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

[Malcolm Tent]

The next flag wasn't as hard to find as we expected, but it did still take a few hours. We beat everyone else this time though, so we were the ones lying in wait. The flag was in a small cave behind a waterfall, and without the light it was pretty tough to spot. To make sure we had an advantage this time, Callie decided to bust out her trap Skill, constructing a series of dangerous defenses out of sight from materials she had in her ring.

"So, what are the chances we can keep this place clear enough for one of us to grab the flag when things kick off?" I asked Abel as we watched Bethy chase Biscuit around a large tree nearby. The squirrel seemed to be having a blast. Callen was lying by the pond napping again , so it was just my mentor and I.

He shrugged. "Maybe good. Or maybe bad and we're about to be ass deep in attackers. With all the traps chances aren't bad that we can hold them off. Nobody expects traps." He paused. "Well, not on such short notice. We'll see how it goes."
Before I could respond, Callen sat bolt upright. About ten seconds later my Danger Sense started screaming at me. I whipped around, Eye of Revelation at the ready, searching for the threat, but all I saw coming through the trees was a single person.

He wasn't anyone I'd seen before, a small guy, pale, covered from the neck down in bloody bandages and wearing a pair of baggy black pants. He had on a long coat with no arms, like a vest that hung to his ankles, and his wild red eyes were darting back and forth over a bandana with a skeleton grin that was wrapped around the bottom of his face. Bethy stopped, turning to stare at him sharply, with probably the most unfriendly expression I'd ever seen on her.

"Huh. Guess I found it." He chuckled giddily. Eyes still darting around. Callie hadn't set up the traps on that side of the clearing yet, so he strolled in unimpeded, but Callen got to his feet. "You aren't welcome here Billy. This is our flag. Get lost." His voice was tenser than I'd expected, and I shifted my grip on my staff, preparing for any sudden attacks as I activated my Overlay.

Billy's eyebrows drooped as if he was pouting. "Awww. That's mean. I was just here looking around for someone to hang out with. Is this not a public forest? I can't go here just because you say so?"

Abel was staring at Billy. Hard. "Don't underestimate him." My mentor murmured to me. "He reeks of blood. Oceans of it. And not the blood of combat. Blood of pain and helplessness and savage eagerness." My mentor sounded angry. "His path is disgusting. It delights in suffering and prolonged death."

While many people might assume Abel being on a Path of Blood made him a gleeful killer, that wasn't the case. My mentor liked to shed blood in worthy combat. Not just his enemy either, his own worked just as well. But while Abel was a gladiator, it sounded like this guy was just a serial killed. We all went on high alert.

Billy's eyes flicked lazily to to Abel. "Oh, someone noticed. I didn't expect another Bloodwalker here. Your aura is a little clean for me, but you've clearly done some damage. How fun. Do you want to compare notes? I could teach you a few things about the Path of Blood."

Paths were innumerable. Every one was unique and applied to each person differently. My DS Path pretty well demonstrated that, but I hadn't known (even if in retrospect it was obvious) that two people walking the same Path could walk it so differently. Unless you skipped steps like me, then you had to kind of align yourself with your path so it would harmonize.

"You need to go." Said Callen grimly. "I won't start a fight if you don't, but if you do, you stand no chance. I could kill you myself, nevermind with all this backup." It was a solid threat, but it also worried me. If it was really that easy Callen wouldn't have offered to let him leave. With the big man, Abel, me, Callie, and Bethy all together, the thought that he was still wary of this guy worried me.

Billy giggled madly. "Are you sure?" He reached into a pocket and drew out a warped looking bottle full of a dark red sludge that seemed to writhe and boil. In the liquid, screaming faces appeared, and as I saw it my Danger Sense went off so hard I nearly blacked out.

To my shock, Callen stepped back, hand going to his sword. His REAL sword. The one on his back that he wasn't ever supposed to draw. "Where did you get that? That stuff isn't supposed to exist anymore."

"What is it?" I asked cautiously as we all got a lot more tense. Billy seemed thrilled be the reaction, practically dancing as he casually tossed and caught the bottle, staring right at Callen. The big man looked genuinely afraid, which was weird because we weren't even really here.

He swallowed hard. "Lamentation Liquid. It was a product created by the Blood Murder Palace. I've seen samples before, but it was mostly destroyed. It's a consumable made from the souls of sacrificed Ascendants. Using the soul isn't taboo or anything, but Lamentation Liquid isn't like most methods of soul capture. Souls are sacrosanct, and barely understood.
People who catch them use them for energy, but when they're done they get released and go on to their afterlife."

"And that stuff...doesn't?" I Asked grimly. Zeke made masks out of souls, but from the sound of it this stuff was worse.
A look of revulsion crossed his face. "That stuff is made from spirits tormented after death to the point of of sublimation. It can erode and corrupt a soul if it touches you. I don't know why one of Hatescream's lackeys would bring it in here in the first place, but it WOULD work on these soul avatars, and we might never recover."

"Oh please." Cackled Billy. "You think I brought this here for you? This is to open the stove..." He stopped, eyes flicking around. "Oops! Spoilers! Think fast." He hurled an orb of red blood at Callen, then turned and, without saying another word, bolted into the forest, laughing maniacally all the way.

Callen cursed, releasing the big sword and drawing the one on his hip, slashing the orb in half and deflecting the two halves off to the sides. Each half splashed against the dirt nearby and began to erode the ground, hissing and bubble. Callen dropped his sword with a curse as it began to corrode and rust, melting the ground where it had landed.

Kneeling down, he stared at the thing for a bit, before cursing and taking out a new one to strap to his hip. "Lucky for me I buy these by the dozen because they break so often. That blood attack seems to be some sort of hyper corrosive. We got lucky, Blood Murder Palace's most well known ability was substantially stronger."

I swallowed as I stared at the hissing substance. "Ok, what the actual fuck just happened? That guy found us pretty easy. I get that was Bloody Billy or whatever, but what did you mean about the Lamentation Liquid being a product from Blood Murder Palace? Also what the hell is 'the stove' and why does he want to open it?"

Callen glared at me. "How the hell should I know? How old do I look to you? I was born well after Blood Murder Palace fell. I only know about the Lamentation Liquid at all because I've seen people who were damaged by it. In the physical world, it's considered dangerous but not the end of the world, but here...I don't know what it would do, but it wouldn't be nice."

"Why did he even show it to us?" Cut in Callie as she materialized from the darkness beneath a tree. "I mean, he could have just run. Was that some kind of secret plan to leak us information?"

The big man shook his head. "Doubtful. He probably just decided that we were going to kill him and pulled it out to deter us."

"Why would he assume that?" She asked.

"Probably because I was going to kill him." Replied Callen slowly. "The liquid was the only thing that deterred me. He's a maniac, and while I wasn't going to start anything in the fortress because of Adrian's teamwork nonsense, this would have been an excellent choice to get him out of the way. Whatever he's doing here, it must be important if he's desperate enough to stay alive that he would leak being a member of the BMP. They STILL have a kill on sight order. From EVERYONE."

I sighed, pinching my nose. "Great. That means whatever he's doing is probably really bad. We need to find someone who had done research on this place and figure out what the stove is. Because whatever it is, I somehow doubt he's going to throw that bottle into it or onto it or whatever because it needs a new coat of paint."

My Danger Sense had gone haywire looking at that stuff. I didn't know all the details but it was clearly extremely dangerous to me. Since I was made of soul fragments and so was most of the rest of this place, I somehow doubted it would be less damaging to anything else. Even if it was, there was no way it was a coincidence that this guy had come HERE with it.

"This isn't going to be another vanished god situation is it?" Complained Callie. "Because we barely survived the last one. I know I got a lot of perks, but you almost got murdered by an evil goddess. I don't feel like it was worth the stress. Is that Hatescream guy coming back?"

"No." Said Callen firmly. "Definitely not. I heard a bit about the Suvaya incident. She was destroyed, and her return was complex and incredibly involved. The Moonsong Glade was an out of the way Dungeon that opened irregularly. It wasn't too important. Anything related to Hatescream would be relevant. He was the oldest of the six when he was alive, and killing him was a nightmare from what I heard. Black Sorrow and the lord Revenant actually COOPERATED for that."

I wondered exactly why the six seemed so focused on keeping other gods from rising up? Was it just to maintain their positions? Or was there something else going on. "Well, it doesn't matter. If this is a god thing we'll figure it out eventually, for now it's just one lunatic with toxic soul acid that we need to track down. First thing after this wave we should head back to the fortress and alert the others. It'll be harder for him to move around if everyone is hunting him."

Everyone nodded. Even Bethy seemed serious about this. "Daddy was around when those Blood Murder guys were alive. He killed a whole bunch of them, and they came after him a few times. If this guy is one of them I want to kill him too." She wrinkled her nose. "I'll pass on eating him though. His blood is all gross and burny."

"Alright. Callie try to get as many traps setup as you can." I said to my girlfriend as I stared worriedly out into the forest.
"I need another one of these flags at least, but once we get it done we can head back. I don't want to leave it too long, but we have plenty of rounds until this ends and if he could reach the 'stove' from here, he wouldn't have been screwing around looking for flags." I really hoped this wasn't another terrible calamity. I was getting sick of those.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The next few days were hectic. Well, they felt like days, with the weird timeshift in this place (or whatever was causing it) I hadn't regained access to my wishes. Still, I'd been doing some serious work on my forms, both Belial and the new one I had in development, and I felt stronger than ever. I managed to snag another flag, Gabriel got one, while Adrian got the last two, but he hit two flags after me, allowing me to just barely eke out a victory and collect the gold key piece.

I wanted Callie to take one, but she refused, making it clear that she was worried about what was coming and that since I had far less in the way of stats she wanted me to maintain my soul advantage. After the seventh round we all received a message from the temple in our heads, letting us know that after another ten hours the soul crushing stairs would open directly into this level.

Based on what we'd been told about the stairs being a passage between illusion and reality, it made sense we'd walk them ourselves instead of some portal door leading us to the base, but the unique nature of the transition had side effects I hadn't anticipated.

First, the key pieces were soul artifacts, and since we would be making the shift to the physical along the steps, once we boarded the stair all the key fragments would manifest in reality. It would make all the key holders targets, gold, silver, and bronze. It would also give me a chance to pass the silver to Callie, but we were expecting to be attacked at each of the ten levels.

So here we were, gathered in a dark field (after Bethy and Callie said their tearful goodbyes to Biscuit) waiting for the stair to descend. Now that the competition had ended, the teams had mostly scattered, and the different factions had split off to their original groups. Benny and Jessie came to join us, along with Gabriel, Chelsea, Nat, Perit, and Valk. My sister looked a bit sullen, probably at not getting any of the flags.

The teamwork thing had been unnecessary, but it had worked for Adrian at least. He'd gotten the silver key fragment this time, and probably at least one other time too. He'd have at least one gold fragment and probably one or two silver, which meant I was bound to fight him during the climb. "You guys get caught up on what the stairs entail?" I asked Benny, Jessie, and Gabriel.

The crusader nodded. "We did. I'd been planning to drop out, but since there are going to be twelve temples, I can just focus on conquering one myself. Sadly I suspect most of the competition will be cleared out in the key fights."

"That's not the biggest worry." I said firmly. "Keep an eye out for Bloody Billy. We still don't know what he's upto, and no one was able to find him. He doesn't seem exactly stable, so having the patience to drop out of the race and wait on the stairs descent instead of trying for the flags means he must be really committed to this plan."

Glancing around, I studied the crowd of Ascendants. At the end of the fifth trial, we were currently looking at around two hundred people remaining, but I didn't see Billy among them. He had to be nearby, the stair was the only possible way to the temples.

Callie took my hand, squeezing it reassuringly. "It'll be fine. Just keep that Eye of Revelation peeled. If he gets close you'll notice him. I doubt we'll see him this early though. Chances are good he'll wait until the last second to rush the steps. While attacks are definitely on the table, I'm betting on the steps themselves it'll be a bit tough to concentrate on fighting, what with the whole emotional and mental torture thing we'll all be going through.

I cursed. "We're going to get ambushed on the fucking platforms. I guess our best bet is to absorb the energy in shifts. Let the others fend off any attacks, then switch on the next platform. There are ten of them, so we'll all get five platforms of uninterrupted absorption, as opposed to just a tiny bit from each of them." I glanced at my sister and cousin. "You guys down to play body guard if we trade off?"

Chelsea looked uncertain, but eventually nodded. "We could do that. It does seem like the smartest move. This might be our last chance to get some more soul refinement and break our last shackle all at once. The heart shackle needs to be broken before we leave, and we'll need to focus on digesting what we learn from passing each section if we want to have the best chance."

That was true. I suspected the amount you gained from the stair varied from person to person. TIme to heal and focus and prepare would be integral to passing the next section after completing a tough one. Bethy squealed with excitement. "Oh, this is going to be so much fun! I love ambushes, there's so much strategy and preparation involved. I hope Billy tries to get us. I'll let my kitties eat him all up!"

I laughed at that. "Speaking of the animals, Randall and the cats, are they going to be going through the same tempering we are? Because I'll be honest, I'd rather not be standing next to a bear the size of a bus as it's tormented by unfamiliar and alien emotions."

Jessie glanced over at her ursine companion. "That does sound bad. Buddy, we might want to think about sending you back out before the stair." She paused. "No I don't think you're a teddy bear. I know you can fight and aren't just for hugs." She rolled her eyes. "No I love your hugs. Wait...honey? Where the hell did you get the idea to ask for honey? What do you mean you saw it in a book? You can't even read!"

Our resident vampire burst into a fit of giggles, throwing herself onto the bear's giant fluffy back. "Awww, it's ok buddy. I'll hug you. You're the biggest softest fuzzy wuzzy I've ever seen, yes you are." She cooed to the bear as the grabbed on and squeezed him tightly.

"Pretty sure he's suffocating." Said Benny dryly. "Either that or he's taken up interpretive dance. If it's the latter, I feel like it needs work. His moves are a little spastic.

Bethy rolled her eyes. "Don't be silly. Randall loves my hugs. Don't you buddy?" The weakly jerking bear wheezed slightly, and Bethy let him go with a sheepish grin. "Sorry buddy. But you're a big boy, and you've been in F-rank for ages. I figured you could handle a simple hug."

The bear threw both front paws up in an offended 'what the hell?' manner and Jessie burst out laughing. Bethy just pouted. I decided to steer the conversation away from the subject, and back our original topic. "I think sending Randall back might not be a bad plan. I'm not even sure how he got this far. How did he get through the maze and the forest?"

Jessie just shrugged. "He came with me. We're bonded, and I don't think the temple counts him as a separate entity." She paused, rolling her eyes and glancing at the bear. "Yeah, I'll lodge a complaint. That said, this next part will be rough, and you don't have the BEST temper." Randall reared back in outrage, throwing back his head and roaring his disagreement. Jessie just raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, that showed me."

The big bear chuffed, looking away in a clear indication that he didn't want to talk about this anymore. Jessie walked up to give him a hug of her own, laying her head on his side. "I'm sorry bud. You know I want to bring you with me, but I don't want to put you through something like this. You're not equipped to handle this. I don't think you've even broken your mind shackle. If animals CAN break the mind shackle."

He grumbled but eventually nodded somberly. Jessie gave him a peck on the nose then closed her eyes. Randall gave her one last sad look, then dissolved into golden sparks. Callie stepped up and put an arm around the shoulder of our forlorn healer. "It's ok sweety. He'll barely notice it. We think there's some kind of time speed up happening in here. He won't even notice you're gone."

The smaller blonde sniffed lightly. "I know. But I get so worried about the big goon. And I'm so used to having him around. He's big and cute and funny and he always makes my day better."

Callie's eyes fell on me, giving me a soft smile. "I've been there. Got one of those myself. Albeit slightly less hairy. So...why don't you introduce the others to Callen and...Chelsea was it?" She gave my sister a warm smile, extending her hand. "I'm Shane's girlfriend, Calliope. It's really nice to meet you. You can call me Callie, or Nightstrike, which is my cape name." When Chelsea reached out to take her hand, she pulled my twin sister into a tight hug before letting her go.

Chelsea, for her part, looking kind of dazed. Nat stepped forward. "And I'm Shane's cousin Natalie." Nat actually did shake hands. "On his dad's side." My sister's eyes lit up as she realized she was talking to another family member, and she shook back enthusiastically. I introduced the others, giving her the cliff notes on who they were.

She seemed a little shy, but happy to be there."I'm Chelsea Anders. It's really nice to meet you all. Thank you for being so welcoming." My friends had clearly picked up my vibe and decided to go with it, trusting that if I was happy to include her it must be for a reason. Callie was the only one who knew the circumstances of my mom leaving me behind, I'd told her in the woods, so the others were just following my lead, for which I was grateful.

Sadly, the whole first meeting between my sister and friends, was going to have to wait, because we were all interrupted by the sudden darkening of the sky above. Much like when the flags lit up, the sky had gone black, but unlike before, this didn't seem quite as pointless. Before it had been an aesthetic choice almost, but as the cold wind whipped the air around us into a frenzy and the dark clouds moved in, all I could think was 'shit is about to go down'.

In the darkness, a pinpoint of light appeared, a golden spark almost like a star, and as we watched, it began to expand. Around the descending light, the clouds that had rolled in swirled in circles, creating a guiding tunnel for what it could now be seen was a slowly growing golden staircase.

I felt a sense of pressure just looking at it, and as it got closer, my knees bent slightly, soaking up the increased force on all of us. As it slammed into the ground at last, there was a loud boom that shook the earth beneath our feet. Suddenly, after a second, the pressure lessened. On me. And Callie and Callen. A few others too, and it took me a second to realize that it was giving the members of the winning team an advantage.

Which was exactly when a bandaged form blurred out from between a group of suppressed members of the other team and set foot on the stairs. He took a step, then another, then another, and around the fifth step slowed down to a crawl. The rest of us bolted for the stairs, hoping to catch up, and the race to the top was on. Of course, that was hardly the biggest issue. No, that would be the fact that above Billy's head, four pieces of bronze key had materialized. I had the sneaking suspicion that him getting any of the keys would be bad. We needed to catch up.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The first level of the steps was pretty simple to start out. Greed. I set my foot down on the first step and suddenly became hyperfocused on...wanting. I wanted the keys above people's heads (four pieces of gold and two pieces of silver manifested over me, but I was a bit distracted), I wanted their weapons, their money, and anything else I could see. Luckily it was a pretty mild want, so I took another step.

The need to take intensified slightly, but was still easy to ignore, I stepped up again toward Billy, only to almost get blindsided by a large purple fist. My Danger Sense warned my in time, but it was close. My staff flashed out, slamming into the instep of my attacker, then kicking him down the steps as I moved up again.

Much like Billy, once I got a few steps up, THAT'S when I started slowing down. This particular section was absolutely diabolical, because the greed in question was the greed for everything but victory. The more people mounted the steps, the more you had to focus on, and the more people who focused on you.

The really strong people were able to stay focused, people like Gabe and Adrian and Abel. But random people who weren't as disciplined had turned the extremely wide golden steps into a free for all. I was far enough towards the front that there were only a few people to contend with, but the others had lagged behind me as I ran and were embroiled on the mess.

I saw Benny going blow for blow with some transformed apelike creature, the steps cracking slightly under him enough to make me realize he was density shifting his whole body consistently. I hadn't asked about what benefits breaking his mind shackle had had, or even if he'd managed it (though it seemed like he had) but he'd clearly become much stronger since getting here, his soul allowing him to put all the new stats to good use.

Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a flash of silver, and it took me a second to realize it was Callie, using the shadows of the people on the glowing steps as weapons, slashes of dangerous dark energy from her Abyssal Path tearing through her enemies. I turned slightly, my diagonal path set to intersect with hers.

Based on my current count, there were a hundred steps in the greed section. Every one drove me more and more mad for external objects, desperate to loot, steal, and plunder. I would have given in, honestly, but I saw Callie, and I focused on her. I had her in my life, and that was worth more than any theft. I didn't want to take, I wanted to give. Both pieces of this silver key to go with the one she already had.

She also had a bronze fragment, and I didn't want Billy to attack her for it. After about fifteen steps, I finally caught up with her. Reaching up, I snagged both silver pieces and shoved them toward her. The floating piece above her head seemed to attract them like magnets and suddenly she had three floating over her, same as I did. Up ahead I saw Adrian with one gold, three silver, and one bronze.

I debated fighting him for them, but I saw Callie freeze when she hit step twenty. Her eyes began to flicker around, and I cursed internally. My loot goblin girlfriend was exactly the wrong person to get through this.

My hand snaked out and grabbed hers, startling her slightly. "What do you need?" I asked firmly. She looked confused. "I'll get it for you. Any of it. You don't need to take anything. I'm here, just fight it and tell me what you need and I'll make it happen." She stared at me blankly. I just shrugged. "It's not greed if its for someone else. I don't want to see you fail before we even get to the first platform."

We were stopped on step twenty. We'd pulled ahead, but the rest were starting to catch up as the weak were weeded out enough to thin the crowd. It helped that these stairs were a ridiculously wide, but we'd all been pretty concentrated. Billy and Adrian were both far ahead, apparently when you're a serial killer who wants to watch the world burn, you're shockingly inured to material wants. Adrian I was pretty sure was just really disciplined.

Callie took a long, deep breath and exhaled through her nose. "I...I'm good. I promise. I'm with you. That's all I need." She squeezed my hand, smiling sweetly at me, and we took another step. The pressure redoubled, but somehow, it was barely noticeable. Not because of the bond, but because somehow, greed just felt...pointless. I was happy, she was happy, and we were together. What more could I want?"

Sadly our little moment outside time was interrupted by my danger sense and I swept her off her feet by her hand, spinning her out like we were dancing as a crackling ball of red lightning split the air where she'd just been. I turned and SPAT, using my Steam Arrow, and infusing it with Touch of Tears. It hit the tall woman with the braided hair who had thrown the orb and she screamed, toppling over and clutching her face.

There was a slight scuffle as she tumbled down the steps and then she stopped making sounds, apparently crushed under the careless feet of the rioting masses. I saw a huge vine reach up and snag someone about to jump Benny from behind, drawing my gaze as Jessie bodily hurled them off the side of the steps to presumably their death.

"You alright?" I asked Callie, who had started getting squirrely again when we got distracted. I paused. "Actually. Do you feel different? Because I feel different." I glanced down at myself and noticed nothing until I got to my staff. The Stygian Branch was now...heavier. Conceptually. The Impact difference was fading as both the staff and I slowly became more real. It wasn't E-rank yet, but it was a stronger F.

Callie shook her head sharply. "I do. It's not helping. This is the realification process huh?"

"I'm positive that isn't a word." I chuckled. "But yes, I think the conversion has- whoa!" I yanked her hand again, another spin whirling her out of the way of a charging figure shrouded in clouds of dark red smoke. My Danger Sense tipped me off early enough to plant my staff in front of his feet. He hit the staff, tripped, and slammed his face into the step in front of us. I brought the staff around like a bat and smashed it into his damaged face as he wobbled to his feet, sending him tumbling into the crowd.

Callie winced. "Ok, I think our plan to do the platforms in shifts will need reworking. We're together so we can take turns, but the group got separated, so the others will have to fend for themselves."

"At least they won't have too much trouble." I chuckled, glancing back down. "The extra soul strength is clearly making Benny hell on wheels, and her spiking Might stat has Jessie in a good place too. Those vines are durable and strong as hell. When we get up there, you can absorb the energy from the platform, I'll do the next one." She opened her mouth to argue and I cut her off. "No buts!" I said firmly. "You gave me the last flag. It's your turn."

She beamed at me, taking a long, slow breath. "Alright, I'm good to start moving again. Thanks for distracting me."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." I said with dignity. "But stay focused on me. We're a quarter of the way up." I squeezed her hand tighter and we started to climb. It was a terrible sensation. My teeth were chattering, my skin was tingling, I felt a compulsive need to take, take, take. The only thing that kept me grounded was Callie's hand in mine as we walked.

I could feel through the bond that she was doing just as badly. We'd passed the point where we could just focus through it halfway up. I was pretty sure rushing was making it worse, but we needed to get to the top fast enough to catch Billy. The bond kepy us both grounded, and by the time we hit step seventy five, we were basically leaning into the sensations as hard as we could to avoid the draw of the steps.

By the time we finished the last step, I collapsed to the ground in pain, heaving an gasping, Callie beside me doing the same. The constant twitch and cramp and jerk of muscles as we fought our own bodies was agonizing. I wished I had enough heal bursts to use but I was low. The energy from the platform helped, we were still mostly soul, and it poured into me for a minute, knitting my injuries together until I could focus enough to stand.

Callie was still shuddering, and I left her to absorb the soul refinement energy. I'd only taken enough to set me right, but I'd said I'd guard her and I would. The second we stepped off the stairs I felt the blare of my Danger Sense. I'd expected to be attacked, but nothing had happened yet, so I glanced around and was relatively unsurprised to find Adrian standing there, waiting for me.

"You know, Billy is getting away." I gestured over his shoulder where the murderous lunatic we'd been chasing had mounted the next set of steps.

He smiled placidly. "I don't care. I'm not here for him. I'm here for that key. You can give it to me or I can take it. I'll even trade you the silver, your girl has most of it already. You can come in second place. No reason to get you both booted out of here early."

