism skill had, but enough that I thought I'd get something pretty good if I focused on the right method of combination. I'd already seen proof that there was some better and some worse ways to combine things.

I used Sucking Mud, focusing on the space in front of me as I did my best to synergize it with Minor Trap Mastery. I'd only just gotten the Skill, but I'd spent hours practicing so I was in a good headspace. I considered the possible methods of combining them and decided to focus on increasing the trap capability of Sucking Mud, instead of something like time delay that might lean more toward the trapping aspect.

Imagining my Sucking Mud, I focused on the mental image of a pitfall trap. Instead of something slow and plodding, the pitfall trap was a single sharp drop, but I didn't want to lose the earth aspect that made the skill what it was. Instead, I focused on making the sand thinner and decreasing friction, creating more of a silt material from the skill use.

With the strong mental image and the recent practice, not to mention my experience tweaking Sucking Mud, it clicked into place pretty quickly, and I felt Minor Trap Mastery vanish just as soon as it arrived. Focusing on my DS Mastery and feeling out subskills, I confirmed the new addition with a smile as I made sure Sucking Mud was gone.

Pit of Despair, a control skill that creates a pit of silt that swallows up anyone standing on top of it nearly instantly. Fast, deadly, and a distinct upgrade to Sucking Mud. I grinned happily to myself as I checked to confirm my last subskill. Earthseeking was all I needed to finish it, Intermediate DS Mastery was so close I could taste it. I couldn't wait to use it on whoever I was fighting for the last round.

I was so excited I wished I could upgrade the last Skill now, but I knew that wasn't on the table. The soul weight of the one upgrade after learning a new Skill was already hard on me.

Standing up to stretch, I decided to take a small break before going to find Benny for his wishes. This was good progress, and I knew that I was well on my way to reaching the finals, but everyone needs a break now and then. I headed for the kitchen, pondering what I should make for dinner. I was hungry, and I was in the mood for something complicated. Maybe chicken and dumplings as a thank you to Callie for helping. Whatever I made, I was sure it would be delicious.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Today was the day. Round twelve. I got up early so I could finish my goal of ranking up DS Mastery, and was just finishing up the last step of that. Yesterday I'd ranked up Earthseeking to 'Song of the Soil', which increased the range and specificity of my seeking ability by using my Minor Singing Skill to boost it. I'd also considered using piano and guitar, but realistically there were accessibility issues there. I wasn't carrying around a whole piano for one skill.

Aside from finishing up that last skill, I'd also done Benny's wishes for the last two days. He'd paid me in chits this time, from his jobs, and I was up to a hundred and sixty of the things, which would make buying my new weapon after rank up so much easier. Twenty points each to Might and Focus brought Focus to three hundred twenty three, and Might to two hundred eighty nine. At seven hundred forty three total points he was incredibly close to three quarters done.

With all that done and out of the way, I was officially at a point where I could do what I'd been dreaming of for months now. Get my first intermediate Skill. Sitting down and crossing my knees, I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply. Deep breath in, deep breath out. Then I reached into myself and flicked on my overlay.

The overlay was the most basic ability of my DS Mastery Skill, and the first I'd gotten. It was also completely unchanged. I could probably have ranked up the Skill just by upgrading this one aspect, but I didn't want to do it that way. I wanted to make DS Mastery a complete system, a unique skill all on its own that didn't need any other abilities to function.

Feeling DS Mastery resonate as I tapped into it, I reached out and found the connection I always used, one that I'd begun to internalize so much it was almost like it didn't exist. I pushed the connection between Beginner Enchanting Mastery and Beginner Doom Sovereign Mastery. I'd never merged two actual Skills of the same power like this, but I felt in my bones it was the right call.

The two of them resonated easily and quickly, having both been shaped around each other. I reached into the resonance, and pulled. The two Skills began to blur, and so did my brain as I felt a MASSIVE pull on my soul. It hurt. A lot. But I kept at it. This wasn't great, but I'd already started, and taxing myself before my match without accomplishing my goal was the stupidest thing I could imagine doing.

It felt like trying to drag an engine through tunnel full of hot coals and broken glass, but finally, after what seemed like hours but was probably a minute or two, I felt that same click as the last few times. Unlike the last few times though, there was a massive shift in my brain, like someone turning over a car key, and then things just...changed.

I didn't know if the sensations were from ranking up my first intermediate, from combining two huge Skills, from the change of losing one of my foundational Skills, or some combination of the three, but my body felt different, better. More. It wasn't Impact, or stats, or any of that stuff. It was more like I'd gotten over a cold, or cleaned out something gunking up my body.

Bringing up my Skills, I looked at that I'd created. Intermediate Path of the Doom Sovereign. I didn't know what the lack of the word mastery meant, but it didn't seem like a bad thing. I was pretty sure it had to do with this being a unique Skill. A REAL unique Skill now. Other people could theoretically have DS Mastery, but with all my additions and this final shift, this Skill was something that was only mine now.

I could also actually bring up the subskills directly and read them by focusing on the Skill itself. Which allowed me to see the three new ones I had available. Mountain Stance, Danger Sense, and Marked for Death. My soul also felt...stronger. Like I'd gotten a burst of power when I did whatever I did. I'd have to ask Zeke about that later, but for now...I hopped to my feet with a grin.

Only an hour or so until my second to last match of the solo tournament. I had no clue who I was fighting but I was sure I could take them on as I was now. I was salivating thinking of possible synergies, attacks I had stored, my new powers, all of it. I was sure they would be terrifying, as the first Intermediate skills I had access to.

Finished up, I headed to my room to knock, and the door opened to reveal Callie. I just...stared. My girlfriend was wearing a dark blue sundress with a black jean jacket over it. Her hair was in a long ponytail and she had on a hint of lip gloss, which was rare because frankly, she didn't need makeup. She wasn't wearing her mask, and she gave me a beaming smile when she saw me. "Here." She said cheerfully, shoving a bag the size of my chest into my arms. "Hold my purse."

I just stared, dumbstruck by both the beauty and the audacity, and then I burst out laughing. She pouted at me. "What? I just mean until we get to the car. It's not like you're driving." She grabbed my arm, dragging me behind her as she headed for the car. Jessie was already outside waiting, listening to music. The arena was far enough that we would need to leave soon to get there on time.

Callie and I climbed in, and I dumped her monstrosity of a purse on the seat, earning a glare. I just shrugged. "You said carry it to the car."

She growled at me, sifting through the bag to make sure everything was unharmed. "You know." She said testily. "I went out of my way to dress up and be supportive today. This will be a big fight for you. The least you could do is appreciate my hard work."

I took off my mask, giving her a soft smile. "You don't need to put in any hard work to be beautiful Cal. But the fact that you decided to is sweeter than I can say. Thank you." She blushed at the comment, clearing her throat and going back to rooting around in her purse. I could feel her pride and embarrassment through the bond, and knew she was just trying to distract herself.

Jessie giggled from up front. "I don't know if the two of you are relationship my goals or the biggest cautionary tale for cringey sweetness ever. Either way, I think you're pretty adorable. Plus I think it's sweet you're trying to hard to distract him from being nervous, even if we both know it isn't going to work."

Callie glared at her. "It MIGHT have worked. If you didn't have such a big mouth."

I put a hand on hers, squeezing gently. "Sorry love, I can feel your emotions. I knew what you were doing. And it IS working. I can't help but be distracted by you." She blushed again, rolling her eyes dismissively as she tried to hide her small smirk.

We spent the rest of the trip like that. Cuddled close and chattering about nonsense and flirting to try to keep my mind off the fight. I was...afraid. Norman had been a monster, and realistically, whoever I was fighting NEXT would be worse. I was about to take on someone truly terrifying and even though I felt invincible with my new Skill, I was also worried as hell.

If I lost, it would all be on Mel and Abel. I'd be cutting our chances down even more, and that would be AFTER making them worse by beating Callie. It was just the same old thing all over. The excitement of a great fight tempered with the knowledge of what was riding on it.

Callie, sensing that confusing mix of emotions, tried her hardest to distract me, and did a better job than anyone reasonably should have been able to. Sadly, all good things must end, and we eventually reached the arena. Callie hopped out, stopping to press a firm kiss to my lips before shoving my mask back on with a wink. "For luck." Then she took off into the area to find seating so she could watch my match.

Jessie just giggled, shaking her head at me. "I don't even have to see your polaxed expression to know what it looks like. You'd better win I guess, can't go disappointing the lady of the house."

I just chuckled. "Nah, can't do that. But thanks for the well wishes, Jess. I'll give it my all."

Her smile became affectionate. "Oh I know you'll do that. You always do. I'll be up there cheering you on. Don't...don't put too much pressure on yourself ok? You're not in this alone. I know how prone you are to trying to take on too much, and so does she. She'd have told you that herself, but she was pretty sure you'd get all guilty about making her worry and overcompensate. You're not the best listener."

I put my hand to my chest with an offended gasp. "I am an amazing..." I trailed off jokingly. "Sorry what was that last bit? I wasn't paying attention."

"That was a bad joke." She said flatly. "And you should feel bad for making it."

Grinning, I rolled my eyes. "Nag, nag, nag. Poor Maria. I wonder if she knows what she's getting into. Go sit in your comfortable stadium seat and watch my match."

She turned and headed for the arena with another giggle, muttering to herself about idiots who thought they were funnier than they were. I chose to ignore her hurtful and clearly spurious remarks and headed into the arena myself. I walked down to the waiting room, excitedly warming up for my match. Stretches, bit of cardio, I didn't really need it, but it helped me go in the zone.

I also started mixing and matching possible combos for my match, I'd need to evaluate my opponent and figure out exactly what I needed to do from there, but some canned combinations like Dark Swamp and Magma Leg were always helpful, and with my three new tricks I was sure I'd be able to do even better. Finally though, I got the call to head out to the pit to meet my opponent.

Giving the attendant a nod of goodbye, I strolled out onto the sand, having mostly gotten over my nerves from spending time with Callie, and ready to take on anything. I was in the best possibly position to take care of this, so there was no reason to worry. It's not like I'd be fighting...I froze.

The smile dropped off my lips and my eyes widened in horror at my opponent. His own reaction was slightly less dramatic. He just offered me his usual toothy smile, eyes twinkling with sadistic amusement behind his silver mask. "Well, looks like I'm going to get a chance to put all that training to the test, huh kid?" Asked Abel Castleton casually.

I just stared at him, feeling one of my new abilities trigger passively before the match even started. Despite the warning, I wasn't even remotely amused by the occurrence. After all, Danger Sense warned me when I was in a position where I was vulnerable to extreme harm, so it wasn't a shock it would be going off right now. Telling me Abel was dangerous was far from useful. I tuned it out and considered my next move as he stood there, hands in his pockets, and waited. This...was going to suck.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

My first move was to immediately trigger Moonlit Night. Danger Sense wouldn't stop trilling in my head, but with the push a second ago it at least dimmed. I'd need to adapt it to the situation so it would actually work. Sensing that you were ALWAYS in danger wasn't actually a warning of anything.

Abel, meanwhile, stared into the fog with amusement. I'd moved out of the way immediately, making sure he couldn't see or hear me well enough to aim. He could probably cover the whole arena with his manifestations and a couple flurries of punches, but that would be sloppy and desperate, which were things Abel wasn't. I knew my teacher well enough to be aware that he was genuinely excited about this fight.

I'd sparred with him before, so I knew that none of my old tricks would work, but I had new abilities now, new tricks I could use. I needed to time this though, Abel's instincts were insane, and if I got close enough to attack he WOULD sense it. I wasn't sure if it was Perception, Fantasy, or some sort of combat sense from years of constant attacking but he was tough to sneak up on.

"Smokescreen." He said lazily. "Mediocre idea. Interesting execution though. My Perception should be enough to pierce a veil like this, which means that you somehow mixed stealth into the fog. Fascinating. I take it this is a new trick? Or were you sandbagging during training?"

It actually wasn't entirely new, but I hadn't shown Abel Moonlit Night yet, since I was keeping it secret for the tournament. I was guessing he hadn't bothered to come watch my matches either. Wanted to make sure he got a decent challenge. Deciding to buy some time, I triggered Pit of Despair, creating a silt trap under his feet that sucked him right in. He vanished into the ultra thin particles in an instant.

Knowing it wouldn't hold for more than a second I dropped to my knees, triggering my Magma Limbs, I just barely had time to apply my Touch of Tears before Abel came shooting out of the ground like a rocket, arcing down right towards me somehow.

My eyes widened in shock and alarm, and I saw his hands move, the images of other arms condensing on his right as he would up for one of those layered punches. Without waiting I triggered Stone Limb from where my feet touched the ground, coating my whole body, then used Mountain Stance for the first time, as well as a triple strength density shift. Stacking every defensive move I could possibly think of.

Abel hit me at speed, smashing a fist directly into my chest...and stopping cold. His feet landed, and he just gaped for a second, unable to see me, but having felt that a full force punch from him had stopped when it hit me. Don't get me wrong, it HURT. I think he slightly cracked my sternum. But with the massive defensive bonus of Mountain Stance (triple defense when my feet were firmly planted on the ground) enhanced by the density shift AND Stone Limb, not to mention the bleed off from my armor, I'd actually tanked the punch.

I didn't waste it either, I triggered Steam Arrow, and when Abel's non punching hand flew up to bat away the attack with his spatial lubrication, I triggered State of Grace and laid into his ribs with the strongest punches I could manage. I pummeled his midsection as hard as I could, but his armor wasn't bad either, and he somehow absorbed the blows as they made contact by clenching his abs. Some martial arts trick probably.

He stepped into a trail of lubricated space and slid effortlessly away from me, stopping about five feet back. "Ok." He grunted in amusement. "That was pretty good. I didn't know you had that kind of durability, kid. Must be new. I can't believe you took a serious punch from me head on." Reaching up, he shucked off his jacket, cracking his neck as he went about limbering up his shoulders.

I swallowed hard. That...that wasn't comforting. Taking off his jacket was the first sign that Abel was getting serious. He still had his mask on, so he wasn't going all out, but it also meant he didn't think he NEEDED to go all out, which wasn't at all comforting to think about.

Letting Mountain Stance fade with a sigh, I winced a bit as I felt the soul weight. That little defensive setup hadn't been easy to pull off, even if it was apparently a bit delayed, but sitting still and taking hits was the exact worst way to handle Abel. He'd punch through any defense I put up once he had time to build up steam. I needed to go on the offense.

I triggered Double Trouble, and then once I arrived I used another new skill. Marked for Death. Marked for Death was my most recent finishing blow from my rogue class. I got one every other level, and this one was both amazing and sub par. The actual damage increase wasn't great, just double. but the real value of Marked for Death wasn't the damage increase. Once the Mark was applied, the next blow would land with perfect accuracy. Regardless of space, defenses, or anything else, Marked for Death was an unblockable sure hit attack.

Probably. There were most likely high ranking Ascendants who could avoid or stop it, but within the confines of reasonably close ranks to mine, it would work. I grinned as I leaned on State of Grace and triggered Ripple Running to bounce away from Abel's response to my appearance, because despite leaving fast, I could see the glowing purple mark of my sigil, the well of wishes, on Abel's shoulder as I slipped away.

My mentor spun slowly, waiting for the next attack, and I considered the best way to hit him to do as much damage as possible. "I have to say Shane." He said warily. "You got lucky as hell with that Skill. It makes up for so many of your shortcomings."

He was right, though I frowned at the dismissal of my hard work. I'd built my Path of the Doom Sovereign Skill from the ground up. First in DS itself, and then with other Skills and hard work. It was unrecognizable from the original Skill, and the combination of it with my stored attacks gave me a ton of versatility. I was willing to bet I was leagues stronger than your average Candidate in a straight fight, and I didn't like the implication I'd just tripped and fallen into my powers.

But on second thought, I had definitely gotten a heaping helping of good fortune in more than a few ways. That thought was enough to deflate my ego a bit and let me clear my head. Once I did, I rolled my eyes. Of course Abel knew what buttons to press to piss me off.

Sadly for him, it wasn't going to matter. I was going to end this in a single blow. Afterburner, Steam Arrow. Touch of Tears, Consecration of Flame, triple stack density shift, triple stack tranq, a shadow attack for good measure, Mercy Kill. I piled my advantages and power ups so high I thought my brain was going to explode, but I barely managed to trigger the hit.

Marked for Death meant a certain hit attack, doubled the blow, further enhanced as a sneak attack inside Moonlit Night, sped up by State of Grace and stacked with Mercy Kill. It was the most devastating direct attack I'd ever made in my life, and I saw Abel roar in pain as the horrifying tranq fire shadow steam arrow abomination slammed into his fucking rotator cuff and tore right through it, bypassing all his defensive skills and armor.

Of course, I wasn't exactly in good shape myself. That had been WAY too much soul weight, and I was currently on my knees in agony as I gasped and clutched at my skull. I'd come VERY close to blacking out from shock with that one. I used heal burst, hoping it would help, and staggered to my feet, swaying slightly as I stared at my currently blood soaked mentor.

"Fuck." He spat. Looking genuinely annoyed for the first time this match. "You took my arm? Not cool." I closed my eyes, focusing on trying to recover at least a bit. He wasn't down, and I knew he was going to be coming at me hard. I was completely tapped, and I had no way to put him down. That attack had been everything I had. Hell, I had no clue how he was conscious, given all the boosts applied and the tranquilizer aspect of the attack.

At the very least, I could see lines of searing toxic magma radiating through the wound, though Abel wasn't showing what must have been the agonizing response to being eaten alive from your arm with poison. Contrary to his statement, his arm wasn't actually gone, though it was pretty much dead meat on his shoulder at the moment. I didn't respond, I didn't want him to know where I was.

That didn't work out, somehow he'd felt where the attack came from, because as he hauled back, my previously oscillating Danger Sense became a damned storm siren. A manifestation coalesced above his head. A fist the size of a bus. Then another and another. Six of them, all floating there before he compacted them down into one single fist and swung at me with everything he had.

I knew that fist would seriously injure me if it hit, and my immediate response was to try to turtle up. Mountain Stance, density shift, and luckily Stone Limb was still coating me. I hunched my shoulders and brought my arms in front of my face, trying to defense as best as I could from the coming attack. My head was pounding like a war drum, and I was about to pass out, but I held on, just for this one last move.

Afterburner was still in effect, and that had boosted both defensive abilities, though not Stone Limb, since it had already been active. As the fist landed I felt a crack, not just from the stone but from my arms and legs. I kept my feet planted because I had to or I'd lose Mountain Stance, but all four of my limbs fractured under the impact.

With the punch over, I barely managed to stay standing, mostly because of the still active heal burst patching me up, and as I watched the fog receded, Moonlit Night fading as I fought to stay upright and functional. To my shock, Abel was staring at me shakily, the tranq seeming to be wearing him down, he started thumping toward me, one foot in front of the other, almost dragging himself, his arm hanging limply.

I could hear the burning of the flesh as he approached, and I tried to pull back to throw another punch, but with my arms broken I couldn't move them, barely able to keep them up. Abel made it to the spot in front of my, wobbling on his feet as he grinned at me proudly.

He put a hand on my shoulder, something I couldn't resist at all in my current condition, and chuckled. "That was a hell of a fight kid. You almost had me." I wanted to reject the statement. To tell him it wasn't over. But I couldn't move. Couldn't speak. Could barely think. I was so close. I was almost there. But I just couldn't make it. I couldn't beat him. He gave a gentle shove to my shoulder, and Mountain Stance broke as I tipped over backwards, toppling to the ground with a loud thump. The last thing I saw as my vision faded out into blackness was the crowd going wild. Oh well, at least I put up a good fight.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I was surprisingly pain free when I came to. Well...my body was. My head was fuzzy, but that was to be expected with overtaxing my soul. Oh, and the yelling. The yelling wasn't helping. "Look at him!" Screamed a voice. "How many bones did you break? Do you even know? Now he won't wake up even after healing. None of the rest of us were that badly hurt in any of our matches. Is there even an ounce of forethought it your head?"

Groaning slightly, I opened my eyes, taking in the situation. Callie was standing over me in the back of our car, bellowing at Abel like she was about to attack him. For his part, my mentor didn't look contrite, or afraid, or even guilty. Just patient, as if he was letting her get it out of her system. Which he was, since this little nap had been my fault not his.

Reaching out, I snagged her wrist, which was within arms length. "Whoa."I said groggily. "Keep it down Cal, my skull is splitting. What's going on?" Sitting up, I saw my girlfriend's relieved expression as she hurled herself at me, her knee driving into my gut as I grunted at the impact. I laughed, putting my arms around her. "Whoa there, what's wrong? Actually, why didn't you feel it when I woke up? I'd have figured the bond would have tipped you."

She squeezed so hard I groaned, but when she noticed the discomfort she eased up, staring up at me tearily. "It shut down. As soon as that punch hit the bond fried. Maybe it was all the soul weight, or maybe just you passing out, but I saw you lying there and the bond stopped working and I thought you were dead."

"You weren't dead." Abel chipped in helpfully. "In case you were wondering. Half dead, at worst. I carried you out to Jessie and let her patch you up before she started the drive home." He rotated hos arm stiffly. "Me too actually, shit, kid, you don't fuck around. If you'd landed that weird mark thing on my neck or head I'd have been a corpse."

I snorted at that. "As if you'd let me. You reacted as soon as I appeared and shifted your body unconsciously. I was aiming for the middle of your back. You're the one who changed the spot where you were going to take that blow. That final punch was monstrous, I guess you were holding back in all your other matches." Hearing my tone seemed to calm some of Callie's anger, though she still looked upset.

Abel shrugged. "Is it holding back to open a soda by twisting off the top instead of smashing it in half with a hammer? I just do enough to do the job. You came close to pushing me into going all out though. That was a hell of a fight, especially for someone who started cultivating so recently."

"Don't patronize me." I said flatly. "Mel told us that you don't get serious unless you take your mask off. I might have pushed you, but you sure as hell weren't going all out."

That got an acknowledging nod. "Well, fair enough. But you were damned sure the hardest fight I've had so far. Even if I'm pretty sure that won't continue to be the case. I hear that the top ten are monsters, one and all." He grinned. "Even a few familiar faces in there. Helix made it, and so did Lament. Whether they're going to pass round thirteen and take part in the finals is anyone's guess, though a five man free for all does sound like fun."

I looked over at Mel, who had been relaxing across from us, having been fighting at another of the arenas. Jessie had gone to pick her up after she dropped us off, and had made it back just after the match. "You've been quiet. Did you make it through your round?" I hoped she had, if not we would be left with only one entrant on the team. I mean, sure, he was our strongest and the one with the best chance of winning, but going into the finals with two of the five would be nice.

Sadly, she shook her head with a sigh. "Gods no. I got demolished. I ran into one of the tournament favorites. Roland Wilder. They call him the Walking War. He uses this crazy weapon summoning ability, calls up swords and spears and axes of different sizes and materials." She looked at Abel. "Decent chance he'll be your next fight, or Helix, or Lament. With only ten people left the chances of meeting up with someone you know gets more and more likely."

He grinned at her. "I promise you'll be avenged if I meet him. I'll stomp his teeth in and wear his head like a shoe."
Mel giggled. "You say the sweetest things." Her tone flattened, becoming severe. But don't underestimate him. He was one of the scariest people I've ever fought, and I've sparred with you plenty." She looked at Callie. "You looked into the people in the twelfth round right? Any educated guesses on who makes it to round thirteen?"

Rime, who I hadn't even noticed because she'd been so quiet, piped up. "Firn from Final Frost Heaven is almost a shoe in for the last round. She uses a weird mutated version of ice manipulation that makes extremely durable permafrost. Durable even for her rank, I mean. Her control is also insane."

Callie nodded. "Heard about her." Her voice was rough, still hoarse from crying earlier, though we all pretended it wasn't. "There's a teleporter named Lucas who seems to be doing well. Ambush fighter. Mixed his teleports with a nasty knack for Stealth. Not sure if he makes the top five, but you'll probably see him in the next round, even if you don't actually tun into him. Other than him, Arrabus, from the cult, is pretty scary. He uses that same dark corrosive energy we saw from Pietro, though it's not the same."

Mel nodded. "I saw him fight. He's Might focused. Makes the destructive aspects of the energy more apparent. Stat allocation has a strong influence on how abilities manifest, as I'm sure you know, since it's one of the ways to alter an ability without synergy."

None of this seemed to bother Abel. "I'll keep it in mind." He said casually. "We can worry about it when we find out who I'm actually going to be fighting. No use crying over being about to spill milk."

"That's...not a saying." Said Mel in exasperation. "It doesn't even make any sense. Can you for once take it seriously when someone tells you to watch out for an enemy, instead of barreling right at them like some kind of demented five year old on a sugar high."

Abel pursed his lips before shaking his head. "Nah, not my style. But thanks for worrying about me, love. You know I can take care of myself, but it's still sweet of you."

I groaned, and they all looked at me. "Sorry, not about you. Just realized I have to tell Nat I'm out of the running. Any of her team make it through?" I'd almost forgotten my cousin was in this with us, but if she had team members entering round thirteen that would massively increase our chances.

Callie brightened a bit. "Oh, right. Yeah, Valk, that red bearded guy with the weird gel powers. I guess he had a chance to make the finals too." She shot a stern look at Abel. "To be clear, if he makes it in, you're to team up with him until the other three are eliminated to maximize our chances. That means no free for all just to have some fun punching out a bunch of powerful warriors. Play it smart."

"Yes MOM." He said belligerently. Then grunted when Mel elbowed him in the ribs. He shot her a wounded look. "Hey be careful, I'm still in pain from my gruesome injury."

Her only response was a dismissive snort, which drew a smirk from my teacher. I rolled my eyes. "How did you beat me in a fight again?"

Abel's face smoothed out, his normally expressive features, so loud that it was easy to tell what he was thinking even under a mask, flattened as he stared at me intently. "With some effort. Seriously, kid. I don't think you get how much that means coming from me. You did good. I'm proud of you."

I froze. That...wow, that caught me flat footed. It felt...weird. I mean sure, Zeke had said it before, though not often, he wasn't the type, but that kind of thing is something you expect to hear from your dad, and I really hadn't. Ever. My dad hadn't said he was proud of me once in my entire life. Not even when he left me his final message throwing me into the deep end.

Callie, who out of everyone got what I was feeling, grabbed my hand and squeezed it as I muttered out. "Thanks, Abel." He nodded, effectively declaring the conversation closed, but I understood. Abel was a gregarious and outgoing guy, but that was mostly surface. He didn't share what was under it often. I appreciated him doing it now.

Finally, we came to a stop, and they helped me up to open the door. My brain had settled mostly, a bit of pain but the fuzz and discomfort I felt on waking was mostly faded.

As we made it inside, I heard cheering and turned to see Cass running up. "Happy losing day!" She said cheerfully. She was being so upbeat about it I couldn't even get mad, just laughing at the odd comment.
Cark, who came up behind her, rolled his eyes. "Cassidy, you're not supposed to point out when someone fails at something. It's rude."

She shot him an annoyed look. "Nuh-uh. You always tell me that trying your best is what matters. Uncle Zeke said he went to watch and that Shane tried his best and did really good. As long you try your hardest losing isn't a big deal, it's even better than winning, because you learn something."

We all just stared at her, before Callie burst into laughter. At Cass's glare, she held up both hands. "Sorry sweetie, that's just a really smart way to look at it. I'm laughing because the rest of us were being dumb. Where did you hear that take on it though?"

Cass rolled her eyes, as if Callie had asked the dumbest question possible. "From cartoons, duh. Anyway, I wanted to wish Shane a happy losing day, because he tried his best and that means he got to learn something. Isn't that way better than winning?" She whispered to Callie, loud enough for us all to hear. "He needs it more than you did, because he's a boy. They get stupid about that kind of stuff."

Even I couldn't help but laugh at that, though I noted Cark shooting Callie and Jessie suspicious looks and muttering something about bad influences. I grinned, taking my mask off. "That's a good way to look at it. But if we're celebrating I guess I need to make something for dinner, maybe even a cake." I paused. "Is it arrogant to make your own congratulatory cake?"

It was hard not to crack up as everyone vehemently assured me it wasn't, choosing to interpret that as support and not the obvious desperate attempt to get me to make dessert for them that it was. Turning to head for the kitchen, I heard the others trailing behind me, and I thought back to what Cass said. She was right, there was more than one way to look at a loss. Sure I wasn't thrilled, but I'd done better than most, and I'd really shown what I could do. This wasn't such a bad outcome really, at least I got to show Abel how strong I'd gotten. Now I could just sit back, relax, and let him crush our enemies. Poor bastards.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I had to admit that the people running this tournament were smarter than I'd given them credit for. The next day was downtime before the semi-finals, and to get everyone pumped they released the names. At this point, everyone had fought enough times and there were few enough people left that anyone who wanted to be prepared (Abel didn't) would be. In light of that, all the matchups were trumpeted from the rooftops.

It had only taken me a second to realize why the five way brawl was set up for the finals. Besides being big and flashy, it meant they could advertise ten different semi-final matches, maximizing the amount of attention each of the contestants got. Which was how we got the announcement that Abel was going to be fighting Lament for his match.

The grin on my mentor's face was so wide I expected his face to split when he found out. We were all gathered around the scan box in the living room, watching the coverage of the tournament so far. They'd been cherry picking the best moments to play for everyone on Callus and all the surrounding worlds with champions involved.

When my own fights came up, I froze. "Wait...I had the whole fight under cover of Moonlit Night. How are there so many clips from my solo matches?" I hadn't really watched any of the coverage, wanting to stay focused on training, but now that I was out I was free to enjoy the downtime, especially since Abel's match wasn't until tomorrow.

That got a snort from Abel. "Please, you think they don't have counters for Stealth effects? Those barriers that keep out audience sound act through Perception, same basic principle as Stealth itself, erasing sounds as they go through, but it ALSO acts as a sort of revealing lens for anyone or anything looking through from the outside. Nothing more boring that seeing two people vanish at the start of the fight and the pop up after its over."

Huh. That made sense. "Oh, well." I said with a shrug. "I knew some of my secrets would get out. Just a shame I won't be seeing the points from this tournament, since I'm at my cap."

Abel shook his head. "Nah, I told you there's a ceremony for rank up built into the tournament itself. That was the event doesn't end until the contestants have hit the next rank. Otherwise why waste all that time on promotion. Once it ends you'll get all the points at once, kind of like the scavenger hunt the academy does."

I tried to remember if someone had mentioned something like that. I remembered hearing about the ceremony, but wasn't sure if I ever asked why they had it. I turned back to the screen, where I saw a clip of Lament's insane lightning ability. "So." I said seriously. "You think you can beat her? Because she's about as scary as you from what I saw. I know you were holding back on me, but by how much exactly."

"Ah." He said with a grin. "But that would be telling. As for whether I can beat her...who knows. I look forward to finding out though. Don't worry kid, if I lose, it's not going to be because I was slacking off."

Cass, who had decided to watch with us, was staring at the screen with a serious expression. "Hey." She said solemnly. "Mr. Abel, can you teach me to fight?" We all froze, turning to look at the small girl and her intent gaze as she took in the on screen combat.

"Cassidy!" Snapped Cark. "That's not something you just ask like that. Mr. Abel has things to do, he's still in the tournament and he doesn't have time to teach you combat."

My eyes were wide with panic. "Cass, that's not really a good idea. What even made you ask that?" Having been through Abel's training, I knew it wasn't at all something I would ever put a child through. I could sense Callie's shock and unease through the bond as well, so it wasn't just me.

She shrugged. "Mr. Abel is really strong. I want to learn to be strong like that too. In case someone tries to hurt me again." Her voice was...flat. But too flat. And I detected a slight shudder at the end. She was trying her hardest to seem disaffected, but she was still obviously disturbed by what happened to her, not that I blamed her at all. We all knew about her bad dreams, and as much as she repressed it most of the time and played the happy carefree little girl, there were other signs too.