I laughed at that. "You know, I don't care too much either. I'm a bit worried, but honestly, I'm not going to fight you because I need to catch him. That's a problem for future Shane. No, I just want to see if I can beat you. Everyone has been talking you up, so afraid of big bad Adrian from the Fist God Temple."

This was going to need to happen eventually, and I didn't feel like running. One on one, me vs him. I wanted that. Wanted to win, and I wanted to test out my new single combat Goetia form. So I did. I reached down into my DS Mastery. I triggered Consecration of Flames, Afterburner, and Mercy Kill. Flames infused my body, filling me up, not transforming me, but boosting and enhancing me as those skills all merged together.

My hair was flame, my eyes were flame, and my breath came out as puffs of steam as my muscles tensed and flexed. For the final touch, I triggered Marked for Death, imbuing the ability to destroy defenses into the fire, and the bright flickering flames turned dark and ominous as the energy became geared toward destruction.

I spun up my staff, the dark wood blazing on both ends with black flames as I prepared to fight. Adrian raised an eyebrow. "I head your schtick was green magma. This seems different."

Baring my teeth at him, I triggered State of Grace, Flurry of Blows, and Ripple Running, readying myself to attack as I adjusted to the previously theoretical melding of my fire skills. "Yeah, this is new. Hope you like it, you're the first person I'm showing it to." Stepping off the ground, I blurred forward, thrusting out with the staff and concentrating all my force into a sharp brutal jab at his foot. He dodged and the platform groaned as the impact blew a hole in it. "Goetia staff art: second form." I intoned with a grin. "Mephistopheles."

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Leverage. It was an important part of staff combat. Maybe the most important part, at least based on what Willow taught me. But as much as leverage could do in a fight, Goetia wasn't some single faceted stick swinging style. It was a manifestation of my potential. It was a way to connect my Path and my combat style into a single unifying force.

Which meant leverage wasn't all I needed. Leverage worked well as a principal for Belial, but for Mephistopheles it didn't fit. This was my offensive style, the whole point of it was focus, packing as much damage into the smallest area possible. I.E the end of the staff.

I held the Stygian Branch with on hand wrapped loosely around it as a guide and one at the back gripping tight as I shoved it forward like a pool cue. Back and forth, a torrent of staves appeared in front of me, powerful black flames on the tip leaving scores of lines in the air as I peppered Adrian with attacks.

The smaller man was every bit as impressive as I'd been told. His fists flashed out in a blur, deflecting and offsetting my attacks as he adjust his body. Every punch was short and sharp, crushing my momentum and stopping my attacks before they landed. His fists glowed as he punched, white energy coating them and offsetting most of the damage.

Backing off, I cursed. The whole thrusting stab concept was fine, but it wouldn't work against someone like this, it was too limited. Adrian was shaking out his hands warily as he circled me. "That was actually painful. I can feel a Path in those attacks, and a dense one. Achieving a Solid Path without Mastery is rare." He flashed forward, fists blurring as he came at me.

Unlike Abel, Adrian didn't go in for the large images or the fancy windup. Short brutal punches, economy of motion, close attacks with no time to react. Those were his weapons of choice. He was in my guard within seconds, hammering punches into my chest and ribs, and throwing the occasional uppercut at my jaw. I triggered Mountain Stance as he came in, which soaked most of the damage, but I quickly realized my new form was falling apart.

When I figured that out, that was when I knew how to fix it. I attacked. Staff forms weren't just about the staff. Forms were ways to use my entire body and all my powers. I hammered out my own punch into his face, black flame congealing on my fist, and as he backed up, I slammed down my staff at his foot, forcing him back. I'd been too narrow minded. Focused damage didn't just mean thrusting attacks.

I'd been enlightened by his combat style, short, sharp blows of pretty much any kind had the power I was looking for. I was using close combat too, but the big difference was reach. My staff and wingspan made short attacks substantially more versatile. Aside from that, I'd backed off. Mephistopheles was a guardbreaker, pure unrelenting force, and that meant momentum.

Ruthlessly aiming for every possible weak spot, I followed him, sticking to the now retreating Master like glue. Belial was the about control, dictating someone's fate, but Mephistopheles was about crushing it. Dominate the enemy, conquer their destiny. I slammed my staff into Adrian's knee, then my elbow into his nose. My shoulder check sent him stumbling back as the bottom of my staff smashed down on his ankle.

Snarling, he slammed his other foot down, sticking in place to arrest some of my momentum and threw himself at me, trying to cancel my advance with his own. The fight devolved into a pure slugging match. I'd dropped Mountain Stance, it didn't work while advancing, and defense would be counterintuitive to this form. This was an assault, a knock down drag out brawl.

Every part of me was a weapon, black flames exploding on contact as I struck out. I felt bones fracture under Adrian's Master level punches, but I ignored that. They weren't real bones, what did it matter. I smashed my mask into his face, hooked my staff behind his back and held on, pinning him in close as I drove my knee up into his chest repeatedly, then stomped down on his own knee as he blocked.

The pain was excruciating, but I was having the time of my life. I didn't care about tactics, or prediction, or any of that. Despite that, I was more in tune with my Path than I'd ever been. Crush the enemy, stomp his fate into dirt. I cackled madly, and Adrian met my laugh with a grin of his own. He was burned and bleeding and beaten, but he neither gave nor asked for quarter.

I lashed out at his knee with my staff, shifting my grip to maneuver in tight quarters, and when he dodged, I slammed the butt of it up into the bottom of his chin at an angle, pouring the black flames into the attack. His head snapped back and he stumbled away, leaving me to follow and batter him with hits.

My physical power was boosted in this form, Afterburner being a part of the form itself rather than a temporary boost meant I was just multiple times stronger, combined with the boost from Mercy Kill and the defense breaking from Marked for Death I was putting out the most brutal offense I was capable of, something pretty close to the absolute limits of F-rank.

The damage was adding up, but I didn't care. I roared with excitement as I attacked, feeling bones crack under the blows from staff, feet, and elbows. Adrian had committed to short range combat, and Mephistopheles was pure destruction. I'd created it for this exact purpose. Single target battle with explosive damage. Master or not, up against a Solid Path like mine in its element he couldn't keep up.

When the drop came, I was ready. His shoulder dipped, and I came in with brutal swing that put all my momentum behind it, pouring power in as my staff smashed into his head, caving it in and dispersing the spirit construct completely. I dropped to my knees, not needing to even catch myself as the key fragments shifted to me. The gold ones clicked together, forming a solid key that hung above me majestically.

Callie rushed over, her absorption forgotten. "Shane!" Mephistopheles was fading now, the adrenaline and power gone and between the broken everything and the drain from Afterburner being part of the form, I was barely mobile. I triggered my heal burst with a scan heal, my last charge of the former, and groaned as I felt the energy flood me and get to work. "That was crazy, are you alright?"

I just chuckled. "Yeah, I'm fine Cal. Well, no, I'm horrifically injured. My organs feel like speed bags. But I'm alive and probably going to stay that way. Kind of lost my head there for a second. The new staff form floods me with destructive energy, kind of lost myself in the aggression." Which was new. Belial didn't affect my thinking at all, probably because it was a weaker form. I'd have to do some training with Mephistopheles.

"Grab the silver key fragments." I said with a wince as I tried to sit up. "You're still short of the full key, but you only have one more piece to get and we need to take out Billy anyway. Once you do that get back to absorbing before more people get here "

"But you..." She trailed off, gazing worriedly down at me. Then she nodded. "Ok, if you think you're all good then I believe you."

I chuckled. "I'm a mess, but I'll heal. After that showing I don't think anyone who noticed will try me easily either. Honestly I should already be healed, but becoming more physical means the damage isn't healing as well I guess, either that or Master level damage sticks around longer."

That was probably it. While I waited for my injuries to heal I got back to my feet and leaned on my staff. Even without an active attempt to absorb it, the soul energy from the platform WAS helping though. I may be more physical but I was still at least partially soul, and it seemed to be boosting the healing.

I needed to get in touch with Jessie. Hell, I needed more wishes to trade for healing charges. Not having access to them was forcing me to put a lot of emphasis on my combat skills, which was good, but it would be nice to have access to my trump cards again.

While I watched and waited I did a bit of musing on my Path so far. Path of the Doom Sovereign. The form that took was the Fatewalker because of my build. The Diviner, the Monk, the Rogue. There were multiple ways to embody my Path.
Belial was control, very Roguelike, while Mephistopheles was more of a Monk kind of thing. Direct combat and martial power. The loss of control wasn't what I wanted there. I needed to practice with that a bit soon. I looked over my shoulder at Billy, who was already halfway up the damned steps. I wanted to catch him, but I was in no condition, and I wasn't willing to screw over Callie.

This advancement would be good for her. I concentrated on my own soul, and I could feel it being repaired by the combination of the strain and the runoff from the platform. It wouldn't push me too far ahead without me trying to draw it in, but just the soul weight I'd endured would probably get me up to forty percent of yellow, maybe a percent or two higher.

Finally, Callie let out a long breath and got to her feet. "I think that's the most I'm going to be able to process right now. I could keep going, but it would only be draining energy the others could use when they get here. That seems like a bad call no matter how I look at it. Forget our friends, if we suck this thing dry we'll have people on our asses much faster than we would if they stopped to absorb."

I hadn't known you could fill up on soul energy, but I supposed it made sense. If you could run out you could overfill. I guessed we just hadn't run into a situation yet in the trials where we'd gotten enough for it to be an issue. "Alright, we move on then." I held out a hand. "Want to go together again? We did pretty well last time."

She smiled softly at me, leaning up to kiss the cheek of my mask. "No. I know you're trying to break your heart shackle. Support will make that harder. I should work on mine too. I'm not scared of anything when I'm with you, but that's not exactly a pro in this case. You got me through the section I probably would have lost it at, I can go it on my own from here."

"Alright." I chuckled. "I'll wait for you up there if I get to the next platform first."

She sniffed imperiously. "Why do you think you'll get there first? I think it's clear that I'm one most likely to get through this quickly. You'll be eating my dust."

"You? Preparing food?" I asked with a grin. "Now I know you're delusional. Did that last staircase cause permanent damage somehow? You might want to sit this out." Her outraged scoff was too over the top to be realistic, but I smiled at the back and forth anyway. It felt good to bicker a bit with her before we moved on to the really rough stuff. Sadly, we saw people coming up behind us (sadly not our friends) and we had to stop putting it off. Separately, but at the same time, we stepped onto the soul crushing stair's second section.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The next section was something a bit confusing for me. Hate. Stepping onto it, I felt a bit thrown by the sensation. I wasn't a hateful person. I disliked people, was annoyed by people, even got violently angry at people, but hate...I'd only hated one or two people. Pietro, the brat from the Black Sorrow Cult. Aiden, for what he'd done to Cass and the other kids. Even then I hadn't dwelled on it.

But as I took the next step, the sensation grew. I hated. Hated so many things. I hated the feel of air on my skin, hated the weight of my armor, hated the creak of the leather as I took a step. Hate hate hate. It was deeply unsettling. I couldn't imagine being this kind of person, the kind of person who felt this disgusted at each and every experience in their life, who looked at the world like this.

Most of all, I hated the idea of continuing. I wanted to stop, wanted to go back, wanted to give up and stop feeling like this. I paused, breathing deeply as I tried to come to terms with the sick churning awfulness in my gut. I'd assumed hate would come with anger, but this was so much worse. This sort of infected rotting emptiness inside me, like nothing would ever make me happy again.

I glanced across the stairs, my eyes landing on Callie, though, and suddenly, the burden lessened. My girl. There was no way to feel the way I felt looking at her and that creeping nothingness at the same time. It was like someone lit a candle in the abyss that had been consuming my gut, and the light was driving away all that darkness. Not completely, I still felt it around the edges, but it helped. Helped remind me who I was.

Despite that, I forced myself to look away after I was stable. Love helped more than I could say, but I needed to get through this. I needed to be able to survive this kind of experience on my own. That was why we'd come up onto the steps separately. To show we had what it took.

I stepped again, and then again, resuming my climb. I was already ten steps up, but it was getting harder. The disgust and loathing were back, growing inside me, and as it grew worse I started to worry. It felt like it was hollowing me out, consuming me. If I kept going there might be nothing left of me.

That feeling got worse as I stepped, but I ignored it. Pain, misery, this was all temporary. I could take anything for a little while, I knew it would pass, the clouds would part and the sun would come out again. The positive imagery sadly faded after a few more steps. The shine came off the apple, but I focused on the practical facts. I was going to make it. This feeling was awful, but I'd get through it. It couldn't do anything to me I didn't let it.

Emotions can be tough to deal with. Even if you know what you're feeling isn't rational or logical, that doesn't make it go away. Pain is pain, hurt is hurt. But people can adapt, they can adjust. I stopped at step twenty five, ready to just about collapse. I focused on the sensations hurting me. I felt the pain, the hate, the disgust. Then I felt it again. And again. And again.

I beat myself over the head with it, forced myself to live in that terrible loathing. The more I experienced it, the less it hurt. It had less power over me as I got used to it. Then I took another step, and did the same thing again. The tricky part wasn't becoming accustomed to it, it was not letting it change me as I did.

Making that hate a part of me was awful, adapting felt like it was bringing me closer and closer to the worst version of myself. Terrible thoughts about everyone I loved, about people who didn't deserve it, started to seep into my head. Questioning their intentions, why I needed them, whether they were waiting to betray me. I felt like my heart was a raw open wound weeping with infection.

Still I walked on. Every step made life worse. The world was disgusting. I felt like I was moving through sandpaper and razor wire. I was halfway up now, and the thought that it would keep getting worse made me want to die, but I kept going. My emotions were a mess, every positive thing I had ever experienced seemed sinister and awful.

So I focused on things that weren't positive. Things that were just true. My strength, my effort, the pain I'd been through. I needed a reason to keep going, and I forced myself to make power that reason. Strength for the sake of strength felt hollow most of the time, but right now hollow was what I needed. It was safe, and selfish, and I couldn't hate it. I needed so badly not to hate something.

That helped, the focus on pragmatic power growth, for the moment. But it made me reevaluate myself in so many ways, these steps stripped you bare one emotion at a time, they showed you things about yourself you'd never see normally. I could feel myself becoming more real too, more parts of me becoming solid and factual.

I looked around in shock as I got to the seventy fifth step, I didn't see anyone but Callie, who wasn't paying attention to me, nearby. There were others but they were further down. Unlike the greed steps, they weren't tearing into each other like I'd expected, they were just trying to move forward, and they were going a lot slower than before. The hate steps were harder for most people I think, and it was definitely showing. I turned back, focusing on moving forward again.

Focusing on the top of the steps, I looked for Billy. He'd already passed the section and started the next. Looking at him actually kind of helped, because all the hate focused on him and that drove me forward somewhat. Fuck that guy. But it didn't last, I had to bring my mind back to the neutral place I'd found in my path to power to continue, letting the hate wash off me like water off a ducks back.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, I stepped onto the second platform, looking back to make sure I was alone before sitting down to pull in soul energy. I was still damaged from the fight, and the destabilizing influence of the steps didn't help so I had some mending to do before I started improving my soul past where it was.

I used that as an opportunity to smooth over the jagged edges of the emotional damage. The hate was gone, but the influence it had on me persisted. Callie was behind me, and made it up to the platform to stand guard over me, but I ignored her as I focused on myself. Let go of the disgust, the fear, the despair that the hatred had ground into me, let myself feel happiness again, feel joy.

Hate was so much more destructive than greed, at least to me. I slowly sifted through my memories, rediscovering the good, finding my loved ones, the happy times in my life, reminding myself of who and what I was. The soul crushing stair was aptly named. These emotions it forced on us were poison, a creeping destructive venom of our own making that would twist and warp us if we let it.

The feeling of becoming real as it happened just pushed it deeper, made it matter more. These platforms were necessary to find yourself after and remember what you're supposed to be like. Oddly, I felt more like me when I was done than I ever had. I had a new perspective on my life, on my heart and the way I saw things. I felt like I'd touched even more deeply on my heart shackle, though I still didn't know what it was in a way I could articulate.

Stripping yourself down and rebuilding yourself let you remove the poisons that were already there. The few bits of hate that had been in me before had been sanded down, made smooth and simple by the experience. I could think about Aiden, and about Pietro, without getting angry or agitated. They were truly behind me.

Once that was past, I started pulling in the energy from the platform, siphoning it into me. It spilled into my soul, infusing and filling me. Maybe because I was partially real at this point, it felt different. More profound. It started at the bottom of my feet and slowly rose, washing through my muscles and bones, reinforcing the me inside my skin without affecting my body at all.

This was my first time experiencing the soul refinement energy of the Ruined Soul Temple with my physical form, or at least part of it. After probably twenty minutes though, my body reached saturation. Just like with Callie on the first platform the energy had filled my body to the brim. I could still take more in but most of it would just overflow, there would barely be an effect.

Feeling the energy, I could understand how the stairs worked. The damage I'd been undergoing from the emotions of the soul crushing steps was a type of sublimation, and the process would use up the energy, transforming it into refinement. It was much more effective than just bashing my soul up and using the energy to patch the damage.

I opened my eyes, glancing at Callie, who was standing guard nearby. "Hey." I said softly. She jumped, whirling around from where she'd been eyeing a few people who had just arrived. "You want to take a turn? I imagine you've been pulling a little, but you need to fill up before the next section if you want the full effect of the steps."

She waved me off. "Nah, it's fine. I don't think we're expected to fill up completely. I still have leftover energy from the first platform. I can fill up on the next one again and be fine." She grimaced. "What is the next one anyway? That was...bad. It wasn't as insidious for me as the first section, but it made me feel sick."

Climbing to my feet, I held out a hand and pulled Callie tight against me. "I know. I felt it too. It was a really unpleasant sensation. Next section is Delusion, and I have absolutely no clue what that even entails. Getting lost in heartbreaking daydreams? Who knows. I'm kind of worried about that one too."

"It'll be ok." She said with a soft smile. "We'll be fine. This is how we get stronger. Before you know it we'll have broken out second shackle and be on our way to an Azure soul body. I'm thinking of trying to train my Shadow Manipulation to Master level. I have to keep it ahead of my ability to rank up now that I've synergized anyway, and having a Master rank Skill would be pretty neat."

I grinned. "It would, or you could try to go the Path route like I did, and turn your Path into a Skill." I wasn't sure how hard it would be, but it would give her a good leg up on reaching D-rank.

"We'll see." She giggled. "The point is, we'll be fine and we're looking out for each other. Now, let's split up again and walk up another flight of stairs terrified and alone." I could tell from her flippant tone that she was trying to be lighthearted, but I could feel her worry through the bond. Still, I nodded to her gently, gave her hand a squeeze, then dropped it. We still had five more flights to go. Time to get moving.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The next four sections were hellish. Delusion, vanity, confusion, doubt. Each flight seemed to inundate me with awful sensation and then rip it out, stripping away the bits of it that remained insides. Each time I came away a bit stronger, if raw, and each time I felt myself get closer and closer to the truth of my second shackle. When we finally reached the last platform, I could feel the weight of my full presence, of my staff, and of the changes that had been made.

I was here. Really here, not as a fragment, and I was...different. I'd reached the peak of yellow, to my shock, but the shackle held me fast, containing my soul so it was incapable of breaking through and sublimating as I needed it to. It was an uncomfortable sensation, different than the mind shackle had been. The heart shackle was external, and it felt more restrictive, more uncomfortable.

Callie stood next to me, shaking slightly and with a glazed look on her face. She's had it just as bad if not worse. If nothing else though, we'd outpaced the others, and pulled pretty far ahead. This platform had been my turn, but since we'd hit our limits for growth, I'd only needed to absorb enough to heal. Callie had done the same and now we were facing the last set of steps together.

Sloth didn't seem like quite as much trouble as the rest, but...I was tired. Even before stepping foot on the first stair I was weary to an extent I'd never come close to before. Emotionally, physically, mentally, I was just drained. Empty. I'd FELT so much. Endured so much. Every step was harder to take, even the shift between emotions didn't matter anymore. The walk had seemed so endless and I was so run down.

The only reason I could keep going was the bond. Was Callie. The reason we'd pulled so far ahead was that the rest of them had to stop, and rest, and recover. But we hadn't. We'd kept going. Partly to prove to ourselves we could. Partly to prove it to each other. Partly to make sure neither of us had to continue alone, and partly to try to catch up to Billy.

We'd almost got him at the confusion platform. But we'd been so out of it that the fight had barely made sense. We'd attacked together, but whatever madness was in him made him more resistant to the emotions on the soul crushing stairs. We'd been winning, and even managed to snag his key shards, but he'd pulled out that damned vial of lamentation liquid and the whole stair began to shake.

He'd used the distraction to snatch the last bronze piece, completing his key, and ran off while we were trying to process what was happening. Being still confused and addled from the steps hadn't helped.

His behavior mystified me honestly. Why did he need a key? What was the stove? I pushed down those thoughts. I didn't need them right now. Couldn't take them. This next set of steps was going to be...hell. "Are you ready for this?" I asked Callie quietly. My voice was hoarse and tired. "We can go together?"

I made that offer every time, and every time she said no. I only made it so she'd know I was here if she needed me, I didn't want her to take me up on it. But...this time she almost did. She hesitated, dwelling on the option, and I could feel her desire to take my hand, to take comfort in my presence after our trials.

The things we'd gone through on these steps...soul crushing was right. I could barely function. I felt like I'd lived a hundred lives. Awful lives. This place really was crushing my soul, grinding it into dust and recasting it, smoothing out all the rough edges.

Finally, she shook her head. "No." She said firmly. "This is the last one. I know this is hard, but we can do this." She sounded like she was trying to convince herself more than me, but with each word, her tone became firmer. She smiled at me. "You can do this. I believe in you. And I know you believe in me."

Nodding to each other, we turned and faced the last one hundred steps. The people who created this were sadistic geniuses. Sloth being the last flight of stairs had seemed like almost a relief a minute ago. How could Sloth compare to Hate, or Confusion? But it capitalized on every ounce of weariness. The more I thought about it the more worried I got. So...I stopped thinking.

I just stepped. The first step was barely noticeable. I felt the notion pop into my head that maybe this was too much trouble, maybe I should just stay on the platform, recover a bit before I went. I pushed past it, recognizing that for what it was. Doubt had been a bit like that. Not as insidious in some ways, though worse in others. Doubt had probably been the most terrible of the first six.

Still walking, I went to the second step, then the third. The desire to turn back became stronger, more extreme. Why was I doing this? Why was I doing any of this? I should just go home. I was so tired. I wasn't giving up. There would be time later for adventures. I just needed a rest. I'd already made so much progress.

My foot froze on the tenth step. Why WAS I moving forward? Was it for me? I'd already learned that I needed to be myself, to stop trying to please everyone. Was I really doing that? Was pressing myself to get stronger really for me? Was this part of my heart shackle? Was I just giving in? I was so fucking tired. Every step was a lead weight crashing down on my head, blurring my vision and sapping my will.

I looked at Callie, swaying on her feet but advancing, fighting with every ounce of her soul to move forward. I could see, could FEEL how exhausted she was, but she just kept going. For me. For herself. For her mom. I grinned. Who cared about a little tiredness. If I let her get too far ahead I wouldn't be able to catch her if she slipped. Why was I focusing so hard on my reasons for doing this. I only needed the reason right in front of my face.

Be myself. That didn't mean be a selfish bastard motivated be my own desires and not care about anybody else. I took another step, and that sensation became clearer. The heart shackle had been bothering me for a while, and it wasn't until this moment I could really put the reason into words.

The heart lock was external. It was about the way other people weighed on me, about how they made me change. The mind shackle was from within, it was all about me, but the heart shackle meant confronting the effect others had on me, and breaking that...would it make those parts of me go away? Would it turn me into the same kind of arrogant jackass I'd seen other cultivators become? Would it destroy the things that made me happy?

And as I took another step, somehow reaching the halfway point without even noticing, I realized that THAT was my heart shackle. The fear of losing my attachment to the people I cared about. Being myself was an easy thing to commit to, because I just needed to block out all the nonsense, but this was something a bit more...elusive.

Because if I just decided to let that go, what was the difference between that and my fear coming true. My connections might not make me HUMAN exactly, I wasn't sure how close I was to that anymore, but they made me, well, me. If I unburdened myself of all connection I'd become the exact monster I was scared of becoming. Did that mean that the heart shackle was one I couldn't break?

The thought rang in my head like a bell. After finding it and having been planning to break it for so long, I could feel the damned thing jangling like it was about to snap. On the upside I wasn't tired. But...was my sudden desire to back away from this part of the Sloth flight's influence on me?

I forced myself to examine my thought processes. I knew what the shackle was. I needed to let go of that fear to break it. If I let go of the fear I'd be fullfill-wait. No. Letting go of the fear didn't mean letting go of my connections. That was a false equivalency. This whole experience was about facing down and accepting things without throwing them away. The ability to feel hate, and greed, and, sloth, and not be ruled by them.

Couldn't I do the same thing with my fear? This wasn't the same thing as the fear of loneliness I'd had to overcome in the forest. This was about what I was scared I'd become if I let go of my friends and loved ones. Even in the forest, the conclusion I'd come to was that if they went away, the effect they had on me would remain. I'd still be the same person.

And that had led me to my mind shackle, that I needed to be myself. That I needed to do what I did for me as well as for them. Now I needed to come to terms with my fear of losing those ties they left behind, but I didn't need to actually lose them. Not all my realizations had to come with some big sweeping change, wasn't that what being myself meant. Accepting who and what I was?

I was afraid of becoming a monster. I was afraid of leaving behind the bonds that kept me grounded. And that...was fine. I was me, and I decided what was important to me. That fear was a part of me but it didn't control me. I focused on it as I stepped forward again. On my dread, and I let the Sloth really smash it down on me. The thoughts about giving up, about how it was too much, wouldn't go away.

But I didn't want them to. I was going to overcome my fear the same way I'd overcome all the other emotions. I would get past it without actually severing those bonds. So I experienced it full blast. I lived in it. I felt the terror in every single cell of my body. It made me sick, and terrified, and I was shaking, but I pushed through.

I imagined losing Callie. Not the way I had in the forest, but losing what she'd made me. The one thing I'd clung to to get through that dark wood. Then the others, losing every single bit of change, not even being what I was before I got my powers, because I wouldn't have had Benny. It made me ill, I didn't want to think about it. But I did anyway. I forced myself to relive those sensations.

They mixed with the Sloth, they made it worse, but I couldn't stop, couldn't give up. I knew the desire to give in and turn back wasn't really me, and somehow that made it easier to ignore. I wasn't weak, the stair was trying to push me down, but I wouldn't let it.

Finally, my foot hit the platform, and there was a shattering sensation rocking my body as my soul sublimated again, the energy already at its limits carrying me from yellow into green. I felt...reborn. Spiritually. Physically I felt like shit, mostly because I was now completely present in this place. This was me, the real me, with all my stuff and all my flaws. A me that had officially reached green. Turning back, I glanced down at the stairs to wait for Callie. Once she arrived, we'd take a beat to rest, and then head off after Billy. There was no time to lose.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Breaking my second shackle was...odd. I felt strange. Like there had been a lot of little gaps in me that were gone now. The sublimation that elevated my soul to green had further refined it, made it seamless, stronger. Of course, I still had one more in store, eventually. The condensation of my Azure Soul Body. That was a ways away though. I had to completely refine my soul through green first.

Callie had slowed down, but as I watched, something about her changed. She stepped onto the platform and her posture shifted, altering the impression she gave. I felt through the bond when she changed as I had. Her soul was still her, of course, but it was...MORE her. Somehow. She grinned and raced over to throw herself into my arms, clinging to me as we both nearly collapsed against each other for support.

Billy was gone. I knew where, at least, whichever temple the bronze key opened. For the moment though, we were all but useless, and he'd gotten here ahead of us. We needed to rest. We spent about twenty minutes on the platform, both of us absorbing the energy since there was no one close enough to ambush us. This was the last one, so we wanted to get as much out of it as possible.

"So." I said as we sat and gathered ourselves. "What was your heart shackle, if you don't mind me asking. I felt you break it but I didn't get the whole picture."

"You." She said bluntly. "The further we go, the more we see, the more I worry I won't be able to keep up. You've shown me all these amazing things, and I love being with you, but I'm scared you'll leave me behind, and I've been constantly fighting with that."

I nodded. "I've felt some of that. Through the bond I mean. And YOU'VE felt how stupid it is to even think it right?"
Her smile lit up the whole platform. "I have. It didn't help. The idea that you would leave me behind, that I needed to keep up. That was the shackle. Because...you won't. I know you. I can feel what you feel most of the time. You love me and you won't leave. It took a lot to break that. It helps that I have my own thing that makes me special now, granted. Being a godslayer will probably help me keep up."

"Not to mention this whole experience." I pointed out. "We're at green now. Even if we don't manage to get to the Azure Soul Body we're still at the same level as some of the most powerful juniors across the factions. We're going to be on track to really hit the scene with a bang when we get to some of the more central galaxies."

She nodded. "That too. All in all, it was a lot of little stuff that let me break it. It's hard to put it into words, which I'm sure you get having experienced it."

I lapsed into silence. She was right, words fell short, and we knew each other well enough not to need them. I took her hand in mine and we just sat, recovering, relaxing, being together. Eventually though, we reached our limits and we both god a good ten percent of the way into green.

Standing, I turned in the opposite directions of the stair, finally ready to take in the temples. I'd purposefully help back, forcing myself to be careful about looking lest I get excited and want to cut our recovery short. It had been a good idea, because they were all fucking amazing. Past the steps was a sea of clouds, thick and white and almost solid looking. Actually, they WERE solid, because as looked closer I could see the buildings sitting ON the clouds.

The temples were far apart mostly. Evenly spaced in a circle around a central point. The only exception were three unusually large buildings, built in a triangle around some kind of central courtyard I couldn't see. I felt a pull from the golden key I was holding, leading me towards the most ostentatious temple.

"Ok, so he got the bronze key, I'm guessing he was trying to get to whatever is in that courtyard." I said as Callie and I cautiously stepped onto the clouds. I had a hand on her arm, ready to step off the air if necessary, but the clouds only gave a bit under our weight, more like a bouncy floor than any sort of dangerous drop.

"If that's true we'll need to split up and enter from either temple." She said with a nod. "Aside from the keys being made like that, it'll give us the best chance to catch him."

Approaching the trio of buildings, we stopped a small distance away, where we would need to separate. I pulled my mask off, leaning down to kiss her softly. "Be safe, ok? If you get there first don't attack without me. And I'll do the same. Whatever he's doing PROBABLY isn't good, but chances are whatever it is won't be enough to cause problems with all the guardians outside. The whole system is full of A and B-rankers."

She giggled. "Are you reminding me or yourself. You look terrified." Her own voice was a little rough, and I felt her unease through the bond but chose to say nothing. She gave me one more kiss, then turned and headed for the temple where I assumed her silver key would be inserted.

Left alone, I readied the gold key and headed for the door it was pulling me toward. I wasn't sure what would be IN the temple, but I admit I was looking forward to it. I already had plans for what I wanted, and while it might not be anything too crazy, I was sure it would help me going forward. I'd been planning what to do since Zeke had mentioned some of the options, after all.

Approaching the temple (subtemple? we were in a temple already so I wasn't sure), I took in the facade. White marble trimmed in gold. Not overdone, but still ostentatious. The door at the entrance was circular, and made of an overlapping mass of golden gears, all locked into place together to create an impassable barrier. in the center was one extra shiny gear with a small hole the exact shape of the key I was holding set in the middle.

Glancing around and half expecting some kind of monster or minion to jump out and attack me, I took the whole piece in with interest. This thing was immaculately built, gorgeously refined, and seemed to be balanced absolutely flawlessly. I kind of wished Benny was here to see it. Since he wasn't though, I withdrew the key from the pouch I'd stored it in after it formed and slipped it into the lock, giving it a light turn until it clicked.

The gear turned, and the ones beside it began to spin. One gear turned another turned another, and each one began to make a sound. A symphony of golden wheels spinning in synchronized, hypnotic harmony. As the gears spun away, they all shifted along each other, whirling up and around or down and back, stripping away the barrier in front of the entrance to the temple until the door became an archway, admitting me into a brightly lit temple.

Inside the archway I was surprised to find green grass instead of hard floors. A peaceful meadow extended the length of the room, and in the center sat a crystalline lake, smooth as glass. A series of stones led to the center, where a small island sat, a single tiny hut adorning the sugar sand, in front of which sat a rocking chair.

I stepped onto the grass, and even through my shoes I could feel the soft, luxurious give of the grass. It was heavenly. I could even smell a mixture of flowers and cool refreshing water (somehow, even though water doesn't really smell like a thing, I could smell it) carried on the breeze that there shouldn't have even been inside a building. All in all, I gave it a nine out of ten for comfort.

That impression was somewhat dampened by the slam of gears crashing together as I turned to see the door resealing itself, but I got over that quick. Shrugging, I turned back to the lake, heading across the meadow. Along the way I saw cute little animals like rabbits and birds flitting about, they looked adorable and I wanted to pet them, but they were all shockingly E-ranked, and I didn't have a death wish.

When I reached the lake I took a step out onto the first stone, and I immediately felt a weight slam down on me. I wobbled but got my footing, looking around for some kind of trap. It wasn't one though, not that they would need one with the super animals hopping around. The little singing bluebird I'd just seen flutter by could probably kill every person in the damned temple.

After it became clear this wasn't a trap, I realized it had to be a test. That was fine, I'd already absorbed plenty of energy when I topped up earlier, I had soul refinement to spare. Unlike the stairs though, this wasn't an emotion or a sensation. This was just...weight. Pure soul weight.

Grimacing, I steadied myself, took a deep breath, and hopped to the next rock. I grunted as I landed, this felt like trying to jump wearing a car strapped to my back. The previously idyllic and scenic rock path had transformed into an agonizing obstacle. I tried to feel for my bond with Callie, but I got nothing. I was isolated. Having gotten close I could see a figure in the rocking chair that hadn't been there before. Specifically, MY figure.

Of course it would be me. I shook off the surprise. This whole place was designed to keep you off balance. On the upside I could make some progress in green with the leftover soul refinement energy from the platform, and work on my willpower too. It was a win win. Unless I fell into the water. I wasn't sure what the hell would happen, but somehow I didn't think it was going to be idyllic or scenic in the least.

I jumped again. And again. It was...hard. But it wasn't difficult. Without the emotional turmoil it was almost fun, like a tough workout. One step at a time, one hop, then the next. I was dripping sweat by the time I was halfway, but I felt more complete at the same time.

My soul had been upgraded, sublimated, but there was still some dissonance between my new abilities and my usage of my soul. The soul could alter skills, could adjust them, but the actual act of alteration required control. With all the power I'd gotten my soul was overpowered. I was wasting effort when I did things, shoving power into actions to make them work. This pressure was helping me refine that control, gain precision.

Now I knew why this was here. It wasn't a test. It was a reward. A helping hand along the path for anyone who was willing to take it, provided they got to the temple. I wondered if the silver and bronze subtemples had them. Maybe Callie was on one right now.

With that in mind, the rest of it was, while exhausting, mentally much easier. This was something I WANTED to do, not something I was forced to do. When I finally arrived I collapsed to the sand, panting and wheezing with effort. It took me a few minutes to recover, mostly thanks to the energy from the platform. Finally, I was done and I stood up, climbing to my feet and striding forward to stand in front of myself. "Ok asshole." I told me. "I have some questions."

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"Hello me." Said the me in the chair. "It's so nice to see you again. You could be a bit more polite you know. Our mama didn't raise us to be rude." He paused. "Although, I guess she didn't raise us at all, so maybe bad manners were inevitable." He grinned at me, face unadorned with the mask I wore constantly.

I sighed. This was the version of me from the end of the maze. The one I'd spoken to before breaking my mind shackle. "How are you here?" I asked in annoyance. "The maze was before we became real. Now we are and this isn't an illusion anymore. That's why the whole second ability thing is even possible. You don't exist, so how is it possible for you to be in a real place?"

"Real-ish." He said, waggling his hand. "We're still not fully in the physical world. Sort of an in between. Like that big squirrel you met was a real being interfacing with this place, just like you are. Well not JUST like you are, he's been here much longer."

I blinked. "Interfacing from WHERE, exactly?" I said hesitantly. "What IS this place? What is the stove? What's the point of all this."

He rolled his eyes. "It's a trial, moron. What do you think it's for. It's to pick candidates." At my shocked look he huffed out a laugh. "Not candidates like you. This place far predates the Wishmaster. THIS is the stove." He said gesturing around us. "The Soul Simmering Stove. The last of a hundred such locations where people came from all over the Aetherbright Empire to compete to enter the Royal Academy."

"Ok..." I said suspiciously. "And I feel like if it was this easy to figure that out someone would know it by now. So why the hell are you telling me this?"

"Because the stove is in danger." He said grimly. "That bottle the Bloodspawn brought in here can damage it. He's hoping to use it to trigger the matriculation function of the trial. One of the reasons for the transfer of consciousness to reality is a partial step to mass transport. If he triggers the matriculation you'll all be sent to the Academy directly. That isn't supposed to happen, but the Liquid Lamentation will corrupt the stove and force the transfer."

That explained Billy's plan. I was still confused though. If the temple could transport people to the Empire, why did the Imperials take part. Why didn't the other factions know about it? "Why is he trying to teleport us all to the Empire? What does that have to with the Blood Murder Palace?"

The other me sighed. "Not THE Empire. I told you most of these are gone. The Soul Simmering Stove is a relic from a time before the current factions. The Aetherbright Empire has fallen, the capital and the rest of the cities have fallen, they're all lost. But the Royal Academy is still accessible. There are things there that shouldn't fall into mortal hands. Especially not murderous hands like those."

"So don't let him through." I said in exasperation. "You've got me here and you're talking to me. You clearly have some sort of influence. Also what even are you?"

He shrugged. "You could call me a fragment of the stove's consciousness. Or yours. Or both. The point is that I'm talking to you because I CAN'T stop him. The purpose of the stove is to test. He passed, which means he's eligible to move on. Most people who come here have no idea the stove exists, so they never continue to the final room. If they DO know however, they're free to enter."

"So you need me to take care of him. Stop him from dumping that stuff into the stove?" I looked around worriedly. "What if he's already there? What if Callie is? I have to get going!"

He waved me down. "There are final tests and opportunities in each temple. Yours was the most straightforward, seeing as this is the prime temple. The other two will take some time. Enough for me to offer you your reward. You'll need to be as strong as possible to beat him. If you force his hand he might use that...abominable substance."

I'd been so sucked in by all this craziness that I'd almost forgotten the reward. "Ah, right. So...I have options I take it?"
"A few." He said with a nod. "The trials were meant to prepare students of the Academy for acceptance. The victors were given powerful gifts to help them excel in their studies. Weapons, medicines, armor. These are all available to you as the champion of the trial."

"I heard I can get a second ability?" I asked eagerly. Aiden, the current Wishmaster, had crushed my dad and taken the WCP by storm with his second ability. My sister had one as well, and it was so powerful it had split my family in two. My mother had one, and she was the strongest A-ranker in service to one of the popes of the Red Revenant Church. A second ability meant an unassailable advantage.

"The Dual Soul Talent." Said the other me. "That is one of the options. I see you have a Solid Path already. A Dual Soul Talent would indeed prepare you for the next step in advance. In order to prepare to advance to B-rank you need your Path fully attuned to your soul. Under normal circumstances that would require you to relinquish your Wish ability and synergize it with you Doom Sovereign Path."

That was the next step? But he said prepare to break through to B-rank, not actually do it. It seemed like this was just a half step. It was fine though, he was right. If I did that I'd lose my Wish ability, it would become something new and I'd have my candidacy stripped. "But if I get a second ability I can have both unaltered right? That's what I want!"

He nodded. "I understand. But in order to remold your soul to accommodate a second ability you've got to reshape it during sublimation. Not a partial sublimation either. You've broken both shackles, so you're close, but I'll need to forcibly push your soul refinement to the level of the Azure Soul Body to receive your final sublimation. The process will be agonizing, indescribably painful. There are some who go insane from the pain. Death may be a preferable alternative."

I'd been in pain before. Horrible pain, but I knew that pain of the soul was something different. Every soul related pain I'd felt was exponentially worse than their physical counterparts. The soul wasn't restrained by things like nerves and neurons. It wasn't physical. Pain could far surpass the limits the brain could endure and keep going, and there was no passing out to escape it.

Swallowing hard, I tried to focus on something other than the literal soulshattering agony I was about to go through. "How does the Azure Soul Body work anyway? Someone told me that you need to be in here to reach it? Does that mean the rest of my friends are going to be stuck at the peak of green when they get there, even after breaking both shackles?"

Obviously knowing what I was doing, the other me shook his head. "No. A heritage is required to prepare for the final sublimation, but you don't need to be inside to achieve it. The biggest requirement is spirit cleansing. You've all been absorbing Sanctified Soul Matter since you got here. It was considered something of a hidden benefit for attempting the trials."

The trials weren't an everyday thing, so I supposed it was possible no one had noticed, but I figured it was more likely the few people who had broken both shackles here just hadn't mentioned it to anyone. Knowledge was power after all. Still, it was nice to know that everyone would be able to reach that point.

"Of course." Continued the other me. "Sanctified Soul Matter is a bit more...forceful than completing the transition here in a semi spiritual state. It's part of how I'm going to rush you through. I'm going to pour more inside until you approach the peak of green and then combust it. It'll purify and sublimate your soul, and I'll reforge it while it's in a malleable state. The others won't go through quite as much pain, since the Matter will combust on its own when they reach the peak, but it WILL be painful all the same."

I glared at other me. "And how exactly was telling me that fucking helpful, you unbearable sadist?"

He shrugged. "You needed to know so you weren't blindsided. Plus, this way you know you won't suffer alone?" He cocked his head at that, as if curious, and when I didn't respond he shrugged. "Oh well, this was already much closer to human than I can usually pull off. I was bound to lose it at some point. Now take off that mask or this wont work."

I did, and he turned, walking into the hut, and came out with a basin. "Alright, anything else to ask before I do this? Once your reward has been granted I'll be gone. You'll have to exit either the way you came, or into the central manifestation chamber of the stove, the door on the other side of the hut." I opened my mouth to respond, and he grabbed my head and shoved it down into the basin of bright golden liquid. The last thing I heard from him was. "That was rhetorical."

When my face hit the liquid I expected it to be hot. It wasn't, just sort of warm and pleasant, at least against my face. When I inhaled, it poured into my nose, eyes and ears. I started to struggle, but the other me held me down, and as the Sanctified Soul Matter made its way into my body, I felt it ignite.

Explosion. Combustion. Cataclysm. Every single one of these terms implied some sort of earthshattering blast, and every one of them fell short of the sensation. It was like a billion stars going supernova, and every single one of them was a part of me. I was burned, battered, shattered, crushed, put back together and melted down. Every single sensation was pain, indescribable pain.

And it kept getting BIGGER. More agony, more suffering, more than I could imagine or conceive or withstand. I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted to go crazy just to get away from it, but I couldn't even do that. It was never ending, all encompassing, it was the beginning and the end of my existence, all I'd ever been or ever would be.

Memories, truths, secrets, everything about me was scoured clean, ripped away and burned to ash. And then it got WORSE. After the scouring was a second blast, another sensation stacked on top and I couldn't think or experience anything but pain pain pain. Something reached into me and started to twist, tear, warp everything that I was, everything that was left in the torment was being changed.

Then the stars started to go out. One by one they extinguished, and I realized each one had been pain. A billion unbearable agonies stacked on top of each other, and it was completely outside of my ability to even go mad from the pain. As they went out, I regained my senses, regained my mind and hopes and dreams and senses.

I realized that nothing was holding my head anymore, that the basing was empty, and I stumbled back, toppling into the sand, screaming still as I tried to remember what it felt like not to hurt.

Finally it faded away, and I was alone, lying on the beach, gasping and panting as I stared unseeingly up into the ceiling of the room, which I now realized had become a tapestry of black dotted with lights. Night. Reaching down into myself, I touched my now Azure soul. It stung to the touch, but when I did, I could feel it. In the same place where my Wish usually resided. My Path of the Doom Sovereign. And despite the pain, despite the urgency, despite everything...I started to laugh.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Obviously the first thing I did when I woke up was to check on my abilities. I wanted to see what it looked like having two of them, hell, I wanted to see what it FELT like. I closed my eyes, reaching into myself and willing those purple flames to fill my vision.

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.
Second Ability: Intermediate Path of the Doom Sovereign- A Solid Path toward a great destiny.

Might-975
Impact-35
Fantasy-500
Vitality-720
Focus-720
Perception-704
Creation-554
Progress to next rank:4208/10000
Soul strength- Azure Soul Body

Stored:7 shadow attacks, 7 shadow jump, 10 Stealth charges, 0 fire attacks, 10 triple strenth tranq blows (ten in reserve), 0 triple strength density shifted attacks (nine in reserve). 10 spider leg attacks (ten in reserve), 0 heal bursts, 3 gravity attacks, 2 shadow clone, 21 scan heals (I-rank ability so Shane can hold more)

Pet- Wolf named Jin

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

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

Goetia Staff Art: First form- Belial. Touch of Tears, Stone Limb, Consecration of Flames
Second Form- Mephistopheles. Consecration of Flame, Afterburner, Mercy Kill, Marked for Death.

I felt...the same. Or maybe not? The Path of the Doom Sovereign felt more like a part of me now. Like every movement was more attuned to the steps I needed to take, but it also wasn't. I also felt a sense of rejection, like I was doing something wrong. Nothing severe enough to make me worry about my abilities, but just a sense of wrongness. I also didn't feel the need to use my overlay anymore. I still could, but I felt like my fate sense and my Fatewalker Path were more in tune.

The whole thing was deeply confusing and more than a little irritating, but I shoved it all away as I stood up to stretch and move, seeing how my body responded. No issues. I felt like my DS Mastery would be more flexible and easier to alter at least. That would make creating my future staff forms easier. Maybe I could even teach them to someone. Like Callie. At that thought my brain slammed to a halt.

I leapt to my feet, searching for any sign of the other me, but as he'd said, he was gone. Shaking my head to clear it, I bolted for the hut, slamming the door open and blurring through the small wooden room to the archway on the other side. I threw myself through it, golden light washing over me, and when the light cleared, I found myself standing in a large marble room.

At the center of the room was a roaring golden brazier flickering with equally golden fire. It reminded me somewhat of the one out at the external temple, but it seemed...smaller. Less important at least.

When I entered, I spotted Callie already there. She was standing opposite Billy, holes in her coat and burns on her arms and legs. The shadows of her costume were only partly obscuring her, and she was holding up one arm with a dagger in her hand, the rest of her riddled with damage and burns. They stood a few feet away from a bag lying on the ground, it looked like it belonged to Billy, but Callie was obviously trying to keep him away from it.

I felt our bond snap back into place and breathed a sigh of relief as I confirmed she was ok, and mostly winning. Billy had drawn a wicked looking knife and carved up his arms, blood was spitting and hissing all over the place. I slowly rounded the circular room, making sure not to make a sound as I signalled Callie not to look at me. I was tapping the bond to use her Stealth Skill, so it wasn't a tough message to get across.

Callie understood my plan, and started to draw his attention. "Hey asshole, you done already?" She taunted, flicking her hand and sending a barrage of shadow blades toward him. They speared him through, but began to break down from his acidic blood.

He cackled. "Don't be stupid. I've got plenty more blood, plus I have to drain all of yours. We're not even close to done." He started waving his arms in a frantic cascade of flailing limbs, flicking blood all over. Callie cursed and started to weave back and forth, doing her best not to get hit by any more, but I saw drops land on her, corroding her skin, clothes, and the darkness around her. I wanted so bad to help, but I stuck to the plan. Ending this was the best way to help her.

Exhaling, I triggered Mephistopheles as I drew my staff. Single target damage was the name of the game, and Mephistopheles was perfect for assassination. Lining up a strike, I wound up with my whole body like a cobra as Callie attacked to distract him.

I expected him to dodge at the last second, to conveniently notice the attack or somehow evade. I expected pretty much everything except for my staff hitting his back dead center and BLOWING a huge fucking hole in his torso, sending him pitching forward, barely catching himself on his hands and knees.

Grimacing, I slowly circled around him, keeping an eye out for traps. He grasped, choking up dark blood as he tried to get to his feet. "Well." I said blandly. "That was...easier than expected. Good work honey, guess you softened him up."

Callie grinned at me. "Well, that fight was closer than I liked. He had me on the ropes before you got here." She frowned. "Actually, I'm surprised he didn't notice you sneaking up on him. I'd have expected him to..." She froze, her eyes snapping to where I'd heard Billy trying to get up repeatedly. And failing. Except he wasn't failing. He was using his blood to slide towards the bag.

He grinned a triumphant, blood grin, managing to snag the bag and and pull out the bottle. I flicked out my staff to deflect it, expecting him to throw it into the brazier, but instead he tossed it back like a shot, his body going taught as he started to scream, blackness running through his veins and climbing across his body.

My eyes widened in panic as I slammed my staff down hard on the ground between him and Callie as he went from lying down to a blur of motion nearly instantly. The explosion of black flame tore at his face before dissolving into the air as it met black creeping darkness and went up in a hiss of evil looking steam. I grabbed Callie and stepped on air, dragging her away before he was able to right himself.

Letting out a wheezing, raspy chuckle, Billy grinned at us from where he stood as his chest began to knit itself back together. His eyes were filled with blood, seas of blackish red as he giggled madly. "I have to admit." He said gleefully. "This feels better than I ever expected. They told me to avoid this little ploy unless I had no other choice. Told me it would consume me body and soul."

"It looks like they were right." I said warily. "I thought you needed that bottle to complete your little plan. Won't you be in trouble with whoever you work for? How will you trigger the transportation protocol now?"

He flicked a wrist, and another rain of droplets flicked out at us. Having seen what that stuff had been doing to him, I grabbed Callie and shoved off the air again, shoving us clear before the blood hit the ground. Instead of steaming or hissing, the blood just...consumed. It ate a hole clear through the marble on impact, a section of stone in the shape of the drops vanishing, leaving behind a series of deep droplet sized holes.

"You think I can't spring the trap because I don't have the Lamentation Liquid?" He laughed. "I AM the Lamentation Liquid now. It's burning me up, using my poisoned blood for fuel. All hail Bloody Billy! Lord of Lamentation!" He squealed with childlike glee and spun in a circle, blood flying all over the place as we tried desperately to avoid it. A drop hit me and ate right through my armor chewing clear through my flesh and bone and leaving a hole in my arm.