We all went quiet at that, all of us except Abel. "Sorry kid. I won't teach you to fight. You're too young for my kind of training." Her face screwed up in anger. Before she could voice her complaint though, he held up a hand. "But I CAN teach you martial arts. At least until we leave for the Moonsong Glade. Nothing fancy or dangerous, just some low risk training and forms. To help build confidence."

That...was less objectionable. I knew that learning martial arts could help a person feel more in control and safe, and if he was planning to teach her just Ragam, and gently at that, it seemed fine to me, but in the end it wasn't my call. We looked at Cark, who was scowling. He could see the benefits too, but I could tell he didn't want to admit it.

It must have been rough, knowing she needed help and not being able to give it. I mean, sure any of us could have taught her, but we didn't want to shove her into combat. She'd been through enough. Now she was asking though, and it clearly meant a lot to her. Eventually, he sighed. "Alright. But I want to sit in on the lessons, and if I feel like you're being too harsh I reserve the right to end them at any time."

In an uncharacteristic show of seriousness, Abel nodded, his face set. "Of course." He turned to Cass, standing up only to kneel down in front of her. "I'm just going to teach you exercises, some of the forms I found in the book where I learned Ragam. Even so, this won't be easy. Our martial art is time consuming an difficult to master, and you may never make much progress in it. Even if you become an Ascendant, not everyone can learn Ragam."

Seeming to ignore that last part, Cass squealed with joy and hurled herself onto him, hugging his neck as he laughingly stood up. He nodded to Cark. "Going to be swamped tomorrow, might as well start the lessons right away so she can work while I'm not around." He looked at Jessie. "Think you could come with? I think having a healer on hand in case she falls or something would be a good idea."

Jessie looked thrilled to be included. "Of COURSE! I'd love to come watch her practice. Can we do it in the outside building so we can hang out with Randall and the puppies after?" The building behind the house was...well we weren't sure of its original purpose. There were some hints of it being a garage, or maybe some kind of barn, and there was a swimming pool full of broken glass jars and multicolored twenty sided dice out there. No one was willing to touch it, because the whole mess was somehow F-ranked, and Zeke thought it was too funny to get rid of.

That was in the back though, and there was a big empty hangar type room in the front that Jessie had co-opted for the animals, and had spent days decorating and sprucing up.

With an eye roll, Abel nodded, and the small group headed outside, with Rime deciding to tag along because we were in the house with Zeke and therefore safe, plus she seemed fascinated by seeing Abel fight, which I couldn't exactly blame her for given the battles she'd seen from him.

Once they were gone, I turned to Benny. "Alright, so I got yesterday's points traded, how about we get today's out of the way early."

He shrugged. "I'm not against that. Yesterday was Might, and I'll do Might again today to even things up. Focus has been lagging behind." He fished out a small bag, tossing it to me, and I heard the clink as I jingled it around. Chits. This would bring me up to one hundred seventy one combined with the five from yesterday. He made his wish, pushing his Might up to three hundred and nine and his total points to seven hundred eighty three.

Benny finished up his wishes and decided to go check in with Celine, who had been staying with us, though mostly keeping to her room. With him gone, I slumped back into the couch with a world weary sigh. Callie frowned at me, having been letting us get the wishes done and enjoying the show until she felt my unease. "You ok babe? You seem out of it. Anything I can help with?"

"I...guess not?" I said contemplatively. "I was pretty down about losing until Cass's speech yesterday, and now I'm fine, but I'm also kind of lost. I've been going full tilt for so long, and now I have to just stop. The whole hurry up and wait thing is giving me whiplash. I know we have to wait for Abel to do his thing and leave it up to him, but at this point I can't sit still. I feel like I should be training or something."

She made a pensive sound. "Nope." I raised an eyebrow at the dismissal. "No training, that's an order from your team leader. Until the end of the tournament wishes are the only Ascendant thing you're allowed to do. Until then, you need to find other things to occupy your time. Visit friends, get a hobby, whatever you want." She gave me a sly look. "Maybe lavish your adoring girlfriend with attention. Or even do two of those things at once."

"I'm not sure cooking for you counts as a hobby." I said wryly. "But I'm starting to think you only like me for my culinary skills."

She gave me wicked grin, leaning in for a kiss. "That's a lot of talking and not a lot of getting in the kitchen to make me a sandwich." When I chuckled, she squeezed me tight. "You know I love you. I love you because you're sweet, and kind, and loving, and brave, and you're a total beefcake. The fact that you're a gorumet chef and happen to be a treasure magnet is just icing on my absolute favorite kind of cake."

I nodded solemnly. "High praise, given how much you enjoyed the one I made last night. But fine, I see your point. I'll try to take some me time. I don't suppose watching matches counts?"

"It does not." She said firmly. "Though you can still go, because we need to support our team. It's the right thing to do as teammates. Plus, come on, you have to admit you want to see Lament and Abel face of. They're the two scariest G-rankers I've ever seen."

I laughed at the admission, and she snuggled up to me to get started on this whole downtime thing. Of course, that didn't mean she let me pick what we watched, she connected her scan ring and started flipping through the channels on the scan box until she got to a cooking channel. From her surreptitious glance at me it was clear she was hinting at something but I just snorted settled in to watch. Though I had to admit, I'd never actually made stuffed peppers before, maybe I actually would give that a shot.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Finding a seat at the arena the next day was harder than expected. I don't know why I hadn't assumed it would be packed, maybe because it had been so sparsely populated all the other matches. People had watched from home or just ignored most of the lead up fights, since there were so many happening. Even last round, the top twenty, hadn't really been a concern for most.

This one was different though. This match was one of the ten semi-finals, and everyone wanted to be here. I don't think it even mattered to them who was fighting, one of the matches being as good as the next, they just wanted to be part of the spectacle. Which made finding a seat annoying and difficult.

Luckily, Rime was with us, which made it at least possible, as after thirty minutes of looking she finally approached a group of locals she knew and just literally kicked them out of their seats. They whined about it a bit, but she was annoyed at the wait, and once they knew she was being serious they lost most of their momentum, just quietly vacating, to join the throng of searchers.

Zeke had come along directly, and brought Cass with him. She wanted to see her new teacher fight, and Zeke was the only person she really felt safe with in a place like this. I wasn't sure the little girl KNEW how scary her 'Uncle Zeke' was, but some part of her recognized that he was at least competent. Along with them was Callie and I, of course, Cark, Jessie, Benny, and Mel.

To my surprise, we all seemed to be in good moods, almost as excited for this fight as Abel himself was. Mel was sitting closest to the aisle between the seats, just so she could reach the pit fastest if she needed to. I'd never seen anything close to uncertainty from her towards Abel before, so it was a bit jarring, but even she looked anticipatory. Still, I decided to at least say something. "Hey, you ok?"

She jumped slightly, looking up at me. "Yeah, sorry. Just out of it. It's been years since I've seen him in a really big fight." She coughed lightly. "Uh, no offense. But this just reminds me of how things used to be. When we were younger he would challenge anyone except freaks he had no chance of beating. I just- shit, there he is, time to watch."

Sure enough, Abel was walking out onto the sand, looking so excited he was about to vibrate through the ground. On the other side Lament emerged, hefting her spear over her shoulder and staring intently at me mentor. They spoke for a minute, not that we could hear them, and then the two of them started to circle.

Lament lashed out with a spear thrust, and Abel clapped his hands together, massive manifestations halting the thrust of the colossal spear head before it could reach him. He slapped the blade aside, driving forward with a flurry of punches, fist manifestations appearing and vanishing as he struck from a new angle with each blow.

It didn't phase Lament, who started to spin her spear, the haft manifesting in the air over her head, creating a whirling defensive manifestation that blocked all the blows. Shoving the haft forward, the whirling defense drove at Abel, and my mentor stepped lightly aside, carried on a thin stream of lubricated space out of the path of the attack, raising his arms, I saw him use that space warping effect to manifest six afterimages of arms around him, then condense them and hurl out a barrage of punches with three times the power.

Using her spear as a pole vault, Lament shoved herself aside, dodging back and forth to avoid that punches. She called out for her power, manifesting lightning to her blade, and flashed forward in a driving charge faster than my eyes could track, a manifestation of the lightning charged blade heading right for Abel.

My mentor tossed his jacket to the side, arms clenching as space seemed to shimmer and warp around them. Manifestations appeared above him, but these were somehow denser and more intimidating. Raising his arms, he brought them down, leaving a trail of afterimages, each one following behind the arms to stack on top of them a dozen times, space behind them lubricated and creating a sort of dimensional overlap.

There was a clap of thunder even the wards couldn't keep in as his phantom hands smashed into the spear, one at the head, and one halfway down the haft just over where the hand would be. The manifestation snapped, and with it the actual spear Lament was holding basically exploded in her hands, the spearwoman dodging back as quickly as possible, but not fast enough to avoid the shrapnel completely.

Abel shook out his arms, giving her an easy grin, and I saw the two of them start to argue. Or rather, Lament was arguing, seeming to get more and more agitated until...something changed. Literally, the weight of the spear user on my consciousness was altered as she..."Is she fucking breaking through?"

My question was answered a moment later as I felt her stabilize at F-rank. Mel whistled. "Wow, she does NOT want to lose. They'll disqualify her for this, but I somehow don't think she cares. Looks like they'll continue the fight though. Probably waiting for Abel to call it." She was trying to sound casual, but there was an undercurrent of worry in her tone.

Lament raised a hand into the air, and another manifestation appeared above her. I stared at it in shock, how the hell was she doing that without a spear? As I gaped, lightning condensed on the spear image, coating it completely, and then she clenched her fist and the manifestation began to CONTRACT. The huge spear image started shrinking, becoming more solid and more dense as it did, until a literal lightning spear was sitting in her hand, visibly physical and deadly.

"What the actual fuck?" I asked Mel, who was staring at the spear in horror. "How did she do that? Some kind of power synergy?"

She shook her head mutely. "No. That's a physically manifest Skill. Manifestations are physical, but only for a second or two during attacks. That's an actual solid object. Different people manifest things differently, but...I'm pretty sure she just ranked that Skill up to Expert."

I snapped back to watching the fight, terrified for my teacher, but to my shock he looked elated. Reaching up, he pulled off his mask and slipped it into a pocket, cracking his neck.

At the motion, Mel seemed to deflate, the pressure of her worry fading. "Ok, he's going to start taking things seriously."
I blinked at her. "Ok...but how much can he be holding back really? I've seen him fight, ans he's scary as he'll, but if she's an F-ranker and an expert now..."

To my surprise, Mel seemed to actually calm down at the words, starting to chuckle to herself. At my strange look, she chucked her chin down at the arena. "Let me ask you a question. We've talked about Ragam plenty right? Told you it's a striking art that allows you to condense force with pinpoint accuracy?"

I nodded, and her chuckle gained a wicked edge as she pointed to the arena. "Well, at any point during those explanations did we mention that Ragam only used PUNCHING techniques?"

My head snapped up, eyes widening as I saw a colossal phantom leg appear and sweep towards Lament from the side, seeing it, she spun her lightning spear, turning to intercept. As she did, Abel stepped into the manifestation, which extended from where he was standing to where she was blocking. The limb had been coated in his spatial lubrication before manifesting, and Abel basically vanished at one end, appearing in front of his enemy.

Lament's eyes widened and she lashed out at Abel, who rolled in midair, leaving behind a warped space in the shape of his body that seemed to condense as a manifestation, even as he slipped around behind her, spinning off his back leg to scythe a kick at her head from behind as the manifestation of himself launched a flurry of attacks and faded into nothingness as it was struck by the spear.

She yanked the spear out, rolling it up over her arm to place it between her and Abel. As his foot landed, he pulled back, shedding another blurry manifestation of himself cobbled together from warped space. He spun on his toe, whirling around her in a complete circle, leaving copies behind, and then changed direction as she attacked the spot he'd just been in.

As he moved back through the warped copies of himself he absorbed them, seeming to become denser and more powerful, not quite hitting the next point of Impact, but coming close. After absorbing ten clones he dashed forward, and engaged her in a direct head to head fight.

Her spear lashed out like a glowing blue rainstorm, striking the air and creating explosions of thunder as it tore through the sound barrier, but Abel was always a step ahead, twisting and contorting his body in a strange movement style that was both fluid and ragged, always just an inch from being hit as his blows smashed into his opponent with brutal and punishing force.

Blow to the short ribs, downward elbow to the collar bone, uppercut to the jaw, stomp the knee. Lament was getting frustrated, moving faster, attacking harder, and she even landed a few hits. Despite that, Abel didn't stop or slow. I'd see him get stabbed and think he was dead, only to realize it had been a glancing blow, or landed somewhere less vulnerable than intended.

Even with the new holes being poked in him, Abel was clearly in a frenzy of joy. Lament attacked again, driving the spear into his thigh, and I saw his smile turn feral as he used the second it was stuck in his leg to slam his head forward into her nose. Her eyes went hazy, head falling back as her nose fountained blood, and Abel's hand came up to grab her hair, holding her hear back as he drove the other into her throat, knuckles first, in a brutal knife hand.

She doubled over as he backed up slightly, tearing his ragged and bloody shirt off the tie it around his thigh in a make shift tourniquet, then stepped in and grabbed her head, smashing his other, uninjured leg into her bloody face, again, and again, and again. It took ten blows before she slumped over, unconscious, and Abel threw a fist up in the air as the crowd erupted in cheers.

I stared, dumbstruck. Not because he won, but because of what he'd done to get there. The pain, the blood, the injuries he just shrugged off. I could see what Abel had wanted us to see. That fights weren't clean and orderly like the ones we'd been in so far. Even the bouts with assassins had been neat, tame. We tried not to get hurt and to take down the bad guys. That was what heroic cultivators did.

This wasn't that. This was brutal, bloody, and unfiltered. If we wanted to take down people stronger than us, we'd need to fight like this when it mattered. I made a mental note to take all of this to heart as I stood up, following Mel down the steps to the edge of the pit as I saw Abel keel over, probably from blood loss.

With both fighters out they dropped the shield and Mel and I jumped down, bolting for Abel to heal him up. A heal burst and scan heal just to be safe, later, had him on the mend, and two more heal bursts sped things up a bit. Then we healed up Lament and carried them both out. Our team was in the finals for real. Time to celebrate.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

By the time we got home, Zeke was already there. He always beat us back, which was fine, but I had other things to address. Questions for Abel, more specifically. "Ok." I said heatedly. "What the actual fuck was that? I mean congrats on the win, but you were really holding back against me that much?"

My mentor was still healing, and I admit I wasn't gentle dropping his ass on the couch from the firemans carry I had him in. He grunted as he hit the cushions, but didn't seem upset about it as he crawled to a sitting position with a chuckle. "Not exactly. My Cicada Stacking Steps is new. I've been working on the technique for the tournament. I had something...kind of like it before. But what you saw from me today was me going all out."

I noticed he dodged the question, but I didn't bother to point it out. "Cicada Stacking Steps? How does that even work?" I had been damned impressed by my mentor's fight, and some of what he pulled off made almost no sense to me.

His grin was proud as he adjusted himself on the couch. Callie, Jessie, and Mel had gone out with Rime to get Enchiladas from the Raving Baby (Abel's favorites). We'd gotten permission from Zeke for a quick trip from the F-ranker into Doomtown, and they should be back soon enough. "Good question. Why not guess?"

Groaning at his insistence on making everything training, I gave my best guess. "Well the actual clones were obviously spatial lubrication. But I'm not how you did the rest exactly. Something with manifestations?"

He nodded. I can manifest any part of me used for Ragam, and at basically any size. Using my legs transitioned it to a full body art. I shed spatial lubrication behind me and then harmonized it with a quick full body manifestation, then used it to stack like my punches do, amplifying my strength multiple times over."

I whistled. I'd figured it was something like that, but the details...the complexity of something like that must be absurd. It wasn't just harmonizing several different instances of power use, but doing it with a Skill that already taxed the soul to the peak of G-rank. Speaking of which. "What happened to Lament by the way? I mean, she lost, so she was out anyway. Did they do anything to her for cheating?"

That drew a snort from my teacher. "Hardly. Like you said, she lost. If she'd beat me they'd have had to fix it, but since she was bounced anyway there was no reason. Plus her Master is a scary old man. Nobody wanted to pick a fight over a dead issue. I didn't throw a fit so why should they?"

"But aren't you..." I searched for the words. "Mad? Disappointed? She almost cost you all your hard work just because she was a sore loser."

He just chuckled, shaking his head. "See, this is why I think the Unity is a bad influence. It doesn't matter. It never mattered. Not just to me, because I wanted the fight to be as hard as possible, but at all. The world isn't about fairness, or hard work. It's about doing what you want. Finding that thing that makes your heart pound. If someone crosses a line it's not an offense, it's an opportunity to leverage them."

Rather than refute him, I sat and thought for a minute. "The way you were fighting..."

An approving nod accompanied his grin. "Exactly. People love to talk about the downsides of being an Ascendant. You have whiny romantics go on and on about losing themselves, and cautious people insisting they hone their force of will to resist recursion, but they ignore the best parts. The parts I love. To be Ascendant is to be a force of nature. A story made flesh. Never ceasing, never ending, even after you die, you don't because stories always live on as long as there are people to tell them."

I gaped at him. I'd never seen him so...philosophical. "But what if you DO lose yourself? Who you are? Giving so many people control of you is just..."

"But you aren't!" He said passionately. "Renown is reactive, not active. It's a response. You're the one throwing the stone in the pool, creating the ripples. Your destiny is all on you. It can be hard to keep complete control, but it's still you driving. It's a snowball, kid, the more you show the world the person you want to be seen as, the more they push you to that ideal. You're the author of your own story."

I groaned in exasperation. "So what? What does that have to do with your fight? With how self destructive you were being?"

"Because." He said like it was obvious. "The story I was telling is one of overwhelming power. And you can't have overwhelming power without something to overwhelm. The blood, the injuries, the pain, they paved the road I wanted everyone to walk down, showed them my journey in a way deeper than words. They walked my path with me, and because of that, they'll REMEMBER it."

Which I couldn't argue, really. He'd left a hell of an impression. "But is it like that everywhere? Is that the new standard? Will I need to watch Callie bleed like that? Hurt like that?" I could take the pain, it would suck but half the problem with injury was wondering if it would be the end of you, and with my abilities I'd be fine. But seeing Callie like that, hurting, tearing herself apart like an animal gnawing off its arm to escape a trap. It made me sick to think about it.

"Honestly. Probably not." He said, to my surprise. At my cocked head he laughed. "There are more types of stories than stars in the sky, kid. Callie is a sneaky type. People like that walk a fine line. Gotta be scary enough to build a rep, but being all blatant and violent like me is counterproductive. Sneaky people aren't supposed to get pumped full of holes and get up. They're supposed to be a maybe, to be a whisper that may or may not be true. It's a safer life, but a much more ruthless one in some ways."

That was surprisingly insightful, but I could tell from his drifting attention he'd said all he really wanted to say. So I changed topic. "Well, fair enough. Speaking of safety, are you going to be ok to fight in the finals? They gave us three days, but your wounds were from an F-ranker. That's a pretty nasty thing to heal." I gestured to the multiple holes still closing up.

The healing energy had prioritized the worst injuries because of the inclusion of a scan heal in my patch job, which upside meant he would be fine, but downside meant that there were still plenty of non vital spots that were the human equivalent of swiss cheese.

"I'm fine." He said with a casual wave. "Plus we have full time access to one of the best G-rank healers on this planet. Jessie already has a higher Vitality than most F-rankers start with, she can help patch me up with plenty of time to spare. Even if she doesn't feel like it, I've fought hurt before. I'll be there."

Seeing how little the idea bothered him brought me back to his little speech earlier. About making yourself who you wanted to be. Abel had been trudging forward without flinching for decades, this was definitely a result of that, and the idea of that kind of determination shaping who I was...it was kind of nice.

It was also an angle people like Zeke wouldn't even consider talking to me about. Zeke had been living it for longer than I'd been alive, probably MUCH longer. It would be like trying to give someone breathing advice. The downsides of being an Ascendant would be obvious, but not this particular aspect of things.

My thoughts were interrupted as the front door slammed shut. "We're home!" Called Callie. We got up to head to the kitchen, me giving Abel my shoulder for help and him ignoring it. I smirked a bit at how stubborn he was, but I kind of respected it.

In the kitchen, Callie was coming in with several containers of Enchiladas. She started setting them down as Rime and Jessie came in. Benny, who had been off with Celine, came in after, clearly summoned to help carry things in. Cass came running through the door with Cark and Zeke. The little girl sniffed the air. "That smells so good!" She crowed. "What is it? I want seconds!"

Callie giggled at the girl's appetite while Jessie set down the containers (metallic foil trays with crimped folding tops) and scooped her up to get her out of the way. Cass squealed in surprise and joy as Jessie carried her out of the room to go watch cartoons again.

We all chuckled, and Mel dragged him to the table, fussing over her boyfriend. "Sit down you insufferable idiot. We got your favorite, so park your ass and eat it before we decide to feed it to dogs. I bet they would love some enchiladas." Her voice was brusque, but the worry in it was clear, and Abel obviously got that too, since he gave her a solemn look and then sat with a nod.

It was weird to see her so worried about him, given what he could do, but then, I could do plenty, and Callie still worried about me. I guessed it wasn't often someone you loved fought an F-ranked Master Candidate. The rest of us crowded around the counter once they got Abel his food, Jessie coming back in with Cass (though with was a bit of an overstatement, it was more like she got dragged) and we all sat at the table to eat.

Abel, of course, had a stack of trays next to him with dozens of the damned things in there, which I was assured would not only be delicious, but help him fuel the energy burn of Jessie spamming her power on him for days. Jessie's power supercharged the body, but it still USED the body. Short term it acted like healing and a pure energy boost, but long term it needed nutrients to work with.

We sat around, stuffing out faces and enjoying the food, listening to Cass talk about her day at home, and I had to admit...it was nice. I'd expected to be a bit bitter about losing to him, but honestly seeing him so happy and feeling like part of the winning team washed any of that away. I'd never have won, I had known it deep down, even if I wanted it desperately. This though, this was better. Friends. Family.

Eating, laughing, spending time together, this was a damn good result for the tournament, and even if he didn't win the finals, this whole thing would have been worth it. It made us stronger, brought us together, showed us who we were. I could see why these things were so common, there was a lot to be said about learning from combat. Looking back the way Abel and I had come, I considered the next round.

The finals. The last thing he needed to get past to make this work. It wouldn't be easy, but at this point...I almost didn't feel the pressure. As a part of the team of course. I wasn't the one fighting, but even this round I had felt a drive for him to win. Now though...we made it to the end. If we fumbled here life would go on. I shook the thought away, tucking back into my Enchiladas as Cass started telling Callie all about how the main character in her cartoon had just gotten a power up. Like I'd said, it was all worth it.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Three days of downtime passed far more quietly than expected. Granted, it wasn't my downtime, it was Abel's, but still I'd figured I'd be more nervous about the last round. My odd sense of peace continued until the last minute though, and the morning of, I finished up my wishes with Benny. With another fifteen G-ranked chits in my bank for my weapon fund, I was free to give Benny another sixty points, forty in Focus and twenty in Might over the break. Then I headed to talk to Abel about his final fight.

Getting seats for the finals when it was all in one arena was rough, but we couldn't leave him by himself. The E-rankers had it covered though, and we managed to snag enough entrance passes for all of our close friends. Benny, Jessie, Celine, Mel, Rime, Lament, Wren, Alden, Sydney, Megan, and Sloane were all coming with, hoping to cheer on my terrifying teacher and maybe get their faces on camera cheering. Some of the other teams we'd made friends with had their own invites too, this was going to be a big event.

"You're sure you're healed up?" Asked Callie with concern as Abel actually stretched before we headed to the arena. Warm-ups weren't his usual style.

He just waved it off. "I'm fine, I called and talked to Shane's cousin, who put me in touch with Valk. He won his match, and we both agreed that the best possible outcome is one of us winning, so we talked through a couple of combinations to maximize our combat potential." We all turned to stare at him questioningly, but he just winked. "No spoilers."

"I'm surprised though." I volunteered. I'd have pegged you for the lone warrior type. I wouldn't have figured you would want to team up with someone you don't know."

Frowning, he nodded at Lament. "Yeah well, pigsticker over there showed me that I can't take this lightly. Chances are some of these bastards are tougher than she was, and while I'm confident I can take any G-ranker around, I'm not confident I can take FOUR of any G-ranker around. If I'd been fighting four of her, even before she shamelessly cheated and lost anyway, I'd have been in trouble. Barely."

Lament twitched, and Wren tried his best not to snicker. The other members of their team had stayed behind, but Wren was a friend, and he was enjoying Abel tormenting his captain. Of course, like he'd said before, Abel didn't hold it against her, but he DID love to mess with people, and was regularly poking her about the loss. The pigsticker comment was particularly cutting, since he'd smashed her spear in the fight and she had no way to get a new one on planet that was up to her standards, especially with the rank up.

To her credit, Lament didn't argue the point. She wasn't sorry, and had admitted that, but she also had a good fight and the consequences were all on her. She considered the right to shit talk Abel's due for winning. I decided interrupting would be the nicest thing I could do here. "So did we get confirmation on the finalists? I never checked."

Callie nodded. "The Walking War and Firn both made the finals. Helix didn't shockingly, got bounced out by some shapeshifter. Along with Abel and Valk that's the top five right there. The shapeshifter is from the Cult, as far as I can tell. Whereas I think Wilder, the Walking War, has ties to the Empire. Nobody is sure WHO the Final Frost Heaven is backed by, if anyone, but Firn is supposed to be damned scary."

Abel shook his head. "He's not a shapeshifter. He's got a racial trait. He's a Hyde. Valk sent me some videos of his matches. He's...not weak. Aside from being able to take on a massive supernaturally powerful form, he has some kind of black energy like what that asshat in Doomtown used." He pointed at my uncle. "Zeke says its called the Rath and the Ruins, and it's a martial art from the Cult, though not directly created by Black Sorrow. Much less prestigious and powerful than the Fist art that Alec uses."

That was surprising to me, but when we looked at Zeke he just shrugged. "He paid for the info, so it wasn't helping too much to give it to him. Is Natalie coming with us or is she going on her own?"

"Her own. She and Perit and their other teammate got tickets easily. Speaking of tickets, we should go shouldn't we? It's going to start soon."

During the conversation most of us had trickled out to wait in the car, Jessie starting it up and everyone packing in tightly, even with the expanded space. We got there pretty quickly from my view, since we didn't talk much on the drive. Everyone sort of mutually agreed to let Abel concentrate, and even my usually relaxed mentor himself was quieter than expected.

When we arrived, we all headed up to sit down in the stands, not finding anyone we knew. We'd brought our own party though, so to speak, so we didn't need to add to it. We were in assigned seating, because otherwise there was no way we would have ended up together, because the whole place was packed to the rafters. Or would have been. If open top arenas had rafters. It was pretty full, was the point.

Rather then the sand pit though, this one had a huge square ring surrounded by flat ground. The ring itself had a pentagonal shape on it where each of the contestants would take an equadistant place from the center and from each other. Before the match started though, Midknight himself strode out onto the platform.

Callie tensed, but I put a hand on her arm. As much as I hated that asshole, and as much as I wanted her to get another chance to teach him a lesson, I knew this wasn't the time. Politically though, this situation was a time bomb. We couldn't afford to throw gas on the fire when there was so much happening...actually, there was a LOT happening. I looked around suspiciously.

This would be the stupidest, and as such in some ways the smartest, time to attack again. If they thought they had a method to counter the defenses here it would provide a huge amount of reputation. But what was the point? By the time it ended the winner would be chosen. Was I being paranoid? Or was this my Fate sense latching onto a stray though?

Midknight cleared his throat. "Citizens!" He intoned, voice booming a bit more ominously than it had last time. He was hamming it up for the larger crowd. I wasn't sure what caused the shiver down my spine, but the effect was clearly felt throughout the arena. "We bring to you the final battle. The last moment. These warriors have bled and fought and cursed to reach this hallowed stage, and this is their reward. Glorious combat."

I got the incredibly strong urge to roll my eyes, and realized it was coming through the bond when Callie DID roll her eyes. I smirked at her from behind my mask, but neither of us spoke as Midknight continued. "Power. Skill. Determination. All important qualities, important building blocks on the path to success. But in truth, these blocks are all made of a single material, one substance that makes up the blood and bone of every truly great warrior. Victory."

He gestured widely to the ring. "And as with all true Victory, only one may claim it. Only a single warrior may emerge at the peak. These five competitors will now show you how those building blocks are forged. Show you the way they're laid down, so you might follow that path yourselves one day."

"Wow." I murmured under my breath, making sure to use Stealth so I wasn't heard. "He REALLY likes the sound of his own voice." I'd thought Callie had been being hyper critical when she mentioned that, but it seemed like she was just being literal.

My girlfriend used Stealth herself to stifle a giggle, and Midknight either didn't hear or didn't care as long as others couldn't, as he pressed on. "The competitors may use any means within the rules. They may team up, may even fall upon a single person as a group and beat them down. Anything is permitted. But at the end, when this finishes, only one will be crowned the victor. These five champions represent the strongest of their generation. Roland Wilder, of the War God Regiment. Appolyon of the Starchaser Pavilion. Firn of the Final Frost Heaven,Valk of the Wish Curse Palace, and Jack Carrax of the Weeping Clown Tomb. Which of them will emerge victorious? Only time will tell."

He snapped his fingers and shadows leapt up, obscuring the five points of the ring and receding to reveal the contestants. "You may begin." He slammed his palms together and the armor exploded into a shadowy mist, obscuring the ring for a moment before it faded away, revealing the five combatants standing across from each other, waiting for the right time to attack.

Everyone watched with bated breath. Abel was standing to the left of Valk, close enough to reach quickly, of course, but the five of them all just...stood. This was combat at the highest possible level. These were all people like Abel, monsters in human form, and the second one of them moved things would begin with a bang and they all knew it.

As the observed, I took in the forms of the enemies. The Hyde, Jack Carrax, was a tall, pallid looking man with sunken eyes and a hungry expression. His matted, greasy blonde hair hung limply to his shoulders under a tall top hat, and he wore an apron covered in blood.

Firn was a small, delicate looking girl with purple hair and blue eyes the color of ice, she wore a pair of purple shorts and a black sleeveless shirt with a purple silk jacket over the top of it. Her skin was chalk white, almost bloodless, and her expression was as cold as the ice she used in combat.

Finally the Roland was a short, dark skinned man with a wide, amiable smile and close cropped hair. His eyes were hazel, and were the only part of him that didn't scream kind and approachable, his gaze analytical and dangerous. He had on a functional set of leather armor, dyed red hide covering his entire body except for his face. I wasn't sure what the hide was, but it appeared to be F-ranked like my armor was.

The lull before the fight lasted for almost an entire minute, analyzing, waiting, deducing, until finally the tension snapped like a rubber band. Jack turned, shifting from a tall, thin man to a monster, easily ten feet tall and grotesquely bulging with muscle, arms so long the scraped the ground from a standing position. He hurled himself at Firn, who flicked a wrist to conjure a massive wall of pitch black permafrost in front of herself.

My gaze was dragged away as Abel used his spatial lubrication to flash across the distance to Valk, one of each of their hands clapping together as the air blurred. Suddenly a massive manifestation of Abel's other hand appeared cupped in front of them, but this time it wasn't normally colored. Instead the hand was made of blue gel.