"Shane!" Yelped Callie as she dragged me away from him. We hid behind the brazier, watching him. Her eyes flashed with rage and violence as she started to pull on the shadows, but I held her back. Sensing my question, she relaxed slightly. "But you need to think this through Billy." She called to him. "If you die who will complete your mission. You've got to be heading for the Royal Academy for a reason. Who will accomplish you goal once you're gone. You're the only one who can do it."

Her voice was cajoling, trying to lure him into a false sense of security, but it didn't seem to work. He leapt at us, clearing the flames and landing precariously on the gilt edge of the brazier. He balanced on his toes, grinning down at us both as he leaned forward. "The only one?" He cocked his head in confusion. "Who exactly told you I was the only one? You think they sent me alone?"

My blood froze. Billy wasn't in charge here. We'd known that academically, but he was the one who was making all the noise. We'd assumed, I'd assumed, that he was some fringe lunatic acting on his own. I hadn't even considered that he might be acting on orders, and when he'd mentioned it I hadn't considered what it might mean. There were others here, hiding, waiting.

I reached up frantically to grab for him, realizing too late what he was doing. "Billy! No! Tell us who they are. Please. You have to tell us! Who are you working with?"

He jerked back, overbalancing on the edge of the brazier and tipping backwards, cackling madly. "Wait and see!" He crowed. "You won't know them until they get you! That's half the fun!" As the screamed the last, his whole body was swallowed by the flame, consumed in an instant. The flame began to gutter, to snap and pop and spark. In the middle of it I saw creeping darkness begin to boil out, contaminating the golden fire, filling the brazier slowly.

Within a minute, the black energy had dyed the flame and was seeping out into the brazier itself, dying the gold a fathomless midnight black. As I watched, the thing began to turn, the floor beneath it lighting up with now visible symbols as it rotated, clicking into place as the fire inside erupted into a dark column, burning through the ceiling as it expanded into a massive pillar of flame.

I dove for Callie, grabbing hold of her, locking my staff behind her back to hold her in place as I pulled her close. The pillar had begin to waver, flickering and jumping, and I could sense something coming. My Danger Sense was screaming, had been screaming since I came into the room. With one last wail inside my head the pillar began to expand, exploding outward. The black flame consumed Callie and I and I pulled her against me, determined not to get separated by the space shifting flame. Then everything disappeared in darkness.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

My head was pounding as I woke up. That was a pretty common thing for me when waking from unconsciousness, but this time it felt different. Or rather, it felt normal. I reached for my ability and for the first time since I entered the trials I felt my wish power respond. Six wishes. Apparently I'd been unconscious for longer than expected, at least depending on how fast time passed while I was in the trials, but whatever the case, I had my wishes back.

Which was going to make this situation easier, but also not. I needed Callie to make the wishes, but we could find our group and then...what? We couldn't trust anyone. The Blood Murder Palace was here. They'd come for something and I couldn't imagine we'd be in a good spot when they found it.

Pushing down the panic I looked around. Finding Callie nearby I headed over to shake her awake. "Cal." I whispered, shaking her. "Come on. Wake up." I glanced around. All I could see around us was...trees. Familiar trees. Not individually, but the type of tree seemed similar to something I'd seemed before.

Then it clicked. The fortress trial. The trees here were the same as the ones back there. Figuring I could keep an eye on Callie from above, I made sure she was comfortable and mostly uninjured (thank you scan heal) at least aside from minor burns from her fight with Billy, and then made my way over to a nearby tree and started to climb.
State of Grace helped me make the trip up easily, and when I got to the top I started looking around, hoping to identify any landmarks.

I saw nothing. At least nothing specific. The fortresses weren't in sight, nor was the mountain Abel and I wrecked, but still, looking out over the forest, the layout was the same. I remembered Biscuit the squirrel and how realistic he'd been. Maybe he was a real creature accessing the trial from the other side. I tried my Eye of Revelation to locate him, but he must have been too far away if he was here.

The one thing I DID manage to spot hadn't been in the trial. A massive white stone building towering into the sky, backlit by the startling blue sky. The Royal Academy, I was sure. I didn't see anything else nearby, but with how absurd Ascendant construction could get, maybe the Academy was inside some kind of pocket dimension.

Stepping off the branch, I floated down to the ground, glancing worriedly around to try to see anyone who might be nearby. I checked on Callie again. Her wounds weren't too threatening, but apparently they were stress enough to monopolize her Vitality. I cursed myself for running out of heal bursts, we needed to find Jessie soon.

We needed to find ANYONE we knew. Who knew where the other Blood Murder Palace initiates were hiding, or what the hell they had planned. I doubted Billy killed himself so the BMP crowd could retrieve Hatescream's 'world's greatest butcher' coffee mug. If they went through all this trouble, there was a reason. A bad reason if I had to guess. More importantly, they were dangerous unknown people mixed in among my allies.

Any of my friends could be in danger right now, and have no idea. I glanced worriedly down at Callie, reaching to shake her again, when she finally started to stir. "Owwww." She groaned, sitting up slowly and clutching her head. I helped her sit up.

"Are you ok?" I asked worriedly. "You're not too badly injured, but you scared the piss out of me passing out like that. What happened?"

She groaned again. "Soul strain." She grimaced. "My reward was a Skill upgrade. Shadow Manipulation Mastery to Intermediate. I thought it would help prepare me for dealing with Billy, but the upgrade pushed my soul hard. Cranked me up to fifty percent of green and left me a little fragile. Trying to USE that Skill during the fight, at least as much as I had, was a bit much."

So she hadn't been pushed to an Azure Soul Body. Apparently that sublimation had fixed up some damage too. Good to know. I sighed, pulling her against me. "Fair enough, take it easy for a bit. No need to get too excited about all this. We can figure things out in a minute, but right now, your recovery is the most important thing."

Chuckling, she snuggled into my embrace. "I'm in enough pain that I'm going to let myself believe that, despite all evidence to the contrary. But once my head is on straight we'll need to figure out a plan."

We sat there for a while, letting our mental states recover. I was still somewhat reeling from the pain earlier, so it was a good idea for me to let myself recover a bit too. Finally though, after about an hour, Callie bestirred herself with a sigh. "That's about all we can afford for now. Tell me what's going on."

I recounted my experience on the treetop and told her my suspicions about the place, and she seemed almost excited. "Biscuit is here? Maybe we can find him!" She was practically bouncing with excitement and I had to stifle a laugh at her glee. Good to see she wasn't too caught up in the details. It was a good attitude to have. Still, we had other priorities.

"We'll get to that." I said with a worried frown. "But we need to find the others first. We can use wishes to track them down probably, though I can't give you any suggestions on method. Once we're together we can find Biscuit and worry about what to do about the Blood Murder Palace assholes. We need to stop them from doing whatever they're here to do. I'm positive it's not a good thing, whatever it is."

"Probably not." She sighed. "You're right, we need to find the others. Who first though?"

I glanced at her wounds. "Jessie." I said firmly. "With any luck she'll be with Benny and we can kill two birds with one stone. Plus the others have more combat potential and are less likely to get ambushed. Plus giant bear in the woods seems pretty useful."

She nodded. "Right." Holding out a hand, she said clearly. "I wish that I had a compass that could lead us to Jessie. I'll pay with..." She flicked her hand and a bag of chits appeared. "Five H-ranked chits."

Wish detected. Grant wish?

I confirmed, and was relieved when the wish went through, giving me the necessary stats, thankfully well within my reach. I felt the familiar buzz of static across my skin as the wish built, and it shocked me how big a relief it was. Spending so long in the trial had really made me appreciate how useful my ability was. It was such a relief to have solutions to problems again.

The time inside had also been a gift though. Proof that I could handle myself without wishes, and not only that, confirmation that I could become strong in my own way. I'd gotten a second ability, albeit one with incredibly vague wording in terms of explanation. I'd already accomplished something my dad never had, making myself powerful enough to move on without losing my qualifications to become the Wishmaster. No wonder Aiden had won the contest last time.

Finally the purple electricity burst out from me, condensing into a spot of dense electricity, resolving into a small bronze compass with a needle that didn't point north. Callie grinned happily, snagging five chits and tossing them to me lightly. With my Might and Perception I picked them all out of the air one by one with ease, dropping them into my ring.

Offering her my arm, I chuckled. "Shall we?" She grinned and grabbed my arm and we set off in the direction the compass pointed.

And then my Danger Sense went haywire. I grabbed her, hurling both of us aside as a throat tearing roar rattled the leaves from the trees. A massive scaled paw slammed down on the dirt where we'd bin, and I followed it up to a...thing. An ugly thing. It was fifteen feet tall, and looked like a humanoid wolf almost. Rather than fur, it was covered in sickly green scales. Its arms were long and distended, the knuckles of its razor taloned hands dragging the ground as it stalked, and its head had a rack of long, sharp dark antlers, from which I could see a noxious green liquid dripping.

"What the fuck is THAT?" I said in appalled voice. I'd seen weird shit before, but most of it followed some kind of logic. The mantis centaurs had been fucking gross, but not as disgusting as this thing"

Callie was backing away, dragging me with her. "How the fuck should I know! Whatever it is though, it's definitely not friendly! Run!" She bolted in the opposite direction, and I trailed after her, we barely avoided the monster as at lashed out with its too long arms, its claws raking the trees.

Judging by the burning gouges in the wood and the blackening of the bark around the damaged areas, those antlers weren't the only part of the monster that was venomous. I glanced back at it, triggering Pit of Despair as we ran, and the forest floor vanished under it as it dropped into the hole. Sadly, the hole was ten feet deep, which meant its antlered head was still above the ground and then some.

I let the skill drop, the ground resolidifying, and it roared in rage, its head whipping around as it chomped and gnashed its teeth. Not that we stayed to watch, because fuck that noise. We booked it around the long way, following the compass and taking off towards Jessie, leaving behind the roaring of the creature as we did.

"That was fucking terrifying." I panted breathlessly as we ran. "I hope we never have to see one of those things again."
"Yeah." Said Callie uneasily. "It's just..." She trailed off, looking around anxiously. I could feel her fear through the bond as we fled, and I wasn't sure what she had to be so afraid of.

I glanced at her in concern. "What? What is it? That thing is going to take a minute to get free, and we'll be well out of tracking range hopefully. I'm sure it'll run into something else to distract it before it catches our trail." I paused. "Though we should definitely use stealth once we're a bit further away. Really ensure our escape. Is that what you were thinking?"

She shook her head." No. It's not that. It's just...that thing's head shape, the way it carried itself. It kind of reminded me of a wolf."

I chuckled. "Ah, yeah I saw that too. It was definitely a weird looking bastard that's for sure. But why focus on that one aspect? Whatever that thing was, it had a little bit of everything in there. Why does the fact that it looked like it was part wolf matter."

There was another twinge in my Danger Sense, and this time Callie felt it through the bond and yanked me aside as the claws lashed through where I'd been standing. I heard another monstrous howl, and then from the other side of the clearing a third, and then a fourth, and I paled as I realized what Callie had been saying.

"Because." My girlfriend said grimly as she drew a pair of dark daggers and took up a fighting stance. "Wolves hunt in packs." From the darkness, half a dozen looming green scaled forms resolved themselves, envenomed horns scraping the boughs and branches of trees as the emerged surprisingly quietly from the shadows. I reached back to draw my staff with a grimace. I was really starting to fucking hate the woods.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"Alright." I said as the...things, began to encircle us. "Just a bit closer. You ready?" Callie and I were more than in sync, with the bond in place we were basically sharing a brain. She knew what kind of tactics I used, even without knowing my stances perfectly. She nodded silently, a smile on her face. The wolf lizard stag things drew closer and closer until they finally got within range.

I didn't need to announce it was time. Callie felt my surge of adrenaline and immediately dropped into the shadows even as I triggered Moonlit Night. Belial came seconds later, and I stepped off the air as the monsters all lunged at me,roaring their desire to rend me limb from limb.

Soaring over their heads, my staff licked out rapidly, guiding the heads with slight pressure on the antlers, steering them all to crash into each other. Belial's corruption infused their horns, but it didn't seem to do much sadly. They clashed in the center of the encirclement, going down in a tangle of limbs and horns and teeth as they ripped and bit at each other, desperate to kill something.

Callie appeared low beneath one slunk close to the ground, a dagger slashing up, leaving a tear in the air behind it as her Path of the Abyss split the very space it tore through. She was already gone when the beast tried to retaliate, ignoring its own organs spilling from its split abdomen.

Two of the ones on either side seemed to smell it and lunged, riding it to the ground and beginning to savage the monster, uncaring that it was one of their brethren. I circled the outside, lashing out at joints and gangly, misshapen limbs. I wasn't getting in the center of that clusterfuck, so Belial's guiding abilities were a bit diminished.

On the upside, it seemed almost easy to direct attacks that I COULD reach, my fate sense showing me the path now that my Fatewalker Path was part of me. I felt almost invincible, which of course was when things went horribly wrong.

I dipped back from one of the monsters after a quick jab to move its footing, and one of the others picked that moment to snap sideways and managed to dig its teeth into my leg. My leg which was currently made of corrosive evil magma, but still my leg, and I had to muffle a scream as it dug its teeth in.

Despite being made of molten rock, I could still feel, specifically, I could feel the fucking venom being injected into my body and somehow mixing with and empowering my own. Suddenly it felt like battery acid was running through my veins, and my leg started to fucking MELT. I screamed and bashed at the monster with my staff, shoving my staff into its jaws to try to lever them open, but I couldn't fucking get it off me.

My other leg collapsed, and I was left clawing at the ground trying to drag my body free of the monster's jaws. This was so stupid. It hadn't even known I was there. It was wild with pain and just lashing out at the air around it fruitlessly and got lucky. Black crept in around my vision I felt like I was about to pass out, and then, suddenly, a hand grabbed mine.

Callie's fingers closed around my hand and hauled, dragging me away from the monster. My leg was torn mostly open by teeth, but honestly I was glad, it let some of the enhanced venom spill out. The monster wasn't immune, its face was melting as it tried to dig in, gnashing its teeth in my fucking thigh and not finding purchase. With a sickening wrench Callie got me free, getting me clear of the fog as quick as she could.

"Oh gods." I rasped as I got out. "Oh gods the pain. I need to turn back so I can heal this." I started to dismiss the skill, but to my shock, Callie somehow blocked me from doing it through the bond.

She grabbed my face, her hands beginning to be corrupted, and looked me in the eyes. "No! Don't do that. Shane, listen to me, your leg is basically a pile of scrap right now. If you solidify it's going to be stuck like that, and you might lose it. Stay in your magma state, we'll bind the wound so the magma is back in there. It's just rock, it can mend. You can't make your leg flesh."

That was true. I hadn't been thinking clearly, but if I went solid I'd black out. I had no healing charges. I paused. I did have scan heals. I cast one. It did almost literally nothing healing wise, being an I-rank ability, but it DID give me an idea of what needed to be done.

"The magma is recovering. Wrap it and let it heal like that. Don't put anything back in. The venom supercharged the corrosion, anything you put in will melt. Hell, the regenerating magma will melt, but it'll also dilute the shit as it comes in. You need to go back in there and make sure they all die. I can't but if we ignore them the skill will end and we'll be fucked. We only have a few minutes of time on this one."

She grimaced, but did as I said, binding the wound quickly before turning to glare at me. "Fine. I'll go, but you don't move. Stay here and recover. I'll be right back." She stepped back, vanishing into the shadows.

I groaned, leaning back. This was agonizing. Not soul sublimation second ability agonizing, but pretty fucking brutal. I'd say maybe above the shield incident. It was nice to know my life experience gave me the ability to make an itemized list of the times I'd been in soulshattering agony. I was clearly doing something right. I rolled over a bit, dragging myself toward a tree so I could sit up and lean against it.

Despite being unable to stand, I wasn't out of the fight. I could still see through the fog and watch Callie's back from where I was. My Danger Sense could be shared through the bond tooI watched my girlfriend resolve from the shadows and lash out with her abyssally infused daggers, tearing a large gash open on the flank of one of the monsters. I spotted another moving for her, and she sensed my alarm, Danger Sense giving her an impression of where it would be coming from.

She rolled smoothly sideways, down onto a shoulder and then back up as one of the monsters somehow dove through her location. They were detecting her somehow, I wasn't sure how, but I needed to distract them. I triggered Pit of Despair in the center of the encirclement where there were several of the things tearing at each other. One dropped right in, and two slipped as the ground disintegrated, felling backwards onto it.

Envenomed horns drove into the chest of one beast, while another's claws opened the eye of the first one. The long linbs stuck out past the edge of the Pit, tagging and enraging the others. Combined with the stealth that was still partially working, Callie was able to slowly pick them off, until they were all dead and I was able to drop the fog bank. We stared at the multitude of grotesque forms in disgust.

"This was our worst date ever." Callie said bluntly. "Remind me never to agree to a romantic getaway in the forest in the future."

I groaned, dragging myself up the tree. "I'd rather take one of those bites to the eye socket than willingly enter a forest for any reason beyond great personal profit or potential catastrophic injury, so I think you're safe." I paused. "Should I be taking you on romantic getaways? We do a lot of traveling. That counts right?"

"Nothing where something tries to eat my face is romantic." She said sweetly. "So that majority of our trips don't count."
I was actually kind of offended by that. "What about the spider cave? That was romantic. You got all that loot and there was a pretty spider web."

"Nope." She said popping the P. "Not romantic. Scenic, but not romantic." She smiled fondly at me. "It's ok honey, you're just not a candy and flowers kind of guy. We do other things. Fun things. Not every girl wants a romantic boat rider under the starlight."

I narrowed my eyes at her. "That was an oddly specific example. Are you hinting at something? Because if you want to go on a boat ride we can do that. I bet we could find a lake nearby. Probably even one where nothing will try to eat your face. Which I'm against by the way. I like your face quite a bit. Wish I could have Zeke make you a mask to protect it, but given your reaction to what mine can do I assume that's off the table."

She grimaced. "Off the table, out of the dining room, it's not even allowed near the house. No people eating masks for me."
"Well I'll try to be more romantic. Find moments for us to have time together outside crises and combat." I said softly. "You deserve that." I went silent, and after a minute of not talking to me she gave me a suspicious glance. "Sorry, I'm trying to think of a segue that will make asking you to collect the corpses of the lizard wolf monsters so we can get back to looking for Jessie."

She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Why do I keep you around again?" Despite the words, I could feel her genuine fondness and adoration through the bond, as she could feel mine. Having an empathic connection with your significant other was a great life hack for avoiding misunderstandings. Even if it was also sometimes inconvenient when a pretty girl walked by.

Grumbling, she walked around the clearing, snagging the bodies and storing them in her ring. Magical creatures and monsters could be parted out and sold or used for crafting. I also wanted to try and get some of that venom for my Belial form. It had an interesting reaction to my corrosion, and I wanted to see if I could build a tolerance and maybe even integrate it into my ability.

It wasn't something I'd ever tried before, but if it worked it would be a huge boost to my destructive potential in that form. Once those were collected, Callie came over and offered me her shoulder, which I draped myself over and used as a crutch so I could walk. I was still in Belial form, but her coat was F-rank, and I was able to hold back enough to prevent the corrosion from leaching through it too quickly.

We had to stop a few times so she could purge it, but eventually we seemed to get on the trail of a group of people the compass led us toward, hopefully where Jessie was, and we got into a good rhythm trying to catch up. State of Grace was a huge help for our progress, otherwise I wasn't sure we could have caught them.

Eventually though we came upon a small clearing where someone had made camp, and as we approached we called out for our friends. There was a small pause before Benny and Jessie poked their heads out, followed surprisingly by Callen, and I breathed a long sigh of relief. "Oh thank the gods you're alright." I breathed happily.

Benny bolted forward to check on me as Randall emerged from the trees on the other side of the clearing, having confirmed we were the ones coming near. I stopped my best friend as he approached, and he looked me over worriedly. "Holy shit man, what the hell happened? Also where ARE we?" Right. They didn't know about the academy transport protocol. Guess I had some explaining to do. Oddly, I couldn't bring myself to mind too much.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

t didn't take long to fill in the others, and once I was done catching them up we all sat in silence as they digested everything. Benny was the first to say anything. "Why." He groaned. "Does everything we do end up going wrong in the most catastrophic possible fashion."

Callen chuckled. "Those who carry the blood of gods tend to have even more interesting lives than most. But your fate sense would guide you toward dramatic action in any case."

"I knew this was Shane's fault somehow." He said with a sigh. "Whatever, we have to find the others. Celine and I got separated in the fight, and I haven't seen Nat in a while. If there are traitors out there we need to warn them. Another one of those message delivery wishes should do it. How many wishes do you have left today? Actually can you even grant wishes in here?"

I nodded. "I can now. Once we got here I got access again. Well...after I woke up anyway. We only used one so far. Callie wished for a compass to find Jessie. Speaking of which, whatever you wish for, I hope she can be the one to do it, because I desperately need a top up on heal bursts." While I couldn't tell people WHAT to wish for without possibly compromising the fairness of the wish, I could make requests for how I wanted to be paid, and heals were top of my list.

My blonde friend sighed. "Yeah, it's been a while. Sorry I didn't even think about it. You spent months working with Benny and we never had a chance to replenish your supply."

"That's not on you." I said firmly. "I should have considered that I was running low before we came in here. Anyway, who are we looking for next?" I didn't make any suggestions, not wanting to ruin the wish, but Jessie was smart enough to come to the same conclusion I had.

"I wish I had a compass to lead me to where Celine was." She smiled at Benny. "You've been trying way too hard not to talk about her. You normally don't shut up about the girl when she's not around. I know you must be crazy worried. I'll pay with ten charges of heal bursts."

Wish detected. Grant wish?

I exhaled in relief, allowing the familiar electricity to build on my skin as I confirmed the wish. There was the usual sensation of compounding power, then an explosion of purple lightning as another compass manifested, this one greenish gold with leaves all over it. I dropped it in Jessie's hand, feeling the power feedback from where the electricity touched her, refilling my stockpile of heals.

With that done, I was feeling a lot more secure. I'd also refilled from my reserves of triple strength density shifts when I saw Benny, and while I had none leftover, my stockpile had grown to nine. Jessie tossed the compass to my friend, who looked absolutely overjoyed to have a lead on his lady love. I smiled, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, don't worry about Celine. This is the forest, she's probably in a way better position than any of us."

He laughed at that. "True. This is her home turf. She'd been improving just like the rest of us too. She doesn't advertise, but she's been working hard. Training, wishes from Nat. In here she managed break both shackles." He paused. "I mean, we all did, actually. Those steps were no fucking joke. But she had a lot to deal with. I think hers were weighing her down more than most."

Walking over, I gestured for him to follow. We left the others to prepare to break camp while he and I sat down. I didn't need to talk. He had something to get off his chest, and I knew Benny well enough to know that sometimes I needed to shut up and listen.

"What she did to me." He finally said. "To all of us. I forgave her, eventually. Rather than lose her, which would have been worse. But she never forgave herself. As she got closer to me, to Callie and Jessie. The guilt got worse. She was having trouble sleeping. Wasn't eating. It was killing her. I think that's what the whole training thing on the ship was about for me more than anything. I couldn't stand seeing her hurting but I couldn't help."

I blinked at him in shock. "But I didn't even..."

"Notice?" He laughed. "News flash Shane, you're not exactly Mr. Sensitivity. You do ok with Callie, because you're basically plugged into her brain, but I wouldn't call you an overly empathetic person in general." His hands went up as I opened my mouth to respond. "That's not a dig, man. It's just a fact. Your life is nuts, and you get wrapped up in your own stuff. Plus she didn't want you guys to know. She's trained to conceal that kind of shit too, so that made it harder to tell."

I let out a breath. "Damn. But the trials helped? She's...better? She got past it?" I'd been so focused on my own emotional journey and Callie's I'd completely ignored my other friends. What they must have gone through.

"She's getting there." He chuckled. "She came to terms with some things about herself in the maze, and on the steps, that knocked her for a loop. I wasn't there to see the aftermath for too long before we got separated. But I do think this was good for her. I won't tell you what her shackles were. Nobody deserves to have info like that spilled behind their back, maybe someday she'll tell you herself."

Noticing the tone of his voice, I raised an eyebrow. "And what about yours? You gonna tell me what they were? What you needed to free yourself from?" My voice was gentle, trying to make it clear through tone alone that I wouldn't push.

"I...I kind of got swept up in all this." He admitted. "Back when it started, it was exciting. An adventure. But as we went along I started to get left behind. I wasn't your best friend anymore, I was just a tagalong. I wasn't even your sidekick, because you spent all your time with Callie." His eyes widened, as if he'd said something he hadn't meant to. "Not that I don't like Callie. But for a long time it was just you and me."

I blinked at him in surprise. "I didn't know it bothered you." I said slowly. "You seemed fine. You had Celine, and you and Jessie are close and-"

"And they're not my best friend." He said bluntly. He laughed bitterly. "But how selfish is that? With all this crazy shit happening, how much of an asshole would I be to throw a fit because we don't hang out as much anymore. I think that's part of why I jumped into things with Celine so quick. Not that I don't love her. I do. I just...I wanted what you had, I wanted someone to share things with."

I swallowed hard. He was right. I'd been totally ignoring him, so caught up in all the nonsense and craziness. "I didn't mean to." I said quietly. "You're still my best friend, you know that."