The gel was Valk's ability, and it was lucky it was, because a wave for G-ranked swords came spearing down from above to pincushion our guys, stopped by the gel formed hand before even getting close. Roland surged forward to engage, and I turned to look at Callie with worry. Those attacks had all been terrifying. I hoped Abel would be ok, but all I could do was trust in my mentor. However this went down though, one thing was sure. This would be a hell of a fight.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Roland Wilder, the man known as the Walking War, was every bit as terrifying as his moniker suggested. While Firn battled with the Hyde (who was managing to just barely degrade her permafrost with his dark energy, and then using the weakening to smash holes in it with his massive fists) Valk and Abel were teaming up to combat the storm of conjured swords sweeping down on them from above.

While he didn't seem able to manually control the things one at a time, Roland WAS able to direct the torrent of conjured weapons, turning and shaping the attack pattern to try to avoid the hand. Abel stepped forward, making a circular motion with his palm, and created a rotating trail of lubricated space leading inward. The motion had the effect of making a sort of vortex in space that sucked in all the swords the other man was trying to get past the hand manifestation.

It was an interesting and terrifying move, but I could see how he wouldn't use it. Without the gel power Abel's manifestations were part of him, and could be harmed. It wasn't direct translation, but it effected him. Now though, the manifestation was catching the swords like flies in amber.

Which, as it turned out, was kind of the point. Roland had purposefully filled the hand with swords, something we didn't know until he used the next wave as a path, stepping on swords in the air and heading up after them.

This seemed like a supremely bad idea, but I realized as he got sucked in the the palm had been packed so full of swords there was barely any gel left. With a wave of his hand Roland dismissed the swords, and suddenly there were big open holes in the construct, and Roland stepped off a summoned sword and dashed through it.

Abel, not one to shrink back, flickered forward to meet him. Roland grabbed a sword from his summoned masses and brought it to bear in a powerful swing that Abel diverted easily with his power. I expected Valk to jump in, but I realized I'd been so concerned with the big show I'd missed the red bearded man leaving. Looking around, I spotted him engaging the Hyde, and was confused as to why he wasn't in position until I saw the dark energy wrapped around the whips on his hands.

I wasn't the only one who had noticed either, the distraction had been plenty of time for Firn, as a dragon made of black ice came howling down from above to swallow Jack whole. Seeing the opening, Valk turned and sprinted back to the fight between Roland and my mentor.

The swordsman had been trying unsuccessfully to get his blade on Abel, who had been using trails of lubricated space to divert every blow, never coming into contact. Roland wasn't a pushover though, and as Valk came in behind him he noticed, and with a stomp a barrage of swords erupted from the ground like spikes to perforate both fighters.

Abel avoided easily, and Valk used the dark energy whips to tear the blades apart. Before he could actually attack though, there was a roar as Jack came hurtling out of the ice dragon, shattering the black frost as he threw himself bodily at Valk, clearly enraged by the distraction even more than the actual confinement.

Abel flickered again, stepping into a trail of lubricated space that took him in an arc around the edge of where Valk was preparing to combat Jack. Valk didn't hesitate, turning and lashing out at Roland with the whips as Abel intercepted the Hyde.

The towering form of the monstrous brawler brought his hands down, collecting dark energy, and Abel dipped to the side to avoid it. Reaching up to pluck off his mask and slip it into his pocket, Abel flickered sideways, circling the Hyde and leaving a trail of duplicates, overlapping them again as he completed a second circle and empowering himself with his Cicada Stacking Step.

I blinked at the realization that Jack was STRONGER than my mentor. Whatever being a Hyde did for you, it apparently prioritized Might, and got some kind of natural modifier to strength like the Wendigo had. Jack lashed out with another punch, but this one Abel met head on, using a coating of warped space to prevent his hands from being degraded by the dark energy of the Rath and the Ruins.

Jack snarled at him, baring yellowed, uneven teeth, and snapped something we couldn't hear through the barrier before redoubling his efforts, attacking twice as fast, raining down blows. Abel whipped his jacket off and hurled it up at the other man. Jack slapped it aside nearly instantly, but that nearly was all the opening Abel needed. He used his spatial lubrication to slip around behind the Hyde.

Wrapping his arms around the giant man's waist, Abel bent over backwards, lifting Jack off his feet and slamming his skull into the dark stone of the ring. His tophat, which had somehow stayed on this whole time, went flying as his head slammed brutally into the stone, cracking the F-ranked material with the force of impact.

Abel would have followed up, but before he could attack, he seemed to sense danger. He pulled Jack in front of him as a rain of razor sharp black icicles came down on both of them, using the giant Hyde as a human shield to intercept the ice spikes.

Which turned out to be extremely wise, considering every place the permafrost slammed into Jack, ice spread over his bodyu, darkening his flesh with frostbite. Even though we couldn't hear him, the expression on his face made the pain clear. Firn had apparently taken the distraction as time to build up for something really nasty, because once Abel tossed aside his shield she didn't do that again.

Jack just writhed on the ground in pain, ignored as Valk faced off with Roland and Abel matched Firn head on. My cousin's guard was doing shockingly well though, his dark whips easily matching the torrent of blades Roland was bringing to bear. That dark energy was dangerous, and even G-ranked blades weren't able to stand up to it in combination with the force the whips were bringing to bare.

At this point, Valk was the one bringing the pain, and it was gratifying seeing the calm and cheerful Roland get serious, deflecting blows and being forced to abandon and resummon the swords he had in each hand as they became unusable under the assault.

Abel meanwhile, had rushed Firn, who had reacted by erecting some sort of spherical shield with nine large heads emerging from it, each a sucking tube of black ice with consecutive rotating rings of black frost teeth. Abel was bouncing from tube to tube, sliding down them on lubricated space trails to speed himself up and tying the damned things into knots.

I even saw one about to catch him, but as it chomped down he shed one of his Cicada shells, his strength dipping by a chunk but his body surviving the attack completely unscathed. He took advantage of the gap to push off heading for the shield, manifesting a massive fist, condensing several blows together even on top of the enhancement from the Cicada Shedding Step as far as I could tell.

His fist image hit the shield of dark ice and shattered it, smashing Firn INTO the stage, creating a crater deeper than I was tall. Abel turned on a heel, flickering in an arch along a trail of space I hadn't noticed him making, and came down with a smashing axe kick on a distracted Roland, who took the blow to the shoulder and was forced to the ground with a grunt. Judging by the expression on his face I was guessing his collar bone was either broken or cracked.

The two of them turned to Jack, who had dragged himself to his feet to glare at them. The Hyde took a step forward, and both of them prepared to fight, but he just toppled over face first. With him down, the two final competitors turned to each other. Valk spoke calmly, saying something I couldn't hear. I wished they'd left the shield noise permeable after Midknight vanished.

Abel flashed forward, and Valk whirled his whips in front of him in a defensive barrier. Sadly for him, the black energy had been used up quite a bit fighting Roland. I'd seen the effect waning as the fight went on, but now it was barely present. Abel slipped out of another shell, leaving behind a duplicate as her flowed behind Valk. The red bearded warrior shredded the shell, but realized too later what had happened as Abel hammered a spinning back elbow to base of his skull.

He fell to the ground heavily, and Abel looked around the area, eager for more despite the sweat and obvious exhaustion. The dome began to fall. The armored form of Midknight stepped up onto the stage, choosing to avoid. He approached Abel, grabbed his hand, and held it aloft triumphantly.

"Your champion!" He roared. "Winner of the ten spots for the Moonsong Glade, to be distributed however he sees fit. The rest of them fought bravely, but in the end only one warrior ca-" He was cut off as a blast of black energy detonated in the center of the stage, both Abel and Midknight being thrown clear.

I saw the armor dissolve from the blast, and Abel hit the sand rolling, having survived the explosion by virtue of being further away and having Midknights armor between them. In the center of the ring stood a trio of dark figures, each clad in a dark robe, the air around them crackling with the familiar black energy.

The one at the front of the triangle formation grinned widely, a flushed, boyish faced E-ranker with curly red hair surrounding a round face set with bright green eyes. "Sorry to interrupt!" He boomed happily. "I'm afraid we disagree with the results. Actually, we disagree with the tournament entirely. We've decided the Black Sorrow Cult will take the slots, and since you did such a poor job distributing them, we'll be taking this planet for good measure."

I froze, staring down at them. Of course they would try something, they'd been way too quiet lately. But this...this was crazy. I turned to Zeke. "They can't do this right? They know you're here! It would be insane for them to attack a world with a B-ranked protector on it."

He just shook his head. "This is faction business. This kind of thing happens. Callus would normally be too backwater to warrant a takeover attempt, but under the circumstances...I could see it. But the planet is my current home, and I have loved ones here besides you." He seemed confused. "There's no way they could be stupid enough to think I'd ignore that."

As if the words had summoned it, the redheaded cultist turned to grin up at us. "But please, don't think we're looking down on you bringing only a trio. We have many more agents placed around the planet, and even more than that, we made sure to bring some extra special helpers who will make sure that things are finished up fast."

The two figures behind him stopped holding back, and I felt the world slam down on my shoulders as the weight of their Impact manifested on the air. My eyes widened as I struggled to breathe under the suppression, not because they were trying to hurt us, they weren't, they were just that powerful. A level of powerful I recognized, though I couldn't pinpoint exactly where they fell on that scale.

B-rankers. They were both B-rankers. This was insane. Why were they here? What was going on? People like this shouldn't be on Callus. Zeke was staring at them with a glimmer in his eyes I'd never seen. Real, genuine fury was radiating off my uncle as he stood. Their eyes locked on him, and the redhead smiled. They knew he was here, and they'd come anyway. I just hoped they'd bitten off more than they could chew. Otherwise we were all dead.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"You have a lot of guts coming here like this." With the words came a tide of power, pushing back the aura of the two B-rankers through his own and with sheer force of personality. Zeke wasn't worried at all, and it showed in the way he spoke. "You might not worry about some small time scuffle between the Unity and the Cult, but there are other interests here."

The redhead didn't seem worried (apparently he was as crazy as all the other cultists I'd met). "You won't get involved, but in case you did, we arranged some entertainment for you. Finding out there was an unknown B-ranker on the planet was an annoyance, but luckily, we managed to get the details from a reputable source. Isn't that right Miss Selka?" His smug grin turned to take in where I could see Natalie sitting.

The teal haired woman next to her, clearly her own guardian, rolled her eyes. "Stop trying to start trouble, Kix. I'm a neutral party. As long as my charge remains safe I'm not obligated to take a side, and while Natalie might think an alliance with her cousin is best, I'm not nearly so convinced."

It occurred to me that while Nat might be aware that Zeke was B-rank, and even knew his name, she hadn't passed the latter bit of information on to her guardian. Apparently the lack of trust ran in both directions, she and her guardian clearly had a much different relationship than we did.

Zeke looked mildly annoyed at the woman, but not upset. "Selka. That sounds familiar." He was talking normally now, as were the others, but with the Perception of everyone here and the cameras, it didn't seem to be a problem for anyone. He snapped his fingers. "Ricardo's daughter. Your mother is that little Countess with the teleportation power. The hair should have tipped me off. Surprised someone from Malachai's branch contracted you as a guardian, given how much he and your grandmother hate each other."

She glared at him. "Inter branch cooperation is important. Grandma knows that. And no REAL Wyndham would ever violate the sanctity of the candidate selection. Not that some random's pet B-ranker would know that." Wow...apparently Nat hadn't told her guardian ANYTHING about me. Maybe Zeke's little jab about branch politics wasn't that far off.
My cousin was pinching the bridge of her nose in exasperation. Neither of us were in danger, granted, but it hardly made her guardian being a shady asshole any less mortifying. Zeke just looked unperturbed. "It's always so cute when the little ones make plans. I assume you realized that the location and importance of this planet made it a prime target for annexation and decided to arrange this to both get rid of my ward and advance your own?"

"Pretty much." She said with a shrug. It would be suicide to attack you, and bad form even if I survived, but this way my hands stay clean and I make a nice profit. I'm not defecting or anything, but unlike you I have no obligation to protect your candidate."

Zeke just smiled wryly. "I'm guessing you don't know who he is? Or who I am? Because while a pair of mid to upper B-rankers would be sufficient for most, I assure you I can handle myself just fine. Tell you what, since I don't dislke ambition, I'll give you a chance. Help me take care of the rabble while I deal with thug one and thug two and I'll let you slink off after this without doing anything drastic."

She just snorted. "Drastic? You think you can take on a pair of nearly peak Arch-Bishops and you'll still be alive to hurt me? Everyone knows the cultists are hell to kill off, and in pairs they're more than a match for anyone their rank. Crazy bastards will self destruct if they think they're losing. Outnumbered you have no shot."

Sighing, Zeke shook his head. "Come on, don't be stupid here." He reached into his coat and pulled out and old, brittle looking mask. "I don't have a teleportation Volto mask anymore. My last one broke. Unless you were planning to spend the remainder of your life with your soul trapped in porcelain I'd take the offer." He held up the mask in the air beside him, then released it, leaving it hanging in the space he left it in. Under the mask, a form manifested, a black robe too dense to see a shape. "Besides." He said with a bloodthirsty smile. "Who said I was outnumbered."

Snapping his fingers, a bag appeared, a large black duffel. He unzipped it and started to remove masks, leaving them hanging in the air. Under each mask a robed figure manifested, each one floating up and away to take position around us in the air in a formation. Selka's eyes went wide with terror as she stared at Zeke, then down at her candidate in an expression of fearful dismay.

"I...I didn't know." She stuttered. "I swear, I didn't know. I wouldn't have contacted them if I had." Zeke just looked at her calmly, and she swallowed, standing and bowing. "Not a single cultist will remain on this planet by the time you finish." She said formally, and then, suddenly, she was gone.

Amusingly, she had NOT informed her former allies who Zeke was, though she clearly figured it out herself. Clearly we were far enough from wherever Zeke usually did his thing that random B-rankers didn't know who he was, because the hooded figures didn't back down, and Kix (who was an E-ranker actually) hadn't heard of him either.

The redhead's ever present grin had slipped, replaced with an annoyed scowl. "Bitch." He snapped. "I'll let my their excellencies deal with her after they finish with you. Your brat has been responsible for the deaths of several of our operatives, including a promising your talent her to attend the tournament he needs to pay, and since we're here anyway, we can just send a few messages all at once."

Zeke smiled. "Really? I thought you guys had found out his mother is the Star Queen and decided to enforce that shitty blood feud you nutcases have with those stuffed shirts at the church." At the shocked expression Zeke put on a faux embarrassed face. "Oh no, did I say that out loud? Now everyone knows. Of course, once they see what I'm about to do to your little buddies I don't expect they'll find the risk worth it."

I'd been shocked when Zeke blurted that out, but now I got it. People would learn about my mom eventually. But since he was in a position to fight them personally and make an impression, he'd thrown out the information himself. Now when he butchered the cultists two to one everyone would see it, and anyone who thought about getting to mom through me would think twice. Anyone B-ranked that is. But I doubted an A-ranker would bother. They could just attack her head on. and that wouldn't offend one of the biggest factions in the universe.

I was low ranked and part of a competition, them attacking was technically within the scope of that since Zeke was here to protect me. If they started moving out Saints and Popes to kill me it would literally just be declaring war on the WCP, and the Church would sure as hell jump in on the other side.

Kix, meanwhile, was turning red, his face looking like he'd had an anuerysm. "H-heretic! How dare you protect a heretic? That bitch has killed more of our Saints than any ten A-rankers in the entire church, and the Radiant Pope murdered our Saintess of the Drowning Shade, our Lady's own flesh and blood daughter!"

Zeke rolled his eyes. "Oh come on, that happened before he even broke through to S-rank. None of us were even alive. Besides, Drowning Shade was a psychopath, even by Ascendant standards. I've met serial killers lost in full recursion that weren't unstable enough to have spawned some of those stories."

The redhead was shaking like he was going to explode. "YOU DARE!" He screamed, his voice cracking. "Defaming our lost Saintess, speaking ill of our Lady's bloodline. Crimes! Crimes against the Cult! Blasphemy! Heresy! Sacrilege! You'll die for this. You and your brat and every person you've ever met!"

"See." Zeke said turning to me. "This is why no one likes dealing with Cultists outside strict mercenary assassination contracts. One wrong word and they turn into a gibbering lunatic." Looking back at the other man he clicked his tongue. "Also, heresy is the holding of an opinion counter to a religious precept, and usually carries the assumption of being a heretic, and heretic's can't by definition, blaspheme, which is defined as 'showing contempt for god or sacred things'. Can't hold contempt for something you don't believe exists."

Before the redhead could retort, he held up a hand. "Don't mistake me, I know Black Sorrow is real. I'm just making the point that you're contradicting yourself here. Regardless, this whole fight is deeply inconvenient to me. I don't have the materials to make two more B-rank masks. I'll have to seal your souls until I can make a shopping trip to get the materials for a porcelain that can contain them." He shrugged. "Oh well, doesn't matter I suppose. Any artist would be glad to have a new canvas to work with."

The two Arch-Bishops, predictably, didn't take this threat well, but before they could do more than step forward, Zeke snapped his fingers. Two of the masks began to glow, the hooded manifestations under them vanishing and appearing around the ring. A third gestured and the remaining contestants were subsumed in suddenly liquid earth, then spat out off the now self repaired stage. The two figures raised their arms and a cube of glasslike energy appeared, then shifted as the second masked figured warped the energy, creating a defensive perimeter.

Zeke took a step, vanishing and appearing inside the ring with the three cultists, while all the other robed figures, seven of them in total, drifted through the shield as if it wasn't there to join him. Smiling grimly, he reached into the bag again, withdrawing one last mask, then snapped his fingers to dismiss it as he raised the porcelain to his face.

As the mask covered him, I felt a sort of...shift, in the air. Zeke's body language changed, like someone throwing off an old cloak. Perception was important, and he was making no effort to hide the differences. His stance screamed aggressive and sadistic, and even the two hooded Arch-Bishops had stepped back, clearly realizing that they had picked a fight with someone with whom wise men did not fuck.

The floating robed figures had spread out to surround the enemies, slipping the edges of the ring to create a second line of defense. Zeke cracked his neck. "Oh dear, this one is always so bloodthirsty. Perhaps I should have used one of the others." He shrugged. "Oh well." He flickered, appearing in the middle of the B-rankers, right behind Kix, and shoved and arm THROUGH his chest. "Too late now."

The two B-rankers whirled, one bringing to bear that black energy and the other releasing a red lightning in a massive cloud of power that literally turned the shield into a box seething black with red sparks through it. When the energy faded, Zeke was back in his original spot, safely behind a line of defense erected by his masks. There was no evidence at all of the attack, since Kix's body was obliterated by the other B-rankers.

Zeke just clicked his tongue. "Killing your own subordinates. How gauche. Especially since he would have been fine." Their fists clenched and he cocked his head. "What? Did you think I actually attacked him? Didn't you hear me earlier? I don't have a teleportation mask." He flicked a hand and a perfect copy of him appeared to one side, high fiving him before vanishing. "But we've had enough fun for now. Let's get started." And with a snap of his fingers, both he and all his mask bearers disappeared.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

It took me almost no time to figure out what that mask did from context. Illusions, obviously. But despite knowing that I also knew I had no chance of piercing through them. No one here did. Trying to bypass B-rank perception would be pure delusion, so I didn't try.

Zeke was far too much of a performer to let this end without a show, so I trusted the illusions wouldn't ruin our chance to watch them battle. Apparently, he was making enough of an impression here that the other two were genuinely worried. The taller of the hooded Arch-Bishops snarled. "You seek to unnerve us with your games, but you've shown your weakness. This shield exists to protect this planet and your charge. Should we take it down any casual attack would reduce this world to dust."

He started to gather dark energy in his hands. It...hurt. Just looking at it hurt. The energy Pietro had used had looked wrong, but it was nothing compared to this. Like the difference between a dark room before bed and the soul crushing depths of the deepest cave in the world. It was just conceptually incomparable. Callie grabbed my hand, squeezing it, as I struggled to tear my eyes away from the energy.

The worst part was that I suspected the shield was actually helping. It was mitigating the effects somewhat like it had with the attacks. Being able to box in a pair of B-rankers by himself was terrifying to me. Zeke was stronger than any of us had given him credit for. He wasn't just B-rank, he was to B-rank what Abel was to G-rank. He was a monster.

His voice echoed cheerfully from the empty air. "I wouldn't do that. That shield is made from a combination of very powerful abilities. The direct defensive applications are impressive, but the secondary effects are what really make it shine. Aside from filtering out harmful conceptual elements before they can damage the lower rankers here the defenses also-"

The Arch-Bishop cut him off by unleashing a TORRENT of the gathering power, a beam of energy packing into the size of a needle, so dense I almost threw up just seeing it. The beam struck the shield...then bounced off it in three different directions before spearing the other Arch-bishop, the red lightning guy, through the shoulder. The hooded figure howled in pain and literally RIPPED his arm off his body, hurling it onto the ground as it was consumed along with his cloak in a swirl of rotting darkness.

Zeke's voice continued his explanation as if there had been no interruption. "Deflect direct attacks along the inside of the defensive perimeter. It's made for aftershocks, but if you try to break it directly there's a backlash. It took me AGES to find that power interaction. Most B-rankers don't focus on defense.

The red lightning guy, who was revealed to be a large red haired man with mutton chops and dark eyes, glared at both his companion and the air around them. "Damn it Absalom! You have to stop doing that. This is why we got reassigned to this frontier nonsense. You can't just overpower everything." He looked down at his smoking shoulder. "Can you remove this corruption? I can do it but it'll take time we don't have."

Shuffling uncomfortably, the still robed figure took a step toward the other man and froze. There was a shift in the air and three masked figures appeared in a triangle formation. They raised their arms and a whirling vortex of brilliant white flame sprung up, swallowing the figure. As the injured one saw his partner attacked, he tried to rush to his aid.

The four other hooded figures swirled into existence around him. Two of them threw their hands out and dark chains lashed from the ground, binding him in place at neck, legs, and his remaining arm. One of the other masked figures made a drawing motion and a huge bow and arrow coalesced above their heads. The last one pointed at the arrow and power spilled down the length of the weapon, infusing it with a yellow glow so sharp it almost hurt to look at.

There was a rush as the arrow released, but the vortex burst, a flash of dark energy imposing itself between the red haired man and the arrow. The robe of the remaining figure was burned away revealing what looked like a desiccated corpse with its mouth sewn shut. Dark gems were set where its eyes should have been, and it punched the arrow head on, trying to destroy the energy.

It wound up with an absurd amount of power, even more than last time, and swung it in a close quarters blow meant to destroy the attack. A blow that hit...nothing. The image of the arrow vanished, and the corpse looking man choked, looking down at where he'd been bisected by the ACTUAL arrow, which had been fired from the ground where it had been hidden under an illusion.

Zeke stepped out of thin air as he saw the corpse fall, snapping his fingers. The three masks responsible for the white firestorm manifested around the plummeting figure's top half, unleashing another attack on someone far less prepared to defend himself.

By the time the flames faded there WAS no top half left, just a pair of spasming desiccated legs hitting the ground. Zeke clicked his tongue and turned to the red haired one, who was staring at his partner's remaining limbs in terror. "This is the problem with cultists. No sense of flare or imagination. You all pride yourself on being sneaky and dangerous, but give you an ounce of power and all you can do is slug away."

The other man pointed shakily at one of the masks. "That's...that's an Arch-Bishop of the Red Revenant Church. Those were flames of purification."

Zeke shrugged. "Partly. They were amplified by a few other powerful abilities. But they were definitely in the mix. Theodore Stoddard. Dreadful man. Tried to have my nephews mother assassinated so he could move up in the clergy. He did have a gift for the purifying flame though. Comes in useful when up against Black Sorrow's Enshrining Darkness."

Snapping his fingers, a small flask appeared in his hand. He opened the top and there was a swirl of crystalline energy as runes lit up along the flask. There were millions of them on the thing, so dense I wouldn't have been able to see them if not for my Perception. In the sky where the fire had struck, a phantasmal outline of the corpselike Arch-Bishop appeared, a dark bluish purple, screaming so loudly the stitches in his mouth had torn open.

The image of the man clawed at the air as an invisible force dragged him toward the flask. Zeke gestured to one of the masks and the same dark chains holding the red head grabbed Absalom the corpse and restrained him, allowing him to be sucked into the flask. Zeke screwed the top back on the flask, staring at it for a few seconds before flicking it with a sharp "Stop that." Then he put it away.

"What did you just do?" The red haired man asked in revulsion. "Was that his soul? Give it back! You can't take a soul that belongs to our Lady!"

Zeke snorted. "Imagine only being at Indigo as a B-ranker. I think Black Sorrow would thank me for cleaning up trash like that. Or she won't. I don't much care. I told you morons I'd be harvesting you for materials. Did you think I would go back on my word on a system wide broadcast? A man's word is all he has. Would you like to struggle? I'm still not sure what your ability is, and if you want to show off I'd be happy to allow it."

The man looked sick. "You're a monster! Our souls belong to the Lady. How many of our brethren have you used to create these abominations? How many have you stolen from the Red Revenant. You can't do something like this in front of all these people and expect to get away with it. The cult will-"

"Do nothing." Cut off Zeke with amusement. "I've been active for quite some time, my friend. The Church and the Cult know about me. You think they care? If they hunted down people for things like this I'd hardly be first on the list. Morgan Lark can consume the very stats that make up a person, yet the Vampire remains free, assumed to be the next being to become a god, do you know why that is?"

The cultist didn't respond, so Zeke continued. "Because power is all that matters. I'm strong, which makes me valuable. If you think I'M scary, you should see my best friend. When it comes down to it, you've played with forces best left alone. You weren't sent by the Cult itself, you and your little buddy decided to take this planet on your own. You wanted to prove yourself, didn't you?"

"We...we just wanted to be recognized for our power." He said blankly. "We wanted the respect our positions were due. There are so MANY Arch-Bishops, and we had to work our way up the ranks the hard way. We didn't get any of those special privileges like some of the children of the Saints and Popes. We're members of the Cult too. We just wanted them to acknowledge us."

Zeke just chuckled. "Of course you did. But you have no concept of what a REAL B-ranker looks like. There are real monsters out among the stars, my boy. You might be a cultist, but you aren't powerful enough to interfere in high level faction business. People like Sasha, like my buddy Elijah, they're in a whole different world than you."

He turned his eyes on the crowd, and somehow, I could sense him looking past them all, to everyone watching the recordings. "This is your one warning. All of you. Elijah Wyndham's son is under the protection of Janus. If you are of a match with him, are willing to pit your heirs against him, be welcome. Hone his edge. Held me mold him. But if you think you can interfere with the candidate selection, interfere with MY FAMILY, this is all that awaits you."

He walked toward the still chained redhead, and like he said, he let the other man use his powers. The cultist hurled red lightning at my uncle, and one of the masks appeared, erecting a small clear shield that I believed was similar to the shield they were in. The red haired man screamed, hurling bolts of crimson electricity, but none of them even came close to Zeke.

My uncle arrived in front of the man, with a snap, he slipped on a glove with pointed talon like fingers that lit up with a multitude of runes, just like the flask. Then he shoved a hand INTO the other man. Not through him, there was no blood, his hand vanished into the chest of his enemy, and as he withdrew it, I could see the struggling purple form as it was RIPPED out of the body of the cultist.

When he finally tore it loose the body slumped over to the ground, limp and motionless, breathing but empty. Another snap brought out a second flask, and he popped the cap with a thumb before stuffing the struggling spirit into the flask. Dismissing the glove he recapped the flask and put it away. He waved a hand and the bodies vanished, as did the shield, and Zeke turned and walked out of the arena, past a staring Abel who had crawled over to lean against the wall and watch.

The rest of the crowd was...quiet. That had been brutal, even by Ascendant standards. Zeke had been sending a message, and it was one that I knew came from a place of real anger. Seeing him do that should have horrified me, and part of it did, but it also made me proud. My uncle was strong and loyal and had my back. Despite how brutal he could be, I was damned glad he was on my side.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Healing or not, we had to carry Abel out of the arena. My mentor was in bad shape, though not as bad as the armor double Midknight had been using, which had been mostly destroyed. Callie had been...quiet, since we saw him get wrecked, and I wanted to pull her aside to check on her about it but we had other problems.

Zeke rode home with us this time, as did Natalie and her guardian, along with Perit and Valk. We were all pretty quiet until we got to the house, at which point I finally broke the silence. "Alright...what the actual fuck? Like, to all of that Zeke. Can you tell me what happened now that it's over?"

My uncle shrugged. "Stupid people doing stupid people things." He cut a look at Selka, who wilted slightly but didn't argue. "I made an example of them, so they shouldn't try it again, though you can bet they'll try other things. That's your problem though."

I couldn't really complain about that. "What about the other factions? Abel won, but the Empire, the Faerieland, are they really just going to back off because you smacked around a couple B-rankers? Like, won't they send more people to come and fight you?"

Zeke just snorted. "No. First of all, there are a hundred of these. Losing two B-rankers, even trash like them, is a blow over something this insignificant. Sunk cost fallacy isn't something the upper echelons of the Black Sorrow Cult engage in. Or any higher ups from the factions. Going to war over a random border planet would be ridiculous. Second of all they can't spare enough people to kill me off, especially knowing they'll lose most of them. I'm basically unkillable under A-rank and everyone knows it."

Selka nodded quickly. "It's true. Janus is infamous among B-rankers. He's predicted to reach A-rank in the next decade."

Seeming to send my skepticism at the time frame, Zeke snickered. "I know it seems like a while to you, but in the upper ranks you need hundreds of thousands or even millions of stat points to rank up. Not to mention...other things. The next decade isn't bad. I think that was part of why Eli did what he did. I'm sure you of all people can imagine how frustrating it is to be giving out points that let people rank up fast when you lag behind."

I hadn't experienced that, but he wasn't wrong. It was easy to picture. "Well that whole thing was certainly dramatic enough to diffuse things. I guess that means it's really over. We...we won." I felt myself melt into my seat gleefully. Like some magic switch had been flipped. I couldn't believe it. We'd been working so hard for such a long time for this, been through so much.

Callie looked shocked too, her eyes wide as she thought through exactly what it meant for us to have made it. Abel was grinning, despite his injuries. I couldn't see Mel's face under her mask but Jessie and Benny looked thrilled. We'd separated from the others after the mess at the tournament, planning to meet up again soon.

"So..." I said uncertainly. "How are we handling the Moonsong Glade. You can't get in, right Zeke? I was told it was F-ranker exclusive. How long will we be in there? Are you just going to wait outside? Can you suppress your power to come in with us?"

"Nah." Said my uncle casually. "Your mask will let me keep an eye on you. If things go too badly I'll break in and help, but it would destroy the glade which would be...bad. Even for me. I probably will wait outside. Plenty of the older generation will be out there. I'll make sure they don't ambush you when you come out for whatever you get. Though I think we should get you all some proper spatial gear before you enter."

"Like a ring? A real one? How would we even get that? They don't really have them available on Callus. At least not that I've seen. I've got some solid cash reserves, but we don't have access to the proper supply." It was a similar problem to the issue of my weapon. I really wanted something E-rank, but despite probably having enough for a relatively low level E-rank weapon there weren't any on world.

His grin was wolfish. "Well sure, which is why you'll be picking up what you need at the field market outside the glade. Someone always starts one. That large an influx of newcomers always spawns a bazaar. People need consumables and weapons before entering, not to mention that it ends up being a huge conglomeration of powerful elders from different forces waiting around for months on end."

"You think they'd have an E-rank weapon I could use?" I asked excitedly. "I definitely need a new stick to hit people with. Hopefully something that can take a beating."

Abel snickered. "You know, I understand the with for blunt damage, but you could pick up a more traditional weapon and develop an actual Skill for it. Maybe a staff? Bit longer than your usual but it wouldn't hurt to give yourself some range. It could synergize with your combat style too. Pole vaulting would be a good complement to you movement skills and open up more lines of attack."