"I do." He said. "But I needed to get there on my own. My mind shackle was thinking I wasn't good enough to keep up, and my heart shackle was understanding that just because we're not always together now doesn't mean we aren't still close. Honestly I'm glad you didn't notice. Obliviousness or no, I needed to face this myself to get past it. Same with Celine. I can tell you want to blame yourself for missing it, but don't."

"How the hell can I not?" I snapped, suddenly irrationally angry. Not at him, but at me. I didn't let it control me though. I'd felt worse on the stairs. This was just a quick spike of temper. My voice smoothed out. "I'm the leader." I said more reasonably. "I'm supposed to take care of you guys."

He laughed at that. "In battle maybe." He said sadly. "But you can't solve all our problems for us Shane. Not even with your powers. Wishes can't fix everything. And they shouldn't. Pain makes people stronger. Problems define us. I'm not upset you didn't notice how unhappy I was, because I didn't WANT you to notice. And despite you knowing me better than anyone I know you too. I know how to hide my issues from you better than anybody else. That's the downside to about a decade of friendship."

That wasn't what I wanted to hear. It was fair, and he wasn't wrong, but I hated it. Did I just have to give up on helping my friends. On fixing things for them? Was my power even worth anything if it couldn't do that?

"Oh don't throw a pity party." He snorted in annoyance. "I recognize that brooding silence. Your powers help with the big things. I'm not saying you can't do anything for us. Look at Jessie. After she lost her brother she was...devastated. She put on a brave face, but I don't know if she'd have ever recovered. You gave her the most important gift in the world. You gave her hope. Hope she can see him again, hope she can fix things and be happy again."

I shrugged. "Anyone would have done that. Hell, any candidate could have made her the same promise, and probably followed through faster."

"But they didn't." He retorted. "Why would they? She was nobody. Still is in the grand scheme of things. Sure she's useful at our level, but do you think the Wishmaster gives a shit about some F-ranker? Do you think your dad does? Not a chance. But you do. You care. You're a fucking walking miracle to her. That girl hero worships you. Why do you think she tries so hard to keep everyone happy and functional. To try to take pressure off you."

My eyes widened as I stared at him in shock. "She...she does? I mean I knew she always plays peacemaker, but I figured she just didn't like conflict. She did that when Callie was in charge too."

He rolled his eyes. "Because you adore that girl. The slightest smile from Callie brightens your whole day, and anyone with two working eyes knows it at a glance. Don't get me wrong, Jessie loves her like a sister, but a lot of what she does to keep up all sane and happy she does out of gratitude. Because she doesn't think she can ever repay you for what you're doing for her. Not that she'd ever tell you. She doesn't want to put any pressure on you."

I glanced at Jessie where she was laughing and chatting with Callie as they packed up the tent that I could only assume had been in one of their spatial rings. I wondered what her shackles had been. She and Benny had both hit green (twenty five and twenty percent respectively), so she must have broken them.

But hearing how much she worried about me, and how much she was keeping to herself, I decided not to ask her. If she wanted to share she would, but I wouldn't push. I was happy she'd gotten past them. All of the things I'd learned churned in my head, and I felt...helpless. Which I knew was Benny's point when he told me not to be so self pitying. I sighed, looking to my friend. "Fine. I'll let you deal with your own problems. But you have to ask me if you need help. Promise me."

He smiled at me then, a beaming grin that showed me just how much he was worrying over me. "Promise." He clapped me on the shoulder, standing up and then offering me his hand. "If it means anything though...I'm happy. Getting past my problems was a big step for me and now...now I can just enjoy this awesome life. It's not perfect, but it's pretty fucking amazing." I laughed as I let him pull me to my feet. He wasn't wrong about that.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

After my heart to heart with Benny, we headed out to look for Celine. I half expected the compass to lead us toward the academy itself, but thankfully we were drawn diagonally past it. It seemed that barring people who were incredibly close or touching the power had scattered everyone when it brought us here.

"So, we were way ahead." I said to Benny as we stomped through the forest. "We didn't see what was happening on the steps very well. I saw a brawl break out and kind of lost you all in the commotion. I caught the odd glimpse or two but I'm not sure what happened to everyone. Did you see what happened to any of the others?"

"Gabe and Bethy made it off the steps before the teleportation." He said with a shrug. "I didn't see where they went since I didn't, but I'm betting they were heading for the palaces. I was surprised because I thought Gabe was going to bow out, but it seems like once he heard what was going on with the Blood Murder Palace, he decided to stay. Of course, he didn't know all this nonsense about their being others hidden among us."

I nodded. "I'm a bit worried too. I want to try to get a message to them somehow." That was a hint, if only because I couldn't come out and say it.

Luckily Benny knew me well. "Right. Message." He frowned a bit. "I wish a message would be distributed to all our friends, invisible to the BMP assholes, letting them know what's going on and where we're gonna be. In return I'll pay with eleven triple strength density shifted attacks."

Wish detected. Grant wish?

That was a relief on two fronts, and I sighed happily as I got the tenth attack, the rest being deferred for later use. The explosion of purple electricity that ran through me and burst up into the sky in a pillar of lightning wouldn't be visible to anyone else except Nat either, most likely, so that was nice too.

I was considering trying to merge some of those stockpiled attacks into my next stance. I used them constantly, and having my own accessible version, even if it was limited, would be damned useful. Not to mention I was eyeing a defensive form next, and the density shift would help immensely. That was something to worry about later though, because as we continued along the path the compass led through, my Danger Sense began to twinge.

Stopping, I held up my hand, bidding everyone to sit still as I used Eye of Revelation to scan for enemies. I didn't see any, but I could FEEL something watching us. Callie moved up next to me, daggers drawn. "Can you see them?" She murmured? I can try to scout through the shadows if you can't, I'd just need you to cover me."

"Do it." I murmured, triggering Mountain Stance and Belial before stepping in front of her. She knelt down, fingers ghosting into the darkness as she reached out for the shadows nearby.

Within seconds an arrow flashed out of the dark, triggering my Danger Sense. My staff came up, smoothly redirecting the path with a tap and sending it flying harmlessly into the forest, only to lash out six more times as another half dozen arrows rained down at where Callie stood.

Randall stood up on his back paws and let out a bonerattling roar as he tried to defend Jessie, who had been riding on his back and who was currently gripping his fur for deal life.

"Enough." Called a voice I found familiar. A thin, lithe form stepped into the clearing, slit pupiled eyes locked on me as he waited for me to move. "The ambush failed, no need to remain hidden."

I sighed in annoyance. "Hello Felix." I said grimly. "I take it you're one of the Blood Murder Palace initiates. Or is this just your garden variety murder attempt out of ambition." The odd cat man seemed slightly more menacing than he had last time I'd met him. Cats are capricious and VERY ruthless. They were also excellent predators,

"The Palace isn't you enemy, candidate." He said in an aloof voice. "The Wishmaster is a mercenary, and always was. Our lord won't hold a grudge for a transaction. You need not involve yourself. If you remove your faction from our path, your consideration will be noted when the dark one returns."

Grimacing, I shook my head. "Such a short speech and so very many things I find deeply upsetting. For one, I don't feel like I'm alone in doubting the word of someone who called themselves Hatescream. Second of all, your use of the future tense implies he isn't around yet, and I don't want to deal with ANOTHER resurrected god. I can only assume you came for something that could accomplish that?"

He shrugged. "Your understanding of our goals holds no meaning. We are here. We are many. We will succeed. Kill me if you like, kill my whole group, kill until the soil squelches red underfoot. You cannot stop us."

My staff lashed out to the side, slapping the back of Benny's knee as a form exploded from an overhanging branch to try to attack him. A pair of black lines cleaved the air as Callie stood, having noticed the attack when I did and already positioned herself to follow up on my movement.

"Oh no." I said dryly. "A surprise attack from the ambush party we already discovered trying to surprise attack us. How unexpected. I expected better from a catman Felix. Aren't you guys supposed to be apex predators when it comes to creatures your own size?"

He shook his head. "I'd hoped to reach an accord with you, Shane. Wishmaster candidates make troublesome enemies. One way or another, I need to prevent you from assuming that role."

Narrowing my eyes, I triggered Pit of Despair under his feet. Flawlessly shifting his weight somehow, he backflipped off the falling ground into a handspring, then bounded off his hands and vanished into the trees. "Callie." I said simply, and she nodded, stepping back into a shadow and dropping out of sight. A hide and seek fight in a shadowy forest with my girlfriend was a bad position to be in.

From the trees emerged several robed figures, clearly working for or with Felix, and all armed with dangerous looking weapons made of what looked like congealed blood. With a grin, I triggered Moonlit Night, covering the forest around us with fog, then stepped off the air with Ripple Running, lashing out with my staff to strike the ground as I sailed over them, using State of Grace and the staff to pole vault myself up higher.

When the staff hit the ground I let the sound echo through the fog, drawing attacks from all the robed guys in range as they got a sound to act as a guidepost.

Sadly for those idiots I was already gone, and I bounced off the air again to maintain my position above them as my staff licked out to guide the attacks they were using so they injured each other. My corruption climbed their weapons and their bodies as the struck each other, and when I landed nearby I was able to neatly sweep their legs out, depositing them on the ground.

I turned to look for the others, and realized that they were already done with their opponents. Callie had altered the skill through the bond so they could see, which I totally would have thought of if I'd had a second.

Speaking of my girlfriend, she appeared from the darkness under a nearby tree, her arm clutched to her body. The OTHER arm, held a yellow clad leg I recognized as Felix's. She scowled and waved it at me when she felt me looking.
"Slippery bastard. Gave up a leg to get away. I caught him in a shadow trap, but he lopped it off and ran. Apparently he can actually turn INTO a cat. Also cats can move pretty quick on three paws."

"He got out of your range?" I asked. If she could have tracked him she probably would have, though it might have just been too dangerous to risk it.

Sighing, she slumped down against a tree, casually waving a hand to bind up all the extremely injured robed guys. I hadn't killed any of them because this wasn't a trial anymore. Benny, who had been helping Jessie and Callen secure their prisoners, jerked to attention as he noticed something. "Guys!" he called, holding up the compass. "The needle is moving. That means Celine close for the vector to change over a short arc of movement."

I glanced over in the direction he pointed, and I could vaguely make out a quartet of figures walking toward us through the woods. Squinting, I recognized who it was, and laughed aloud. "She's with Nat." I said with a grin. "She must have seen that wish earlier and used it to track us down." I'd been thinking she might be able to spot it, given the size and intensity of the power.

"We got your message." Called my cousin as she approached. "Could you BE any more loud and obvious? If there's any other candidates I'm betting they're on the way too. You really have no concept of subtle."

Rolling my eyes, I stepped up to hug her as Benny, Callie, and Jessie did the same to Celine, Perit and Valk. "It worked didn't it? Bad plans that work aren't bad. They're just 'unexpected'. It's good to see you guys though. That really cuts down on who we need to find. Abel, Mel, Chelsea. Gabe and Bethy. All of them total monsters and warned about the enemy forces thanks to that message."

"I feel more sympathy for the enemy if they try to target Bethy." Giggled Callie. "I'd rather deal with your average E-ranker than be her enemy."

With a laugh, I gestured them to follow. "Lets keep walking to get a bit further from the wish sign, just in case. Once we're clear I'll make us something to eat. After that...well, Benny's wish was for the message to tell them where we were going, it didn't specify at that moment." I glanced at my cousin. "What did it tell you guys?"

Nat shrugged. "Gave us a heading from where we were at the time. We didn't use it though, I just followed the column of purple lightning. Based on direction I think it was pointing us to the building." She gestured toward the Academy, and I groaned in annoyance.

"Of course it was." I said flatly. "Because we'd obviously end up there eventually, and that's probably where we would have met up. Whatever. We'll head for the Academy then." Benny and Callen had stacked the bound prisoners on Randall so we could keep them with us, so they'd be coming along unfortunately. I resolved to watch them closely. Who knew what might be in that place.

Callie lit up. "I bet there's all sorts of treasures leftover from the Aetherbright Empire. That's probably why they're here, to find some powerful magical item. We could find it first and keep it! Or sell it! Or..." She trailed off sheepishly. "Not the point, sorry. I was just a little excited by the promise of potential loot." She gave me an embarrassed grin.

I just shrugged. "I know you well enough to expect it. But I also know you well enough to know you can focus when the situation demands it. I trust your loot goblin tendencies not to cause us any problems." We chatted for a while, still walking, until my Danger Sense was completely silent, then I cut some branches and used Consecration of Flames to create a fire.

As I pulled out ingredients and pots I considered our next move. Once we got to the Academy we'd need to figure out a next step. We couldn't exactly just stumble blindly around. Once we found our friends it would be time to work on either getting out of here or stopping the BMP guys. I suppose only time would tell which. Though I had some questions for our prisoners once I finished cooking. Maybe they could tell me why this was all happening.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

As per usual, the distance to the Academy was further than expected, because the building was cartoonishly large. I had to assume there were a LOT of students at the place back when the Aetherbright Empire still existed, considering the trials, their scale, and the fact that there had been a LOT more of them back in the day. Still, they'd clearly been a fan of open concept design for their internal floorplan, because the building was absolutely massive even on the outside.

I felt confident assuming the place was spatially expanded, and I'd have been shocked if the interior wasn't the size of a damned city.

As we got closer, we kept a look out for any of the others. Nat, Celine, Valk, and Perit filled us in on everything that had gone down for them since the staircase, including what had happened ON the staircase, and I'd already filled them in on the current situation vis-a-vis the Academy and the Blood Murder Palace.

We walked for a few hours, not running, though it would have been infinitely faster, but moving slowly and deliberately in case of ambush from the Blood Murder Palace initiates. When we were about three quarters of the way to the building, I stopped, holding up a hand. I felt something weird. Not my Danger Sense, but something different. I realized it was my fate sense. Since DS Mastery became part of me and my Fatewalker Path got integrated, that sense had been acting up, but this was the first time I'd felt it do something like this.

Guided by instinct, I triggered my overlay, and blinked in confusion at the arrows filling my vision. Somehow I knew these weren't for attacks, this was some kind of synergy between my fate sense and my overlay. This was real divination in accordance with my Fatewalker Path.

I studied the arrows. Some were white, some were black, some were gold. The gold ones were the least prevalent, and I was pretty sure they would lead us to our friends.

One of them was pointing into the forest, and it was fairly thick, which based on the impressions I was getting meant the target was close by. I felt a tap on my shoulder. "Shane?" Asked Callie cautiously. "What is it? I can feel your reaction kind of, but you see confused."

"One sec." I said, holding up a hand. "We need to take a detour." I gestured for them to be quiet, and tapped into Callie's stealth Skill through the bond, leading the way slowly as I snuck through the forest, about five minutes in, I heard a series of crashes and breaking branches, followed by a lot of screaming, and we all stepped out of the way as four robed figures came barreling out of the trees, screeching in pain.

From behind them I heard a familiar bell like laugh as a crazed voice shrieked. "ATTACK MY MINIONS! DESTROY THE ENEMY!" I sighed, putting my hand to my mask as I finally caught sight of the wave of creatures following them. At first I couldn't figure out what they are, but at a closer look, I realized I was watching an army of flying squirrels swooping down on the robed figures, spitting what appeared to be exploding acorns.

Behind them, Standing on a tree branch with her hands on her hips, laughing maniacally, was Bethy. Because of course she was. She stepped off the tree, landing in a graceful crouch, and strolled happily through the woods after her apparent victims. Several of the squirrels landed on her shoulders, snuggling against her as she laughed.

Unfortunately for the initiates, they were distracted by Bethy herself, and neglected to watch out in front of them. I watched two dark shapes snatch the ones on the outermost edges of the group and vanish, and when the remaining two noticed they froze, spinning around in terror.

Rolling my eyes, I triggered Pit of Despair, and both of them plummeted into a pit of ultra fine dust, struggling to get out as the squirrels bombarded them with waves of those explosive acorns.

"Shane!" Squealed Bethy happily. "Callie! I found you guys. This place is so cool isn't it? Look at all my new friends!" She threw open her arms, gesturing to the squirrel army now perching on trees, staring down at us with terrifyingly focused eyes.

"Hey Bethy." Laughed my girlfriend. "How exactly did you manage to tame an army of flying squirrels. There's no shadow thing going on, and I didn't know you had native animal training powers."

"Well when I met your buddy biscuit." Bethy said excitedly. "I came to a realization. Squirrels are just bats without wings! But these squirrels HAVE wings, so they're obviously bats. I'm a vampire and vampires control bats all the time. So I asked them if they wanted to become my flying rodent army, and they said yes! I talked to them when I was bats, so now I can talk to them all the time and we're best friends! Plus at night I'm going to have them all curl up on top of me like a living blanket!"

I blinked at the influx of weirdness. "Um...ok." I said. "I don't think flying squirrels and bats are the same kind of animal, but that aside, what the hell was up with the acorns."

I glanced at the pit, noting that apparently poptarts and donuts had come back for the initiates. I winced. That might have been on me. I probably should have been watching them. Bethy wasn't bloodthirsty (at least in the metaphorical sense) but she had zero chill when angry. She would absolutely kill them, and probably already had.

She grabbed my attention by holding up a fistful of seething red acorns. "Oh these? They're so cool right? The squirrels showed them to me. They use them as weapons when bigger creatures try to attack their nests. I had to beat up a big red tree to get them, but it was totally worth it because they're so pretty when they explode!"

That did sound useful. Though I had to wonder how strong that tree had been. Bethy tended to just do whatever and ignore inconvenient things like 'reality' and 'power differentials'.

Once we got everyone together, we started heading toward the Academy building again. We'd gotten most of our group, but we still needed to find my sister and Gabriel, assuming he was here. We needed to get together and figure out how to leave. Stopping the BMP assholes was important, but we had no reliable method of exiting this place and that was going to be a long term problem.

My only real solace was in the fact that I still had my wishes left. Four for the day, after the one to find Jessie, and the one to find Celine. If we got everything settled maybe we could use them to reverse the transportation protocol, or open a portal, or even just teleport us home. I suspected the last would be prohibitively expensive, but it was worth trying.

After another hour of walking and catching up, we all came top an abrupt halt as we came to a massive hole in the ground. Specifically,it was a sort of circular canyon around the perimeter of the building, sort of like a moat.

"Huh." I said as I stared across it. "You don't see that every day." The moat was absolutely full of floating pieces of wood and debris. Among the damaged materials I could see pieces of bridge, house, and even in a few spots, some sort of wooden combat wagons or siege engines, or at least what was left of them.

Pulling a rock from my spatial ring, I tossed it at one of the nearest pieces. The rock made contact, there was a flash of light as a sort of energy field surrounding the debris dissolved, and then, after about a minute, the thing dropped right out of the sky, plummeting into the chasm below, which was so deep I literally couldn't see the bottom.

"Some kind of test?" Said Callie cautiously. "That was there long enough to act as a foothold. Maybe we're supposed to jump from piece to piece."

I glowered at the bottomless pit in front of us. "I'm not sure. This feels like something that happened after the Academy fell. Why would a test use debris from the actual destruction of the school itself. I think it probably used to do something else."

Abel nodded. "That piece of debris dropped faster than it should have. That wasn't a freefall, it got sucked into the hole." He glanced at me. "If there's something going on here kid, you'd be the best person to get past it. Between your lightness skill and your Eye of Revelation, you should be able to find us the proper path. Assuming there is one."

Which there had to be. Because if not we couldn't get there, find the others, or probably even escape. Who knew what would happen if the BMP assholes made it over there before us. We had no real choice but to try to make this happen. Letting out a long breath, I turned to the others. "Alright. I can try, but if we're doing this we need to make sure we all have the best chance of survival. That means tying ourselves together."

If the magic in the pit had been different, I'd have said we needed to split up so as to give each person the best possible chance, but there was a finite number of debris pieces, and if using one exhausted the magic, then there was a very real chance of one or more of us getting caught on the other side without a path. If we were tied together we'd be able to try to mitigate that possibility.

"Right." Said Benny proudly. "I've got this." He snapped his fingers, and a truly absurd amount of rope slammed down on the ground in a huge pile.

I blinked at it. "See, I feel like Callie bought rope before the bazaar, so I get why she would have it, but why do YOU have what appears to be all the rope. Like...in the universe. What could we possibly need that much rope to accomplish? Were you planning to steal the whole Academy building and drag it behind us?"

He sneered at. "I'll have you know that I MADE this rope." He said proudly. "I created it with my inventing, or at least the beginning of it. Then I added to it over time. It's woven from a special grass I stocked up on back in the Moonsong Glade. I deducted it from the herb sales we did when you weren't looking." At my glare, he just shrugged. "It was grass, it wasn't worth much anyway."

"So what does this magical special rope DO exactly?" I asked skeptically. "Is it some kind of anti gravity rope?"

He shook his head. "Nope. It's sticky." I blinked at him. "The roped adheres to people unless personally removed by the owner. It'll make it impossible for any of us to fall. It's PERFECT!" He seemed extremely excited that this strange rope he'd been working on for an obviously long time was going to come in handy. I had to admit it wasn't a completely ridiculous idea. It wouldn't hurt at least.

"Not that this isn't fascinating." Said Callie. "But whatever the rope does we're using it now. Because we aren't the only one trying to cross this moat." She pointed, and I glanced down the edge of the abyss to see groups of other people emerging from the woods to gather around the edges. Farther down, almost out of sight, I saw a familiar yellow clad figure missing part of a leg. Felix. We had to get a move on, or we were going to be stick here forever.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The rope was more useful than expected, honestly. I could feel it grip tightly when it was wrapped around my waist, and knowing it wouldn't come off even if the knot came undone was kind of comforting. Of course, the people trying to cross made it hard to focus on that comfort.

Once the rope was affixed, I triggered State of Grace and Ripple Running. After checking with everyone, I got a running start and leapt out over the chasm, my foot slamming down on one of the pieces of debris. My overlay snapped into focus, and I stared ahead, using it to confirm which direction to go. Some of the arrows were gold (only a few), and some were black, but there were no white arrows.

I wasn't sure exactly what those indicated, but I was guessing good, bad, and neutral. I didn't waste any time jumping to the next piece, then the one after, following the golden arrow showing my the proper path. Behind me, I heard the others trying to leap as fast as possible after me, desperately aiming to keep up before the first one dropped.

Sadly, it wasn't to be. There was a jerk on the line, and I had to steady myself to hold on as the floor went out from under one of us. I turned my head briefly to see Jessie hanging over the chasm, being dragged down into the dark by some unseen force. Abel, who was ahead of her, had his rope around his midsection and was trying to drag her back up, while holding up a trail of lubricated space behind him.

Cursing, he leapt to the next step, making her swing helplessly, but was forced to leave her there and keep going lest he fall in with her. To her credit, my tiny blonde friend wasn't shrieking or begging to be pulled up, though she had her eyes closed and was muttering something I couldn't hear.

Abel continued on, and I was forced to turn away so I could keep going blazing the trail. We were about halfway across at this point, but the delay to check on them cost me valuable time, and Callie, who was right behind me, had already caught up to my platform, so I was forced to grab her hand and jump with her to the next one once I found it. Abel continued to make good time, even dragging Jessie, and was consistently releasing his spatial power as he went.

One of the big issues with crossing was Randall. And I DID mean big. The huge bear was much to large to drag the way we were doing for Jessie, OR to fit on the platforms. Abel was creating a lubricated space tunnel like he used in combat to move nearly instantly between two points. He was making a path for Randall so the big bear didn't have to be left behind on the other side of the moat.

Picking out the right target with my overlay, I leapt again, Callie with me, but my Danger Sense suddenly triggered midair. My foot slammed down on nothing as I used the already triggered Ripple Running for the first time, shoving myself sideways and pushing Callie out of the way of a nasty looking barbed arrow as it flashed through where her head had been.

Whipping my own around, I caught sight of a distant hooded figure drawing back a massive compound bow, another dangerous looking arrow on the string.

I considered my options. I could stop that person, or I could avoid the shots. If I stopped them in circumstances like this I was pretty sure they would die, but I wasn't confident they would shoot at me next time and not one of the others.

Grimacing at the necessity, I triggered Pit of Despair on the piece of debris beneath their feet. The platform dissolved into dust beneath them and they plummeted through into the depths of the chasm below, barely having time to scream.
Landing on the next platform, I kicked off again, noting that a lot of the other robed figures were steering clear of me now. I wasn't complaining, it just meant less people I had to kill.

Despite them shooting at us, I regretted having to take out the bowman. If it had just been me I might have chosen to dodge, but with Jessie's life LITERALLY on the line and Callie hand in hand with me, I couldn't afford to take chances. There'd been no other option.

Finally, we reached the other side of the chasm, everyone managing to make it to the safety of hard packed dirt. When Abel arrived, the rest of us grabbed his rope and hauled Jessie up, while he used his spatial passage to pull Randall over while he could still hold it. The big bear cam streaking across, landing next to us, and Jessie flung her arms around him and squeezed in relief and happiness, clearly releasing some of the tension accrued from her time dangling on a string.

"Everyone ok?" I asked lightly, my tone belying the fact that I had just straight up murdered someone. It wasn't my first kill, but somehow dropping the ground out from under someone at range seemed more...ruthless, than killing someone who was all up in your face trying to crush your skull.

Callie reached down and took my hand, squeezing it tightly as she smiled up at me. "We're all fine. Thanks to you. You saved my ass out there."

Forcing a chuckle, I just shrugged. "It's fine, you'll be saving mine soon enough I'm sure. You know how I get into trouble. We should get going and try to find the others. I'm hoping Mel found Chelsea or Gabe, the thought of the three of them out solo worries me, even if my sister can take care of herself and Gabe is a total monster."

To be fair, Mel was pretty scary too, but she wasn't at the same level as the other two in my head. Chelsea was a straight up monster in combat, at least based on what I'd seen of her. She could keep up with a Master and go toe to toe with Callen, who scared the shit out of me, and who Gabe really respected. Mel was strong, but she didn't play at that level. She also wasn't as big a target though, so maybe that was ok.

Bethy bounced in place. "Oh! I can look for them!" She reached up for the dark shawl she was wearing over her current black ballgown (who knew when she'd changed) and whirled it up and around her head. Darkness flew from the shawl as she screamed. "FLY MY MINIONS! FIND ME MY QUARRY!" And a fucking TORRENT of flying squirrels spilled from the dark, swooping out over the nearby forest and spreading in every direction.

"Did you...turn them into that shawl?" I asked, noticing the thing was gone.

She shrugged. "I can turn me into bats, and we already decided they were bats, so I can obviously turn them into stuff too. Plus that shawl was super cute right?" She glanced down at herself. "It goes perfectly with this dress. I totally want to show Tracey and Ada. Or Gabe." She pouted. "That big jerk. He's never around to appreciate my outfits anymore. I hope my tree bats find him."

My melancholy and guilt receded slightly, blown apart by Bethy's absurdity, as I tried and failed to stop from cracking up at her antics. Callie was nodding. "Magic squirrel clothes are definitely cool. I wonder if you could use that power on Biscuit."

Bethy looked skeptical. "He doesn't have wings though. He's like a land bat." She paused thoughtfully. "I guess I could be land bats if I wanted. Which means I can tame land bats. Maybe I could teach him to have wings? That seems more useful." She looked down at her feet. "Poptarts, Donuts, come out for mommy, I'm going to teach you how to fly. We can use this big hole."

"NO!" Shouted every person in the group as she turned to the chasm. She jumped, giving us all a hurt look. "I mean...we don't have time for that." I said desperately. "You should do it somewhere else. When we aren't busy."

"I guess." She said sulkily. "Fine, you two can stay in. I'll teach you to fly later. It's going to be fun." She got a pensive look on her face. "If I can give you wings then you'd basically be bats. Does that mean I could turn into a swarm of tiny winged kitties? That sounds so cute!"

I almost cut her off, but honestly I kind of wanted to see that. I was going to convince her to try, but Callie elbowed me in the ribs, glaring at me for getting off track. I cleared my throat. "Right, that sounds like an interesting question for later. For now can you like...contact the squirrels? See through their eyes or something?"

She just snorted. "Of course. What kind of vampire can't use their familiars to view things from a distance. Hold on a sec." Her eyes began to blaze a creepy red and she stared off into the middle distance, clearly looking at something none of us could see.

Off in the distance I could see the gliding forms of squirrels swooping back and forth, some circling, some flying away. It took maybe fifteen minutes before Bethy squealed with delight, jumping up and down and clapping in excitement. "I found one! No wait, two. That red mask girl who is always hanging out with Axel. She's with the girl with the cool black and white hair!"

"Chelsea and Mel?" I asked in surprise. Apparently Mel had found and grouped up with my sister, which was a great outcome for both of them. "Do you see Gabe?"

She shook her head slowly. "I'll keep looking. They're about ten miles that way." She pointed diagonally through the forest. Apparently they'd managed the crossing.

"I'll take Callen and Callie and go meet up with them." I said firmly. "Abel, stay with the others, we can move faster in a small group, and Chelsea will be more comfortable if Callen comes. We'll be right back, but if anything happens have Randall roar as loud as he can and we can turn around."

My mentor snorted. "I can babysit a bunch of teenagers and a bear. Besides the vampire is here, so if I need backup I should be fine." He glared at her in annoyance. "Assuming she notices my pleas for help, since she can't seem to remember my NAME!"

"Sorry, what did you say Andrew?" Bethy said politely. "I got distracted. But don't worry Shane. I'll make sure everyone is ok, and Alex can help me out if I need it."

Abel gritted his teeth, glaring at her. "You're obviously doing this on purpose! Those weren't even the same name."

Bethy gave him a sympathetic look. "It's ok Andy, I'm sure you'll do something memorable soon. Just keep trying to be interesting. I believe in you." I had to physically step between them because I was worried Abel would fling himself at her and try to choke the life out of her, and Bethy wasn't someone Abel could afford to piss of, no matter how hilariously she was baiting him.

After making sure my teacher wasn't going to take a swing at the vampire princess, I bid my goodbyes to everyone along with Callie and my sister's bodyguard and we headed of in the direction Bethy had pointed us. I wanted to get the group back together as quickly as humanly possible. Whatever the BMP assholes were planning, I doubted it was pleasant, and if we wanted to get out of here alive I was pretty sure stopping them was our best bet. And we needed to do it soon.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

We found my sister and Mel without too much trouble, but sadly that was where the convenience ended. Apparently the lizard wolf things were native to this area, because a pack of them had surrounded Chelsea and Mel and seemed to be trying to tear them apart.

Mel had a huge circle of fire around the two of them, golden flames pushing them back, and she was letting one or two of them through at a time to pick them off. Chelsea was fighting them off when they got in close, her purification flame letting her cleanse their obnoxious venom. I hadn't had much chance to start my innoculation with everything going down, but I put it back on my mental list.

"Callen, can you take care of that grouping?" I asked the big man. "I'll work with Callie to pick off the rest, but there's about five of them there that'll be easier to take down quickly with brute force.
I'd fought the bastards before, and I knew exactly how long killing them with Belial would take, not to mention Mel's fine would make it all but impossible to use Moonlit Night.

Callen nodded, drawing his shorter sword and striding forward. I gave him a second to engage then turned to Callie. "Can you get into the shadows with all this light? With both of us playing distraction you should be able to pop out and cut them apart with your Path."

"Fire isn't a stable lightsource." She said with a nod. "It flickers, which means shadows happen between those movements. I can get to them. What about you? What will you be doing? It'll be hard to sneak up on them when things are like this. And Belial won't work as well if they aren't grouped up."

I chuckled, withdrawing my staff, choked up on it to give myself plenty of room, and took a few long steps as I triggered Mephistopheles. As I shifted into my single combat form, I swung my staff like a baseball bat, letting the black flame gather on the end and then explode out, blasting the nearest lizard thing forward and straight into Mel's golden circle of fire.

It screamed as it pitched through, catching fire and hitting the ground inside the circle rolling and shrieking until Chelsea turned and stomped on its head, smashing it under her boot.

I waved cheerfully. "Hey there! Need a hand?" Callen had hit his group, and the others had all turned to look at me as intended, several stray creatures beginning to prowl towards me carefully. I snickered, setting my stance and triggered my overlay. It gave me plenty of idea of where attacks would come from, especially combined with my Danger Sense. They wouldn't have a hope of sneaking up on me.

There was a flash of danger from behind and I picked up on it easily, sidestepping and swinging my staff in the same two handed grip, shifting slightly to make sure I got a good angle for smashing the bastard right past me into the flames.

My black armor piercing fire was catching on impact and burning through their defenses, scales being eaten up. When the second one hit the gold fire it went up even faster, the flames combining with my own in an odd way and basically turning the damned thing to ash on contact. I blinked, staring down at the staff, and so did all the others. I tried to replay what I'd done, and I realized I'd managed to time the explosion of my flame to a flare up in the circle.

The two fires at their peak had mixed, which was interesting. I was glad it hadn't just gone unstable and exploded like the interaction between the flames of Purification and Enshrining Darkness.

As the explosion distracted a bunch of the creatures, I saw Callie emerge from the dark behind one, daggers flashing as lines of black cleaved the air. Her Abyssal Path was interesting, though I still didn't understand the details of it. Whatever it did, it was destructive, and the space itself (or lack of it) seemed to cleave through the flesh of the monsters with ease.

Her blades took the head of one and opened another's guts, letting its intestines spill onto the ground before she vanished again. Just like last time, the disembowled one attracted the ferocious hunger of one of the nearby monsters who jumped on it, feeding noisily. The struggle knocked them both into the fire, rolling through the flames releasing an unearthly scream.

Callen had already hacked his way through two of them and had just caught the horns of a third and picked it up by the horns to physically beat a fourth with its flailing body.

"Mel." I yelled. "Drop the circle!" She did, and as it came several of the things rushed my sister and friend at the same time. "Callie!" I yelled, knowing my girl had felt my intent when I said that. We couldn't read each other's minds, but we knew how the other fought well enough that it was close.

The monsters charged them, bearing down on the two girls, and as soon as their shadows covered the forms of Mel and my sister, Callie slipped through the shadows, grabbing them and dragging them through. The last five or so monsters collided horn to horn in a giant pile, and I trigger Pit of Despair as they piled up, most of them sinking into the pit of dust.

"Chelsea, Mel, concentrate your power on my staff!" I said as the girls stepped from the dark. I held it up, both hands gripped at the base, focusing my black flame into it. The girls pushed their own flame into the weapon, appearing at my side and putting a hand on each shoulder. My Azure Soul Body was easily able to hold the invocation together, and the three kinds of flames mixed into on crystalline glasslike fire.

Smashing it down on the pile of stacked monsters, I released the blast all at once, a pinpoint explosion in line with Mephistopheles. The crystalline fire created and explosion, consuming every inch of exposed flesh and expanding into a sphere before retreating as quick as it came and leaving behind melted crystal bones.

"Huh." Said my sister in a shocked tone. "That happened." She paused. "HOW did that happen? Invocations aside, different alignments of fire don't really mix like that. Purification flame in particular doesn't mix well with most things. I'm not sure what that gold flame is exactly, but the black fire you were using seemed...deadly. It doesn't seem like something my flame would play nice with."

I frowned, I'd been wondering about that myself. I'd seen from Zeke that some powers didn't mix, and she was right, death was a big aspect of my hellfire. Or at least destruction. "I think because Afterburner is part of that stance." I said after mulling it over. "My meta skill for power enhancement. It makes up part of the flames and it works on everything. I guess it makes my flames compatible with other flames? Not sure if it works on non flame attacks but whatever the case, I don't hate how this turned out."

Chelsea snickered. "It's certainly a pretty pile of melted crystal bones." She leaned down, kicking the ground near the bones. "Actually I think you glassed the whole pit. The bones dumped a bunch of heat and melted all the fine sand. Think we can take it with us?"

"Probably not." I said with a laugh. "I'd love to, it's awesome and I could totally put it in my room or something, but prying out a ten feet wide, ten foot deep chunk of F-ranked crystal full of crystal F-ranked bones sounds like way more of a time suck than we have time for."

I turned to Mel. "Thanks for the assist by the way. Sorry about...beating you mercilessly to within an inch of your life."
She shrugged. "It wasn't real anyway. I'm not thrilled about it, but it's not like I haven't been through worse." She glanced around slowly. "What about Abel? He still around here? Because I'm NOT happy he switched sides, and he's got a lot of groveling to do to make it up to me."

"Do you really think he's the groveling type?" I asked in amusement. I couldn't see Abel doing that.
"Well...maybe not groveling." She said smugly. "But he'll make it up to me. Every time I get mad at him he gets all sheepish and tries to make it up to me by fighting anything that annoys me. It's rarely successful, but watching him try to earn my forgiveness amuses me."

Callie giggled. "I should make you do that kind of thing when you make me mad." She said to me wickedly. "I bet you'd jump through all the hoops."

"No." I said bluntly. "I'll just stop cooking you dinner." She flinched back in horror and it was my turn to laugh. "See, I already have a way to make it up to you when I'm stupid. Now come on, let's get back to the others before Bethy successfully baits Abel into attacking her and turns him into a wombat or something."

"Can she do that?" Mel asked worriedly. "I didn't know transformation like that was part of her powers."

I shrugged. "If she decides a wombat is a type of bat? Probably. Who fucking knows what her powers are. Regardless, that fight would go poorly for him."

She obviously agreed, because she and Chelsea were ready to go quickly enough and then we all headed back to the main group. Despite her annoyance at him, Mel still hugged Abel close when she saw him. Fight or not, they had to take the reunions where they got them. Not to mention their bond was at least as developed as ours. She probably wasn't that mad, and could feel his reasons for what he'd done.

Everyone greeted our wayward friends, said hello to Chelsea again and then turned to me to figure out the plan. "Ok, Gabe is the last party member missing, and we'll have to find him later. For now we're together and he's strong enough to handle himself. We need to focus on the Academy building." I said firmly. "Specifically we need to find out exactly what the hell the BMP are HERE for."

"We still don't know?" Said Chelsea worriedly. "Any chance we could wish for the information?"

I shrugged. "Doubtful, secrets are the most expensive thing you can wish for, and the higher the level a secret, the more it costs. I'm pretty sure they're looking for a way to revive Hatescream, so that secret will be a doozie. Or hell, that could have been a misdirect, who even knows?"

My sister turned to stare worriedly at the building. "That's not good. Hatescream was...scary, from what I've heard. The other gods worked together to put him down. His ability was dangerous and he use forbidden rituals and methods to create powerful underlings. It took five gods to kill him last time. The Wishmaster, The Revenant, The Emperor, The Faerie Queen, and even Black Sorrow. All working in tandem, it's barely ever happened before."

It reminded me of the whole thing with Suvaya. Why exactly did the gods feel the need to destroy other deities. Were they just a threat? Or was there some other reason. Would Black Sorrow and the Red Revenant really work together for something as simple as paranoia?

Whatever the case, she was right. We needed to stop the Blood Murder Palace initiates from achieving their goal whatever it was. And the only way for the to happen was to find it first. I'd have to use my divination to try to track it down. Which meant we had to actually enter the Academy. "Alright." I said grimly. "I suppose we'd better get going then. We have to beat them there."

 

[Malcolm Tent]

We made the rest of the trek in decent time, with Bethy using her army of flying squirrels to run recon. Jessie was indescribably jealous and kept trying to convince the vampire girl to give her one, but to no avail. They were all hers and she wasn't willing to share.

When we reached the entrance though, we ran into kind of an issue. Namely, the big ass door blocking our way. Inside the door I could see a smaller door, but it was pretty much unopenable and a solid pice of the larger barrier, so our only real option was opening the bigger door, which was about a hundred feet tall and made of some kind of E-ranked metal that weighed a LOT.

The weight, from what I could see, was conceptual mostly, but there was definitely some real heft to it, and even with Randall putting his all into it we couldn't get the thing to budge.

"Who builds a door like this?" I complained, kicking the damned thing hard enough that my toe ached. "Like, what is this? A school for giants? How are we supposed to even get inside?" I walked over and tried to pry open the small door inside the big one, doing my best to slip my fingers under the metal, but to no avail. "Why even PUT a smaller door here if it isn't going to open?"

"I think it's meant to be an exit only." Said Chelsea, stepping up next to me. "The smaller one at least. The bigger door seems like some kind of test maybe? Calliope tried to shadow jump past it but it didn't work, so that implies it's meant to be opened as is. It's just so damned huge though, it'll be hard to get any leverage."

I blinked. Leverage. "Hold on a second." I said, scrambling over to the edge of the massive entryway. The divide in the door had some overlap, but there was definitely a gap. I reached up onto my back, pulling free my stygian branch. Slotting my staff into the gap, I retreated to the other end and PUSHED. The door groaned slightly, and barely, JUST barely, moved outward.

My staff was E-rank too, but it was a higher end material than this door. Which meant it could offset some of the Impact through the use of the leverage abilities I'd been learning. I put both hands to the staff, calling the others to come help. Bethy, Chelsea, Callen, Callie, Mel, and Abel all lined up along the length of the weapon, hands gripping the wooden shaft with just enough room.

Triggering Mephistopheles, I looked down the line. "Alright guys. On the count of three. Mel, Chelsea, channel your flames into the staff, I want to use them to try to blow the door open as we push. Ready?" At their nods I began to count. "One." I flooded the staff with power, building as much black flame up in the end as possible. "Two." I felt the two more types of flame join me. "Three."

Releasing the flame all at once, I also triggered the death energy buildup in my staff, empowering the whole attack in a way that wouldn't have worked without the staff being used as the channel. All of us heaved with every ounce of Might we had, and an exponential force surged through the staff and into the door as I roared, releasing the channeled energy to amplify the force of the shove.

The was an explosion of blue glowing glasslike flame as the door was shoved hard, groaning as it was force open about three feet wide.

I turned, as did the others, catching it where it was and planting our feet. I jammed in my staff as a block, and triggered Mountain Stance to amplify my defense so it wouldn't push me back. The others gave it their all, with Randall squeezing his paws into the gap to halt the closing, and between all of us we BARELY managed to bring it to a complete stop.

"Go!" I roared, and the others filed past us, slipping behind where we stood to enter. "Abel!" I yelled. "Get Randall." My mentor nodded, turning and swinging a hand, creating a tunnel of lubricated space so the huge beast could slip through the small door gap without getting stuck. As soon as those two were gone, the door began to close. "Everyone in!" I bellow as I tried as hard as I could to prevent the door from picking up speed.

Callen, Chelsea, and Mel all dove inside, and Callie grabbed me as she entered, yanking me out of the way of the door as it slammed closed with a massive nearly subaudible boom, rattling my bones as I slumped onto the floor. "Damn." I gasped, barely able to breathe. "That was...a lot. Give me a minute. That took it out of me. Everyone else ok though? No fingers or toes left outside the door?"

Benny snickered. "I think you might have dropped your dignity, but other than that we're fine." Celine jabbed him in the ribs and he gasped. "Ow! Honey I was just kidding with him."

She rolled her eyes. "There's a time and a place Benicio. He just helped save our lives. Or at least get into this place with..." She paused. "Now that I'm looking around I'm suddenly a bit less grateful. How exactly is the preferable to being out in the nice open forest?"

"Celine, you're my friend, so I'll say this nicely." I said in a sympathetic tone. "We all hate the forest now. The woods are awful and we never want to go back."

Callie kicked me in the shin, glaring. "How was that NICELY? Celine, don't listen to him. We don't hate the forest. We just...don't want set foot in that leafy green hell for the rest of our lives...wow." She glanced at me. "My bad, you were right, I hate it way too much to softball it."

Our newfound hatred of the forest aside, Celine wasn't wrong. The inside of this place wasn't too much better. Glancing around, I could barely see for more than a few feet, so I called over to Mel. "Hey, toss out some fire for us? I want to light this place up a bit so we can see where we are." What I could see in the small bubble of light cast by the fire Chelsea and she were still holding wasn't painting a pleasant picture.

When she tossed out the fire, we got a much better view as floating fireballs lit up the various locations around the room. What I saw was mostly more of the ruin that had been visible close by.

Everything was gone except the bones. Columns were there, but the trim had been pried up, the floor was bare and scraped clean, appearing to have been pried up, and the walls were empty, with only a few holes where I was pretty sure fixtures used to be.

"Wow." Said Benny with a laugh. "They took everything but the kitchen sink, huh?" Then he paused, squinting across the massive entryway. "Actually I think that hole in the floor used to be a fountain. Chances are good they took the sink too if they took that. Damn, what the hell happened to this place?"

None of us had an answer. The Aetherbright Empire predated all of our factions as far as I knew. Knowing a bit about the BMP was one thing, they were contemporaries of the various organizations we belonged to. But this place...nothing. I opened my Eye of Revelation, scanning the room for any clues or hidden panels.

Whatever the others were here for, we needed to beat them to it. They wouldn't have come here without a way home at least, and if we got to their target first we could use it as leverage. That was a last resort, because I didn't want them getting what they were aiming for, but if I had to pick between Hatescream returning or being stuck here forever with most of my loved ones I'd pick the former.

I scanned for secret passages first. Worst case I didn't find anything, but if there was one it might lead to somewhere the looters hadn't gotten to. That would be somewhere to start.

After five minutes of walking around looking, I stopped in front of one of the stripped down columns. Kneeling, I put a shoulder against the bottom right hand section of the column opposite the wall and PUSHED. There was a low grinding and the section was pushed in a few inches, before a section the size of a reasonably tall person swung away from the column, revealing a spiral staircase that was comfortable enough for us to walk through one at a time.

Callie whistled. "Honey, have I mentioned lately how useful you are?" She said with a laugh. "Because I can't help but marvel at how convenient it is having some of your skills on hand."

I rolled my eyes, but she leaned up to kiss my mask to let me know she was kidding. "As nice as that is, I think it might be best to send the cats up. We have no clue what's at the top of these steps. It could be some kind of monster. Or worse, it could be another fucking test." I was getting sick of the constant traps and assessments around here. I knew it was supposed to be a school but I did NOT approve of their methods.

Bethy giggled. "Oh I can send them up if you want. Donuts has been dying to go for a walk. He's been on thin ice singe back in the dungeon when he warned all those other kitties." She let out a piercing whistle that made the rest of us flinch, hard. "Donuts!" She barked. Her shadow twisted, and the vague form of a cat emerged from it...a cat with wings.

"IT WORKED!" She squealed with delight. "Which means I can do this!" She threw out her arms, dissolving into a cloud of flying furry forms...but not bats. A horde of small black kittens with bat wings swarmed around us, licking us with sandpapery tongues and snuggling against us happily as they flew by.

Despite the urgency of the situation, even I couldn't really complain though. It was just so cute. Jessie squealed with delight, scooping two of them up and squeezing them tight as Callie grabbed one to snuggle with. Benny, who was a cat person at heart, snagged on too, though he tried to play it cool as he cuddled it. Donuts, seeming to have made piece with his crazy owner, waited a minute for further instructions then rolled his eyes and slunk up the stairs.

After a few minutes the cats swarmed back together, congealing into a maniacally laughing Bethy with her arms raised in triumph. "I DID IT!" She crowed. "I am no longer your AVERAGE vampire princess. I have become meow powerful than you can possibly imagine." She froze, snapping her teeth together. "I...ignore that. I did it on purpose. Actually nothing happened. Don't bring it up."

She started muttering to herself, flinching every time she inserted meow into sentences under her breath, and the rest of us just decided to ignore her. We waited fifteen minutes before Donuts came back down. "So?" I asked the vampire. "What's up there?"

She recalled the cat into her shadow, listening intently, head cocked and ear towards the dark. "He says...medicine? Big pots with no fish. Weird smelling plants." She shot her shadow a suspicious look. "Spit that out." There was a pause and then a mouth opened in the dark, hacking up a small ball of plant matter with a burp. She picked it up, grimacing. "This isn't cat nip." She scolded the cat. "It's nightshade. But it does explain what's up there. I think we might be right under an old alchemy lab." Well, that was worth checking out at least.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Once we'd confirmed there was nothing in the room upstairs dangerous to anyone but urban foragers we all climbed the steps to explore the alchemy lab. When we stepped out into the room, the first thing that struck me was the smell. Floral, a bit medicinal at times, but more than anything...almost electric. I felt my skin buzzing from the fumes alone, and my head might have started fogging without my mask, judging by the slightly woozy look on Jessie's face.

Granted, that might have been shock at the variety and appearance of the plants up here, because the first thing we stumbled on were a series of planter boxes filled with hundreds of types of valuable herbs and, if my nose didn't deceive me, some spices.

"They're so...beautiful." Breathed our healer. Which they were, and there were more than a few flowers mixed in. Jessie had grown up around flowers, and developed her original ability in horticulture. Her appreciation for pretty plants was well documented.

Callie stepped forward, glancing down at the label plaques at the base of each plant. "Interesting." She remarked. "A box for each stat. No Impact plants, obviously. If they had those they're probably either gone or kept somewhere substantially more secure than what appears to be a classroom. Still, an impressive selection, even if all of them are F-rank."

F-rank was also the standard for the tests, so it was probably the lowest level of student they accepted here. Maybe because that was the time when getting your Azure Soul Body was easiest. I knew it was possible to do it earlier, but being stronger when you did the trials was probably helpful. They were aimed more at the soul than anything, but I wasn't sure G-ranked me could have managed some of the things we'd had to do.

"What makes you think it's a classroom?" Asked Benny. "I'd have guessed plant nursery or something. Maybe a greenhouse?"

"The rank of the plants." I answered for her. "All the lowest level. Plus if you look back there you can see tables covered with cauldrons, alembics, boilers. All sorts of alchemy shit that I don't know the name or function of. Actually, do YOU know what that stuff is?" I pointed back to the tables I'd just mentioned. "Maybe from your Inventing knowledge?"

Spotting them, he walked towards the back of the room with interest. "Huh. One or two things. That's an evaporator, an essence extractor, and that's a malfas contextualizer." At my blank look he just chuckled. "They're tools for removing specific elements or qualities to add to inventions to try to steer your results. They're also used heavily in Alchemy, which has much more concrete formuli involved."

I knew it was possible for Mad Scientists to exert some small amount of control at lower ranks, and that by synergizing skills or mutating abilities you could even get to the point where you could exert actual control over what you made, albeit in exchange for a decrease in power and capability. Part of the strength of Inventing came from the unpredictability. The mass perception that anything could come from a Mad Scientist's projects removed the limiters on the ability. The more control you exerted the less powerful your Inventions could be.

Benny had done some work learning to guide his Inventions before realizing he got stronger items if he let things take their course. It sounded like the tools in question were a bit of a loophole though, altering the ingredients beforehand to maximize your chances of whatever random item was created being a specific type.