My mentor had been mostly quiet since the tournament. He seemed happy to have won, but I saw him giving Zeke awed looks that made it hard not to snicker. Though as I nodded my agreement to look into a staff weapon a question popped into my head. "Oh, that reminds me. Was that really a B-rank fight? Don't get me wrong it was crazy, but I was figuring it would be...larger scale."

My uncle just smiled. "It was. You just couldn't tell. That shield protected you. It was dampening the Impact to prevent not just physical but conceptual damage. Looking at B-ranked attacks directly without any protection can damage your soul. Impact is a qualitative difference in level. Sound is just vibration, sight is light bouncing off an object. The size of the attacks wasn't massive because they were in a confined space and that wasn't necessary, but make no mistake those moves would have killed you just by observing them if I hadn't protected you."

Selka chimed in. "Not to mention any one of those casual blows would have atomized the planet and everyone on it. B-rankers operate in the ten million range of stat points. Any blow you're capable of throwing they can beat by thousands of times, and that's not even counting the qualitative leap that is D-rank or the effects of higher ranked Skills. If I were you I'd commit that fight to memory. You'll be benefiting from it for decades. Even if you can't see why yet."

I tried thinking back to the fight, to the movements, the abilities, and I could kind of see what she meant. There was...something, there. Something just out of reach of me. Like looking at a crack in the ground that's only a few inches wide but then realizing it goes down for miles. I was only seeing the crack.

The others almost all seemed nearly as distracted by the statement as I was. Mel though, Mel was all business. "I'll keep that in mind, but I want to know that Abel's win is going to be safe. He worked his ass off for that. How do we know they won't try something before the ceremony. Speaking of, when IS the ceremony?"

"Tomorrow." Said Zeke bluntly. "The actual date for the Moonsong Glade is in a month to make sure everyone's teammates have the best chance to rank up, but no one was comfortable waiting on the ending ceremony. Tomorrow they announce the top placements and allow everyone IN the tournament to rank up. You'll all be reaching F-rank." He glanced at Abel. "Provided you're willing."

My teacher nodded firmly. "No more waiting. I'm confident I've gotten the most out of G-rank, and I want to take the next step. I wanted a good fight to go out on, and I definitely got that. It's going to be brilliant ranking up and getting to fight it out with people so much stronger than I am on a relatively even playing field."

That was actually a good point. The idea that some people would be five times stronger than we were but still within our ability to harm was kind of crazy. Not that I was going to be fighting peak F-rankers, but the point remained. This would also be a huge opportunity for me to make sure I was able to reach the higher levels of F-rank in an area without E-rankers to take advantage of the gap.

"Wait." I said, remembering something. "You said it would be MONTHS?" I'd asked for a time frame earlier, and I guess I had one, but that was kind of crazy.

Zeke shrugged. "For you are least. Some people might stay longer, but I absolutely refuse to let you miss out on the soul trials. The Ruined Soul Temple is one of those places I mentioned to you where you can train soul strength outside of a clan. Once in a while the temple holds trials for people training there, and they offer prizes that can increase the speed of soul refinement and even reward special Skills and unique gifts."

That sounded intriguing. "So this would be a way for me to increase the grade of my soul to two ahead before D-rank? Because I know you said that's important."

"All of you, if you're ready." He said, looking over the others. "The Ruined Soul Temple is technically neutral territory, but practically it's hard for anyone outside the higher ends of a faction to get in. There are so many people scrambling for entry, there's no possible way to accommodate them all. The cream of the crop have their own soul refinement methods and locations, but for something like the soul trial even clan heirs will be showing up."

My eyes widened. "That's why everyone is paying so much attention to the Glade!" I said sharply. "When everything else is equal, a boost in Impact might be the thing that puts them over the top in the trials."

"Exactly." Said Zeke with a nod. "I didn't want to bring it up and increase the pressure, but now that the tournament is over it's best you know what's coming. The trial is a unique opportunity. You can get things there that even wishes would have trouble giving you, at least from any people low ranked enough to bother with any of you. Some people have even manage to pick up a second ability."

My head snapped up. A second ability would be...big. Especially for me. The current Wishmaster had his position specifically because he had two abilities, something that gave him the skills and power to beat even my dad out for the position. Not to mention it would enable me to have a surefire Skill that would always rank up without detracting from my effort in other areas. If I got a weapon ability for instance, I would be a natural. It would prevent me from ending up a Master Candidate like Abel, but that wasn't ever really in the cards for me anyway.

Seeing his comment had its intended effect, Zeke grinned, leaning back and closing his eyes. He wasn't going to sleep, Zeke just liked to tune things out sometimes when he was bored. His relaxed expression changed when his ring vibrated and he looked down to see a text, his face paling as he swallowed hard. "Huh. Apparently Stella wants me to come down for a visit so we can talk." He tried to sound nonchalant, but there was a quaver in his voice that made me laugh. Good to know my terrifying uncle could still feel fear.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The ceremony was held at the same arena as the finals. A huge luxurious building (without even the wear from the battle, which they had repaired) and pretty huge. Forty thousand people weren't enough to fill the place up, though it was hardly empty with every one of the ten thousand starter teams having shown up. There were a few E-rankers here too, possibly for security, and to my shock, I saw a fucking B-ranker standing next to Midknight.

I turned to look at Zeke, who noticed where my attention had gone and chuckled. "Attempted invasions are bad for morale. They send an executive from the cluster branch to oversee the rest of this. I don't recognize her, but I'm guessing she's a heavy even among people at her rank."

The B-ranker was...impressive. A tall, dark haired woman in a pitch black body suit covered with shining stars. Her black hair shared the spacelike impression, as did her mask, and in the depths of her dark eyes I could see galaxies forming if I looked too long.

Callie, not surprisingly, knew her. "That's Asteria. She's pretty much my dad's bosses, bosses, boss. She has a star based spatial ability, though I don't know of anyone with the details. People who make her use it usually don't survive the encounter."

After a second of thought, Callie knowing a high end B-ranker made sense. The systems and clusters in the Conglomerate were feeders for the Unity to gain renown for their top members. I knew that renown was weighted, so normal mortals probably didn't rate the effort, but I was betting people like Midknight knew ALL the big name Unity capes, and he'd have drilled them into his daughters head.

Mel whistled. "I want to be her when I grow up. You can feel the badass coming off her in waves."

We'd managed to find plenty of our friends in the crowd. Sydney, Megan, Sloane, Wren, Lament, Teague, Alec, there were tons of us all crowded together, though most of the teams were talking to whoever was nearby, given how hectic things were longer distance conversations seemed unlikely.

"You all ready?" Asked Benny with interest. "I still don't know how this works. Is this just an excuse to draw more attention to the highest placing fighters before rank up? Or is there some sort of significance to ranking up all together like this?"

Zeke shrugged. "Opinion is divided on that actually, but ceremonies like this USUALLY have better yields. Whether that's because they put the rank up on display and draw attention or because of some weird resonance from all the Impact, I couldn't say. I do know that they're good for the planet. Not enough to take this one to a proper D-grade, but they'll push the process ahead for sure."

Benny looked annoyed. "Damn. Kind of wish I'd made it in time for this bit. But I'm still a hundred plus points short."

My best friend was probably building to a nice long whining session, but the poke in the ribs from the girl standing beside him shut him up. I gave Celine a grateful smile she couldn't see behind my mask for cutting that off, but before I could comment everyone got really quiet.

"Welcome." Came a surprisingly soft, melodic voice. Every eye in the place focused on Asteria. She was suppressing her aura, but she was letting something...else, out. Some strange aspect of herself that made her seem like more than us, even without the pressure. I wondered if Zeke had that, if he did, he was much better at containing it than she was. "My name is Asteria, and I am the vice Guild Master of the Axiom cluster."

She looked over us all slowly, the sympathetic look on her unnaturally perfect features seeming at odds with her tall, muscular physique. She looked like a war goddess, but she had such a peaceful gaze. Her galactic eyes were hidden behind a small domino mask with that same starry sky distortion as her costume, but somehow, it just pulled focus to their depths, like she was sucking us all in.

I felt a sharp jolt and turned to see Zeke frowning at her, withdrawing his fingers after having pinched her. "Sloppy." He muttered in annoyance. Her eyes jerked up to settle on him, and my uncle raised a brow, her porcelain cheeks colored a bit and things...shifted. It either hadn't been on purpose or she was embarrassed to be caught, but she seemed much less intimidating now.

Clearing her throat, she returned to addressing the now confused crown, all of whom were still reeling a bit like I was. "You've been through a great deal recently." She said gently, bringing us all back to the topic at hand. "You all show great bravery coming here, though you need not worry now. I'm here to keep you safe. I'll be staying on world for a while, working from Callus as a preventative measure, and I'll need to count on all of you that are local to support me."

Zeke snorted lightly, clearly not buying it, but this time she didn't react. Asteria continued on for a while, announcing the names of the final five, in order based on ability. She also announced the top ten, of which I was a part, and we were all called up to be shown off as the stellar example of heroism and ability that we were (her words, and I'm almost sure that there was a pun mixed in there secretly, which made me like her more).

Finally, she finished telling us all what we'd accomplished, passed out some monetary rewards for the top ten (I couldn't remember if those had been mentioned or if they were hush money but I got another hundred G-rank coins so I wasn't complaining either way) and then officially let us all know that we were eligible to rank up now. There was even a big countdown as we all got ready to accept the rank.

The actual shift in the world around us when we accepted the rank up simultaneously was MASSIVE. The feel of that much Impact shifting at the same time was insane. I knew that since it was qualitatively within the limits of the planet there was no danger of damage, but it still felt crazy. Like a hurricane made of hammers bludgeoning us all, rather than the single wall of force I felt from a B-rank aura.

I felt plenty of changes, and had to look over my stats to figure out what they were, but once I did I found myself flabbergasted. I'd gotten a staggering amount of points over the course of this tournament. Thirty in Might, thirty in Perception, twenty in Fantasy, thirty in Vitality, twenty in Creation, and twenty in Focus. Which left me staring at my new stat screen after rank up.

Wishmaster candidate status. F-rank. Ability: Intermediate Wish- Six times a day grant an Intermediate 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.

Might-250
Impact-32
Fantasy-200
Vitality-220
Focus-168
Perception-180
Creation-180
Progress to next rank:1230/10000

Stored:7 shadow attacks,10 Stealth charges, 0 fire attacks,9 triple strenth tranq blows, 7 triple strength density shifted attacks. 9 spider leg attacks, 2 heal bursts, 4 gravity attacks, 7 shadow clone, 22 scan heals (I-rank ability so Shane can hold more)
Pet- Wolf named Jin
Skills:Lesser Cooking Mastery, Lesser Inventing Mastery, Minor Piano Mastery, Minor Guitar Mastery, Lesser Balam Mastery, Minor First Aid Mastery,Lesser Paired Dueling, Intermediate Path of the Doom Sovereign

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

Diviner: Overlay, Song of the Soil, Rythym of the Wild, Eye of Revelation, Danger Sense

My results were staggering, leaving me almost a quarter of the way to two thousand points after just one tournament, but that was nothing compared to the changes Callie had seen. My girlfriend's rank up had brought not just new stats, but a new ability, taking into account her new Skill synergy from shadow manipulation (which she had apparently ranked up during all the down time as the tournament progressed) as well as her lean into Perception towards the end of her accumulation.

Calliope Reynolds: F-rank. Intermediate 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-218
Impact-32
Vitality-142
Fantasy-150
Focus-58
Perception-375
Creation-185
Progress to next rank: 1160/10000

Pet-Wolf named Rellia

Skills: Minor Tracking, Beginner Stealth, Beginner Trap Mastery, Beginner Disguise, Lesser Balam Mastery, Intermediate Shadow Manipulation Mastery. Lesser Paired Dueling

Aside from the standard twenty points of Impact, she'd gotten fifty points of Creation, forty points of Perception, twenty of Might, and thirty of Fantasy. She was up to eleven hundred and sixty total, meaning she'd gotten a hundred and forty points off this rank up, but that was nothing compared to her Abyssal Infiltration ability.

Despite her control of shadows, Callie had never been able to fully enter them. She could, with preparation and concentration, HIDE things in her shadows, like she had with her bike, but she needed to spend a lot of time and materials making that possible and it effectively made it useless in combat. This new ability though, it more than made up for it. Not only could she meld into shadows, she could extend her Perception through shadows to spy on people, and it increased her versatility with the shadows she had.

After she finished telling me about it she threw herself into my arms and kissed me senseless. I could sense the happiness and relief through the bond. Callie, in a lot of ways, had been standing still since we met. It was easy to forget that while the rest of us had ranked up quickly to catch up to her, she'd been G-rank for years. Finally breaking that wall, not to mention evolving her ability to something truly amazing, made her really believe she could keep up.

I pulled back, smiling at her, and decided not to address her insecurities about being left behind. They were crazy, of course, but being told your emotions are dumb doesn't make you feel them less, and I'd learned enough being in a relationship not to make THAT rookie mistake.

I turned to Abel and Mel, both of whom looked pleased with their results, though they didn't share. We knew bits and pieces of what they could based on things they'd shared and that we'd seen, but we didn't have access to their stat pages and I wasn't going to ask. Callie could bring it up if she wanted, but I trusted them to tell us if there was something we needed to know.

Asteria cleared her throat, bringing all of us back to reality from our upgrade highs. "It seems you've all broken through to the next rank. Congratulations, both to my own citizens and to our visitors. As discussed, the departure will be in a month, any of our guests feel free to remain and visit, I assure you you'll be quite safe here." Translation: stay if you want to, I'll be watching you all.

With that she made her goodbyes and turned to stride out of the arena, Midknight trailing behind her silently. I didn't know if it was the real him or armor, but Callie looked worried as she watched him go. I knew she didn't forgive him, and shouldn't, but he was still her dad and she was a bit worried about him after seeing that armor demolished by those B-rankers. She didn't mention it though, and I didn't push. We had bigger worries anyway. We had a month left, or rather thirty one days counting today, to prepare and get Jessie and Benny ranked up. Good thing I had an extra daily wish. I'd need it.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

A month. A month of wishes, a month of stat gains. Slow and steady, constantly trying to build up my friends. Benny and Jessie were both within reach of F-rank. With Jessie's regular income of Might from her bond with Randall, not to mention my boost, and how close Benny already was, the seven hundred and forty four points I had to throw around for the month was more than enough to get them both where they needed to go.

Benny was first. One hundred fifty seven points. Seven days, six wishes each, though only half on the final day, got him to F-rank without a problem. Well, it would have been one short at a hundred fifty six (thirty nine wishes, four stats each) but Benny had been working on jobs pretty consistently, and had managed to snag a point of Creation despite only doing drudge work.

He was, of course, thrilled to reach F-rank like the rest of us, and had begun training with Abel nearly immediately afterward, trying to get the best out of his new abilities, especially since Abel had pushed his Ragam to Expert and was even MORE terrifying now.

Benicio Cortez- F-rank. Ability: Intermediate Mechanical Embodiment- Allows the integration of existing inventions into the users body for the purposes of strengthening and enhancing them.

Might-405

Impact-32

Fantasy-16

Vitality-31

Focus-463

Perception-42

Creation-31

Progress to next rank: 1020/10000

Pet- Wolf named Rolf

Current integrated tech. 10/10. Torso: Extending rope. Right fist: triple punch. Left forearm: long range attack attraction. Left fist: minor slow acting tranquilizer effect. Right foot: Density shifting to create heavier kicks and more powerful jumps. Left Foot: momentum neutralization to allow stopping instantly. Head: slight cognitive boost to allow more thinking time. Back: ability to grow a shell to tank damage. Chest: Pair of golden G rank spider legs that arch up from the shoulders. Waist: Belt of spiritual calming

Skills:Minor Cooking Mastery, Intermediate Inventing Mastery, Minor Haggling Mastery, Minor Stealth Master

And of course, Jessie's upgrade was much easier to manage. Her Bond to Randall, over the course of the month, gave her fifty five Might, bringing the stat to an even one hundred fifty. The entire rest of her development, four hundred and thirty four points of it, was all Vitality. A whopping seven hundred and sixty two points of the stuff, making her an absolute monster with the stat and exponentially increasing the power of her ability.

Jessica Evans- F-rank. Ability: Intermediate Lifeweaving- Infuse living things with life itself and direct their actions while the users power flows through them. Control has limited effect on sapient entities. Prolonged exposure to life energy may cause lasting effects in controlled subjects.

Might-150

Impact-32

Fantasy-28

Vitality-762

Focus-25

Perception-15

Creation-8

Progress to next rank: 1020/10000

Pet- Wolf named Lily and bear named Randall(Beginner Beast Bonding with Jessie)

Skills: Intermediate Horticulture, Intermediate First Aid, Beginner Herbalism, Minor Flower Arrangement, Minor Beast Taming Mastery, Beginner Beast Bonding

Just under twenty days and one hundred and nine wishes for Jessie. Amusingly, after paying for the wishes with coins (the upcoming bazaar was going to be expensive) I ended up with four hundred and thirty four G-rank coins, the same amount of points Jessie had added to her Vitality. Out of all of us I think Jessie came the furthest. During all the downtime she'd been training non-stop apparently. Horticulture and First Aid both hit Intermediate, and Herbalism hit Beginner.

Her biggest change though, was one small subtle shift in her ability description. The loss of the words non-sapient when it came to her ability to permanently enhance her controlled subjects. Her actual life force control didn't work on sapient beings still, but the change represented her ability to control beings in other ways (like Beast Bonding) and permanently enhance them even if they developed sapience. It was a game changer for her.

My last thirty eight wishes I used for myself, a hundred and fifty two points sourced from the Beast Lord Garden crew. A hundred into Fantasy and fifty two into Focus, which was lagging behind, bringing those stats to three hundred even and two hundred and twenty respectively. Getting everyone up to snuff was difficult, time consuming, and frankly, exhausting. Mixed in with my own consistent effort to get used to my new Impact and adjust my fighting style, the month flew by in a blur of exhaustion and pain.

But eventually, it ended. On the last night of the month, thirty one days after the ceremony and the last night before we left, we all gathered for a meeting on who would be coming. Natalie, Perit, Valk, Abel, Mel, Benny, Jessie, Callie, and Mel. Natalie's last team member, whose name I couldn't remember for the life of me, was apparently not important enough to come with us, and Benny had lobbied shamelessly for us to bring Celine in their place.

The elf herself was here, looking a bit nervous, but Benny was holding her hand for support, and it said something about how close their trials had brought them that she didn't seem bothered by the public display. I was happy for my friend. Callie...less so. "Why would we POSSIBLY bring her?" Argued my girlfriend. She shot Celine an apologetic look. "Not that I'm still mad. You made peace with Benny and almost died, I'm happy to let bygones be bygones, but this slot is priceless. We could get paid through the nose to bring someone."

That...was actually fair. Everyone had come here just for this. If word got out we had a spare slot for the Glade everyone would be swarming us to try to get it. Benny nodded. "That's true, but you could do the same for Celine. Despite her choosing me over her family in the end, her sister is the only one who knows. Her family is desperate to get someone into the Glade. Nalia would look like a rock star if she pulled it off, and that kind of reputation would be worth downplaying or omitting a few...indiscretions."

I whistled appreciatively. "Damn." Everyone looked at me. "That's sneaky, not just leveraging the family into letting Celine come with us, but making use of that exact same leverage to patch things up with her family and get rid of any evidence that Celine ever screwed them. Two birds one stone. Did you come up with that?"

He grinned proudly. "Celine has been giving me lessons in political theory. Pretty good, right?"

"Excuse me." Interrupted Callie. "But we still haven't agreed. It would depend on exactly what Nalia is willing to offer. I'm sorry Celine, but this needs to be about what's best for the team. If that's you then I welcome you with open arms, but we need to shop around." I could sense through the bond that Callie wasn't COMPLETELY over the back stabbing, which was fair, but she was willing to put it to bed for benefits not to mention helping out Benny.

Not that he seemed to notice, my best friend was glaring hard at Callie, but she ignored it. She had to do what was best for the team. Celine seemed to understand though, because she just nodded solemnly. "Can I at least have a bit to call and try to get you some kind of benefits before you let anyone else know about the slot?"

Callie glanced over at Benny with a sigh. "Alright. I can do that much. See what you can get." Celine slipped out of the room and my girlfriend shot my best friend an apologetic smile. "Sorry Ben, I can't let an opportunity like this slip away. We need every possible advantage going into a dungeon." Glancing at Nat, she said. "Speaking of which, do you know anything about this place? Now that we have the entry permissions planning ahead would be a good idea."

Nat just sighed. "No. The Moonsong Glade isn't a dungeon people normally have access to. It's in an unstable area of space, similar to the unstable spaces Mad Madigan used to make that Labyrinth we lured the Cultists into. The space sort of fluctuates, which means access is only possible at certain times or under certain conditions. Same reason only F-rankers can enter. There ARE people alive who have been inside, but they're ancient, and chances are things have changed a ton."

"Then what DO we know?" Callie said in frustration. "Even out of date information is better than no information. It would give us a starting point."

Nat shrugged. "Not much. We know there were people inside, locals who lived on the planet as it developed into a dungeon. Lots of beasts. The Moonglow Dew is stimulated by external access, so it doesn't spawn except when the place is open. No clue why, something about Impact resonance. Other than that we've got nothing. It's been a VERY long time since anyone was in there."

Callie sighed in aggravation as Celine came back into the room, leaning down to whisper in her ear. Callie blinked in surprise. "Wait...really?" She looked up at us. "Nalia is willing to offer a Skill crystal of our choice as compensation. That would be a pretty huge opportunity, especially for Jessie. Life and beast Skills are specialties of the elves. Celine's woodcraft is a good demonstration of that. She can get something Vitality based that will massively help her combat efficiency."

"Ask for Shape of the Wild." Celine said immediately. "The crystal we have is at Intermediate, so Jessie should be able to learn it. It's a supplementary Skill for Beast Bonding that lets a person transform into their bonded companion. Given how strong Randall is Jessie would benefit from it a ton."

Jessie's eyes went wide. "I can be a BEAR? That's amazing!" She looked at Callie pleadingly. "Oh please let me be a bear. That sounds so fun. I can slap fish out of rivers and hibernate in caves!" We all looked at her and she shrugged. "It looks relaxing. Plus I might be able to actually speak with Randall. Minor communication through the bond is one thing, but being able to SPEAK BEAR? That sounds so cool!" Her voice was starting to run together as she talked faster and breathed less. If she hadn't been an Ascendant I'd have been worried about her suffocating.

My girlfriend's gaze was not amused. "Traditionally, when negotiating, it's best not to inform the other side of the negotiations that you can't live without the thing being negotiated over." Her eyes narrowed. "Which you're more than smart enough to know. You're trying to help Benny."

Jessie grinned back at her cheekily. "Maybe I thought he needed a bit of help. Come on. We like Celine. I mean sure, I was pretty pissed about her stabbing us in the back, but she did it for her family, and she changed sides in the end to help us. We would have had a much tougher time with the Burning Heaven Abyss without her. They had a Master Candidate."

Callie sighed. "Fine. I'll agree to her coming. The Skill crystal is a good idea, and I do appreciate the suggestion. Do you think you'll be able to work that into your next rank up? Because it kind of fits with your whole theme. I assume that Vitality plays a role in this Skill, by the way?" She asked Celine.

The elf nodded. "Higher Vitality means a longer transformation. The power of the transformation depends on the Bond itself and the relative power of the two subjects. In this case both F-rank, so that'll help." it would also give Jessie a Might bump from what turning into a giant bear would do for her reputation.

Nat said nothing about it, so she clearly didn't care, and Benny was thrilled as we sat and talked over details before finalizing things. Callie called Nalia personally to sort through things, and once it was all finalized Nalia had the crystal sent over, promising it would be there by morning. Then we all started getting ready. The next day would be our departure for the Moonsong Glade. It was finally time to leave Callus. We were going to enter the wider universe at last.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The next morning, we all got packed up, ready to leave and prepared to set off. Cass was sobbing uncontrollably, hugging each of us in turn and begging us not to go, and I wasn't the only one whose heart broke as the little girl started promising not to feed her vegetables to the wolves anymore if we would stay.

I...hadn't been thinking about Cass when we decided to leave, but now that I was it tore my heart out. We'd been like her new family since we rescued her, and she was desperate to keep us from leaving. I wasn't the only one who thought so either, because she was so heartbreaking Zeke finally spoke up.

"You know...I could use an assistant." He said casually. "We're going to be waiting around in space for literal months with nothing to do. I mean sure, there will be other people around, but doing all the menial labor on my own isn't my style. Maybe if Cark wants to stick around I can pay him in advice or something. Give him a few pointers. He's not part of your pavilion so there's no conflict of interest there. As long as he commits to never joining."

Cark looked hesitant, but I could see the eagerness too. He was part of a faction here, but he spent more time around the house than anything, trying to be there for Cass, and Burning Fist had taught him a bit, but the guy wasn't like...a mentor. Not to mention he didn't need to quit the faction. In fact, training under Zeke at ALL would be a hell of an education for later. Leaving Sage would suck for him, but he spent more time around the house than he did with her.

Finally, he looked over at Cass, staring at him with big shimmering eyes, and nodded, taking off to call Burning Fist and gather his stuff. As he ran off, I turned to Nat. "Ok, so I never bothered to ask but...how are we getting off planet? I've never left before so I don't know how it works."

She shrugged. "Varies based on distance. There are ships that can transit between worlds, but they're mostly system locked. Anything bigger or more powerful needs to be made by a high ranking Inventor, which obviously makes them extremely rare. Even ones who focus on control when they reach Intermediate have trouble staying focused on singular projects for long. For something across the cluster I expect they'll use a Waywalker."

At my confused expression she chuckled. "Waywalkers are long distance teleporters. One of the clans has kind of a monopoly on the industry. Shipping and transportation often depends on stability, so having an organization with a standardized power that allows transport across space is key. They do a lot of work with the Merchant's Guild."

That sounded awesome. "So they just...tear open space? To anywhere? That kind of spatial power must be insanely expensive stat wise. How do they have so many high ranking members?"

She shook her head. "Nah, they use anchors. Send them to various planets and then connect the space between their current location and the anchor to open a portal. For a system level jump a D-ranker can manage. Cluster level would be someone in the C-ranks. Past that it can get dicey. Cross galaxy transport is extremely hard to arrange. The higher ups at the Waywalker Convergence aren't really interested in being people's ride."

Zeke snickered from where he was sitting on the couch watching Cass play with Jin (the wolves were coming along with us because the Moonsong Glade would be a perfect environment for them to grow). When he noticed us looking at him he smirked. "They really don't. We took a Waywalker here when we first came over from the Empire. Your Grandfather's branch is in Empire territory. This absolute ass named Charleston was our transporter. He was an A-ranker, but given our affiliation we were of similar statuses. Huge prick."

Everyone just stared at him in terror, remembering the power they'd seen in the arena and then imagining mouthing off to someone STRONGER than that. He didn't seem to notice. Finally Cark came back out with a bag, wincing slightly. "I'm good to go." It occurred to me that while they didn't seem super serious, telling your girlfriend you planned to take off for another star system out of the blue was probably not a fun conversation. I didn't envy him that, but I wasn't going to poke at it.

We all headed out to the car to drive to...wherever we were going. Callie knew, apparently, and told Jessie, before sitting in the back with me. "You ok?" She asked quietly. "I know you've never been off world."

I smiled at her attempt to ignore her nerves by focusing on mine. I could feel her nervousness through the bond, and I knew what she needed, so I just smiled and said. "Yeah it's going to be a big change. I'll miss a lot of people here." I put an arm around my shoulder. "But I'm taking all of my favorites with me, so I think I'll be ok."

Her shoulders relaxed a bit as my words sunk in, but I knew it would take more than that to make her feel better. She was leaving her mom, her uncle, the only place she'd ever known. I'd been steered toward solitude, at least looking back on my life, so leaving with the only people I cared that much about was nostalgic but not sad. Callie hadn't had the luxury of that kind of mindset.

I mean sure, I'd miss Maria, Stella, Ian, and plenty of other friends, but I wasn't leaving behind a piece of myself. Not like Callie was. She'd called Amelia last night to say goodbye, and I'd help her after they hung up as she cried her eyes out, but she wanted to do this. Leaving home sucked, but it was important, especially to someone as independent as Callie. At least this time she was doing it with her mom's blessing. And she'd told me she called Alexander and demanded he stop by and check in regularly. She hadn't cried after saying goodbye to him, but she'd been sad about it.

We talked a bit over the drive, keeping each other distracted so we weren't thinking about the trip. The closer we got to the Waywalker departure point the less sure of myself I felt. I knew that was just fear of the unknown though so I ignored it and focused on talking things out with Callie. We weren't the only ones nervous, of course, and after a few minutes Benny came to sit with us, bringing Celine with him.

Since Jessie was driving Celine passed the Skill crystal to Callie as she sat down. My girlfriend stashed it away and then glanced at Benny. " You doing ok? This is probably pretty scary for you too right?"

He sighed and leaned back. "Yeah. Leaving my family sucks. I mean Jessie is leaving Maria too, but they weren't really official and it's not the same. Not just her either. My parents are here. I know intellectually I haven't seen them since we visited home, and traveling further is just more of the Sam's. But it feels like a bigger deal."

I clapped him on the shoulder. "We'll be back, man. And we'll have stories to tell and souvenirs to give them. I can even give them abilities if they want." It would be too noticeable to start doing that to everyone as I was now, but when we came back I'd be stronger. It would be much less of a problem.

He smiled at that. "That would be nice." He still sounded sad about leaving, but Celine squeezed his hand and we lapsed into silence.

Before we could talk more the car slowed down. Callie took a deep breath. "Alright...we're here. Is everyone ready? Have everything you need?"

Benny snickered at that. "Yes MOM. Let's go." Celine pulled him up as she stood and the two of them headed outside. We all filed out after, and I was surprised to find us outside of an arena.

Zeke nodded. "Smart place to put it. These things all have decent protections on them." We headed inside and made our way down to the ring, where Midknight, Asteria, and surprisingly Frostbite were waiting. Rime was there, and we nodded to our former bodyguard. It would have been nice to take her with us, but our contract didn't extend that far. Not everyone wanted to leave the planet after all.

Asteria smiled as we approached. "Ah. Our champion and his party. Welcome. I trust you're all prepared to depart?" At our nods she gestured to one side. "Please take your positions." She tried very hard not to look at Zeke, presumably out of fear, which seemed to suit him fine.

We all lined up where she pointed, and she stepped forward, laying down a small stone with intricate carvings all over it. Tapping the top of the stone, she created a spark, which flooded the runes across the rock's surface. There was a flash of light, and then, before our eyes, the air CRACKED.

There was a shudder in space, and my head swam a bit as I watched the world itself tear apart, prying reality open until there was a portal sitting in the air in front of us. As it had opened, I'd been able to see the fluctuations of unstable space in the cracks around the edges, but now that it was open it was just a...hole.

Like looking at a window with no frame, on one side was one place, and on another a second. It was weird looking at the portal, because the portal itself was two dimensional and flat, but it was showing three dimensional space on either side. Zeke looked bored, but everyone else seemed shaken by the ability. It was a pretty impressive sight, I had to admit.

Asteria pointed at the portal. "Your path to the Moonsong Glade lies through there. The Glade isn't QUITE revealed yet, though it's accessible enough for them to arrange accommodations. You'll be dropped off on the floating city established outside the Glade while you wait for the other tournament winners and their teams. You will not be provided with a return trip, and will need to arrange that yourselves."

That kind of sucked, but it also made sense. This was an open tournament. There was a net benefit to the Unity from all the publicity, but once the winners left, it was hardly their problem. We were nominally members of the Unity, but only junior members. It wasn't worth paying for us to come back without some sort of benefit to them. Granted, I could probably have arranged a trip for some wishes if I wanted to pay, but we had a next destination after the Glade, so there was no point.

Frostbite looked mildly annoyed, but she was an E-ranker, and Asteria was the one who made decisions. I was guessing our ally had tried to lobby for better treatment and got shot down. Someone as strong as Asteria had probably met plenty of candidates, and while we theoretically had amazing potential, not all of us lived up to it.

Staring through the window, I saw a sprawling, massive city, with a night sky background somehow far too close to be believable. I reached down to grab Callie's hand and she squeezed back. I felt her nervousness and excitement in equal measure through the bond. With one last look around at the planet I'd spent my whole life on, I gave the others a short nod, then Callie and I stepped through the window together, emerging for the first time in the wider universe. As the others stepped through behind us and the window closed, I couldn't help but grin as my heart pounded. The sadness had mostly faded, all I could feel now was the anticipation. Now was when the adventure really began.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

When Zeke had mentioned the bazaar, I had assumed we would be attending some small gathering of stalls. Maybe some tents, a few blankets on the ground. The word invoked images of a temporary market that contained equally temporary sales locations. What we actually ended up walking into was...not that.

For one thing I felt...heavier. Like I was under pressure I hadn't been before. It was a strange feeling to experience, like I was suffocating even as I took a deep breath. Once I realized I was panicking about nothing and forced myself to calm down the panicked sensation went away, though the weight remained. For another thing though, the place we'd ended up was...amazing.

The close night sky in the portal made much more sense once I got to view it up close, since we were literally IN space. It looked like someone had torn a city (a very large one mind you) out of the ground and let it float among the stars. Buildings extended for as far as the eye could see, all of varying shapes and styles. "This is...temporary?" I said in shock. This place was just a random camp set up to wait on the glade, but it looked like it had taken centuries to build.

Zeke snorted. "They've probably got a high ranking Architect around somewhere. I've seen variations of that ability that can make entire countries with a snap of their fingers. There are a bunch of ways to do it. Though out in space like this they either had the rock shipped out or they hired one of the Fantasy based variants. The latter would be pretty damn expensive though."

There was a sound as a man cleared his throat, and we turned to see a short, burly man with curly dark hair and horns. His eyes were goat eyes and he had a small patch of facial hair that went well with his annoyed expression somehow. He held out a hand. "My tip?"

Rolling his eyes, my uncle started muttering something about Waywalkers, and fished out a chit he flipped to the goat man. The other ascendant caught the chit, then made a show of biting it while staring at Zeke, before nodding and vanishing into thin air in a blink. I was guessing since Zeke had been transported too, tipping wasn't a breach of contract, but I wasn't going to ask in case he'd just managed to slip that by the geass by not thinking about it.

"So...we're here." Said Callie slowly. "Wherever here is. Does this place have a name?" She looked around excitedly. "Actually, I can find out on my own. I should try out my new powers here. I can use them to spy on everyone around here to figure out all the important info. Learn the ins and outs of the city."

She stepped toward a wall, but Zeke held up a hand. "Don't!" He said quickly. When she stopped to give him a confused look he just sighed. "Don't forget that your ability, while amazing, IS Perception based. Anyone with a sufficiently high Perception can detect you even in the shadows. This place is full of random elders and faction management. Given the low standard of the cluster, I'm guessing that there won't be many B-rankers, if any, but a C or D-ranker is more than up to noticing you."

Wincing slightly she stepped away from the wall. "Ah. And you can't protect me because I'm not your charge. Speaking of, D-rank is the new level of protection you can offer right? If we run into any E-rankers and piss them off we're screwed." She sounded about as worried as I felt.

Zeke just waved it off. "Oh sure, but there won't be any here. Sending an E-ranker to this place would be stupid. Everyone else would be stronger, or weaker, depending on if they were entrants. With the Glade blocking anyone below or over F-rank, and any protectors being notably powerful, most of the people will be C-rank. Only lower middle class factions will send B-rankers. Strong enough to have them but weak enough not to trust their reputation to protect their people."

That seemed to put Callie back on balance. "That makes sense. This whole thing is its own kind of challenge. The chaperones will be seen as expressions of both power and confidence. Won't having you here make us seem weak though? You're WAY overkill for this place."

"Nah." Said my uncle casually. "I'm his sole protector, technically speaking. Stuff like this tends to be a gray area for candidates. If anything having a protector like me is bound to impress. Most candidates get rookies like her." He jabbed a thumb as Selka, who was standing next to a calm but interested Nat.

The other guardian bristled. "I'll have you know that I'm a talented combatant. You don't get chosen to be guardian unless you can handle yourself. Don't treat me like some punk kid."

Zeke just grinned maliciously. "Awww, it thinks it's dangerous. How cute. Here's the thing though, you ARE some punk kid. It become exponentially harder to rank up as you move up. You may never reach B-rank, and even if you do it'll take you absurd amounts of time to reach the point I'm at in B-rank. By that time I'll probably be an A-ranker." He paused. "Or dead. I might just be dead. Either way, respect your elders kid."

Her glare was almost funny, until I snickered and she turned it on me, at which point I shut up. "Anyway." Said Callie firmly, regaining attention. "Where are we going? Do we have some sort of...faction safehouse here? Are there other WCP branches here? Can we trust them if there are?"

"There are, and we can't." My uncle said firmly. "I don't know if there are other candidates, though if there are I would wager not many. Regardless, the WCP isn't cohesive enough for that. Maybe if it was another member of your branch, but there's no way to know at the moment. Too many people for me to keep track of, so I can't even check. Not that my geass would allow it."

Callie scowled. "So...maybe a hotel or something? Do we even have the money for that?" I hadn't paid much attention to join funds lately, but I knew I personally was just short four and a half E-rank coins. I was betting that would NOT be enough.

Zeke just gave her a pitying look. "Did you forget we're traveling with a pair of wishmaster candidates? They're basically walking piggy banks. You can trade wishes for nearly anything." He pointed over at Nat and I and I scowled at him in annoyance.

"Hey!" I said loudly. He just raised an eyebrow at me. I looked away, grumbling to myself. "You could be nicer about it, you know. I'm not just some asset to pay for things."

"You're a PAIN in my asset." He drawled. "But we can figure out where to go with an easy trick of the trade. I wish we had the location of a safe place to stay." I blinked at him. Zeke had never wished for anything from me. I could see how it was within his geass, since he needed a place to stay too. He paused as the words flowed across my vision. "Oh, payment." He pulled out a chit and flicked it to me. An F-ranked chit, which was pretty decent.

Wish detected. Grant wish? I confirmed, accepting the point cost which was much lower than my usual wishes theese days. There was a flash of electricity and I realized why there had been Creation points folded in. A piece of paper covered in a spidery scrawl flashed into existence, a map that showed all the nearby areas, including a single neatly marked X off to on side, with a caption over it saying. "Daylight Dreamer Inn."

I grinned at him. "That's a good idea. I take it you want me to get more used to using my Wishes as an asset now that I'm stronger?'

He nodded amiably. "Yup. There will probably be another candidate or two around here, given the sheer scope of a cluster wide search. Even candidates who don't travel horizontally among similar scale worlds like Natalie probably got swept up in this mess."

Clapping me on the shoulder, he chuckled lightly. "More candidates means that your Wishes are both more and less valuable. You can use them more freely, but they aren't quite as limited a commodity as they used to be. You'll need to adjust to the new environment. Granted, it's pretty specific to places like this, but the Ruined Soul Temple will be one of those locations as well, so it's something to get used to."

I nodded, following Callie as she grabbed the map from Zeke and set off in a direction. Benny stepped up next to me. "This place is nuts, right?" He said, gesturing around us. "Because I thought Rajak was big, but this place has to be like...half the size, and they put it together short term as a place to hang out and wait? Architect or no that's insane."

"Yeah." I murmured back. "I feel that. I think I feel...slower here. Weaker maybe? Which is nuts because my stats are higher. This must be a higher level area than our planet. Probably just D-rank though. If we were more than a rank up right now I assume it would be much more obvious."

Zeke, who was ahead of us, turned to nod. "Yeah, D-rank. Since your planet is a psuedo D-rank world anyway it's less difference than you would expect. It won't have much effect at this level. Just a bit of suppression and a change to the strength of your abilities. Nothing too noticeable with all the recent upgrades."

"It's true." Celine said solemnly. "I've been on higher ranked planets before. Your combat efficiency doesn't drop much, considering it's a linear change across the board. The one difference is that the surrounding environment tends to be harder to damage. I doubt it would be a simple thing to destroy a building here, if we were even capable of doing so."

Which seemed like a big change from our psuedo D-rank planet, but then again, this place was much smaller. Maybe the Impact was more condensed here. Suffice to say I could understand why they didn't let anyone under F-rank off the planet. While this was only mildly stifling for us, I got the feeling that with twenty less Impact it would be much more difficult to bear with, even if still possible.

Finally we came to a stop in front of a large, tower like building. With cream colored walls and red tiled roof, the place looked like a vacation destination more than a run of the mill inn, but it was definitely upscale enough to be a feasible place to stay. Zeke looked it over carefully before nodding. "Decent security and top notch stealth. Probably a high C-ranker running the place. Not perfect but more than enough for our purposes."

I was curious how it had top notch stealth when we found it so easily, but I was sure I wouldn't care about the answer anyway. He said it was fine and I trusted his judgement. So we stepped inside, strolling up to the counter. The girl behind it had black hair in a ponytail, pale skin, and dark lips with a single ring in them. Her eyes were ringed with dark liner, and she mostly ignored us as we approached, engrossed in a leather bound book.

Knocking on the counter, I cleared my throat. She looked up. "I'm hoping to talk to your boss about accommodations." She pointed above her head at sign with pricing on it before returning to her read. Must be a fascinating story. I scanned the values and sure enough, WAY too many chits. I grinned, knocking again. "Tell them we're from the WCP. And we're willing to trade wishes." It was satisfying how quick she slammed the book shut. It's nice to be taken seriously.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The owner of the Daylight Dreamer Inn was not what I expected. Though to be fair that was probably more my issue than his. He looked younger than I'd thought, but reconsidering Ascendants were almost always young looking, at least once they were full grown.

Sindar was more the kind of person you'd expect to see at a club than in the office of an inn though. Handsome guy, dark skin, dark eyes, and long wavy black hair. He had on an expensive looking suit (which for an Ascendant meant it was enchanted) and had an easy smile that was belied by the coldness in his brown irises. I could tell he was trying to give off the impression of a friendly, amiable guy, and I could ALSO tell that if I believed that impression I was going to get badly ripped off.

Which was interesting, because he was at least at the peak of F-rank (probably one of the entrants), and he really should have had a Skill that would make it harder for me to spot that. It took me a second to realize that I'd picked it up through the bond, and that Callie, with her high perception stat, was the one who had noticed. It was a bit jarring how smoothly that had come through, honestly.

"So." Said Sindar. "I'm told you have a precious resource you're seeking to barter with." He folded his hands in front of him as he smiled at us cooly. Then he did...nothing. Damn it. He was waiting for us to make the first offer. I tried to consider who would be the best fit for this situation. Benny had the haggling Skill, but it was Minor, and there was no way it would useful here.

To my relief, Celine stepped forward, offering a cool smile. "Mr. Wyndham is interested in safe lodgings until the Glade fully opens, but we had some...concerns. Just a few questions we need to have answered before we can decide if your establishment is right for us."

I had to stifle a sigh of relief, and Callie felt the same, as we both turned to stare at Celine. Because of course being a noble she knew how to negotiate. I was suddenly extremely glad that we'd brought her along, because she clearly had a much better handle on this situation than any of us.

What came next was a master class in diplomacy. I learned enough to almost pick up a Skill just watching her I think. First she turned the tables on him with that initial reversal, forcing him to go on the defensive instead of waiting patiently for us to respond. Once she had him off balance she pretty much tore him apart.

Every comment he made was taken in the worst possible light, every open ended statement was looped around to be a negative. It was almost beautiful watching the character assassination of his inn, and by the time she was done, I don't think even HE considered the place worth staying at. She finished the negotiations with a one wish per day payment schedule over a single month, and he looked confused and almost nauseous when she was done.

As we headed up to our rooms, each of us with our own room key,we all turned to stare at Celine in horrified fascination. She just gave a small but smug smile. "Negotiations are an important part of diplomacy. As a noble I'm naturally quite experienced in the art of discourse. I hope that was helpful?"

Callie burst out laughing. "You smug ass, of course it was helpful, and you know it. But I appreciate the save either way. I'm glad we decided to bring you along. You're officially in charge of haggling and negotiations." As she saw Celine's smile grow, she countered it with one of her own. "I wouldn't be so happy about that if I were you. We're about to go to an interstellar market. You're about to get a pretty sizable amount of work."

The elf girl's expression fell as she realized she'd basically just been upgraded to a personal shopper for the foreseeable future, and Benny snickered at his girlfriend's dismay, only for her to whirl on him and shoot him a surprisingly expressive glare. "Oh, I wouldn't be laughing if I were you." She said sweetly. "I know you have the haggling Skill, and I plan to train you up so that we have more options in the future. You're going to be coming along everywhere I go."

His eyes widened in panicked horror, but sadly for him, his fate was sealed, Celine grabbed him by the wrist, wished us all luck with finding our rooms, and dragged him off down the hallway. Callie was smirking as she watched them leave, a thoughtful look on her face I didn't really like. The last thing I needed was my girlfriend deciding she needed to take a firmer hand in our relationship.

"Oh hey." I said desperately. "I forgot to ask you what you think about my weapon? I'm about to replace it. Zeke was talking about possibly picking up the staff so I could learn a martial art. What do you think?" She was startled out of her thoughts by the question, which was about weapons and therefore BASICALLY loot. Helping me shop would keep her distracted, and I also really wanted her opinion.

The others had scattered to their rooms, leaving the two of us alone to find ours, and she looked pensive as we walked. "That's a good question. I could see how a staff might work, but it seems...off. The length is wrong. Maybe I just got used to you with a cane though. If you think it would work I could see it though. Maybe take it further, try for the spear? Having a blade on the end of your weapon might be nice."

I shook my head firmly. "Hard pass. A lot of my Skills increase flat impact damage. A blade would mitigate some of the advantages, and it just...feels wrong. Not like me." Pushing through the door to our room, I looked around in surprise and enthusiasm, stopping the conversation so I could take in the new digs.

The hallways of the inn had been well appointed but small. About five feet across, with thick carpets, smooth painted walls and the odd bit of bric-a-brac or a painting hanging at eye level. I expected similarly meager sizes for the rooms, but when we stepped inside, I was blown away.

If the room had been some gymnasium sized palace with tons of marble and beautiful gold accents I'd have been pleased and amused but not shocked. Rather, ostentatious and huge was what I'd come to expect from Ascendant places. To my surprise though, this place was actually pretty homey. It wasn't a small room, fifteen feet by fifteen or so, and painted in dark earth tones.

The furniture was plush without being showy, looking a bit beat up but supremely comfortable. The only nod to traditional over the top Ascendant decorating was the absolutely massive bed, large enough for me to lie sideways and not have my head or feet stick out. Callie bolted across the room, throwing herself bodily through the air to land with a loud whump on the mattress with a giggle, making comforter angels as she groaned in appreciation.

"Ok." She said in a voice of utter bliss. "We're buying this bed, or we're sneaking it out when we leave. We'll have spatial rings, we can pull it off. I demand we carry this with us everywhere now. What rank is this?"

I glanced down at the bed, surprised based on how happy she was that it was only G-rank. I didn't see enchantments or anything, but for all I knew it was an Invention, some random interaction between materials making the perfect bed. I dropped my bag, dropping my mask on the dresser as I walked over to climb up onto the absurdly comfortable mattress.
Callie's earlier groan had been completely understandable, and I made one of my own as I pretty much melted into the cloudlike softness of the bedding. "Ok. Deal. This is ours now. I'm never letting anyone else sleep in this bed. It belongs to us and there's nothing anyone can say to convince me otherwise."

She rolled over to cuddle up next to me. "My hero." She stayed like that for a bit, and I was about to bring up the weapon again when she finally spoke up. "Doesn't this feel weird?"

With the bond and my own knowledge of her, I could tell exactly what she meant. "It does. Being on our own like this. Like, we were living on our own anyway basically, minus Zeke who doesn't count as an authority figure, but being out in the wider universe together like this...it feels like a big deal."

She looked up at me, bottomless blue eyes boring into mine. "Big in a bad way? Are you having second thoughts about us?"

Leaning down for a quick kiss, I shook my head, laughing. "Hardly. It just makes me amazed at how far we've come. From dancing around each other until you finally asked me out. I spent a while just dragging my feet and it makes me wonder if we'd have had more time together if I had just had the guts to ask instead of asking you on dates until you broke from the frustration."

That got a giggle. "It's ok sweetie. I don't mind that you made me work for it. Besides, I like where we are. We were friends before we got together and I think it made us more comfortable with each other. Without all those dates you probably would have been a squealing fanboy still." At my offended noise she grinned at me. "Oh please, I remember the first time we met. If your jaw dropped any faster it would have broken the sound barrier."

"I have no idea what you are talking about." I said with dignity. "I admit I always found you attractive, but I certainly never let it unbalance me."

Rolling her eyes, she kissed my cheek. "Owning my merch would say otherwise, but whatever you need to tell yourself, love." She paused. "You as excited about this whole Moonsong Glade thing as I am?"

"Probably not." I said mildly. "There's loot in them there woods. I'm surprised you're even lucid. I half expected you to be floating along a golden scent trail into the void with giant credit signs flashing in your eyes." Her glare was adorable, and I ignored it. "But...I am kind of pumped about all the new enemies. Not to mention my new earth and plant based divination skills will come in so much handy here."

She lit up. "That's TRUE! Oh I can't wait to get mountains of treasure and then sell some of it. I want a giant vault filled with chits with piles of magic items strewn throughout it. Maybe we can drag the bed into the vault and sleep on piles of our money." Her high pitched squeal of delight made me chuckle as I tried to imagine her as a dragoness sleeping on a hoard of treasure.

"Well." I said with a yawn. "I think we'll have plenty of cool treasures to see in the bazaar. You can have as much fun out there as you want. For now though, this comfy bed is making me tired. We should head take a nap, then we can figure out our next move after."

Snuggling into my side, she let out her own yawn, glaring at me for getting her started. "I guess we can do that. I am feeling a little sleepy." And I closed my eyes, letting the warmth of the bed and someone I loved lull me to sleep on a floating city in space above an alien world. My life could be pretty cool sometimes.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I woke up to the sound of pounding on my door. Not urgent pounding, granted, but someone wanted me to wake up. It was annoying and I tried to ignore it, but they were insistent and I eventually dragged myself out of bed, ignoring the annoyed whine of my extremely clingy girlfriend as she burrowed into the covers. When I threw the door open with a glare, I was mostly unsurprised to see Benny waiting for me, Celine looking mildly uncomfortable behind him.

"What!" I snapped, knowing it wasn't anything serious by the smug look on his face. I'm not a morning person almost ever, but being woken up before I've finished sleeping puts me in a bad mood every time. Even for naps, premature wake ups are the best way to piss me off if there's no special reason for us.

He just raised an eyebrow, long since immune to my bad moods. "You've been sleeping for like four hours, and I'm bored. We want to go to the bazaar now."

"I'd like it noted that this wasn't my idea." Celine said, raising a hand to get my attention. "Also hi Shane. I told him to let you sleep, but he's actually kind of excited about the shopping, despite how scared he was earlier when I told him that he'd have to learn to haggle."

Benny glared at her. "Don't TELL him that! Now he's going to think I'm a huge pushover."

"Oh please." I snorted. "That ship sailed years ago." I blew out a breath in annoyance. "I...guess we could go out. I'm up now so I guess it doesn't matter." I looked over my shoulder. "Hey, Cal, you up?" My girlfriend's only response was a hand with the middle finger out poking through the covers. Celine actually giggled at that, and I turned back to Benny. "Yeah, she's up. I wouldn't expect much civility from her for a while though."

There was a series of muffled words croaked out from under the blanket, and Celine went red as Benny blanched. "You can't say that to someone!" He squeaked. "Where did you even learn to talk like that?" Her hand snaked out again and pointed to where I was standing. My best friend glared at me. "You're a bad influence."

I just gaped. "I didn't tell her to say that!" I snapped indignantly. "She's got an even worse mouth than I do sometimes when we're alone." Sulking a bit, I huffed. "Go get ready or whatever, we'll be out in a bit to get going. You check with the others? Do they want to go?"

He shook his head. "Mel and Abel already left to explore, Jessie is cuddling with the animals, Natalie is in her room and Cark and Cass are in for now. I went to check in and I think Cass decided to follow in your footsteps and take a nap. Cark was hanging out reading some book Zeke gave him. Seemed pretty into it. Basically, it'll just be the four of us."

I hadn't seen a spot to put the animals, but this place was an Ascendant inn, so they probably had a basement for it or something. Shutting the door in Benny's face, I walked over to grab some clothes. There was an attached showed behind a hanging tapestry on the wall that I'd only just noticed. I poked Callie as I went by. "You want to join me?" There was some muffled muttering and I winced. "Not only is that not anatomically possible, even if it was I wouldn't do it. How about you wake up a bit while I shower and we can talk later." Her response was a muffled grunt that may or may not have been a four letter word.

By the time I came out, Callie was awake, albeit wearing the blanket like a hood. She'd managed to scrounge up a cup of coffee from somewhere and was sipping it, staring blankly into the distance. I snickered because I'd seen this before. When Callie was really tired, especially after partial naps, her brain kind of overloaded itself after waking up. She would stare into space while her thoughts ran for a few minutes, letting her mind catch up.

Despite that, when I walked in, wearing my armor, her eyes snapped up to me. "Shower." She croaked. And I just laughed and gestured that it was all hers. She downed the coffee like a shot, shook her head back and forth like she was trying to shake start it, and the stumbled into the bathroom, grabbing her clothes on the way. After she left I grabbed my mask off the dressed and popped it on my face, then I started stretching a bit to loosen myself up after that absurdly comfortable nap.

The hot water from the shower had relaxed me a ton too, and the combination meant I needed to warm my muscles up a bit to really feel like I was awake. As I was stretching, the tapestry pushed aside and steam billowed out of the bathroom. "Oh gods." Groaned Callie as she emerged. "I'm going to punch Benny in the throat someday when he isn't looking."

I just laughed. "Don't be so grumpy. The nap would have messed up your sleeping schedule anyway. Besides, I'll make you breakfast to make it up to you. In return make sure he IS looking when you punch him in the throat." She giggled at that as she dried her hair with a towel, not worried about normal water damaging her armor or anything. "Anyway, aside from the spatial rings, you planning to look for anything?"

She gave a hum of consideration. "I think I might look into some weapons myself. I raided the pavilion coffers before we left, so we'd have enough for rings, but I should have some leftovers for a dagger or something. My personal stash I'm saving for wishes, but I think it's about time for me arm up. If you remember I can imbue my darkness into items and control them like shadows. I did it with my bike, though it took years of imbuing and special materials."

"Ah." I said, understanding her point. "You've improved. Your new rank and all the stats will make it easier. Plus I bet having a smaller target would help too. Will you need to find a dagger with special materials for that? Or can you just brute force it with anything darkness related." I wasn't sure even a market this big would have her weapons if they were too rare.

She grinned at me. "Pretty much. I just...gods Shane, I never thought I'd be this strong at this age. It would have taken me YEARS in Valen to get to F-rank, if I ever did. I might have been able to do it in Rajak if I'd left with my dad originally, but I'd have basically been selling my soul. Now not only am I an F-ranker with a TERRIFYING new ability, I have a whole team of friends and I'm STILL growing. By this time next year I might be at E-rank at this rate!"

I wanted to tell her not to jump the gun but...she wasn't wrong. I didn't think it would be quite that fast. but still I could see her point. "So...you're happy then?" She gave me a flat look and I held up my hands. "Ok, forget I asked. I know we just talked about this. I just worry. I don't want you to regret coming with me."

She rolled her eyes. "You're such an idiot about some stuff. You're lucky you're so cute. Not much in that giant head of yours."

It was my turn to flip her off, to which she just giggled, then finished brushing her hair and dragged me out of the room. We met up with Benny and Celine in the downstairs entryway, and then the four of us set out to explore the city. As a cheat, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the map that led us here, but it didn't actually help at all. Lots of streets and buildings but nothing was labeled.

"Nice try." Said Zeke's voice from behind me. I jumped out of my skin, whirling to find m uncle leaning against the wall behind us. He gave a lazy wave.

"What are you doing out here Zeke?" I asked incredulously. "You're usually pretty hands off. Do you have something you wanted to pick up?"

He sighed. "This place has way too many C and B-rankers. I can cross a planet in a blink, but that only matters if my abilities are leagues above everyone else. If two equally strong B-rankers are attacking someone, the closest wins. Don't want to risk you pissing off someone who might be a genuine threat. After that big show I put on I figure I should stick close."

That hadn't occurred to me, but it seemed like a sensible precaution. "The mask won't work on high rankers. Right." I paused for a second. "Wait...is this mask made from a person? I know your other ones are..."

He snickered. "No. I have a limit to how many greater masks I can make. I can add little buffs and stuff to them with my Voltomancy easily enough, but soul binding a mask is complicated and time consuming, and I can't sustain too many of them. Thirteen at a time, give or take. I can make as many lesser masks as I want from lower ranked Ascendants, but I usually don't bother."

"That's a super creepy power." Said Benny matter of factly. "Just in case you didn't know. At least they're masks made of porcelain and not like...actual faces."

Zeke nodded solemnly. "Even I have limits. Anyway, you're all looking for the marketplace. What specifically were you hoping to find? I know spatial rings, but I also know Shane wanted a weapon. What kind of weapon did you settle on? I can point you in the right direction. Since I'm with you and don't feel like wandering around for hours it's only really helping myself."

I nodded. "I've been waffling, but I decided on a specific type of staff that has the properties I like. It's called a Bang. Some crazy Ascendant with a monkey trait used to use one a long time ago. It's a short staff made of wood with long iron caps on both ends. Small, heavy, and with good spin, plus it's compact and easy to carry on my back. There are some martial arts that use that kind of weapon, so I can pick up some new Skills with it and keep a similar style of combat."

He nodded thoughtfully. "I know the guy you mean. Way before my time obviously, but I think the original Wishmaster knew him. Gods don't age at all as far as I know, and he's been around a LONG time. Not that I can swear to it, I've only met the old man a few times. He likes to spoil the grandkids but attendants aren't usually allowed near him. Me and Eli were close so he got an exception made."

I stared at him in shock. "You...met the Wishmaster. The original? What was he like? I always figured he'd be really scary."

"He wasn't." He said simply. "But because of that...he was. Being a god and being able to hide your presence so thoroughly you seem like a normal old man? He looks to be in his fifties probably, and the one time I met him I couldn't tell. Not based on the way he moved, or talked, or even his senses. He just felt...regular. It was extremely jarring, because I knew he could atomize me with a strong thought."

He trailed off, seeming distracted, so I focused back on the task at hand. "We can talk about that later. For now, let's see if we can find my weapon. I assume you have a place in mind?" The grin he gave me in response made me a bit worried, honestly. I got the feeling this was going to be a wild kind of place.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"Well." I said uncertainly. "I wasn't expecting...this." Zeke smirked smugly as we stood on the stairs down into an underground chamber filled with tables and stalls. The whole individual vendor thing wasn't a surprise, since this city was supposed to be a bazaar. No, the surprise was the fact that the entire setup was built on a giant sword sticking out of the rock of the cavern.

Below us, I could see a yawning abyss, and off far in the depths, a few shining lights that had to be stars. The hole we were standing in dropped out the bottom of the city into fucking SPACE. Weirdly, the air here was fine, and I wasn't too worried about freezing to death or my lungs exploding, but even knowing that empty space was within sight was seriously freaking me out.

My uncle took in a deep breath, inhaling the smoky, metallic smelling air. "Titanblade emporium. The whole giant sword thing is a bit of a gimmick, but the family that runs the place are weapon fanatics. They're a unity wide organization, and have branches like this all over. I knew someone would have set one up here."

Benny raised a hand cautiously. "Um...what the hell is big enough to use THAT." He pointed at the sword. "Or is it just a platform made to look like a sword."

Zeke chuckled. "Nope. Every Titanblade emporium is built on an ACTUAL titanblade. Giant swords forged for the elders of the Kyros family. They're size shifters, some of the very best. Dakken Kyros, the S-ranker who founded their clan, is known as the Worldhurler. Because he literally gets big enough to THROW planets. Pretty high rank ones too."

I stared down at the massive sword and gulped, but Zeke just patted me on the back. "Don't worry so much. That thing is a push pin compared to one of Dakken's blades. I've seen the main branch of their emporium before. The sword is stuck in the side of that planet like a dart in a dartboard. The hilt reaches the atmosphere. I'd imagine this thing probably belonged to one of the C-rankers the family sent over."

Thinking of a blade that size was...terrifying. Especially since the emporium was probably on a high ranking planet, and they got BIGGER as you ranked them up. It was part of the reason for the gravity increase. Some of it was the weight of Impact, but massive planets had a stronger gravitational pull. You could probably fit a hundred Calluses lengthwise in whatever world that blade was stuck in.

Walking down the steps, we made our way onto a crystalline energy bridge that extended from the bottom of the steps, leading us out into the metal platform created by the huge blade. I expected the floor to shudder or make a hollow clang, but it was like stepping onto a normal metal floor. The only strange thing was that I could feel some of the Impact of this thing. It was much higher ranked than I was, though it seemed to be suppressed somehow.

Since my uncle didn't seem to know more about this place than where it was, it took some wandering around to find the shop we needed, but find it we did. One specific old man sitting at a blanket covered in a literal pile of staves, in front of a squat red tent. As we approached, I started looking through them, but since some of them were buried under the others I eventually got sick of trying to differentiate with just my eyes and turned to ask him. "Hey, I was wondering if you have a short staff with iron caps on the end."

The old man, white hair hanging in a braid down his back and hands folded in the sleeves of his long red robe with gold trim, sighed, muttering. "There's always one." His eyes focused on me. "Yes. I have a Bang you can buy."
"Perfect." I said with a grin. "I'm looking for and enchanted one that-"

"Changes size." He cut me off with annoyance. "I know. Like I said. There's always one. I don't have a size changing staff. They're pointless and not cost effective. You wouldn't be able to handle the increased Might requirements when using it, and even if you could, without some kind of specialized Skill for it, or a staff that was indestructible, it would either be impossible to control or just break under its own weight."

This had the air of a rehearsed speech, but despite how direct he was, I felt the need to point out the obvious. "We're STANDING on a giant sword."

He groaned. "We're standing on a giant sword MADE to be a giant sword. It doesn't change sizes. It's a huge blade made with the express purpose of being used by a huge person. That's why Titanblades are made like that. I can't sell your a size changing weapon, and if I could, I wouldn't because it's stupid."

I just stood there and blinked at him for a second before sighing. "Ok, fine. What does the staff do? And what rank is it? I was hoping for an E-rank weapon. Future proof my layout a bit. Do you have a bang that's E-ranked?"

Shoving his hand into the pile, he fished around for a second before withdrawing...power. The staff WAS E-rank, and I could tell it would be tough to get used to. I knew that people could use weapons and armor one rank above them, but I'd never asked what was required to actually do it. Judging from this sensation, I was going to need to train with this thing for a while just to be able to hold it.

The shaft of the staff was deep, rich brown wood, the grain seeming to form enchantment symbols on its own, though the symbols were never the same when I was looking at it too long. The caps on the ends were made of a greyish black iron, and I could see screaming faces in the metal, their empty eyes pleading for release in a truly chilling way.