"Can I take these?" Asked my best friend greedily. "Because I could get some use out of this stuff for sure."

Celine smiled placidly. "Of course, even more time you'll be spending tinkering with your toys. That sounds lovely." Her voice was casual, but I noticed Benny's eyes snap to her as he chuckled awkwardly. I was reminded that she'd been less than thrilled by the hardcore nonstop training for months on end during the trip here, and that adding another thing to his plate was bound to cause friction.

He smiled awkwardly at her. "Sorry Cel. I swear, I'm cutting back on training for a while. It's Jessie's turn to put her nose to the grindstone."

We all looked over to where Jessie had picked up a hoe and was trying to use it to pry the flower boxes off the tables. She looked up in surprise. "Huh?" When she saw our gazes she shrugged. "I can't fit the tables in my ring, and the connectors are making it impossible to take the plants. I need to get them off of here so I can ste- I mean, so I can relocate these poor neglected plants."

Randall, who hadn't been able to fit up the stairway in the column, wasn't around to tear them loose, so I could understand needing to pry them up. I chuckled. "Carry on. You got a place to put them when you get them? And can we put still living things in our rings?"

She nodded. "We can, though not sentient things. Also the temporal slowdown in the rings doesn't apply to lifeforce, so the second they go in they start to die. I did some tests on it with other plants. As long as you don't leave them in there for more than a day without life energy they're fine. I can recharge them with my healing every day until we get out, and then find a place to plant them on the Necromedes until we get..." She paused. "Where are we going after this?"

I laughed at that. "I'm still wondering if there'll BE and after this. Even odds we all get murdered here and never see our loved ones again." I glanced over at my girlfriend, who was glowering at me. "Although I'm sure that won't happen and everything will be fine." I tacked on belatedly.

Rolling her eyes, my girlfriend snorted. "Nice backpedal. But yeah, things aren't great right now. Do you see any signs that this place is what the BMP are looking for?"

"Well for a minute I thought it might be that box in the corner marked 'secret god resurrecting potion' but that seemed to obvious." At her glare I just shrugged. "What? You don't think I'd tell you if I saw some sort of clue to why we're all here? My eye of revelation isn't picking up any secret doors or passages. My overlay has about five golden arrows showing right now, so I don't know which might be which."

One of them was probably leading to Gabriel, as for the other four, who knew. She rolled her eyes, but I saw her lips twitch a bit, and I could feel her amusement. She knew I was just messing with her through the bond anyway.

"Eeeek!" Squeaked Jessie from behind us. We all whirled as a crash sounded out, finding out healer on her back with a planted box on top of her. It had broken on her costume without hurting her much, but she was covered in dirt and a long stalk of green with purple bell shaped flowers was wrapping itself around her neck.

Benny walked over, grabbed the stalk, and pulled. The thing snapped in half, one half still around her neck and the other lashing up to grab HIS neck. Pulling out my staff, I whacked it against the plants one after another, the life energy being sucked away enough to make them let go and fall to the ground. Jessie scrambled free of the dirt, spitting and grimacing as she put distance between herself and the plant.

"Ok first of all." I said with repressed humor in my voice. "Did you just SAY eek when that thing grabbed you? And second of all what was that?"

She leaned down to pick up the plaque, which had fallen into the dirt, and held it up for me. "Choking violet. Might focused. I didn't realize it was so literal. Apparently the anchors that keep them on the tables also prevent them from doing things like...well, that. Also I didn't say eek. I said...Zeke. Like your uncle. Because...I was hoping he would save me. Because he's so powerful. But I forgot he wasn't here."

Bethy gave her a pitying look. "Jessie. Even I know that's a terrible lie. And I believe most stuff. Do you want me to have Poptarts follow you around for a while until we can join back up with Randall?"

My friend's shoulders slumped. "Yes." She said sulkily. "Speaking of, Abel, can't you bring him up now?"

"Nope." Said my mentor with a shake of his head. "Not until we get into a hallway or something. So we should move on from this room and figure out where we're going."

Sighing, I gestured to the tables. "Lets see if we can figure out how to take the plants without them trying to murder us. These could be useful later. We should really find an Alchemist actually. Anyone here know Alchemy?" That just got head shakes from everybody.

Once we decided that, we all looked around to find the most harmless sounding plant, and then worked together to try to sever the link between it and the table. My Enchanting was way out of date and I didn't know this style anyway, but luckily Nat was here and my cousin knew a bit about this kind of thing. She studied the runes carefully, tracing them with her fingers until she finally located one and jammed a knife in it.

Jessie tried again to lift the box of dirt and plants and it came up easily. She squealed in joy, storing it in her ring, and then the two of them started cleaning the whole place out even as Celine helped Benny take all the equipment.

After that, we searched the room for documents or any kind of books or maps. I used Eye of Revelation to speed things up, and to my delight I actually found a book hidden behind a wall panel. We pulled it out, and I couldn't read a word of it, but Chelsea, being more versed in older languages, was able to decipher some.

She flipped through the book for a while before slamming it shut. "Ok, this is a journal from the person who taught this class. Sadly no convenient mentions of secret weapons, but the person DID make an offhand reference to a vault in the headmaster's office. I can't say for sure that's where the thing we're looking for will be, but it seems like as good a place to start as ever."

"That's awesome!" I crowed in excitement. That was a hugely lucky break. "You did it Chelsea." My smile dropped as I saw her frown. "You don't seem like you did it though. You seem worried."

She flipped the book back open to the last page. Due to her high Focus she'd skimmed it unbelievably fast, but I think she wanted to recite this part aloud just to make sure we got the point. "The school has fallen." She said grimly. "The enemy are at the gates. Even now they invade our halls, perverting the sanctity of our most noble place of learning. Their greed will be their undoing. Soon we will be gone. But death...death will remain."

I froze, looking down at the book. "I don't suppose the word for death translates into something else? Something happy? Maybe puppies? Could it be puppies that remain?"

She shook her head. "Whatever killed the people who ran this place, they didn't want it to get what it wanted. They left safeguards. Something is in here with us, and it doesn't want us here. I'm not sure how many of them are still here, or how strong they might still be, but I don't think we should take it for granted. We should get Randall up here soon. We can't leave him alone. None of us should be alone." I swallowed hard but nodded. She was right. The Blood Murder Palace had brought us to a bad place, and I hoped we would all make it through.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"So...there's something evil in the hallways?" I said rhetorically. "That's just fantastic. Are we even sure whatever the security system was went off? Because they robbed this place down to the studs. I feel like they would have been interrupted or something."

Chelsea shrugged. "I just read you what it said. I have no clue about the details. It's not like there was a post script saying 'p.s. the evil monsters we unleashed will be in hallway five at six P.M on the third monday of every month, oh, and they're allergic to peanut butter'. I'm running on very little info just like you. The question is what to do with the info we have? Are we still going out there?"

I blew out a breath. "I mean, we have to don't we? We need to find whatever they're looking for. Anything in the rest of the book about that?"

"Not that I saw." She said with a grimace. "I can go over it again. My Focus made skimming fast and easy, but I might be able to try to parse it for data points. I didn't see any obvious references to anything specific though. Just the reference to the headmaster's vault."

Benny groaned. "Man, why is everyone dead. Usually we'd have met someone who could give us the down low on everything. Someone involved who can tell us what happened."

My eyes widened. "Wait...what if we COULD do that?" I was starting to form the beginnings of a plan. A crazy and potentially suicidal plan, but a plan nonetheless. It would be risky, but if wanted information it might be the best chance we had. I turned to Bethy. "You can control and talk to animals you...what, enthrall?"

"Thralls are people." She said sternly. "Animals are familiars. But yeah, I can understand what they're saying for the most part. It's not really talking like humans do it. More like images. But with context and emotions. Why do you ask?"

"There's...something, out there." I pointed to the halls. "Something dangerous and terrible that wiped out everything that was here before. But whatever it is, it's a living thing. Hell, it might not even be the SAME living thing, maybe it's a descendant. Whichever monster or beast they let loose out there, it's the only thing we know of that might have some clue of what's going on or why. At the very least it knows its way around."

Jessie, being our resident monster tamer, got it first. "You want her to tame the thing." She said in shock. "But we don't even know what it IS."

"So we cheat." Callie said with a grin. She always understood me best. "We can use wishes to prepare some traps and restraints. We might not be able to wish for the information on what we're dealing with, but we can wish for the right kind of items to counter it. Then Jessie can do her thing, use lifeforce to tame it. Once it's restrained and docile Bethy can...familiarize it. However it works."

The vampire girl bit her lip. "Maybe. I don't know if I'll have any kind of innate advantage. My cats are Night Pride, shadow demons. I have some sway over the dark, so that helps." Her voice wasn't as bright and cheerful as usual, more analytical. Bethy in her serious mode was a rare sight. "But if you have it bound somehow and Jessie uses her lifeweaving...I think I should be able to tame a powerful F-rank creature."

"If it's E-rank we're fucked anyway." I said with a shrug. "We'd probably already be dead. Actually, if they had anti-invader protocols, why ARE we still alive? Any high ranked monster would have already killed us."

Chelsea frowned, tipping back her head and closing her eyes. "Spatial sanctions." She said simply. "Not uncommon in training and combat academies. Stops the higher ranks from picking fights with the newbies. The space here is structure to break if anyone past a certain point exerts any Impact here." She opened the book again, flipping through. "Got it. This is the freshman academy. This part of the building is cut off from the more powerful places."

"That's good though, isn't it?" I asked hopefully. "The headmaster isn't a freshman, or an F-ranker, so his office will be in a higher level area. The Blood Murder Palace initiates will get murdered by the defenses or whatever when they step into a higher level area."

She shook her head. "Spokes on a wheel from what I can tell. The headmaster needed to be accessible to everyone. The different classes surround the central office, and you can access it from any of them. Once they get in...well if the monsters from the other areas break past the defenses they'd be waiting in there, but without anyone to open the place it's unlikely."

"Ok. So we need to get through the defenses in the freshman section of the academy, which will be limited to F-rank threats, but probably REALLY scary ones. And when we do its possible there will be horrible monsters of an even HIGHER level. Fingers crossed the defenses on that office are still holding. But getting there means we need something to counter the monsters or whatever that are here."

"Well, then I wish we had a collar that could contain the type of monster that lives here." Callie said vaguely. "I'll pay with ten shadow travel charges."

Wish detected. Grant wish?

I confirmed, gleefully noting that I could afford it. I wasn't sure how specific 'contain' really was, but she'd been aiming for doable not perfect. I felt the electricity build in my hands, gathering before a charge exploded out, congealing into a massive pitch black iron collar with symbols carved all over it.

Three wishes left. I glanced around. "Ok, so we have something that can counter it. Probably. Anyone know what this IS?" I'd never seen anything like it.

Chelsea, luckily, had. "I recognize the runework at least. Give me a minute. It's not something I studied, more like something I saw in a book once." At my raised eyebrow she shrugged. "The Holy Dominion is fairly boring, especially when you're avoiding dozens of suitors. I mostly spend my time in the library when I'm home."

"Well, always nice to be well read." I said with a chuckle. "Especially when it saves me from getting my face ripped off. If you recognize any of the symbols, that'll be usable."

"Well that one means dog." She said, pointing to the one closest to the hinge. "And that one means hot punishment place."
We all blinked at her. "Hot...punishment place?" I asked slowly. "No context or...like there's not one word for it? Because that's not helpful."

She threw up her hands. "I'm not a linguist! I told you I saw it in a book. Something about a hot place where people are punished. That's where the dog lives. If you need more than that I suggest consulting a whatever language this is dictionary, instead of someone who noticed the symbols on a fucking pot in a reliquary text."

"So...not to interrupt." Said Callie slowly. "But do you think maybe the symbol means 'hell'? Because like...that's a hot place where bad people go."

"That would make sense." Said Chelsea thoughtfully. "So a dog from hell?" She froze, her head slumping. "Oh. I'm an idiot. Hellhound. The collar is made to contain a hellhound. Wait shit, they summoned HELLHOUNDS?" Her voice went up into a squeak as she started looking around in fear.

That didn't seem promising. "What exactly are hellhounds? Aside from, I guess, hounds from hell? But is that even a real place?"

"There are supposedly several hells, most of them defunct or belonging to vanished gods." She said with a grimace. "It's hard to tell what's legend and what's fact. Hellhounds though, are demonic animals that can be summoned with access to the right rituals. Summoned from WHERE I have no clue, because we don't have the rituals, but they're incredibly dangerous and nearly impossible to kill without a strong advantage in Impact."

I looked down at the collar. "Ok, that sounds...bad. But the collar will help right? Like it should suppress the hellhound so we can capture it?" I glanced at Bethy. "Are you sure it's even safe to try?"

Sadly, it didn't matter, because Bethy was staring at the thing with figurative stars in her eyes. I saw her open her mouth, and I knew what was going to come out immediately. My hands blurred up to my ears just fast enough to block them off as she squealed. "PUPPY!"

"Gods woman." Barked Abel with a wince. "You could break glass with that shriek. Warn us next time." He glared at me. "Or YOU could have warned us."

I shrugged. "No time, I could only save myself. Your sacrifice is appreciated. Axel." He snarled at me, and I ducked behind Callie as he made a lung, cackling like a madman. My girlfriend just rolled her eyes at us both. "So." I said getting us back on track. "Will this collar be enough? Can we get more collars?"

"Probably wouldn't do much. Necks are only so big." Said Callie with a shrug. "We might be able to do something else though. I wish for a hellhound lure that will keep the monster's attention, but only works on one creature at a time." She pursed her lips, thinking for a minute before saying. "I'll give ten shadow clone charges."

Wish detected. Grant wish?

I grinned. I was at seven shadow teleports and two shadow clone charges, so ten of each brought me up to max along with seven and two reserve charges respectively. As the power gathered in my hand again, I wondered what kind of ancient artifact we'd get this time. Some kind of incense maybe? As the purple lightning coalesced though, my jaw dropped.

A bone. A large yellowed bone with carvings all over it, but still, it looked like the kind of bone you'd get at a pet store. We all stared at the thing in surprise. "Oh. Well, ok. That's...cute?" Jessie said questioningly. "Nah, I got nothing. That's a weird looking artifact. You sure it'll do the job?"

I scowled at her. "Hey, do I come over when you're healing people and ask if you're sure they'll get better. My wishes are top quality. Sometimes they're too expensive, but they ALWAYS work."

"Yes, honey." Said Callie consolingly. "Customer satisfaction guaranteed. Now shut up and throw the magic bone out the door so we can catch the damned devil dog." I snickered at her patronizing tone, mostly because I knew she was doing it to mask the worry I could feel from the bond. I shrugged, walked to the exit of the room, jerked the door open, and hurled the bone at the wall across the hall.

"Soups on!" I bellowed. Then slammed the door shut, peeking out through a slatted viewing port on the door. "Alright, now we wait." I said, staring intently at the bone. I didn't want to risk the Hellhound grabbing it and running off. I only had one wish left today.

Before I even finished my last word though, something hit the door at top speed, smashing into the dark wood and making it buckle before bouncing off and landing on the bone with ferocious glee, digging in and tearing at the hard material with razor sharp obsidian teeth set into a mouth that glowed with a sullen red light.

"It's here." I murmured under my breath, as the rest of my friends gathered around me at the door. I waited for it to get REALLY into the bone, then I triggered pit of despair, dropping the hound into a ten foot hole made of dust...and right out the bottom into the floor below. "OH SHIT!" I yelped, darting through the door and heading for the hole as a familiar roar came from below us. Apparently Randall had met the hellhound. It didn't sound like they were getting along.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"You dropped it on my BEAR!" Shouted Jessie as we bolted out the door. "Randall! Hold on sweetie, I'm coming." She leapt into the hole without a second thought, and I was right behind her, but there was someone else who was faster. Abel blurred past me, spatial lubrication letting him slide through the hall and down the hole so quickly even my vision could barely track it.

Grabbing Jessie, I dropped into the hole, stepping off air with Ripple Running, State of Grace slowing us down. As she landed, safely, I let her go, and shifted into Mephistopheles as I tossed her the collar. "We've got him, charge that thing up with your most subversive life force."

Slamming the butt of my staff down, I vaulted across the empty entryway, hurling myself toward the Hellhound as Abel smashed into the side of its head. Randall was torn up, but he'd held out for the few second we took to get there. He might not be some crazy uber powerful demon beast, but he was a bear the size of a fucking bus, and he was coming up quick on the peak of F-rank.

Abel's punch had been enough to jerk the hound's head to the side, but not stop it. I slammed my staff right into its exposed eye, dumping in all the hellfire I could muster.

The Hellhound howled, jerking back and stumbling away, eye burning. Mephistopheles used Marked for Death as part of its base, so defenses could be bypassed. The thing might normally be tanky as hell (pun intended) but my hit was doing SOMETHING at least. "Ok." I growled to myself. "Let's try this again." I triggered Pit of Despair. This time, thankfully, it didn't drop into another floor. It just dropped into the dust. I made a mental note not to use that skill when I'd gone up stairs, at least not to its full depth. I felt Callie prepare to subdue it through the bond. "Jessie! NOW!"

A sea of darkness leapt up, wrapping the hound from snout to tail, though it was already starting to break down as I watched. Jessie didn't need to be told twice. Leaping forward, she snapped the collar around its neck, the dark metal device snapping shut as the symbols carved into it glowed a bright vital green. The hound howled, tearing free and throwing her aside, where she was caught by Nat.

"Everyone stay back!" I yelled as I backed away from the thing where it was struggling. It was free, but every time it tried to move, sparks of green would come off it, causing it to yip and snap. "Bethy, you're about up here. You ready to do your part?" The glow of the magma from the hound's mouth was starting to dim slightly, which seemed like a good sign, but that didn't make it much less terrifying.

Seeing it like this in the middle of the room gave me a new appreciation for the thing. It stood about five feet at the shoulders, close cropped ears and lean features, kind of like a hunting dog. Its eyes (or eye right now) blazed a deep ruby red and its obsidian teeth shone in the residual glow from its mouth.

As I watched, its snapping became less and less frequent, and when it finally ceased attacking enough to be vulnerable, Bethy charged forward with a triumphant squeal of. "PUPPY!" And hurled herself onto its back. Its non injured eye went wide, and it started to buck and shake, but Bethy held onto the collar, riding its back like a bronco at a rodeo, shrieking with delight.

As we watched, the ground began to change, black grass sprouting, tombstones rising from the dirt. Above them a red sky unfolded, black clouds partially covering a bloody moon. With almost no warning, Bethy's legs clamped down as she leaned sideways, planted a hand on the grass, and flipped the struggling animal up and over, slamming it back first into the ground.

She blurred forward, leaping on top of the Hellhound, and like a striking viper, sunk her fangs into its throat just above the collar. It struggled, but she quickly pulled back, slashing open an arm and dripping the blood into its mouth before she grabbed it around the neck in a chokehold and held it still.

The dog was terrified, bucking and fighting, but Bethy's eyes glowed bright red as she made shushing noises, muttering softly to the animal that it was alright.

When it calmed down, she rolled off of it, looking down at her dress with a pout. "What a bad boy, you made mommy all messy. Oh well, it was our first time meeting, so I'll let it slide." She looked down at the cowering dog and scratched behind his ears. "Who's mommy's good boy? Who is it? You are! Yes you are!" To my shock the Hellhound's tail actually started to wag, the great beast straightening up.

Callie stepped up next to her. "I uh...brought his bone?" She said uncertainly, passing the lure to Bethy, who nodded happily. "So can he tell us anything?"

"I've named him Luggage!" She pronounced. Apparently breakfast foods were cat names. "And yes, he can tell us all sorts of things. But he's shy right now. I'm going to have to patch him up, since mean old Shane put one of his eyes out. Jessie can you heal Luggage?"

Our healer was currently patching up her bear, who was mostly done bleeding. She glared at the vampire, then at the whining dog, and sighed. "I guess. Randall is ok anyway. Mostly superficial wounds. Have..." She grimaced saying the name. "Luggage, come over and wait by me. I'll patch him up next."

Bethy clapped happily, tossing the bone lure casually. "Luggage, go play with your toy while you wait." The dog's head jerked up, and then he blurred across the room to snap up the bone excitedly before lying down to gnaw on it.

"Alright. So...that was easier than expected." I said cheerfully. "Sorry about Randall, Jessie. Is he doing ok?"

She sighed, nodding as she stood up. "I have him patched. I know you didn't mean it and he's fine so it's water under the bridge." Walking over to the hound, she knelt down and placed a hand on his flank. He growled slightly, but Bethy cleared her throat and he settled down. "Wow, his fur is so soft." Said Jessie as she channeled power into him, smiling softly.

The Hellhound had a glossy black coat that seemed to actively suck in light around it, and it made the demon dog hard to spot unless you knew where to look or it was in action. It was interesting that it was soft, for some reason I'd assumed it would be like barbed wire or something. Something durable and defensive.

Once she finished up the healing, Bethy was at the dog's side in a snap, rubbing her face on his fur. "Oh, you're feeling all better now aren't you? Did Auntie Jessie fix you all up?" She gave us a serious glance. "Dog's need more affection than cats. Donuts and Poptarts are too independent for cuddles, but Luggage is a good boy, aren't you?" She cooed to the hellhound a bit more, and its tail started wagging again.

"That's nice to know." I said slowly. "But we're in the market for some other information. To start with, why don't you tell us about the Hellhounds. Is Luggage the only one?"

She cocked her head, listening as the dog made snuffling grunting sounds, and then shook it quickly, hair bouncing. "Nope. He says there's a whole litter of them. Thirteen total, counting him. He's the youngest. Apparently all his brothers and sisters are bigger too."

I sighed in defeat. "Of course they are. Of course we ended up catching the runt of the litter." A deep growl echoed out from the hound and I cleared my throat, holding up my hands defensively. "Sorry, man. No offense."

"Did mean old Uncle Shane make my baby sad?" Bethy cooed to the massive infernal killing machine. "It's ok, you're mommy's good boy. Now, do you think you could show us a way to the headmaster's office without running into any of your siblings?" She paused for a bit as the dog snuffled. "I..." She looked at us. "How would you describe a specific location to a dog?"

I paused. "Shit. That's a really good point." I said quietly. "Ummm...oh, ask him if there are places where some of his siblings can't go?" She looked at him expectantly, and he snuffled, which she translated with a nod. "Ok, well is there a place in the MIDDLE of all those places where ALL of them can go?"

She listened for a minute. "Apparently he calls it...well, I can't translate that, but the closest approximation is 'bad place with mean things that don't smell good'." She paused again. "Or possibly 'mean place where smell is bad' I think he might be saying his sense of smell doesn't work in the headmaster's office. But yes, he knows where that is. He says he knows a smelly path that dogs don't like."

Callie sighed. "Well that sounds promising. But presumably smelling bad beats getting eaten alive by a pack of Hellhounds, or at least as many as can get to us in the F-ranked section."

I nodded. "Abel, can you get Randall up through that hole if I give you a boost? I figure it'll be easier than trying to get him through that tiny ass stairwell. Straight line rather than a spiral at least." I glanced at Jessie. "He's good to be moved now, right?"

She nodded. "Definitely. The hallways up there are big enough too thankfully. Though I really need to find some kind of bear shrinking artifact. Maybe I can wish for it. It'll be so convenient." She stopped, frowning at the bear. "No I'm not trying to turn you into a teddy bear. Well, yes, obviously I'm going to cuddle you to sleep when you're tiny, what does that have to do with anything?" She threw her hands up. "You're a BEAR, you don't even have a reputation!"

I nodded to Abel, who snickered as he walked over to where the bear sat. "Come on huggles." He snickered. "Let's get your giant ass up to the second floor."

Reaching out, he manifested the massive hand of his Ragam, then grabbed up the bear and shoved forward. The hand closed around the animal, space rippling and shifting as Randall started to fucking SHRINK so he could fit through the opening. I blinked in shock as Abel kicked off the wall, slipping through after him. "I didn't know he could do that." I said blankly. "Did you guys know he could do that?"

I'd seen him do a lot of crazy shit, but shrinking was new. Everyone else looked just as shocked. We all made sure we had what we needed and then headed back to the spiral staircase, which was easier than going through the hole in the floor. When we got to the top, we found Abel and Randall lounging insouciantly, obviously trying to look cool.

"Good work Abner." Said Bethy cheering as she and Luggage ambled past the spot they were resting. "You're the best pet mover ever. I'm totally gonna remember this. I'm so happy for you, you finally found something you're good at!" She sounded so genuine that if I hadn't known she was almost definitely fucking with him, I never would have guessed.

Abel's face turned purple with rage, and he sputtered as she walked past. I stepped up next to him as he stood, patting him on the shoulder. "Don't feel too bad." I said with a reassuring smile. "Didn't you notice?" At his blank look I nodded after her. "She got two letters right this time." That was when I lost my composure and started laughing. It felt good to get some of the tension out.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I grimaced down at the small river of glowing green sludge. "Why is this here?" I asked the others as we stood in the dark cramped tunnel. The entrance was at the back of a closet that Luggage led us to, and after climbing down through the floor, we found ourselves in a weird sort of toxic catacomb.

"Who knows." Said Jessie with a shrug. "But Randall isn't going to fit in this tunnel, so I think it's about time for that wish." I grimaced. I wanted to save my last wish for an emergency, but we did still have Nat with us, and we couldn't leave Randall behind again, not with a big hole in the floor and Hellhounds on the loose, and especially not upstairs in the very hallways said devil dogs were guarding. At my nod, Jessie said clearly. "I wish I had an artifact that would let me shrink Randall and then return him to the proper size unharmed as many times as I wanted."