"Ghost iron and Infernal Ash wood. Enchanted by an elven master. They have a peculiar way with wood based enchantments. The weapon can pass through solid objects if you focus. The ghost iron also has the interesting effect of absorbing minute traces of life energy on contact. The energy can't exist inside the necrotic metal stably, so it's stored and corrupted, and can be released and an explosive burst of death damage."

He offered it to me, and when I took it I almost staggered at how heavy it was. Not physically, but...in other ways. The Impact of the staff weighed on me, making it feel like I was standing under a great burden. I loved it. "It's perfect." I whispered as I ran my hands over it. "How much?"

He squinted at me calculatingly. "That's a lower end E-rank weapon, but it's made from the finest materials. I'd say fifteen E-ranked coins." I winced, since there was no way I could afford that, but when I went to argue, I was cut off as Celine stepped in.

I'd forgotten she was our go to for haggling so I back off as she issued her counter offer, and when it was rejected, tore into the old man. She started making weirdly accurate deductions about his social standing and effectiveness based on his placement in the market and the condition and organization of his wares.

Sadly despite my hope that our terrifying negotiator would be able to get him down low enough, He stopped at ten E-rank coins and refused to go lower. He wasn't an amateur like Sindar had been, and Celine's skills (or possibly Skills) weren't enough.

"Alright." I cut in once the haggling stalled. "How about this?" I wrote down a few lines on a piece of paper I was carrying
and passed it over, and his eyes widened in shock when he saw them, then narrowed in suspicion.

He glanced from me to the paper. "How many?" I held up three fingers. "And you want me to throw in six rings?" I nodded. His eyes gleamed with avarice. "I can use them as the actual payment, yes? Because if these are compensation I'm not paying twice."

"Yes." I said firmly. "If you have somewhere private nearby to go we can do the trade directly." I poked a thumb at Zeke. "Though be warned if you decide to try anything funny I'm not without protections." This guy didn't strike me as the type to watch tournaments, and even if Zeke couldn't intervene most of the time, there was no need for him to know that.

Zeke met his eyes, and there was a frisson of pressure, too fast and focused to jar the sword or alert anyone else. The old man's eyes went wide again, this time with fear. He was an F-ranker, which meant he was old as hell to look like he did. Like thousands of years old, but feeling what Zeke really was obviously scared him shitless.

He led us back into the tent, closing the flaps, then he touched a few runes that lit up with contact and turned to nod at us. I'd carried the staff in, but he plucked it out of my hands and dropped it on a pillow in the middle of the tent, fishing in a pocket and pulling out six rings. "As agreed. Three wishes. One for the staff, one each for three rings." At my nod, he grinned. "Good. I wish to be young again."

Wish detected. Grant wish? I was positive this wouldn't work like he wanted, but I confirmed, and sure enough. Insufficient stat points to restore youth to target. Requirements: NA reversing thousands of years or Ascendant aging beyond the capacity of Intermediate Wish ability. I'd assumed it wouldn't work, but I expected that message. It was the same one I got when Benny tried to wish for a Master rank ability when I was at Minor.

"That's not going to happen." I said bluntly. Before he could argue, I cut him off. "As in, I don't have the stats to do that. You're too high ranked and it's too much time. I'd suggest shooting for something a bit more feasible." I didn't suggest a wish, because I was paranoid about them not working if they knowingly benefited me too much, but with the hint I was confident the old man would think of something.

He looked annoyed, but then thought it through. "I wish for ten biological years of my youth restored to me." He said confidently. I confirmed when the wish came up but shook my head. "Nope. Too much, scale it back. That's three hundred and twenty years of life. Literally ten percent of your total lifespan."

He snarled out a curse and then snapped. "Fine! Three years. I wish for three biological years of my life back." He paused, waiting to be let down, but...huh. That actually worked. Maybe because of the three times modifier or maybe it was just a more reasonable ask.

When I told him he brightened a bit. Considering three times thirty two was ninety six, which made the three years I'd given him almost three more centuries of lifespan, I could understand why. He made all three wishes, then passed us over the rings and handed me back the staff. He looked sprightlier, albeit not to an insane degree. He'd probably been biologically in his mid nineties (albeit in extremely good shape because of Vitality), so taking him down to ninety two wasn't a huge physical change. Still I could tell, especially with my Perception being what it was.

I weighed the staff (apparently it was a Stygian Branch) in my hands, grinning madly at my new weapon and how much fun it would be to use it, and thanked the old man before we moved on. We had more shopping to do, looking for a weapon for Callie and possibly something for Benny to integrate alongside the new inventions he informed me he'd just finished. I was happy to shop though. I still had all my money to spend. This would be so much fun.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

We didn't head back to the inn after the Titanblade emporium, as I'd expected, and having money on me to spend I decided to just enjoy it. I bought a giant bacon wrapped turkey leg from a street cart vendor, a small plush doll from Cass's favorite cartoon that would dance if you said its name and had a self repair function, and a hat with ears from some weird animal called a kangaroo, that I was positive didn't exist on Callus, but made Callie light up when I put it on.

None of this put too big a dent in my funds, obviously, but it was nice to just walk around and have fun. Doing dumb shit just to enjoy myself with friends. Benny had conned me into paying for food for him and Celine as well, which meant I had to pay for Callie, of course, but they got some strange cloudlike candy made of spun sugar (Callie let me have a bite, which for her was pretty much a declaration of undying love) and we just walked around enjoying the variety of people.

There were stores for everything I could imagine. I'd expected plenty of weapons and armor shops, but there were magical foci, ingredients, inventions, crafting of both the artistic and practical kind. Plus dozens of street performers and interesting musical acts. "Why is this place so...lively?" I asked Zeke as we walked.

He just shrugged, biting into his own turkey leg. "Oh, that. It's mostly an excuse to blow off steam. Dungeons can get pretty nuts, especially ones that are closed up for a long time. The locals can be a big surprise, and it's pretty hostile in there. This is a big excuse to party before getting serious. Plus there are the smart ones winding through the crowd, listening for information. I think your girl is doing that as we speak."

Glancing over at Callie I saw her eyes were kind of blank, like she was distracted. I took her arm to make sure she was ok and grinned at him. "Guess so. It's still pretty neat though. Is the dungeon really going to be that bad? I figured it would be like the scavenger hunt."

He waggled his free hand, stopping for a second to suck turkey grease off his fingers, then resuming the motion. "It is and isn't. One thing to remember, no matter what, is that you aren't there to win. The hunt was a competition, but this won't be. It might INVOLVE competition, and don't shy away from that, but at the end of the day the Glade is huge. There's more than enough resources for your limited timeframe. Don't get sucked into petty power game bullshit. Work the mission. Ascendants will turn anything into a pissing contest if you let them."

That actually sounded pretty on brand for them. It was a surprise to me to though, to hear Zeke advise me not to pay attention. He seemed to pick up on that, because he just smiled. "Let me guess, you're wondering why I didn't tell you to crush your enemies like bugs and cackle over their corpses?"

At my slight nod, he just shook his head. "Do you know what the most important trait an Ascendant can have is? For progressing and getting stronger? Flexibility. Recursion is the change killer. It'll turn you into a static parody of yourself if you let it. Sticking with your legend is one thing, but you need to find the break points, the parts of you that people don't talk about where your story gives you flexibility. Losing your ability to adapt is nearly always a death sentence."

"Why tell me this now?" I asked. "Why not ages ago?" I mean, he'd kind of hinted at it, and Callie had circled the point, but information this important should just be directly stated.

He just shrugged. "Because you didn't need to know. Callus may have seemed big, but it was a tiny corner of the sky. The recursion from that level of renown wasn't likely to be enough to warp your personality much. Now we're getting out into the wider world. You'll be getting more attention, enough to actually get some points despite your constant improvement with your wishes. It seemed important you know what's what."

"So you're saying that I shouldn't fight everyone." I said slowly. "Because people will expect me to? But not directly, so it's like a loophole?"

That got me a wide grin and a nod. "Exactly. And things like that will boost your renown too when others hear about it. Having a reputation for being unpredictable not only makes more people pay attention, it also grants you more freedom within your recursion."

I nodded thoughtfully, not feeling the need to respond. We walked for a while longer, but stopped as I got a text. I read over it and blinked in surprise. "Hey guys." I said, causing everyone to stop. "Nat and her guards left a bit after us. I guess they've been walking around and were hoping to meet up. Anyone down for dinner?"

Callie, of course, snapped her head up at the word. "Food?" Benny and I both started snickering and she just glared. "Shut up you idiots, I'm just hungry." Her eyes narrowed at me, her tone becoming sickly sweet as she asked. "Or are you implying I eat too much?"

Rolling my eyes, I just snorted. "I FEED you most of what you eat. If I thought you needed a change in diet I'd cook you something different. You can't intimidate me with your cliche girlfriend terrorist tactics, woman."

She looked pretty skeptical of that, which was probably fair, but I moved on. "Anyway, there's a high end restaurant around here that serves F-ranked steak." I grinned at her. "I believe I promised someone that I would try to find a way for her to try dragon again after she traded the memory. I bet a place like this would have it."

My girlfriend literally squealed with joy and hurled herself into my arms, and I was sure I'd have gotten a pretty enthusiastic kiss if I didn't have my mask on. She squeezed me so hard I felt like my spine would break, then just before that happened, let me go, grabbed my hand, and started hauling me off in a random direction. She was so excited she didn't notice she had no clue where she was going until a minute later, and then asked where the place was.

I followed the location ping my cousin had sent me (I didn't know if my scan ring could do that, but if it couldn't I was sure as hell going to get one that could) and we arrived at the steakhouse within a few minutes. Apparently Mel, Jessie, and Abel had gotten the same text, because they showed up just after we did, and my mentor gave Callie an excited high five while Mel and I rolled our eyes at our gluttonous significant others.

The good mood lasted until we got inside and were seated at the table Belloc's Steakhouse, and then it was derailed by all of us staring at Valk, who looked...not great. "What the hell happened to YOU?" Said Abel in apaled fascination. "You look like you fell out of a sickness tree and hit every branch on the way down. I can kind of see your BONES under all that sallow skin."

He wheezed out a laugh. "It's temporary, I'm assured. I made the incredibly mistake of picking a fight with a fucking Vampire. Drained off literally twenty points of my damned Vitality. Perit pulled it off me." He nodded gratefully to the tall blonde woman, who gave a placid nod of her own.

Zeke's head had snapped up when he heard that, however. "You...you met a Vampire here?" We all turned to stare in shock at the tone of caution in my uncle's voice. Zeke didn't worry about people. Definitely not F-rankers. But after hearing about the Vampire he seemed...unsettled. Not afraid, I wasn't even sure Zeke could feel that emotion anymore, but he sounded unhappy all the same.

"Yes." Said Valk firmly. "Trust me. You don't mistake that for anything else. I felt like she was...TEARING out a piece of me. Like she ripped out part of my soul. It's fading, and I'm healing as we speak, but the sensation." He shuddered violently. "It was the most horrifying thing I've ever experienced. The helplessness, the weakness. I'd rather die than feel that again."

Zeke nodded. "I got bit once. It's not something that fades with time. If there's a Vampire here, you need to be careful. Do you remember what I told you about vampires?"

Callie nodded. "Yeah, you said they're stupidly rare. All from the same family. I was surprised because vampire stories are common enough. Seemed like there would be tons of them."

"There used to be." He said emphatically. "Morgan Lark fucking ATE them. This was centuries ago, back when he was still young. He started hunting down all the Vampires his own rank he could find. He drained them all dry. Some people think that's how his ability became what it is, that he drained some sort of vampiric power from them one by one. Regardless, no one takes Vampire racial traits anymore, and if you get one, you fucking CHANGE it."

"Are you scared of this guy?" I said in surprise. "Because he can't be that much stronger than you are. And even if he is, he's not going to fuck with the family just for fun right?"

Zeke's eyes pinned me on the spot. "Morgan Lark is the strongest S-ranker in the universe. He is widely considered to be the being closest to godhood. He's so powerful he's literally fought the Unity in direct combat and survived. This was AFTER the Unity attained his divinity. The Vampire is a monster of the most terrifying kind, and anyone who ISN'T afraid of him is either stupid or VERY insane."

He let out a long breath, calming himself down. "That said, he's also a hands off parent. He isn't likely to pick a fight with us over a little dustup with one of his spawn. He doesn't have that many of them relatively speaking, but he's old as dirt, so relatively speaking doesn't mean much. He's in the triple digits. I'm guessing this one is a baby. Don't kill it if you can help it, maybe make friends, but it shouldn't be a problem either way."

I tried to imagine what The Vampire would be like, someone who would scare Zeke. Scare my dad. Scare the terrifying S-rank GRANDFATHER I hadn't even met yet, and the image was not a nice one. I breathed a sigh of relief as I saw Jessie plan a hand on Valk and start pumping life energy into him. It seemed to help at least, and I was glad to see the man filling back out from the living skeleton he'd been turned into.

Looking around the steakhouse, I took in the intimate, design. Dark wood walls, candle light, rich plush tablecloths. I nodded at my cousin's taste and made a mental note to bring Callie back her along for a date. Speaking of my girlfriend, the waited had finally made it out, and she was thrilled to see that dragon steaks WERE on the menu, albeit dragon variants that were probably easier to find.

She ordered, and I smiled at her cheerfully as I removed my mask. I was at dinner with my team, my family, I hardly needed it right now. Zeke was here personally and besides, it wasn't like anyone could recognize me by my face out here. She leaned up for that kiss from earlier, and didn't pull away until Benny started loudly clearing his throat to be annoying, and we were both grinning like loons as she did. Well, Vampires weren't that scary anyway. I felt better now.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The dragon steak was fantastic. Callie actually gave me a bite of hers (I got something called Infernal Lobster, it was huge but absolutely delicious) before she finished. Once we were done we ended up getting cheesecake to wash it down, and that was pretty fantastic too. As we ate, we caught up with the others about what had happened during their days.

"So." I asked between bites. "Now that you're feeling better Valk, what the hell happened? Like...was the Vampire just waiting in an alley to jump you? How did you even get her attention? Or is she just like some crazy monster who attacks anyone nearby?"

Perit snickered at that. "He wishes." The tall woman didn't talk nearly as much as Nat or her partner, but she clearly felt more comfortable with us now that we were on the same team.

"I...well, I was showing off a bit in the street." Valk said with a grimace. "One of my whips clashed with an opponent's attack and a bolt of energy slipped free. It didn't hurt her but...it kind of burned a hole in her dress. She...wasn't pleased."

He sounded more embarrassed than upset, despite having twenty points of his Vitality sucked out. It seemed like an overreaction to me, but then I didn't care much about clothes. I could understand being pissed about being randomly attacked by a stranger though.

Nat rolled her eyes. "This moron shouldn't have been doing party tricks for a crowd on the street. I can return the points, so no real loss. Even if losing twenty is a bit of a waste. That's almost a day of wishes."

Benny blanched. "Wait...is that enough to take him under a thousand? He's not going to like...die from that is he?" I hadn't actually considered that myself, but when he mentioned it I glanced to Zeke worriedly. Valk was a member of the team even if I didn't know him well, and he seemed like a decent guy.

"No." Said my uncle firmly. "Stat milestones let your soul know when it can handle more Impact, which lets it then handle more stats, but once you rank up your Impact and soul both qualitatively improve." He gestured to me. "Your soul is orange now, about fifteen percent of the way to yellow, like it was fifteen percent of the way to orange before. Losing stats won't change that. And it won't change your Impact, so you'll be fine."

That made sense. "What about losing Impact though?" I asked cautiously. "What will that do?"

"Kill you." He said bluntly. "Losing a point of Impact kills you unless you have some to spare. It's part of why you don't see people trading Impact with wishes at lower levels. Until you hit S-rank and have Impact to spare even a single point of it will bring most people below their threshold. Wishes require fair compensation, what's fair compensation for dying? Not just normal death either, your soul will shatter."

I blinked. I knew that Impact wishes existed and could work, but I hadn't really tried it except for with Benny and Amelia. Thought that brought up another question. "Wait. I've given mortals abilities before. They didn't have any Impact and I gave them a point of it, so can I give someone Impact just from my power?"

"Not possible." He said firmly. "Impact isn't like other stats. It's more...primal. You can't MAKE Impact. You can take it, hold it, trade it, but you can't make it. A mortal does have Impact, like they have other stats, it just isn't a full point. When you awaken someone as an Ascendant you're giving them a PORTION of a point of Impact. It works the same way Enchanting does. You can recover that over time. It pushes them to a point and then the universe does the rest."

Nodding slowly, I thought over everything I knew about Impact. "That explains why the WCP isn't mass producing gods. I know Impact has something to do with godhood, so aside from soul strength the need for Impact is probably a limiting factor. I guess stuff like the Moonglow Dew is an exception, right? If you have more than the rank limit in Impact you could trade it safely."

He waggled a hand. "Safely is a bit of an overstatement. Trading Impact HURTS. It's painful and diminishing. Finding someone willing to do it is difficult, and the cost is astronomical. You need extremely high stats to arrange an Impact trade for the most part. Theoretically though, yes, if you can afford the cost of the wish, someone with more than the baseline Impact for their rank could survive trading it."

Nat didn't look surprised by any of this, though Selka (who hadn't really spoken since we showed up here, presumably out of fear of Zeke) seemed intrigued that he'd mentioned all that to me. It was probably touching on secrets that candidates weren't allowed, though he hadn't crossed the line based on his lack of excruciating pain.

Gesturing to Valk, I asked Abel my last question. "What about the Vampire? Can he consume Impact? Can the others?"
Because that seemed incredibly broken. I wasn't sure why they wouldn't all be gods at that point. As expected, he shook his head. "No. Or at least, not most of them. Whatever Lark is, people believe HE can drain Impact, though judging by how long he's been in the S-rank not fast or reliably. Might be something to do with all the Vampires he ate when he was younger, or at least that's the prevailing theory. Regardless, the other only do stats, and the number of them varies based on both Vampire and target."

Nat finally had enough of the remedial nonsense and groaned aloud. "Oh gods, enough." We all looked at her. "I'm sorry, but I can only take so much of 'baby's first cultivation journey'. No offense little cousin. But spiraling over how scary the boogeyman of all S-rankers is won't accomplish much. If you want to meet a Vampire, I can introduce you with an apology as a pretext. I'll just offer her a wish in exchange for her dress. Now can we please get back to some proper dinner conversation?"

Abel started snickering around his own steak (some kind of shark or something). When we all looked at him he swallowed, looking around innocently. "What? It was funny." When we all kept staring he just sighed. "Alright, I guess I can share what we did during our day out. I..." He began with gravitas and suspense. "Got in a fight."

Something about the delivery, his serious expression, and the wait mixed together just broke me, and I cracked up, joined by Mel, Callie, Jessie, and Benny. "What my idiot means to say." Cut off Mel, still chuckling. "Is that we went out exploring and met up with some of the other contenders. Abel hit it off with some big burly guy with curly red hair named Craygen, and after yapping for about an hour they decided to mix it up in public."

Abel nodded. "It wasn't that weird of a call, there have been a LOT of street fights here based on what I saw. People just clear out a circle and throw down in the middle of the road. Craygen was a pretty tough guy, material shifting power, turned into some kind of gemstone. Super durable. It was a solid fight. He's much further into F-rank than I am, so I was able to really cut loose a bit."

I was about to ask how that was possible given the tournament requirements, but then I realized I was making assumptions. We brought Celine even though she hadn't been in the tournament. Granted, Celine was much closer to our rank because she had basically bribed Nat to grind her up to F-rank in that one month gap like I had done for Jessie. It made sense that the other winners would bring F-rankers who were stronger than the contestants.

"Anyway. Craygen lost, obviously, and he invited us to some crazy party tonight. All the other contestants will be there. Craygen's tourney winner got the invite from some imperial Ascendant who made it through their own tournament. It sounds like fun to me but I wasn't sure if you wanted to go."

It was a strange reminder that even though I was the legacy and Callie was the leader, Abel, for all his lack of care about it, was the real winner of the tournament. He was still our muscle, despite breaking through, and being able to take on a higher level F-ranker from this crowd just proved it. This party would be a damn good opportunity to meet some more of the people around here that were like him.

I looked at Callie. "I think that's a good idea." She looked pretty much poleaxed by the statement, knowing my hatred for parties and social gatherings, and I had to laugh at the expression. "Zeke said that we shouldn't treat this like a competition. These people aren't our enemies, even if they think they are. The mission is what matters. If we can make friends and be on good terms with the other entrants it could end up being a huge help for later."

She giggled at my impassioned speech. "Oh I know. I'm just shocked you're willing to go to a party. I think it's a good idea too." She glanced at Jessie, Benny, and Celine. "You guys in? Or you Nat, you're welcome of course. You're part of the team and we'd love to have you along."

My cousin smiled at her but waved her off. "Nah, I appreciate the invite, but we've had enough excitement for today." She jerked a thumb at Valk. "Besides, dipshit over there needs to recover. Even if he looks better after Agria topped him up losing twenty points of Vitality isn't something you brush off. He needs bed rest."

I could have sworn I heard the bald, red bearded man mutter. "Yes MOM." But if he did he did it so quietly even my Perception barely caught it. Nat heard it fine though, I guessed, because she whirled to glare at him and he looked away innocently, actually whistling as he avoided her gaze. She rolled her eyes at that, but I could tell she thought it was funny by her smile.

Benny cut in, answering Callie's question from earlier. I had seem him whispering to Celine, though they must have used a Stealth Skill to talk because I didn't hear what was said. "We're in. I want to check out some of the other entrants, see what we're dealing with. Plus it'll give me an excuse to stock my new artifacts. I made replacements for a few of my more outdated pieces of gear, I can't wait to show you guys."

I'd been wondering about that. He'd mentioned working on some things, but I wasn't sure if it was done. I never wanted to bring it up. Now that he was volunteering the information though I was excited to see what was coming. We decided to invite Cark, though I doubted he would come with us. Nat offered to watch Cass if he did though, my cousin was becoming just as enamored of the little girl as the rest of us.

As we finished dessert and headed back to the inn, I couldn't help but glance around the restaurant one last time, making sure to remember the details. I wanted to plan that date with Callie carefully. She'd adored that dragon steak, and while the place was a little pricey, it was worth it to see that smile light up her face like it had when she tried her dinner for the first time. Next time though, I'd get the steak too. That bite had been way better than my lobster.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Since this was a semi-show of force, we weren't wearing gaudy formal wear, instead we got to wear our costumes, which was nice.

I was more comfortable in my gear than in most outfits, and not just because of my badass coat. The sense of security from F-ranked armor was pretty nice. I was also glad we'd haggled to get a set of armor the next rank up, because it meant the gear wasn't already out of date.

We convened outside the building where Abel had been told the party was, and I had to admit, I was kind of impressed. Rather than a normal building with square floors on top of each other, this place seemed to have been made to resemble a stone whale.

The thing was absolutely huge, and the open mouth was covered by a single pane of F-rank glass.

Even for Ascendants, a giant stone animal as a building was kind of novel, and I spent a minute just taking it in when we arrived. I was cut off by Callie, who stopped us all to give a warning. "Alright everyone, just remember, these are elite combatants. The contestants in the tournament were tough, but every one of these people WON their own tournament, or was brought along as backup by someone who did. Be careful out there."

I grinned at her cheekily. "Now, why do I feel like your warning is going to be more specific than most people would expect? I take it you found some way to be able to effectively use your spying abilities? I thought Zeke said it was too dangerous here?"

She returned my grin with a proud smirk. "Only that first day. There was some paperwork I needed to do that he mentioned to me after our nap. I filled it out on my scan ring and submitted it over the network. I was okay'd for spying up to a certain range.

Apparently long term bans on powers like that is too much like coddling the juniors, you just aren't allowed to do it without restriction because while any sufficiently powerful Ascendant would sense it if they looked, there's an off chance you might accidentally hear important elder business before they notice you."

Which probably meant they had some kind of countermeasure to her power on a personal scale, and since they knew she was there they could work around it. It ALSO implied a substantially more cohesive leadership behind the place than I had suspected. I turned to Zeke, who was following us in a blank porcelain mask of his own design, presumably in case someone had caught his little show or was a candidate or empire brat who might know him. "Who is running this anyway? I don't think I ever asked."

He chuckled. "See, she's such a good influence on you. You didn't ask. But it's the Lakedeep clan. They're pretty powerful in the Unity's galaxy. The founder is a top executive in the Unity itself, Salara Lakedeep. I'm guessing your girl has heard of her. The higher up you go the more widely known an executive is. All of the Unity's S-rankers are pretty famous in this galaxy."

Callie's eyes were wide. "I...I do know her. Even in a backwater like Callus we've heard of the Kraken. Her summon is supposed to be able to pluck stars from the night sky and eat them. She's so in tune with it she can manifest its traits herself and use them at will."

Zeke nodded. "She's an S-ranker, so she can probably do both of those things, and she can definitely manifest traits. It's one of the more common high rank summoner ability variations. While abilities are highly customizable, there are some basic directions that usually have more benefit. With weapon masteries, manifestations are a common path to take, summoners usually make up for lack of individual combat potential by learning to harmonize with their summons. Not that a party trick like that is the end of the line for an S-ranker. She undoubtedly has much scarier powers than that."

I shuddered, thinking about how terrifying the fight between the B-rankers had been again. "So, the Lakedeep clan is running things and you got permission to use your ability from them." I said to Callie. "I take it you managed to find out the identities of some of the people we're meeting tonight?"

She grinned, pulling her focus back to the matter at hand. "Yup. Most of the others were talking about a few particularly scary standouts." Stopping her recitation she hurled herself forward, gripping me tightly as she squealed. "Oh I love my new power so much! I spent most of the day in the shadows whenever I had a spare moment. It took a bit to get used to filtering through so much input, but with my Focus I managed it just fine. I learned so much!"

I laughed, squeezing her back and grateful she was controlling her strength better. Though it might also just be the new Impact helping me out. "I'm glad to hear it, but that was all you. Most I did was help you get one extra Skill and focus your stats."

Laughing, she pulled back. "Yeah, because those are such inconsequential aspects of how I got my ability. Not worth mentioning." She rolled her eyes at me, but her smile stayed wide and happy, just how I liked it.
"Anyway, there are five people we need to watch out for, the Vampire being one of them. Her name is Bethany Lark. She's apparently the baby of the family, which isn't shocking considering how low rank she is. She's considered mostly stable and sane for a Vampire, though she's extremely touchy about her clothes. Has quite the reputation for it."

I winced. People with a reputation for one specific kind of behavior tended be heavily obsessive about that particular trait. It was actually something some people did on purpose, because weird and quirky people were more interesting, and it helped focus recursion in one direction. It also explained her draining those stat points out of Valk, presumably upset because he burned her dress.

That said, we could work with that, and I saw Callie notice how pretty easily, picking up my emotions over the bond and following them to their logical conclusion with a nod. "Yeah, I figure we can wish for a really nice dress she would like and offer it as a meeting gift. If having the idea first messes with your ability to do it we can just ask Nat, but I'm glad you were thinking the same thing."

Having my cousin around was damn useful, even if we couldn't engage in any wish looping after forming our alliance because of the family rules. She provided an easy source of wishes to work with even if she wasn't willing to be as creative with payment structures as I was. Sadly she charged points for points almost exclusively, so none us had really availed her of that service, but for utility wishes like this she was a perfect second option.

Callie waved me off. "We can think about it after, or just offer Bethany a wish and let her decide for herself, you still have three for today right?" I nodded. I'd traded three for my new staff and the six rings, one of which I'd slipped on immediately after filling it with all the odds and ends in the back we'd been using as a makeshift storage due to that magic box we found in the Necropolis.

"Good. Now, the other four standouts." She said, moving on. "One of them is a member of your family. Alistair Wyndham. His branch of the family is different as far as I know, so I doubt you're more than distantly related. I asked Nat but she doesn't know anything about him. Sadly most of the gossip about him is absurd nonsense about Wishmaster Candidates in general, about three quarters of which we know isn't true, so all I got was a name."

That was plenty though, it was good to know about the only other candidate around. I doubted I'd be lucky enough to meet two friendly ones in a row, and Nat was my literal blood cousin which I think had helped. Plus if he was from another branch he might not be as scared of dad, so I made a mental note to watch out for him.

"Flicker and Blink are twins. One of them creates clones and one of them teleports, and they seem to be able to share powers, which gets...obnoxious. They're higher level F-rankers with a Fantasy focus, which means their fate sense is pretty absurd." My girlfriend sounded a bit wary of those two, and I could see why, but hopefully like Zeke said we wouldn't need to fight every single person. We could make alliances and try to get help.

She sighed as she moved on. "The last one is a Crusader for the Red Revenant church. That's the fourth Job advancement in their warrior caste. Gabriel Brightlaw. He's more than halfway into the F-ranks, and he's supposed to be terrifying. He's a Master Candidate with the lance, and a summoner who can call up some kind of Celestial Charger he rides into battle. He's also an Adamant cultivator."

Zeke whistled. "That's...rough. Not a lot of those make it that far in a cluster this remote." At my confused head tilt he rolled his eyes. "You know, you should do SOME research. Your girlfriend is not a walking encyclopedia and neither am I. An Adamant cultivator is someone with a reputation for being unbeatable. Adamants become stronger, more skilled, and more...in tune with combat, the longer they last."

"So..." I said slowly. "Like Abel? Abel never loses."

"No." He said flatly. "Abel RARELY loses. Plus he's too quiet to be an Adamant. It takes a serious reputation for that kind of thing. You have to be in the spotlight from day one and win every fight with ease. I suspect Abel would find the idea of being an Adamant pretty boring. He doesn't need the help. And the idea of losing doesn't bother him." He shot a glance at my mentor, who nodded confidently.

I got his point, but it was worrying. "Can recursion make someone harder to beat? I know it kind of alters reality, but it doesn't actually MAKE him unbeatable, does it?"

Zeke shook his head. "Adamants can and do break all the time. They become functionally useless once it happens, which is why it's not a path people take often. Mostly that kind of thing gets purposefully derailed early on. The higher they go, the more precarious it is. They aren't invincible, though they are in kind of a zone all the time. Their recursion keeps them at peak form constantly, which combined with fast advancement because of their impressive skills makes them a pain in the ass to fight."

"The point is." Cut in Callie. "We don't want him to be an enemy. It might be worth telling him about your mother. The Star Queen is apparently a legend in the Church, and your grandfather being the Radiant Pope will earn you plenty of points too." She looked at my with a slightly jealous expression. "Having S-rankers for both grandfathers is pretty damned useful."

I laughed bitterly. "Yes, I particularly enjoyed the constant murder attempts because of my mother's side of the family. Nothing like having a Cult of bloodthirsty shadowy lunatics out for your blood to make you count your blessings." My voice was...perhaps a bit more edgy than I'd have liked, and combined with the bond, she actually flinched a bit. "Cal, I didn't mean-"

She held up both hands. "No. You're right. That was insensitive. Your family is a sore spot and bringing it up like that was shitty. You've had a lot of problems because of them. I should have remembered that." She leaned in for another hug, this one much gentler, and I felt the apology through the bond, no words needed between us. I squeezed her back so she knew I forgave her, but we were interrupted by the sound of a throat clearing.

"This is sweet, but can we maybe do it another time." Abel said mildly. "We have a party to get to. And I kind of want to fight this Adamant guy." We groaned aloud, and the rest of the trip inside was filled with the sound of Mel berating her boyfriend for being a battle maniac and an idiot. It really lightened the mood. It was pretty cool having such good friends, even if sometimes they were morons.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The inside of the whale building was less whale and more building, which was nice since it meant we didn't have to walk down a stone throat or something, but was disappointing because I'd been hoping for something more interesting. It was still nice to look at, with smooth marble floors and intricate wall carvings, but it was a pretty huge let down from the external facade.

Despite that, I was still pretty impressed by the sheer size of the place, with the whale interior all forming once huge room. The ceiling seemed to be a wide open sky, and miniature floating islands drifted among the clouds, containing hot tubs or small bars with different kinds of food. Loud music pumped through room as the sky above flashed a variety of shifting colors.

As we entered, a massive man with curly red hair who I didn't recognize strode up to us, throwing his arms wide in effusive greeting. "Apollyon! My friend! Good to see you." Boomed the friendly, accented voice of the large man I assumed to be Craygen. "I wasn't sure you would be coming tonight." He turned his head, calling to someone we couldn't see. "Cady! Come meet my opponent from earlier today. A mighty warrior who bested me in single combat."

The crowd shifted a bit and a girl appeared. Short and athletic, with pink hair pulled back into a ponytail and wearing a stylish hat over a pair of shorts, a t-shirt and a brown leather vest. She looked mostly annoyed. "Cray, we've been over this. You need to slow down in crowds this size. I'm short enough that I can't SEE which direction I'm going if we get separated."

Callie gave a groan of frustrated empathy. "Oh my gods I know right? I don't mind being short most of the time, stats make up for it. But crowds are the worst. It's so easy to get turned around." The pink haired girl turned, raising an eyebrow at my girlfriend, who grinned and held out a hand. "I'm Nightstrike. Apollyon is my teacher." She hip checked me without turning around. "The big lug in the long coat is my boyfriend Solomon, and that's Starbreaker, Agria, and Clockwork."

Nat had come along with Perit and Valk, but they had wandered off with Selka keeping watch. Zeke was around, I knew that somehow, but he also...wasn't. I couldn't see, hear, or really detect him anyway except somehow knowing he was nearby. I suspected even that last bit was him allowing me to notice him so I didn't go looking. His Stealth Skill was undoubtedly MUCH more sophisticated than mine or Callie's.

The rest of our group waved to the newcomer, who grinned widely. "I like her." Taking the offered hand she gave a firm shake, pulling back and then sweeping into a sophisticated curtsy the should have looked ridiculous in shorts, but that she somehow pulled of. "As you may have heard I'm Cady. Craygen is my older brother. He got all the height in the family, and I got all the brains."

The red haired giant scoffed. "She just tells herself that because she's not any good in a fight. She has a support ability, and she's jealous I have the strength to face my problems head on."

"You keep telling yourself that you drooling thug." She said loftily. "Anyway, come on in, you guys just got here and we would be terrible hosts if we just chatted with you at the entrance all night. We want to introduce you to some people. We can introduce you to a few friends of ours then leave you to mingle."

Leading us into the crowd, we followed close behind them, making sure not to lose their forms, despite Craygen's massive size being an easy enough way to find them again (for me at least). It made more sense to keep our eyes on them, and luckily we didn't have far to go.

They dragged us to a group of people standing under one of the miniature islands. There were four of them, a short dark haired girl. A blonde guy with his hair sticking up and a handsome face, and two dark haired men with identical faces who seemed to be twins, one standing on the shoulders of the others as he groped around the top of the island for food without being able to see what he was doing.

Can't pinched the bridge of her nose. "What are you idiots doing and where are the other four? We wanted to introduce you to our new friends."

"Hungry." Grunted the lower twin. "Trying to get food." His voice wasn't strained obviously, he was just lifting a person, albeit on with thirty plus Impact, and I didn't know how that effected things exactly. Still he sounded gruff and not very personable.

Cady just glared. "You have SUPERPOWERS." She said scathingly. "You could just teleport up there and get the food yourself!"

The top twin, who was still busy scrounging blindly on top of the barely in reach island, with drew a hand and pointed off to the side where we could see a shattered pile of rock and debris in an empty spot on the floor. "Tried that. Couldn't support my weight."

"I don't..." She just rubbed her temples. "It hurts being around you sometimes. How are you both so good at fighting and so fucking stupid at the same time. If not for the dramatic difference in size and hair color I would think you were related to MY brother." She sighed and turned to us. "Sorry you had to witness that. I can feel my Focus points dropping every time I talk to them, but I assure you it's just an illusion. I've checked."

"Rude." Said top twin, appearing next to her without moving. "We're always so nice to you, why do you say things you know will hurt us." He nodded to our group. "I'm Blink, that's Flicker." He said, jerking his thumb at his twin. The girl with the dark hair is Alice, and the guy is Chad. We came over from the Boundwave System. Chad was the winner in our tournament, but he lets Cady run things." He pitched his voice a bit lower, making sure it was loud enough to be heard even at a nominal whisper. "It's less trouble that way."

Said pink haired girl slapped him upside the back of his head. "I don't want to hear about trouble from you layabouts. I'm shocked Chad even managed to win the tournament." She pointed at the blonde. "Our hunky champion over there works out with my useless brother and these two menaces at one of the more upscale gyms on our planet. He didn't know who else to invite along so he extended us an offer."

I noticed Alice looking annoyed at Cady's description, and she stepped closer to Chad surreptitiously, putting herself in his personal space. He didn't seem to mind, giving a stoic, relaxed impression that reminded me a bit of Norman. Still, despite him being the winner, Flicker and Blink were among the five we were told to watch out for, so they were probably stronger. I didn't get the impression of terror and oppression that I did from Abel, but that was true of most people.

It was hard not to suspect that the more intimidating parts of Abel's personality and bearing were recursion based. The result of the terror and anguish of his enemies over literal decades. The only person I'd met with an aura like that was Lament, and she walked a similar path of fanatical bloodshed. On reflection it might be something similar to being an Adamant. I'd have to ask Zeke about it later.

Craygen, meanwhile, had taken over introductions. "Chad is pretty scary. He charges up off damage, and can burn it to fuel his strength. Alice's power is even cooler, though it's kind of weird. She can absorb attacks into a specially prepared box. The box holds one hundred attacks. Every time she opens it, a random attack comes out, if she guesses which attack it's going to be and gets it right it triples in power!"

I blinked, looking at the diminutive girl. "That's...really interesting actually. Can you absorb any attack? Because that sounds really powerful."

Alice flushed a bit, clearly embarrassed to have her abilities praised in a public setting. "It's not like...unbeatable. The box has to be made of materials that can withstand the attack. Plus I need to see it coming and activate my power with the box open. It doesn't work on surprise attacks or anything too strong."

"Still." Said Callie in an impressed tone. "That's a fascinating power. I just have shadow powers." Despite the self-deprecating tone I could feel her satisfaction at having more useful powers now. She was playing the game but Callie loved her new ability. Abyssal Infiltration was pretty much her dream power.

We all chatted for a while longer, trading stories about our planets. They'd actually been out into their system and checked out a few other planets. Their own planet was C-grade so they had a bit of an advantage, and when they found out ours was only psuedo D-grade, Craygen was even more blown away by how strong Abel was.

Cady whistled. "A Master Candidate one a psuedo D-grade planet? That's pretty damned impressive. It must have been excruciatingly slow going training your soul to that standard in such a backwater place. I bet it took ages." She seemed almost appalled by the amount of work, which, having made it a ways into my soul strengthening before ranking up I could totally understand.

Abel just shrugged. "It wasn't easy, but I wouldn't call it hard. Just took time and focus. One fist in front of the other, so to speak. For the most part, it was just battle. You want to get better at fighting? You fight. Training is great, but it can't beat the rush of single combat with your life on the line." He clenched his fists and I felt a bit of that murderous, stifling aura he emitted sometimes leak out. "I love being able to test myself."

That got a grin from the red haired giant, who held up his fist to bump Abel's. "Hell yes! I hope one of us gets picked for the random exhibition bout tonight!"

We all froze. As one, we turned to Abel, who was agreeing vehemently with the big man, and talking about all the powerful opponents they might come up against. When he realized we were staring, he turned to look at us. "Oh...did I forget to mention those?"

Mel's orange eyes were blazing...literally blazing, as in they were on fire slightly, her irises shifting color like flickering embers as flames spit from the eyeholes of her mask. Abel looked, for one of the first time in my memory, genuinely scared. "I swear honey, I just got excited and forgot. I didn't mean to trick you all. I promise!'

Before she could react, though I had no clue how that would go. the sky shifted from bright colors to pitch black, stars coming out as night fell. The moon, full and round, emerged and cast a spotlight across the crowd, falling on one person, and then a second.

As the booming voice came echoing from the dark, I winced as I processed what had just happened. I closed my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose, I exhaled slowly. After a second, I opened them, and looked across the crowd to where the other party goers were pulling back from the first person chosen, just as my surroundings were being cleared by revelers to let me pass. I turned to glare at Abel, who had the good grace to look sheepish. "Well, shit." His said sourly. "I was hoping I would get picked. Oh well, good luck kid. You're going to need it."

Accidentally posted a chapter ahead today. This will be tomorrows early. Sorry about that, I'll renumber them.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I stared blankly at the other person under the light. A small, doll-like girl with onyx black hair and ruby red eyes, wearing a fancy old fashioned ball gown and smiling gently at me. Smiling just wide enough to show me the fucking FANGS she was packing.

Despite having never seen her, it was easy to figure out who she was, especially with Nat standing dumbstruck right next to her. She'd decided to extend the wish herself, since Valk was at fault, but it apparently didn't matter at this point. Because of COURSE I had to fight the Vampire. I swallowed hard, grateful for my mask since it would hide the look of absolute terror on my face.

"Hey, um...Apollyon?" I asked hoarsely. "How...mandatory, are the exhibition matches?" I wanted to give up. It would leave a bad impression, but then, so would having my spine snapped before a Vampire sucked out my marrow as if through a straw.

He hissed in discomfort, scratching the back of his head. "Completely mandatory? It's one of the conditions for entry. Everyone agreed to it when they arrived, at least from a rules standpoint." I turned to glare at him, and he gave an uncomfortable laugh. "Oh come on. What the fuck are the chances of this happening? You can't possible blame me for this."

I didn't say anything, just glared harder. We were Ascendants. Everything was always dramatic and unlikely. Fate sense might not be reliable, but most Ascendants had some small amount of it, and the pileup of all those different vaguely precognitive intuitions created a mess of complicated and dangerous nonsense that it would take a literal god with all their points in Focus to make sense of.

Sighing, I turned to Callie. "Well, upside I get to test out my new staff. If nothing else, combined with my own abilities I should be able to put up...some kind of fight. Vampire is a racial trait right? I'm guessing tons of modifiers and a couple of subskills? What should I be expecting here?"

To my shock, Zeke appeared next to me, seemingly out of nowhere. "Pretty much. Individual powers can vary. Lark himself apparently has tens of them, but the kids usually pick up one or two. That one probably has some kind of hypnosis or something. She looks like the type. That said, DO NOT blitz her head on. She'll crush you in a straight fight. Her sheer stat totals will be high into the F-ranks by now."

I winced. I'd been hoping he wouldn't say that. Nodding my thanks for the information, I stepped away from my friends and headed into the crowd. The other guests pulled back, creating a circle of empty space for us to meet in, and the tiny girl with the fanged smile practically skipped out to meet me, seemingly oblivious to any tension. She might have been a bit shorter than Callie, to be honest, though if so only barely, but somehow that only made her scarier. Like a little porcelain doll come to life to murder me. The thought made me shudder.

"Hello." She said brightly, her voice high and pleasant. "Looks like we'll be facing off against each other. I don't suppose you would mind waiting a moment while I change into something a bit less formal? I do so hate to ruin any of my dresses. Blood never washes out." I fought the urge to wince, especially when I noticed she didn't seem to be trash talking at all. She was really worried my blood would stain her clothes. Charming.

At my nod, she snapped her fingers, and a pair of twins with black hair and black dresses, both about five foot ten, melted out of the crowd. They pulled a pair of screens from their spatial rings (or conjured them I guess, but that seemed like a stretch) and set them up around her, touching a series of runes on the things so they became some sort of isolation field, then waited.

After about two minutes, she pushed the thing aside, stepping out in a set of dark leather light armor, her long hair up in a ponytail. "Thanks!" She said cheerfully. "I'll try to go easy on you for the favor." That was actually nice of her. I took up position across from her while her attendants took away the screens and cleared the way for us to fight.

"Alright." I said when we were facing each other. "Do we wait for them to tell us to start? Or is this something we decide ourselves?"

Before I could actually get an answer I heard a voice boom out the start of the fight from above. My eyes went wide, and almost on reflex I triggered Moonlit Night, State of Grace, and Double Trouble. I did NOT attack her from behind when I arrived, using State of Grace to bound backwards in case she spun to attack me.

That didn't turn out to be necessary, because the Stealth aspects of Moonlit Night hid me well enough not to be noticed, especially since she wasn't standing in the same spot by the time I finished moving, having blurred across the intervening space to my illusionary clone where she was currently shoving her clawed (where had THOSE come from) hand into its guts.

Apparently 'going easy' meant something different to me than it did to her. Sure, that wouldn't have worked on me because of my gear, but it still would have HURT. Plus she didn't know I had protection against sharp force trauma.

Deciding that I absolutely did not want to attack this woman head on, I triggered Pit of Dispair, actually earning a squeak as the ground beneath her turned to a hole full of silt. Before she could drop all the way in though, there was an explosion of movement as she DISSOLVED INTO FUCKING BATS.

I gaped as the winged rodents congregated in a spot five feet left of my pit and reformed into an annoyed Bethany. Ok, I was starting to understand the fear everyone treated Vampires with. How did that even work? Fantasy probably. Was that a Skill? Her red eyes scoured the fog fruitlessly, lips peeled back from razor sharp fangs in an unconscious snarl of annoyance and frustration.

"I hate the sneaky ones." She snarled, stalking forward slowly to try to find me. I slipped my staff free, nervously passing it from hand to hand like a baton. My Stygian Branch was a pretty interesting weapon, and I was excited to try it out. I focused and poison fire crackled through the wood, and I stacked a Mercy Kill on just in case. A Flurry of Blows and a Marked for Death were next, and I went ahead and stuck on a triple strength tranq blow for good measure.

I waited patiently until Bethany stopped stalking around and triggered Double Trouble, appearing behind her, staff already whirling as I brought it down on the back of her skull. I wasn't fucking around here, I was sure she'd be fine, but I absolutely couldn't hold back against someone this strong. Sure enough, she seemed to sense the blow and juked to the side, causing the impact to smash into her collarbone instead of her head.

Between all the boosts, the weapon's power, and heavy hands, the blow landed hard enough that I heard bone cracking, and she howled with rage and pain as it did. I dashed away as fast as I could, knowing she would retaliate and desperately wanting to avoid being gutted by those claws.

Sadly, that was about all that happened. The poison fire was barely spreading, the tranq had done nothing at all, and from what I could see from how she carried herself the collarbone was already mending. Her Vitality must be high, which was kind of ironic for a Vampire. "You know." She said conversationally. "Not many people manage to injure me when I face them."

I gripped my staff tighter as I circled away, feeling a slight hum of energy inside it. Life energy had been absorbed, though not much. I wondered what a death energy burst would do to a Vampire, but I decided against trying it. This was an E-ranked item, the attack might kill her, even without much buildup. While that was unlikely, I did NOT want her family pissed at me, so it was better not to take the chance.

My arms were also starting to get tired. This damned thing was heavy, and I wasn't used to maneuvering it yet. I hadn't had time to train yet. I triggered Double Trouble again, deciding to try to finish this as quickly as possible. As I expected, the move wouldn't work twice. She'd twigged to the feeling of my presence last time and was waiting for it. Whirling on my with claws extended, she was therefore completely staggered when I spat a Steam Arrow into her face.

She screeched, hurling herself backwards to bat at her face, and I followed, raining down blows as hard as I could, praying it would be enough to put her down. It wasn't. I managed about ten hits before she did...something. Her eyes became brighter, the red becoming overwhelming as it flooded my vision, drowning my world in bloody light.

When it cleared, I was standing on a dark, foreboding mountain, staring up at a terrifying dark castle under a blood red moon. I looked around slowly, not moving. This...was probably that hypnosis thing Zeke mentioned. Concentrating hard, I used Eye of Revelation, focusing my soul on pushing the skill to reveal the truth of my situation.

My eyes burned as the scene around me blurred, a ghostly outline of the party returning. Showing me everything around me was just some kind of illusion. It was a jarring feeling, trying to overlap the two radically different realities I was currently viewing. Of course, that was when I realized that I'd apparently been standing there longer than I had realized, because I suddenly noticed that Moonlit Night wasn't active anymore.

As soon as I realized the skill had ended I spun, trying to find any trace of Bethany. Sadly, I was too late. Her form appeared in that strange outline in front of me and tackled me to the ground, I felt the smashing concussive blasts of her punches as she pummeled me into the floor, but I don't think she was going all out.

Finally, the whole thing ended, and she let the illusion drop as a loud voice announced my loss. I groaned, happily noting none of my bones were broken at least, though several were bruised. Not my ribs, luckily. I didn't know why but I tended to break those far too often.

Bethany stalked up and loomed over me, arms crossed as she glared down. "You're sneaky." She said judgementally. She rolled her shoulder to loosen it up. I'd dropped the poison fire when the battle ended, so she'd probably healed it up all the way by now. Suddenly, her pout turned to a grin and she stuck out a hand. "I like sneaky."

I grabbed her seemingly delicate wrist and she grabbed mine (her grip was disturbingly strong) before yanking me bodily up out of the me-shaped dent she'd left in the marble. State of Grace was still active, so I did NOT stumble as I landed like an idiot. Thankfully.

Callie hit my side a second later, squeezing me tightly and burying her face in my side. Through the bond I could feel worry, relief, and...jealousy? I almost laughed. Clearly Callie had taken Zeke's warning seriously and knew Vampires were a threat. She was nuts if she thought I'd be attracted to that monster though. Bethany scared me shitless. I still thought it was kind of cute though. Callie was by far the more attractive of the two of us (though I wasn't bad to look at), so it always secretly thrilled me when she got jealous.

Something she seemed to pick up through the bond as she pulled back and glowered at me. I just chuckled and pulled her back in for a quick hug before letting her go. Bethany was talking, and I figured ignoring the terrifying monster who could almost definitely kill me if she wanted was a bad idea. "Anyway, that was a decent fight for someone so weak. I can tell you're not far into F-rank. Impressive. You guys want to come hang with us?" Huh, well, that was one way to make an introduction.

This was posted early by accident because ISP issues. If you've read this already go back to the last chapter for the new one, if not enjoy, this is Wednesday's posted early.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"That was WILD." Chirped Bethany as she dragged me over to where her friends were waiting. Callie was clutching my other arm, despite the Vampire girl not seeming romantically interested at all, and I was a bit worried I might get torn in half until she let me go, spinning back to me. "How did you see through my Mesmeric Gaze Skill? Daddy says I'm the best at that one for my age. I was just like 'zap, your mind belongs to me' and you were like 'pow, as if, this is my brain!'."

I blinked. "Um...I have a skill to see through illusions." I didn't, really, but it COULD do that. I was more thrown off by her demeanor. How had I possibly been afraid of this girl. Sure she was strong as fuck, but she was like a bouncing shimmying puppy. She'd had her handmaids put the screen back and changed back into her dress, which she was whipping around as she spun back and forth, clearly fond of the swishing.

"Wow." She said, eyes wide. "That's crazy. You have so many Skills. That's pretty cool." She stopped, thinking back over her previous statements and then smacked her forehead with her palm. "Duh, Bethy, rude. I didn't introduce myself. I'm Bethany Lark, but my friends call me Beth or Bethy." She narrowed her eyes at me, making the irises glow a bit. "Never Bessy though. I ate someone for calling me that. Who are you? Sorry about before by the way, daddy says I need to have the proper 'gravitas' as a vampire when I talk to strangers, but we fought so we're not strangers yeah?"

My eyes were glazed as I stared at her worriedly. If she wasn't a vampire I'd have been scared she might suffocate because she hadn't paused at all during that. Callie, far from being threatened now, was trying to hold back giggles, and held out her hand. "Nice to meet you Bethy. I was impressed with you...gravitas, by the way."

Bethy nodded sagely. "Of course." Her voice took on the semi-formal cadence from earlier. "My dark father insists his children comport themselves with the utmost dignity before the masses." Then she winked. "But, like, now we're alone and my Vampire stealth means we can say whatever. Like 'whoosh, total secrecy'. " Smiling smugly she tapped her chest. "I'm pretty cool." Then she jumped again, her insane all over the place train of thought bringing her around to face her handmaids. "Oh wow, rude again! I didn't introduce you to Aida and Tracey. They're my besties. They're also my thralls!"

One of the twins (I decided to call left twin Aida and right twin Tracey) chuckled. "They don't know what that means Bethy." Her eyes, a sort of reddish chocolate brown, fixed on us. "Thrall is a job that you can unlock serving a Vampire. It's like the Knight job that some nobles can give. Thralls get bonuses based on their Vampire and can learn unique abilities."

Bethany rolled her eyes. "That's super boring Aida, they don't care about that." I was pleased to see I'd called which was which right. The vampire girl turned back to me. "That was so fun though. I was expecting you to be super week, I can kind of feel that stuff and you feel...spread thin. But then you totally put up an awesome fight!"

I grinned at her. "Well, glad I could oblige. Personally, I'm just happy you decided to change into the leather armor. I heard you don't take kindly to people ruining your clothes. How screwed would I have been if I had damaged that dress?" I asked teasingly, figured I'd get some throw away comment about her beating me up.

Instead, her face closed off, becoming cold and remote as her eyes blazed a lambent red. "I'd have ended your life on the very spot." Then she blinked, and she was suddenly all smiles again. "Which would have SO ruined the party!" She turned to Callie. "Oh, and speaking of outfits, I LOVE yours! That weird shadowy effect is so cool, you HAVE to tell me where you got it. I want to get a dress made like that. It would be like I was swooping around garbed in shadows!"

My girlfriend, still slightly off balance from the terrifying death threat, shook it off pretty fast, introducing herself and filling her in on the details of her costume. Of course, the Vampire wasn't remotely concerned about affording something like that. She just looked over to where a crowd of people was standing nearby. "That sounds so cool. Taylor!" She barked. A woman stepped out of the crowd, and Bethy pointed to her. "This is my tailor, Taylor. She goes EVERYWHERE with me. Tay, come look at this girl's clothes."

The tailor in question looked...normal. A tall, athletic girl, with a pretty face and a blonde ponytail. She was dressed in a black cocktail dress and heels, looking more party chic than most of the people here, who were almost all in costume. It was interesting that she was a tailor instead of a hero. I wondered how much renown she got just from being around Bethany.

She looked over Callie with an interested smile. "Oh hey Bethy. Wow, I DO like that. Some kind of conceptual filtration effect keyed to a static enchantment structure? Mental component maybe? Fascinating. Subpar materials, but put to excellent use." She hummed consideringly. "I'd say this came from a lower end planet. Maybe D-rank? No, psuedo D-rank. Someone put a lot into learning their craft but was hamstrung with poor materials."

We all blinked at her in complete shock. Bethany didn't seem surprised. "Well I want a dress like that. It would be so cool. You could work the fabric so it would like...float or something. Then I'd be swishing around clad in darkness. Daddy would be ecstatic to see me 'embracing my role'." She rolled her eyes. "He never stops going on about that. 'Fashion is a hobby Bethany, not a lifestyle. Vampires need to inspire terror.' Ugh. Like, Vampires are all chic and beautiful now. He's so behind the times."

It was hard not to be swept up in Bethy's massive personality, the tiny Vampire was easily one of the most energetic and cheerful people I'd ever met (aside from brief moments of being murderously terrifying). I couldn't reconcile her with the image of the Vampire monster that Zeke had described. I honestly felt almost stupid for being so afraid (though the threat of murder if I'd messed up her clothes helped) and I was curious about her family. "So...Bethy. Tell me more about yourself. You seem like an interesting person, are all Vampires like you?"

She snorted. "No. Most of my brothers and sisters are wannabe posers. Daddy is the real deal, and everyone is scared of him for it, but they all grew up wanting to be just like him." She put a hand beside her mouth as if to block the view of her lips and whispered conspiratorially. "I think that's why I'm his favorite. I don't suck up like the rest of them." Then she giggled. "Get it? Suck up? Because we're Vampires." She burst out into peals of laughter, almost doubling over at her own joke.

Aida and Tracey, who were standing stoically nearby, sighed, Aida pinching the bridge of her nose in exasperation. To my surprise though, she wasn't the only one laughing. "That was hilarious." Said the cheerful voice of Jessie, her face lit up with a wide smile. "You're awesome." She held out a hand. "I'm Agria." Bethany took her hand, pulling it to jerk my teammate into a hug.

"Oh wow I love your outfit! Are those like...leaves?" Jessie, who was normally the most cheerful and enthusiastic person I knew, looked poleaxed by the speed with which it all happened. Bethy pulled back, chattering happily about the construction of Jessie's costume, which my blonde friend enjoyed immensely, not having really been able to show off since getting it. She'd been wearing it around, sure, but she wasn't in the tournament and we'd all gotten new costumes.

I remembered how excited she'd been to show off when she got her first costume. How happy she was about it. It was nice she found someone so enthusiastic. I heard a throat clearing and looked over to find Nat, Perit, and Valk all waiting politely to one side, my cousin shooting me annoyed glare. I smirked smugly behind my mask at the expression. Nat was more experienced and confident about all this than I was. It was nice to come out ahead here without really trying.

Before I could comment though, or Bethany could respond, the entire party started shaking. Not in a figurative sense, but literally shuddering in place. Everyone in the hall looked off balance, in the literal and figurative sense both, and we all looked around worriedly to try to figure out what the hell was going on. "What's happening?" I called loudly, worried we might be under attack.

Abel was staring up at the ceiling, eyes looking past the sky and off into the distance. "Spatial ripple. Like someone dropped a giant ass rock into a pond. Something just changed in the nearby space, something big. This place is just floating around in the void, so it got shaken up."

"It's opening." Said Zeke from behind us. None of us jumped, too distracted to care much about my uncle's theatrics. We all turned to look at him questioningly, and he rolled his eyes. "The Moonsong Glade is opening. We've been waiting for the space to stabilize so you could all enter, that's what that was. It's stable enough to allow F-ranked passage now. Slightly more than F-rank, honestly. I'd say anyone with under fifty Impact could get through."

That meant we could actually use the Moonglow Dew if we found it. E-rankers had sixty two Impact, so none of them could get in, but it made me wary of the interior of the dungeon. How many people there had more than a normal F-ranker's Impact value. Zeke had said the Dew wouldn't reveal itself to those inside normally, but there had to have been SOME of the stuff. Were we going to be fighting people halfway to E-rank? What would that even be like?

I felt that old fire start to burn in my gut again. Excitement. I'd been...floundering, a bit, since I lost my fight to Abel. It had been my first real defeat and it derailed me something fierce. Now though, we were going to be competing for resources, and Abel was on my side.

"Alright." I said firmly. "So we need to go. Bit short notice, but we're already good on supplies and stuff right?" We all had our rings, I got my weapon, we should be good to go. "Also...how do we go? Because you said it's F-rank only, so how do we enter. Will there be a portal or something?"

Zeke grinned, gesturing for us to follow, and we all did. Every one of us walked out of the party, followed by dozens more people, and as we exited we stared up into the darkness of space over the city. Darkness covered with a series of rivers or celestial silver light, shimmering and twisting around the floating city. "Why do you think the Lakedeeps picked this spot?" He said with a grin.

Gesturing up at the rivers theatrically, he announced. "Presenting the entrances that flow through the unstable space. Starlight Slides. There's a special song you have to play to call them, but the process was started when the space solidified enough to support the slides. That's concentrated moonlight. It's where the Glade gets its name." He turned toward the city. "Now, let's go find you a musician and get you your own. You don't want to be the last ones to arrive."

 

[Malcolm Tent]

We were running. Desperately trying to get to a musician before anyone else. As we ran, I saw dozens of others scattering in all directions. Not everyone. Some of these people either weren't here to enter the Glade or didn't care enough to try being early, because they just watched everyone else barrel around with smirks on their faces. Zeke wasn't leading, exactly, he'd just gotten us started running, Nat, however WAS pulling ahead to show us the way to the nearest person who could open us a slide.

We turned off into an alley and bolted into a small run down shop with a door hidden under an overhang, and Nat slammed the door behind us, barricading it before she informed Celine we would be contracting the old man behind the counter as our ride and to get us a decent rate. She shoved a bag of chits into her hand, probably because we were in a time crunch, and the elf girl sighed and got to work negotiating.

Callie pulled me aside, activating her Stealth Skill as we stepped into a dark corner. "You know." I said with a grin. "If you wanted to pull me away for some alone time your timing could be better. Honestly I think Stealth will make our absence MORE noticeable, not less."

She gave me a wan smile. "Sadly not where my mind was at. Shane...we need to talk." I blinked at her. That sounded...bad. I'd never had someone tell me that and mean anything good by it. I could feel discomfort, uncertainty, and fear through the bond, and I had a sinking suspicion I knew what this was about.

"Right." I said slowly. "Talk about what? Did something happen? Is this about the whole Vampire thing?" I wracked my brain for what she might want to talk about. We'd been pretty solid up to this point, and I hadn't felt and unhappiness through the bond. "Like if I did something wrong, we can talk it out right?" My stomach was in knots. Was that what this was? Was she breaking up with me?

Staring at me uncomprehendingly, she seemed to notice my creeping dread through the bond. Her own unhappy feelings evaporated like snow on a summer day as she finally realized what I meant and...burst out laughing. She was doubled over cackling at me, and my own fear was mitigated somewhat by annoyance. It wasn't MY fault she'd been so damned vague. "I'm sorry," She wheezed. "But I just realized what that probably sounded like. No, sweetie I'm not breaking up with you."

I threw my hands in the air. "Well, hell Callie, maybe don't lead the conversation so ambiguously next time. The bond was sending me tons of signals. If you aren't breaking up with me what the hell is this about? If it helps, just know that whatever it is will pale in comparison to what you just put me through, so thanks for setting the stage."

She had to try to staunch her giggles. "Right. Sorry, love. No, I wanted to talk about the group. Specifically, I wanted to talk to you about leading it. I think you should take over as leader."

Blinking in surprise, I cocked my head. "But...why? You're amazing at leading. You always have a plan, plus you have way more experience. Your years as an Ascendant-"

She cut me off. "Mean nothing anymore. I was a G-ranker in a tiny city on a tiny backwater planet. Sure, I spent some time learning how things worked, but my experience is so far behind where we are now that you couldn't spot it with a telescope. It's apples an Elephants, Shane. This isn't my world anymore. Literally. It is yours though. And you'll be expected to do more as we go on. To make your own faction. To lead."

"But." I floundered. I hadn't expected this. "I'm not...leadership material. I'm a thug. I just hit shit. I don't know politics and backroom deals and tactics. That's you. You're amazing at that stuff, it's one of the MANY things I love about you. Everyone is safer with you in charge."

Flicking my forehead through the mask with a dull thunk, she glared up at me. "You are not an idiot. You are not an animal. You are a smart, capable man with admittedly SOME impulse control issues. You CAN make good decisions. And I'll still be here to help and handle things if you can't. We're partners remember? But the things we're going to be involved in going forward are going to be all on you. Your family, your enemies. You need to learn to lead."

It was hard to argue that. But I just...didn't want to. I didn't want to be in charge, didn't want all that pressure. I wasn't just a thug because of my reputation, I was a thug because it was FUN. Turning off my brain and hitting shit until it left me alone was EASY. It also let me ignore what I'd known for a long time. I needed to make a goddamn decision about where my life was going.

Putting it off for so long had been convenient because of the messes we'd been in, but I needed a direction. I wanted to become the Wishmaster, but that was almost TOO big of a goal. It was easy to write it off as an overarching path and just ignore the trees for the forest. I needed a direction. We were doing this to get stronger, then strengthening our souls, but for what? Just to keep trying to prove ourselves to the family?

"And if I take over the group." I said quietly. "You'll be with me, whatever I decide we should do? No matter what?" I needed to know she'd be by my side, because I was pretty sure my new direction was going to be a bit more dangerous than the current one, at least in the short term.

She snorted. "Baby, if you don't know I have your back by now I don't know what to tell you. Barring you going insane from recursion and taking up a career punching babies, I'm with you no matter what."

I grinned, triggering the 'eating' function of my mask as I leaned down to pull her into a deep kiss. She grinned back against my lips, until we finally finished and I pulled back, panting slightly. She gave me a wink and I laughed. "Alright." i said breathlessly. "I'll take over. And I know what to do. It's not going to be a short term goal mind you, we have to finish this mess and then get through the trials at the Ruined Soul Temple but...I want to find my mom."

She raised an eyebrow at me. "Really? I never got the impression you were too curious about her. She left even before your dad right?"

"She did." I agreed grimly. "But she might have had to. Zeke implied dad forced her, and even if he didn't...I need to know. I've spent a ton of time brooding about the parent I know, but I want to meet the one I don't. I barely remember my mom, and I want to see her again. It's probably going to be a big deal tracking her down. Somehow I doubt I can just roll up to the Church's back yard and ask to see her."

My girlfriend shook her head emphatically. "You can't. First off, A-rankers are the pillars of the main factions. Their locations are closely guarded secrets, and they change constantly. At least when they aren't locked up in the central stronghold of their factions. But there's no way we reach your mom in the Holy Dominion. I've been reading up on this stuff since we found out we were leaving, and I can tell you that for sure. Luckily your mom is a combat caste A-ranker, and they aren't known for cushy desk jobs. She's PROBABLY out and about."

I nodded, smiling at the news. "That's awesome. So we just need to find her. I even know who to ask. We can talk to that Brightlaw guy. He's a Crusader for the Church right? I bet he knows a ton about the combat caste. We can talk to him during our trip through the Glade."

"We can." She said cautiously. "But don't expect finding him to be easy. The Glade is a dungeon, one big enough to support local factions. F-ranker factions too, but most of the big names will have ingested Moonglow Dew. We're going to have our hands full." Seeming to notice her error she put her hands up. "Not that I'm saying to give up. Finding your mom is a good idea. If Brightlaw doesn't know, I bet someone at the Ruined Soul Temple will. The elites of the factions will be there for the trial, she might even show up."

I grinned at the thought. She was right. I had a direction to go in now. Somehow, having a plan, a short term plan that MATTERED to me, made this seem...less daunting. I could do this. I'd track down that Crusader and ask him what he knew, and if it was nothing I'd KEEP looking until we found my mother and I could finally ask her what had happened. I could finally get an answer from at least ONE of my parents.

Smiling sweetly, Callie leaned up to kiss my cheek and pulled away, letting the Stealth drop as she walked over to where Celine was negotiating with the musician. "Well." She asked loudly. "How are negotiations going?"

Celine turned to glare at her, or at least give her a mildly disapproving frown, which was the Celine version of screaming and falling on her like a ravenous chimpanzee. "Poorly. This...person." The way she said that made it clear she wanted to say a much less neutral word but wasn't willing to sully herself with such vulgarity. "Is insisting on overcharging us. He thinks he has leverage and refuses to compromise."

The old man grinned, exposing several missing teeth (though the rest of them were perfectly straight and white, so I suspected they'd been knocked out in a fight when he was younger or something). "S'right." He said smugly. "I want thirty F-rank chits for the lot of you. Three apiece."

Callie grimaced, turning to me. "Well boss man? First decision as group leader. What should we do? Are we going to eat the cost?" I could tell from the bond she didn't think we should, and I didn't either. If he was overcharging us I'd rather go look for someone else.

"Two." I said flatly. He opened his mouth and I held up a hand. "Nope. This isn't a negotiation. I'm not bartering, I don't have that Skill. You'll take two or we'll take our leave. I'm sure you can find someone else who wants to head down there. Of course, the chances are good that you'll run into someone a bit less...civilized than I am, and that their guardian might be less circumspect. You might end up getting threatened into taking nothing."

His mouth snapped shut. He glared at me, but I just stared him down. I didn't know if two F-rank chits per person was a good rate, but it was a better one, and close enough to the full amount that it wasn't TOO onerous to accept. Finally he sneered and nodded, and Celine smugly counted out the chits.

Callie gave me a proud smile and leaned up to kiss my masked cheek. I grinned, then turned to the old man, who had taken a pan flute out of his pocket. He played a note, and the window blew open, then he began to really cut loose. The speed complexity of the song were astonishing, and with each new note a moonbeam streamed through the window twisting in on itself. I watched in stunned amazement as the moonbeams wove themselves into a bridge, or rather, a slide. "Okay." I said aloud as I stared. "That was pretty cool."

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The slide that materialized was mesmerizing to look at. Whirls of shifting silver moonlight woven into intricate spirals and shifting symbols I could barely understand. Some looked like runes, some looked almost like pictures, at least for a second, and some I had no words for. "That's...amazing." I murmured, reaching out to touch the silvery substance.

Zeke reached out and smacked my hand away. "Not yet. If you touch it you'll get sucked in. Make sure you have everything prepared before you make contact." I shook my fingers, glaring a little, but nodded.

"So...what is this anyway? Did he make this just now?" The music had woven the slide, but something about it seemed too...profound to have been made by the old man. Not in terms of Impact, it was only F-rank like we were, but in terms of complexity. It was like I was looking into an absurdly deep puddle. Even if it was the same size as other puddles in terms of width, the depth was leagues deeper.

Zeke shook his head, looking at it with interest. "No. More like...called it? He gave it a place to connect. The slide is part of the glade. An important part." He shook off the faraway tone. "Doesn't matter. You need to go. The slides don't connect for long, and someone will have noticed." He patted my shoulder. "Be safe kid. I'll be keeping an eye out, but I won't be any good out here." He looked at the others. "Watch his back."

I looked around. "Hey, where is Jessie? We can't leave without her." Our healer was the most important member of our group, especially in a place like the Moonsong Glade, which would be full of wild animals and nature.

Callie pointed out the door. "She's outside waiting for the animals. You didn't think she'd leave without Randall and the wolves did you? It was the whole reason we brought them. It's fine though, she texted them as soon as we got here,and if she went out to meet them they should be arriving any second."

I turned to Abel. "Can you help her get them to the slide? They're too big to fit through the door, but your spatial lubrication should help get around that. Once they touch the silver they'll be snapped up."

He just shrugged and went outside to help. I looked back at Zeke. "Alright. Once that's done we're leaving. Don't drink too much while I'm gone, keep up with Cass's training, and teach Cark a few things too." I paused. "And tell them I said goodbye and that I'll see them soon enough."

I debated telling him about my decision to look for my mother, but I knew he couldn't do anything in the Glade anyway, and I was worried he'd try to talk me out of it. I decided not to mention it. There would be time later. Unless I was dead and then I wouldn't care.

Giving my uncle a quick hug that surprised me almost as much as it surprised him, I stepped back and took up a spot near the silver slide. I saw the air warp as the spatial lubrication created a path to the slide, Abel leading it in so Randall could reach the stream of energy. With one last look around, I reached out and touched the moonlight...and fell.

That's the only word that worked for it. Falling. Despite the slide going straight up for a bit and then curving slowly, as I rocketed up it I felt myself picking up speed. It wasn't anything as simple as gravity reversing, because I didn't feel like I had a body at all, it was like my soul was being sucked down a tube, but the tube had a million curves and twists and turns and was straight as an arrow at the same time.

Every inch I traveled felt like I'd gone through a maze, but at the same time I not only didn't slow down, I picked up speed. Like someone was shoving the impression of having traveled a winding path into my head every inch I moved, but they were all different winding paths, and my brain was having trouble keeping up with them, and then, suddenly...I wasn't.

I was just standing in the forest. The trees were swaying, the leaves were rustling, and I was trying my best not to vomit. There was a flash of moonlight and Callie was there. I had barely enough presence of mind to step in and catch her before she toppled over. Abel was fine, oddly, and it made me wonder if soul strength made it easier to adjust. Benny seemed to do relatively well too.

Nat and her guards looked sick but managed to stay standing, and Jessie landed still on Randall's back. Having four legs presumably helped, because none of the animals fell over. Jin, Rala, Lily, and Rolf, our wolves, all looked oddly energetic and excited actually, and I felt bad that we'd been keeping them cooped up in the city. Randall would want to stay with Jessie, but I would be thinking about possibly leaving the wolves if they wanted to stay.

We were lucky they were able to come along at all, it had been a relief to find out animals didn't count towards our slots. Sapience was a big thing in this case apparently. "Alright." I said with a rasp, my voice not working right yet. "Is everyone ok? No one hurt?"

"Only mentally and emotionally." Moaned Benny. "I feel like I fell out of an existential dread tree and hit every branch on the way down. That was awful. I'm not sure if I feel like less than when I went in or more, or which of those things is worse because they're both somehow terrifying to me right now."

I grimaced. "Don't think about it. It sucked but it's over, and chances are we won't need to do anything like it again anytime soon."

"Speaking of being over..." Said Jessie from her perch on Randall's back. "Does anyone know where we ended up? Because I feel like the whole danger thing might just be getting started. The puppies don't look comfortable here, and they have pretty solid instincts."

Staring around us, I took in the trees. We'd ended up in a clearing, natural from the looks of it. part of me secretly hoped there would be some Moonglow Dew conveniently sitting around here, but there wasn't. Just darkness, shadow and foreboding thick between the trees. Which was when my brain caught up to the fact that we had our own expert on shadow and foreboding.

"Cal." I called, my girlfriend looking up at me as she tried to shake the cobwebs off from our entrance. "We're in a deep dark shadowy forest, think you could take a listen and get us an idea what we're walking into. See if there are any people nearby, or civilization maybe."

Shaking her head to physically rattle something loose, she grinned at me. "Sounds good. Give me a second." She knelt down, hand pressed to the shadow, and I saw her sink into the darkness beneath the tree, vanishing into the empty shade. I hadn't seen her do that exactly, I'd known she could, but it was still kind of crazy to watch.

As she slipped out, she shot me a frown. "Ok, there isn't much within my range aside from animals, but I did catch the very edges of a conversation somewhere nearby. Just at the edge of where I can listen, which means not close but not far enough for my liking. They're coming this way too. But since they're out of range I just got some noise and voices in a language I didn't know. Can't even give you a number. What do we do?"

I paused. We could run, but we didn't know where we were, and we could easily end up even worse off. Being solidly in place as well as having the numbers and power to protect ourselves, meant this was as good a time as any to run into another team. Worst case we could run away.

"We wait." I said firmly. "Callie, if you have the materials maybe set a few traps nearby, something we can avoid and lead them into if we need to get away." Just because we were going to make contact didn't mean we had to be stupid about it.
She nodded, pulling some materials from her ring. Nothing too fancy, her Trap Skill wasn't high enough anyway. She turned and got to work, and I prepared to greet the other team, whoever they might be. It would be nice to assume we'd know them but we couldn't count on that.

I half wanted someone to make an escape wish, but I might need the ones I had for bargaining. I started hearing them coming pretty soon after, breaking branches and crackling leaves heralding the approach of...I froze. Too many people. More than ten. More than twenty. I panicked, getting ready to tell everyone we needed to go, but as I triggered Eye of Revelation I realized we were already surrounded.

A man stepped out of the trees. Pale with dark hair, in plate armor. He glanced around at us for a minute, before speaking in, surprisingly, completely legible if heavily accented common, the language of the Conglomerate (and from what I'd seen most of the universe). "Outsiders. How...unpleasant." He sniffed disdainfully, and I decided I didn't really like him much. While I'd have like to mouth off because of that, I was the boss now, which meant everyone's safety was my responsibility.

Sadly, that didn't make me a politician or diplomat, but it DID mean I needed to be responsible enough to keep my damn mouth shut. I glanced to Celine, giving her a nod, and she stepped forward politely. "Pardon our intrusion sir. Might we impose upon you for our location? If we've trespassed on sovereign territory we heartily apologize, and would be happy to remove ourselves from your land."

The man's lip curled under his hawkish nose. "Remove yourselves? Why would we allow this. You expect Ladrigan to be the only kingdom without outsiders? Pelegar has already acquired four groups. We will not allow ourselves to be bested. You will come with us. The awakening approaches, and outsiders are the best possible source of the god Dew. You're all drawn to the stuff."

That...wasn't what I expected. Any of it. I knew there were locals, but not that they had fucking KINGDOMS. Not that they knew we'd be coming and wanted to use us as Dew detectors. I forced myself to calm down. We were safe, and if they needed us they wouldn't kill us, or hopefully hurt us if we played along.

"That sounds fine." I said cheerfully. "We'd be happy to help our new hosts, and we appreciate your hospitality. We're quite lost, so it's kind of you to offer us a place as your guests."

His eyes widened, and then narrowed, his face contorting as he presumably started to contradict me, when a musical voice cut him off. "What amiable intruders." Said a girl, stepping from the trees. She had long, cascading aqua hair, and pale blue skin, as well as ears as pointed as Celine's. "But very well, if it will smooth things over, guests you shall be." Her eyes turned to the pale man. "Drakov, escort them to my carriage. I'll bring them back personally."

Her accent was much milder than his, barely noticeable, and somehow much fancier. She gave us a warm smile, her completely blue eyes (no iris at all) glinting like spheres of ice blue metal as she stared at as, then she turned and strolled away, expecting us to follow. I had no idea what the hell that was about, but I was betting it was complicated. Joy.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I did NOT ask why the woman who picked us up was blue. It was tough. I was pretty sure she was some kind of elf, and I REALLY wanted to know more about her. Luckily, despite my politeness, I did get those answers, because Celine was kind enough to bring it up. "I find it astonishing to meet one of my water touched cousins." Said our diplomat, sweeping back her hair on one side. "Are you a Naiad?"

The blue woman, who was apparently a Naiad, smiled. "I am. At least on my mother's side. Our people are rare here, my father became quite entranced with my mother and decided to take her to his bed." She smiled bitterly. "Sadly, my siblings are far less enthused about my heritage, as none of them share it."

Celine winced. "Ah, I presume your line is...expansive?" Her voice sounded sympathetic. More so than I'd heard it before.
"Of course." The Naiad smiled, her voice dripping false sweetness. "Father has to find an heir worthy of the crown. An inborn racial trait is quite a coup, though sadly my gifts don't lie toward combat. Are you a wood elf? I've never seen one before."

I was intrigued. I knew Celine was an elf, but I didn't know there were subspecies of elf. I also didn't know you could be born with a racial trait, though given Celine was from a family of elves, I probably should have guessed that. I wondered how that worked, since the racial trait took the spot of an ability. It was something to ask around about later, just out of curiosity.

Sadly, now wasn't the time. Celine was our diplomat, but I was in charge now. Which meant I needed to at least make an effort to improve our position, especially since it was my fault we were in it. I wasn't entirely sure I'd made the wrong call making contact, granted, but still. "The crown?" I interrupted as politely as I could. "So you're a princess of this kingdom?"

She smiled at me widely, and I learned that Naiads apparently have razor sharp rows of small jagged teeth. "I am. Anna-Maria Deville. Fifteenth princess of the kingdom of Ladrigan. Daughter of Salara Vorenas, whom her loyal subjects have termed 'the fishwife' behind her back." Her tone had a bite to it, and I got the impression that she didn't care for her 'loyal subjects' overly much.

"They sound like dicks." Said Benny matter of factly. Celine sighed, pinching her nose, but Anna-Marie burst out into giggles. My best friend just shrugged. "What? Racist peasant farmers aren't exactly top of my 'to hang with' list. I'm just saying."

Anna-Marie's smile at Benny was much warmer, despite showing nearly as much teeth. "That is nice to know. I too find them objectionable company." My best friend preened a bit, but was treated to a merciless pinch from his girlfriend and jerked back with a yelp.

Celine kept a calm and pleasant expression on her face, but her eyes locked on Benny for a minute, and he crossed his arms, hunching down in annoyance to entertain himself without talking. I didn't think Celine was jealous or anything, more that Benny was NOT a diplomat, and while I had seniority to give me an excuse to talk, he was just saying random shit and messing up her dialogue.

Still, her face was sympathetic when she turned back to the princess. "It sounds like you are having quite a difficult time. Might I be so bold as to ask how we might aid you with that? You seem to have some use for us."

"To be frank." Said the Naiad princess. "We all do. The awakening happens very rarely, the last one wasn't even in my lifetime. My father was able to procure some of the god Dew from a prior awakening, and it was the support of that power the enabled him to claim the throne of Ladrigan. Should one of us acquire the treasure, our chances of securing the crown when he passes will be nearly assured."

I still didn't get it. "So...just go look for it? I was told that it exists here all the time, I'm sure you guys have plenty of opportunities to find it."

She shook her head. "The Dew requires energy from the moons." She pointed out the window up at the MASSIVE silver sphere hanging in the still daylit sky. The moons can only be seen during the awakenings. The amount of the material increases exponentially during awakenings, but sadly, natives do not seem drawn to this substance as the outsiders are. Therefore, whenever outsiders arrive, the royals all scramble to recruit as many as possible."

"This is some kind of...inheritance test?" I was obviously familiar with the concept. "But why doesn't the king just gather the Dew for himself. Actually, will we even get any? He could just take all of ours away."

Her eyes went wide as she shook her head, aqua hair bouncing furiously. "Oh no. We would never do such a thing. There have been dynasties in the past who tried such tactics. They flourished for a few centuries, but upon the next awakening terrifying outsiders fell upon them in droves to exact retribution. As for my father, god Dew becomes less effective the more you use it. He's ingested several drops already and has reached his limit."

That made sense, couldn't have the locals killing people from major factions. The limit made sense too, otherwise everyone powerful here would just grind right up to the edge of E-rank and stay there. "Ok." I said firmly. "You want to use us as your...what? Champions? To find Dew?" I wasn't sure why they couldn't find it themselves, maybe something about being around the stuff their whole lives made their fate sense ignore it?

"Yes." Said with relief. "Other outsiders will no doubt be courted by my siblings. Though some will attempt other methods for finding the Dew. As you saw earlier, not all of the natives are enthused about outsider visits. Drakov, for instance, had two reasons to act as he did. First is prejudice, which I tend to shy away from for obvious reasons, and second is because while he is nominally a castle guard he owes allegiance to my brother Mulciber."

I winced, happy I had my mask on. I really didn't like politics, and while I was up to being in charge, this sounded like it would be a lot of that. I looked at Celine, giving her a nod so she'd know she could take over from here. My elven companion folded her hands in a businesslike manner and gave a practiced smile. "Well, that certainly sounds like a tricky situation. So what exactly can you offer us to side with you?"

Anna-Marie chuckled. "I suppose it was foolish to hope it would be that easy. Honestly, I don't have much to offer other than the same things my siblings could. Protection from our citizens, supplies where needed, my own support as well as those of my guards and other allies. I'm hardly the favorite for the throne, and my retainers aren't exactly numerous." She sounded depressed just talking about it, and I could see why.

Callie reached out and grabbed my hand, squeezing it and looking at me beseechingly. My girl had a heroic streak, and poor Anna-Marie was in a bad spot. Honestly I wasn't against the idea. We had no real reason to accept teaming up with anyone, but if we had to go with somebody, a person who had helped us out and who seemed like she would have our backs if needed (out of necessity if nothing else) wasn't the worst option.

This might be a bit premature, but I knew that sometimes, doing something subpar was better than waiting fruitlessly for a perfect option. It was unlikely any of the royals would be perfect allies, so we might as well go with the devil we knew. "Alright." I said, surprising her and Celine both. "We'll help you." The others all looked surprised, except Callie who beamed at me with such approval and pride I actually blushed.

It was strange to see a pair of eyes that were just blue metallic orbs 'shine', but they did. She look ecstatic as she literally cheered. "That's amazing! Thank you so much, I promise I won't let you regret this. I'll do everything I can to support your group!"

Smiling, I nodded at her kindly. I believed she would though I still had my own means of gathering support and materials. My wishes were a perfect method for that. "That sounds good, because I am absolutely exhausted. It's been a long night for us and we could use somewhere to rest." The party had been later in the day, and combined with the adrenaline of bolting for a magician, the ride here, and the rest of the day's activities this had been one of the longest I'd ever had, and that was saying something.

My thoughts were cut off, however, as I felt a lurch in the carriage. Looking out the window I saw that we'd come to a stop. The massive box of dark shining wood had been even larger on the inside, a large, comfortable sitting room lined with bench seats that had comfortably fit all ten of us, the princess, and even the wolves. Sadly Jessie and Randall had to ride outside, because even bigger on the inside Ascendant shit wasn't built for giant bears.

Luckily this carriage was pulled by horses, horses who were ALSO F-rank like Randall, and not nearly as high into it as he was, so the bear didn't have trouble keeping up. Sometimes it was easy to forget how fast and strong F-rankers could be, even being one myself. Animals like horses or bears who were naturally predisposed to physical power tended to accrue lots of Might, and that high stat made crossing long distances a matter of minutes rather than hours.

I assumed this planet was relatively big, given that the gravity seemed similar to what I'd felt in the bazaar (granted there wasn't the pressure from Impact, but still, the gravity here felt heavier than on Callus). So we must have covered a ton of ground for the trip to take fifteen to twenty minutes. I tensed up, making sure that I was prepared for all of what was to come. We could run into other teams at any minute, and that was without the whole 'locals hate you sometimes' thing.

Climbing out of the carriage, I was taken aback by the newest building we saw, an absolutely monumental castle...kind of. I turned to the princess. "Did you guys...carve this out of a mountain?" It was hard to describe, but it looked like the castle was all one piece of dark stone, from the towers and parapets to the tall imposing base of the building. It was BIG obviously, given it was made out of a mountain, and I was betting a whole city worth of people could live here. Not a small city either. Especially given the almost inevitable larger internal space.

Anna-Marie beamed at me happily. "We did. My great grandfather was an earth-singer. He found this mountain in his travels and discovered it to be some of the toughest F-rank material in the kingdom, and so decided to found our dynasty here. It is the Ladrigan seat of power. Blackrock Spires."

Despite not being a fan of her people, she seemed enthused and excited about kingdom history. Clearly she loved some parts of her homeland. I also noted she'd said F-rank, so language wasn't the only thing we could find in common.

Aside from some of them speaking something different, it was clear higher ranking people spoke the same tongue as us, and they had similar methods of defining power. Anna-Marie's smile dimmed slightly, and her eyes became a bit cautious. "Now, I'll be happy to get you rooms to rest in, but first, we must make a stop. All outsiders must meet the king. We need to go see my father."

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I'd been expecting to be escorted to the king directly by a bunch of guards, but we only got a retinue of four armored figures to escort us. The closed in around us, silvery armor clanking as they formed a sort of guide box, forcing us to move in a specific direction and not to deviate. The armor was shimmery to an absurd degree, but more than that, it was also seamless over their whole bodies. It had lines to give it shape like normal plate, but seemed to be made of one solid piece in reality.

"I wonder if they need can openers to get undressed at night." I said conversationally to Callie, who giggled as one of the guards stumbled slightly, then tried to pretend it hadn't happened while the others huffed in annoyance.

Stepping up next to Anna-Marie I pitched my voice low, using Stealth through my bond with Callie. "So what do we need to know here exactly? I'd rather not get executed because I used the wrong spoon for soup or something."

That got a giggle. "Etiquette is formal and respectful. Address my father as your majesty, don't speak unless spoken to, and be polite. Other than that you should be fine. He'll tell you what he wants, just agree respectfully and you'll be fine."

Annoying because I'd hoped to possibly bring up wishes, but it sounded like that would be impossible without risking offense. We walked for about twenty minutes before finally stopping at a pair of absolutely massive double doors. Next to them, a single smaller door opened and a man came out to meet the guards. They whispered to each other for a minute, then spoke to Anna-Marie, all without me hearing. I supposed the man had a Stealth Skill.

Then he went back inside and the double doors began to creak open. I stepped inside onto a long, plush brown aisle carpet, at the end of which sat...a man. Now, when we arrived we'd been surrounded by guards, and so had Jessie though I hadn't seen it at the time. They'd been walking behind us, and I'd heard them so I hadn't worried about it, but the inside of this place was big enough for she and Randall to walk in side by side with us.

All of which is to say that when I said the king looked like a shaved bear, it was definitely accurate because I had an ACTUAL bear to compare him to. The man from before stepped up beside us. "Introducing Solomon of the Starchaser Pavilion and Retinue! All kneel for his majesty Crighton Deville, fifth king of Ladrigan, Mountain Crusher, Lord of Cracking Bone, Fist of the Kingdom, and Bearer of Unyielding Force." The man who was apparently a crier bellowed at the top of his lungs.

Crighton, for his part, just stared at us coldly. Huge and blocky, with broad shoulders and a stocky build despite being tall, he had coal black eyes and long silver hair. There was a crown of beaten black iron adorning his brow, making his gaze all the more eerie, and his large protruding jaw made him look like he might bite into me at some point, his eyebrows thick and pulled down in displeasure.

We knelt, obviously. Because one look at this guy and I knew he could fucking murder all of us. Not only was he obviously at the peak of F-rank, but he'd used several drops of the Moonglow Dew, as his Impact was much higher than ours. I had no real way to gauge it, but I'd have pegged him at somewhere near forty Impact. Which meant he was chronologically probably close to four THOUSAND, because this guy was very obviously incredibly old.

Most old people I'd seen tended toward being just grizzled versions of their younger selves, Vitality keeping them in good shape until the very last minute. Crighton was no different. He looked like a really buff old man, an aged version of who assume he'd been as a youth. I could very well imagine the huge, bearlike man towering over his subjects, brown hair falling like an avalanche down his shoulders, instead of the lank silver mane he had now.

I knew why Anna-Marie had said he got his drops from a prior awakening, because I didn't think it was the last one. Maybe the one before? I wasn't sure exactly how long it had been since last time the Glade opened. No wonder he was looking for an heir.

He stared down at us coldly for a minute or two, the silence seeming to crush down on us, before a voice like breaking rocks at the bottom of a steep cliff boomed out from that barrel chest. "Outsiders." He mused. "Young. Though aren't you always. I find myself...unimpressed. Still, you won't be the last. I assume my daughter has enlightened you on the situation?" That question was addressed to me, and I nodded, since I didn't want to run my mouth and screw us over when I had nothing to say except 'yes sire'.

"Good." Rumbled the king. He picked at the sleeve of his well tailored brown doublet. "Then you know you will choose one of my children to support. Traditionally, the child who finds the outsiders has first claim, but you may wave it should you wish for someone more..." His eyes raked Anna-Marie. "Useful." His tone wasn't scornful really, just dismissive, but I felt Callie bristle as the blue skinned princess wilted under his apathy. "Make your choice."

She did NOT, thankfully, say anything. I was pretty sure we'd die if we tried to fight our way out of here. The guards might not be higher Impact than us, but they all seemed to be far into, or even at the peak of F-rank. And suddenly...I just didn't care. I wasn't going to be disrespectful or actively hostile, but I just didn't have it in me to be afraid of this giant Ascendant bully.

I looked him dead in the eye without flinching, and said firmly. "We already have. We're with Anna-Marie." Even if we hadn't agreed to that already I'd have said it. I wouldn't give this dick the satisfaction. It was funny, because when I first came in he'd intimidated me a bit, but that one action had shown me what he really was. Just a big fish in a small pond who thought he was important.

My tone wasn't derisive either, but it had enough edge to raise one of those thick woolly eyebrows. I could see him deciding if he should take offense, but he needed us and we were the first group of outsiders his kingdom had found, so he ended up deciding to be amused. His lips spread, exposing large blocky teeth that looked like they could grind diamonds. "Very well. I look forward to your performance. You have a spine, if nothing else."

He looked away from me then, over our shoulders and off into the distance, like we'd ceased to exist. I knew that was a dismissal, despite him not saying it, and smiled as we were ushered to our feet and out of the chamber, Anna-Marie trailing behind us, looking a bit shell shocked.

She'd been expecting us to change our minds I think. So used to being written off by everyone that even when we told her she had our support she didn't really believe it would happen. Callie stepped up next to her, putting an arm on her hand. "Hey. Don't let him get to you. Our parents don't decide who we are. Even if they may decide who other people are sometimes. We're here to help you."

I nodded. "Damn straight. Speaking of which, I need to know a LOT more about all this. I need to know how much Dew we get and where we get it from. Like is there some kind of flower or tree it collects on?" If there was we might have an advantage, because my plant seeking Skill should be damned useful for something like that.

Callie turned and kicked me in the knee sharply, causing me to yelp and hop back. "We don't need to talk about that right now." She said firmly, glaring at me. "We can worry about those things tomorrow. Tonight you can just show us to our rooms and you and I can talk for a while. You seem like you could use a friend."

"And you can cuddle with Randall." Chirped Jessie cheerfully. "He gives the best hugs. Normal teddy bears have nothing on snuggling with a real life chonky boy." The bear snorted loudly and she rolled her eyes. "No I'm not calling you fat. You're proportionally chonky."

Anna-Marie giggled at their antics. Celine looked like she wanted to weigh in too, but I saw her pull back with a sigh. She and Benny would probably want to befriend the princess too, but she clearly didn't feel like part of the group still after her betrayal and subsequent atonement.

Valk was also seemingly feeling protective, having stepped in closer to the princess, looming slightly in a menacing way that wasn't aimed at her. Figuring those members of our group had it covered I didn't try to interject. I wasn't the most comforting person to anyone except my close loved ones. I was curious about one thing.

Slipping back, I came to a stop next to Abel. "So..." I said slowly, making sure to use Stealth so we weren't overheard. "The king. He was pretty strong. Do you think you could have-"

"One punch." He said shortly. "He'd have crushed me with a single blow. I've seen F-rankers at the peak before, like Rime, but he...he reminded me of an E-ranker. A gulf you just can't cross." He grinned widely, showing all his teeth. "It was fantastic. I can't wait to get my Impact to the same level."

I shook my head. "I know she said the drops give diminishing returns, but I'm guessing he's had a LOT of them to get to that level. Probably past the point where most people would have given up. I'd be shocked if we could make it to thirty five Impact, and that guy seems to be at forty."

There wasn't MUCH Dew in between awakenings, but the king would definitely get what there was to get. I suspected he was pretty much at the limit of what could be done even using way too much of the stuff though, otherwise he wouldn't be looking to prepare an heir. I wondered how many drops it would take, and how many we would get. We'd have to share with Anna-Marie, so we'd need to be going all out to accrue the stuff too, since there was ten of us.

I was so lost in my own thoughts that we came to the rooms before I even noticed, having to pull myself up short to stop from running into Randall's giant furry ass. "Well." Said a much happier Anna-Marie. "These are your rooms. Three couples rooms and four singles."

Jessie frowned at the door to hers, popping it open and then sighing with relief. "The hallways here are huge, but I was worried the rooms might not fit Randall. looks fine though, even if the door is a bit of a squeeze." She looked at Abel. "Hey Apollyon, you mind helping me out here?"

Muttering about not being a bear delivery service, Abel slouched forward, ignoring his giggling girlfriend as he helped use his spatial lubrication to slip the bear through a door half his size. Once Randall was through I could see inside the room and noted that it WAS plenty big for him. This huge mountain castle seemed to have been made with a bigger is better attitude in mind. With a thank you to the princess Callie and I headed into our room, where we promptly collapsed into bed. It had been a hell of a day. I was unconscious before my head hit the pillow.