Wish detected. Grant wish?

"Looks like I have the juice for that. Probably some space warping effect like Abel used. Anyway, I need some payment if I want to grant it." I shrugged. "What do you have for me?"

"I was going to offer ten reserve heals." She said casually. "I mean, it's not creative, but you do need them. You're full up right now, but you go through them fast. Another ten free once you run up your current tab should be more than enough to afford an artifact like that."

Confirming the wish, I was pleased to see she was right. The power gathered and then exploded out, creating a small necklace in the shape of a gold circle with a crystal star shining in the center. I passed it to her, not getting a charge this time since my heals were currently full. Reserves were useful as hell when I found myself in need with no wishes to trade, which like it or not might very well end up happening pretty soon.

Jessie laughed delightedly as she took it, and the star crystal sparked once. She blinked, eyes going hazy, and then grinned at me. "Looks like this one comes with instructions. Granted, it's not complicated to use." She turned, climbing up out of the tunnel, and I followed. She pointed the necklace at Randall, then flicked the star inside the circle, which began to spin. As the image of the bear changed, Randall himself began to shrink, until he was only a little guy about the size of a breadbox.

Bethy squealed with excitement, clapping in enthusiasm as she watched the bear shrink, then snatched him up, squeezing him tight. "He's so CUTE!" She crowed. "I wanna borrow it. I can use it on Luggage, and Donuts, and Poptarts and I'll have super tiny little mini animals to carry around and put on my shoulders. Or I can turn into swarm of bat kitties and carry them all!"

"Not the time Bethy." I said firmly. "Also doesn't work for anyone but them. Specificity helps cut down on cost."

She pouted, but I didn't bother arguing with her about it, just turned and climbed back into the reeking glowing tunnel. "Well, we're ready to go now." I said, grimacing at the scent. It was worse after getting to leave for a while and come back. I wished my sense of smell would stop working, but it didn't seem likely.

"So, I vote we don't TOUCH that stuff." Rasped Benny. "I'm not sure what it is, but very few things that glow and smell this bad are a part of a healthy breakfast."

I nodded. "I'm more curious why they felt the need to make this sewer tunnel. This shouldn't fit between the floors. We punched through the ground outside that alchemy lab without any trouble, it was like four feet thick. Someone purposefully put this here to guide...whatever that shit is. And judging from the direction it's flowing, it's not going TO the vault."

Chelsea nodded. "It seems like some kind of runoff? But what exactly makes this kind of byproduct? Is it part of the defenses? Is the air conditioning filter worn out? Who the hell knows?"

"I really wish we could gather information with wishes." Cursed Nat. "That stupid secret price imbalance is the most inconvenient thing. We could try anyway? Spam a lot of very general questions and see if anything sticks. Couldn't hurt to have more info."

I shrugged. "We walk and talk. We don't wan-" My voice cut off as I triggered Belial, blurring forward with my staff flashing out to deflect an attack from...something. Something vaguely familiar. It dove back into the channel when it saw me, and I waited for any sign of further attack, but it was gone. "Ok, did anyone else see that? Because I might be crazy, but that looked like-"

"The things from the woods." Said Callie with a grimace. "Except mutated. Its antlers looked like blades, and I think it had a fish tail instead of back legs."

"Oh come on!" I yelled at the muck. "How is that even a thing? Who looked at those fucking monsters and thought, 'hey, lets make them way worse'. That is just...deeply unpleasant." I sighed. "Alright, well it seems like they're ambush predators, and that they don't work well on land. Let me take the lead and stay on the other side of me. Belial and my staff combined make me a solid counter to these things."

Not as solid as if I'd had time to fully acclimate myself to their venom, but who knew if they even had the same stuff. We started forward, the Hellhound hanging back looking miserable and snuffling to his vampire. This little sewer system wasn't exactly a maze, but there WERE turns, and he kept us seemingly on the right path. We had a few more scares with the muck monsters, but when they realized I could sense their ambushes they stopped bothering.

I was a bit worried about it actually. Ambushes from dangerous monsters made sense, but these things backing off was odd if they were security beasts. Which meant they probably weren't. These weren't like the Hellhounds that were left here on purpose with orders. They were just here. So where had they come from? Did it have something to do with the runoff? What exactly was IN that vault?

As we continued, Bethy pulled back. "Luggage says the smell is getting worse. He says this a bad place, and his nose is starting to not work."

"Is there any way for you to put him...somewhere? Like with the cats?" I asked, shooting the poor hound a concerned frown. Tried to kill us or not, he was pretty cute dog, and he was helping. I didn't want him to suffer for no reason when we were probably getting close. It looked like a straight shot from here anyway.

She bit her lip in thought. "Maybe? I can't keep him in my shadow. He doesn't work like that. But I used my domain to catch him. I might be able to put him inside for a while. I won't have access to my domain while he's in there though. And I might be a little distracted."

"It's your call." I shrugged. "But if he's suffering that bad it might be best for him."

After thinking for a moment, she nodded. "You're right." She got down on her knees to face the hound, listening to his snuffled directions, before kissing him on the top of the head and scratching behind her ears. Her eyes started to glow that unearthly red, black grass beginning to sprout from the stone beneath her heeled boots. Then, after a second, the grass faded, as did the form of the dog.

Bethy stood, eyes glowing still, and sighed. "Alright, he said it's straight down the pathway. We're almost there. Good idea Shane."

"It's nothing, glad he's ok." Bethy's crazy might be rubbing off on me, or he might remind me of Jin, who was back on the Necromedes who knew how far away, but I thought the Hellhound was kind of cool. We continued down the passage, and I felt more than a few brief hints of danger before the creatures noticed me and backed off. They were testing me, checking to see if I could still see them coming.

Finally, we came to the end of the tunnel, where a waterfall of green muck poured from a brass grate in the top of the tunnel. On either side of the canal, set into the dark stone, were a pair of brass ladders marked with a myriad of delicately carved symbols. Before anyone could step forward, I held up a hand. "Chelsea, can you take a crack at deciphering these? Maybe Nat can help. I don't want anyone touching the ladder until we know what the symbols do."

Something about this place was off. The vault was supposed to have the item that the Blood Murder Palace needed, not...this. Toxic waste? Something was wrong with this vault, and I wanted to know exactly what that ladder and the spellwork strewn hatch above it led to before anyone of us touched it.

They nodded, stepping forward as Callie leaned in next to me. "What is it?" She asked quietly, stealth muffling her voice to keep it from anyone but me.

"I'm not sure...it's-" I cut myself off as I thought of something. Triggering my overlay, I pushed with my Eye of Revelation, shifting the context slightly and..."There's no safe way forward." I said with a grimace. "A few neutral, but no gold arrows. None of the ways we can enter that place are good for us."

She scowled. "We have to go forward though. We have no way back. Whatever is in that vault is our only leverage if we can't figure something out. And if we CAN we don't want them to have it."

"I know." I said tensely. "But I don't want to lead us into a trap either. Maybe if they figure out what the ladder does and why it's there, we can find a safe way to proceed. Just because none of our current options are any good doesn't mean we can't make our own way."

Chelsea called out to us after a minute or two. "I think we got something." We headed over to stand with her, and she pointed at a few symbols. "It's some kind of filtration system. I don't know why they need it, but this whole thing is cyclical. At least based on the enchantments. It pumps this stuff through the entire surrounding area, and the soil and wildlife leeches...something, out of it, making it safe to use. Then they do something to it up there and it becomes tainted."

"Is the hatch safe to use?" Several of the white arrows pointed up, so I suspected it was at least survivable.

"Maybe?" She said uncertainly. "Nothing is supposed to go up this ladder. Things come down it to do maintenance on this place, but going up isn't what it was designed for. In fact, climbing DOWN it is supposed to filter some of whatever is infecting this muck."

Looking around, I took in the place around us. Staying down here was a bad idea. I was sure this stuff was going to do something to us if we lingered, and going up seemed like it might be worst, but we needed to do it. "Chelsea, can your flames of purification cleanse the area around us and on the other side of the hatch? Just for a minute so we can get through there and hopefully to somewhere safe?" She looked uncertain, but I had a plan. Holding out my hand, I triggered Afterburner. "Well then how about I give you a boost."

 

[Malcolm Tent]

It took about an hour to successfully purify all the ambient...whatever it was, and then do the same through the hatch. Luckily, brass doesn't exactly insulate heat, so Chelsea was actually able to leak the flames through the metal by superheating it. It took probably four times as long as it should have because of that, but eventually my overlay informed of a gold arrow, and after sending through a shadow clone, Callie confirmed it was safe.

Once that was done, we turned the hatch (took a few minutes for me to figure out the combination, thank you Eye of Revelation) and then we climbed out into...something.

A room. Round and flowing with green muck. At least, the outer ring was green. In the center, a waterfall of black liquid poured into a massive tank, under which hung a hugely complicated array of spellworked tubes and vessels. The tubes ran the liquid through various glowing filters and enchanted sieves, condensing and refining it until it came out in the form of thirteen taps, each dripping a few drops into ANOTHER tank, which dripped even more densely different colored drops onto a glowing green skull.

The skull was pulsing with a sullen rhythm, and as the liquid hit, steam leapt up, siphoned from the air into a series of tubes that further refined it, all that vapor being collected yet another series of arrays and tubes that seemed to lead out of the room.

All the excess liquid that didn't steam ran off in rivulets into an empty pipe below the skull, and it glowed a familiar and toxic looking green. The runoff after all was said and done looked to be very nearly the same amount that was going in, somehow. Whatever was being extracted didn't effect the physical amount of liquid used, and whatever that runoff was it was dangerous.

"Come on." Grimaced Chelsea. Her hands were alight with white flame. "We can't be in here. My flame isn't able to keep purifying whatever THAT is. That skull is a horrible thing and we need to get away from it."

Nodding, we helped her to the door at the far end of the chamber, under where the tubes let out. It took me a minute to get the thing open, but once we were out, it slammed shut on its own and my sister slumped against me, exhausted. "Alright, well that was...weird." I said. "As far as I can tell, that's some sort of...reactor? Experiment chamber? Is that the vault the guy mentioned? Because the only thing in there is that skull."

"Speaking of, what IS that skull?" Asked Benny. "And what the hell was it doing. Every one of those filters was made of a rare and expensive mystical material, and the enchantments on those things were DENSE. The process that stuff is undergoing is incredibly complicated and I couldn't BEGIN to follow that level of sophistication, but whatever they're making, it's got to be expensive and dangerous."

I shrugged. "Look around this place. Maybe we can figure it out." Outside the 'vault' was a normal looking office. Well, mostly. Along the ceiling hidden tubes could barely be made out coming from the chamber with the skull. The tubes were woven into a large and complicated spellwork diagram, all of it concentrated on a brass cone shaped device the came down at the very center of the room.

The vapor from the room was collected, run through the device and condensed into liquid, and finally, about every ten minutes or so, a single drop would fall from the needle tip of it into a black shining chalice on a plinth in the middle of the room.

Around it though, were bookshelves, and a desk and a bunch of odds and ends that looked headmaster-y. We all split up, looking through the bookshelves and the desk, though Callie went over them with her trap Skill and Chelsea and Nat checked them for enchantments first. I also used my overlay to direct people toward the most relevant places rather than just blindly checking.

Finally, we got lucky. "Got something." Said Chelsea excitedly as she pushed up on the bottom of an extended drawer on the desk. When she did, a panel slid back, revealing a neat little stack of papers and books in a cubby that was too small for them. Pulling one out, she opened it, grinning in triumph. "Hah! This is Avarian. I can read this." She frowned. "Well I can read Cersik, which is a derivative of Avarian, albeit influenced by Rallish. But I'll muddle through."

"How many languages do you KNOW, exactly?" I said, impressed at the depth of her studies. It really MUST be boring in the Holy Dominion.

She shrugged. "I'm fluent in forty seven, conversational in another sixty. There's enough crossover that learning new ones is usually easy with the knowledge base I've got. Grandpa has an absurdly broad library, but almost none of the books are in universal common. I had to learn to translate or get pigeonholed to a tiny section of the library, and the librarian is a sweet old man who likes to lecture."

"Damn." I said with a whistle. "Your Focus must be pretty high. I had you pegged for a Might focus, given the flames."
"Understandable." She said with a smile. "And my stats do lean that way. I'm kind of an even split of Might and Focus. I also have a few research Skills that boost my learning and studying efficiency. Miles the librarian is chock full of those, and he's taught me more than a few."

I gestured to the book. "So, since you can read it, what does it say? I'm not sure what it is we need to take. I'm leaning toward the cup, but the skull might also be the target. I'd say we should take both, but I REALLY don't want to touch any part of that ritual before we know what it does, especially not the part that seems to be poisoning the entire countryside somehow."

Nodding, my sister gestured for Callen to drag over a chair and sat down as we continued to comb the room for...anything. When I couldn't find shit, I called everyone over to give Chelsea a chance to work while we had a meeting about what the hell was going on.

"So..." I asked lamely. "Anyone have any fucking idea what this place is? Aside from a nightmare."

Nat shook her head. "Nope. I had Valk do a battery of wish questions, just to see if we could dredge anything up, while you and Chelsea were purifying the space in that room so we could get through. Pretty much just yes or no on some random shit. Yes the thing they want is here, yes they know what it is. More misses than hits. I still have a few left in case of emergency, since SOMEONE didn't save any."

My cousin's glare rolled right off me. I just shrugged. "That's why we have two of us right? Besides, I made sure to use them all for important things. Never enough wishes in the day."

Benny rolled his eyes. "Oh boo hoo, my nearly omnipotent wishgranting power has too many limitations. Why don't assholes try life without the cheatcodes and see if you're still complaining. I'll take limited wishes over nothing any day of the week."

"I DID try that. Ass." I sneered. "Why don't you try not being a dumbass."

"Why don't YOU try shutting the fuck up?" He snapped back. But was interrupted by Abel smacking us upside the head one at a time.

He rolled his eyes when we both shot him our glares. "Why don't you both shut up, and anyone who has productive ideas can talk. I'm getting a headache listening to your squabbling. You're like a pair of crying babies, the both of you."

"Abacus is right." Said Bethy seriously. "We need to focus on what's happening."

Abel whirled on her. "That one isn't even a NAME!" He shouted, throwing his hands up in the air. "And I don't see you contributing."

She shrugged. "I got us here didn't I? Luggage was our guide, and now we're standing in the center of it all, before anyone else." Her face pinched in worry. "But...I wonder where Gabe is. He's all alone out there, and who knows who he's run into."

"He'll be fine." Said Callie firmly. "He's the toughest person in the whole group. The faster we figure out what's going on, the faster we can track him down and make sure he's safe." She turned to call over. "Chelsea, any idea what those books are yet?"

My sister looked annoyed, but not at Callie. She didn't look up as she called back. "Yes! They're research notes, but I'm having a lot of trouble with the Avarian. Turns out while it IS a Cersik proto language, they completely changed the syntax. I know what these words MEAN, but not what order they're supposed to be in. Just from the first few pages though, I've picked out a few words."

"Such as?" I asked hopefully. Maybe there were directions to what we needed, or even a fucking description.

"Nothing good." She said with a grimace. "Mostly just really obscure notation protocols, but there were a few disturbing little tidbits. The word vivisection comes up several times, for instance. Like I said, still sorting context, but to be fair, I don't think I've ever seen vivisection pop up in any story with a happy ending. Plus the ominous green skull with the horrific mutating aura of toxic death seems like a red flag."

I nodded. "Alright, keep at it, we just need to finish bef-" And of COURSE, before I even finished that sentence, something massive and powerful hit the door. Everyone's heads jerked up, and we all got into position in front of Chelsea, preparing for whatever was coming.

There was another crash and the door to the room was smashed open (on closer examination they'd just rattled the crossbar out from in front of it, the actual door seemed to be made of pretty tough material) and a fucking SEA of robed figures poured in.

Drawing my staff, I shifted into Belial, while everyone else got ready to fight. From beyond the robed figures I head a rhythmic clack. The BMP assholes moved aside, revealing a limping Felix, with one leg missing and using a cane to get around. His face was as blank and neutral as ever as he approached, stopping in front of us. "Well. Good to see you all again. It seems you've beaten us here."

"Yes." I said gravely. "We've already gotten our hands on...that chair." I pointed at Chelsea. "It's got unmatched lumbar support. Truly a fearsome weapon. We're willing to give it to you if you show us how to leave."

That actually got a smile. "Ah, I see you're hoping I'll monologue and reveal our master plan to you."

I shrugged. "I mean, I figure I have a decent chance. You murdery types love to talk. That Billy guy didn't shut the hell up. So, you going to give me the play by play? Tell me how you plan to bring back Hatescream? That is your plan right? Raise up your crazy murder god?"

Felix stared at me in confusion, tilting his head. I expected a villainous gloating session. Instead he just looked perplexed. "Raise up Hatescream? You think we had to come all the way here, to risk so much just to resurrect a dead god?" He smiled at me gently. "You've misunderstood Shane. We aren't hear to resurrect Hatescream. Or to get something that will allow us to do so. We're here to acquire something that will let us raise a half DOZEN of them." I blinked. That...was way worse than I was expecting.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"What the actual fuck does THAT mean?" I snapped, staring at the other man with hostility. "First of all, HOW would you do that? Second of all WHY would you do that? Hatescream I get, he's your boss, but most of the vanished gods have been gone for ages. Why would you want them back hogging your boss's spotlight? Hell, how do you know you could even get them to play nice."

Felix shrugged. "We naturally have our own methods of ensuring such things. As for the how...I assume you have a basic idea."

I grimaced. "The shit in that cup. The weird ritual liquid leaking off the skull. What IS that skull anyway. If you're here for the liquid I assume you know?" I felt deeply uncomfortable being around that thing earlier. Sure it was enchanted, but it was more than just enchantment. Something was WRONG with it. My Danger Sense was going off like crazy when we were near it, though that might have been the poison muck.

He shook his head. "I'm afraid not. Lord Hatescream knew of this place, and left record for accessing it. This particular plan has been in motion for many years."

"So why now?" I asked. "Why wait all this time and do it at this exact moment. I refuse to believe my luck is that bad."
Another smile graced his lips, this one more mocking. "Do you know what 'the shit in that cup' is, Shane? What it's capable of doing?"

"It's spiritually reactive biomass." Said Chelsea grimly from behind us. "Of some kind. It eats material and then uses the fuel to create physical mass matching the attributes of the last spiritual influence it came into contact with." She held up the book. "But that's just the end goal of the experiment. It was on the first page. WHY would you need something like that? What would you even do with it?"

"Why, feed it, of course." Said Felix with a laugh. "It's why we waited. See, the Sanctophage material, the name of that substance, requires physical mass of a similar type to be useful. It has to eat something similar to the spiritual input to create the matter." My blood ran cold, and he grinned at me, shedding his aloof pretense, eyes shining with fanatical glee. "I see you figured it out."

"Suvaya." I said hoarsely. "You needed the flesh of a god to use this stuff. The guy who bought that mountain was one of you."

He nodded eagerly. "Of course. Lord Hatescream was a power in his own right. His adherents do not simply belong to dregs and niche organizations. We needed the biomass to fuel the conversion. Once we had that, all we had to do was recover the Sanctophage and not only would our lord return to us, but he would bring along all his friends. Vanished gods whose fragments and spiritual essence he secretly collected over all those years."

"That's not how it works!" Snapped Benny. "I studied that ritual. Mass only helps. The physical body is the least important part. Those spiritual fragments need STATS. Impact. Without the ritual how would you feed one, much less a half dozen?"

I thought back to the description Callen gave me of the substance Billy was carrying. "Lamentation liquid." I said in horror. "You've been ritually sacrificing people to gather that disgusting muck and using it to nurture the spirit shards. You feed it the remains of tortured souls to grow stronger, then feed the biomass to the Sanctophage and let each fragment inhabit the thing so they can make a suitable body."

"The conversion rate is admittedly less than ideal." He said with a shrug. "We require an absurd number of materials. Luckily, there are always places to acquire scraps. The Black Sorrow Cult does a brisk trade in heretics and blasphemers. It's taken us centuries to collect them all, but we had patience. Just as our lord did. He foresaw this day. From the moment he realized how strong the others were growing, he knew he would never be able to achieve his goals."

I tried to follow what he was saying. "So you're saying that since he couldn't beat them, he ENGINEERED his own death to throw off suspicion while he gathered his resources? That's...that's fucking insane."

"SILENCE!" Roared the catlike man. "How dare you question him! The patience, the cunning, the sheer determination required to concoct such a scheme. They're beyond what your petty mortal mind can comprehend. But still. Your willpower and improvisation are impressive. We could allow you and yours to live. Simply hand us the Sanctophage. With it, my lord and his brothers and sisters will rise, they will take back the universe from the six, and we will know paradise in the mortal world."

I stared at him, taking in his peaceful, fanatical expression. "Wow, you are like, completely, bugfuckeringly insane. He's a MURDER god. Or did I get that wrong? Who the hell wants to live in a universe ruled by a guy who thinks 'Blood Murder Palace' is a catchy name for his crew?" I looked at the others. "Is this just me here? Like if you guys think we should do it I guess we can discuss."

Callie rolled her eyes. "I'm pretty firmly in the no column on this one hon'." The others all piped up, nodding and agreeing with her statement.

"You heard the lady." I said, jerking my thumb at my girlfriend. "We're going to opt out of your crazy murder society, thanks so much."

"Fools." He spat, hackles rising like an actual fucking cat. "To spit on HIS generosity. Very well. Then I see no need for your nonsense. Kill them. Kill them all and take the Sanctophage. Kill them if you have to die in the process. We must complete our mission."

With that, the wave of cloaked figures blurred forward, and we were all lost in a sea of violence. My staff flicked up, lashing out to begin deflecting the attacks of the hooded figures into each other, but my eyes went wide as the closest one fucking WRAPPED himself around my staff.

The green corrosion of Belial crept over him, but he just ignored it, weighing down my staff as he slowly died. I was so thrown off by it that I didn't have a chance to dodge the second one as he hit me head on, with two more piling atop us. I panicked, but still had options. I used a shadow jump, sliding into the dark and then stepping out a few feet aeay to take in the scene of the rest of my people.

Chaos. We were all used to fighting rational, sane humans. Even cultists CARED if they died. Sure, the brainwashed sleepers would tank hits like that, but they were also dull and kind of slow in terms of reactions. These guys were living thinking humans who gave no fucks if they survived as long as they could accomplish their goals.

Bethy was under attack from all sides, ten of them having circled her and holding her down. My sister and Callen were penned in the same way, and Abel was on the ground, several of them on top of him until he slipped out with lubricated space and pulped a head, looking genuinely pissed. I looked around for Felix as I saw Nat and her friends grouped around a now full sized Randall who barely fit in the large office, batting away the others.

I caught a flash of yellow heading for the cup and dashed after him...and then I wasn't. I was across the room, throwing myself aside to avoid a punch from Abel that might have actually killed me. He blinked, confused, as did as. Looking around, I saw a hooded figure where I'd been throw itself in front of an attack from Mel that was aimed at Felix, before she vanished, appearing behind Chelsea and barely avoiding getting bisected by Callen.

"Fuck." I snapped. "Everybody careful! They have a translocator!" I'd heard of the ability, like teleportation but it worked on other things instead.

Spatial abilities were a bitch to deal with. I saw a few binding powers at work, starting to slow down Randall, a couple of poison users Chelsea was offsetting, and various elemental and energy based tricks, but the translocator wasn't obvious. I couldn't figure out which one was doing it. The fucking hoods made them impossible to tell apart even with my Perception and Eye of Revelation. Something about the cloaks was blocking it. Like the one Nat had when I met her.

"Back off." Snarled Callie as she stepped from the shadows, swinging an attack at Felix. Nat and the others had managed to slip Perit through their encirclement and she was winding around the pedestal to line up a shot. Felix ignored Callie, shifting into a cat and blurring forward as she sprang at him to attack.

I saw what was going to happen before it did. Pattern recognition, fate sense, or maybe a lucky guess, but I knew. Felix's paw touched the cup on the pedestal, and he was gone. Callie landed a second later, both her black daggers thudding home. One in Perit's back, and one in her throat. She stared up at Callie in shock as my girlfriend looked on in horror. Felix had appeared on the other side of the pedestal, retaking human form to catch the falling cup, then stashing it in a ring.

The pedestal began to glow, red lines pulsing as they emanated from the center. Felix bolted out the open door as it slammed shut, having already been moving before the defenses activated.

The floor started to glow, and I felt heat begin to build. My eyes wide, I blurred forward, grabbing Callie and yelling for the others. She wouldn't let go of Perit's body, even Vitality wouldn't fix that, and she was definitely dead, but Callie just clung to her in panicked desperation.

I didn't have time to fight her on it. I had my Eye of Revelation active, looking for any space that didn't have the sewer system below it. The thing was spatially expanded, so it didn't cover the whole floor, just most of it. I found a section of now glowing stone that didn't have anything under it and I dragged Callie over to it.

Jessie shrank down the bear again, and the others helped fend off the figures so they could all make a retreat after she did it. They were still attacking, desperate to slow us down. I was almost hyperventilating, but I forced myself to calm down. Perit was dead, that was bad, but I was in charge, and if we didn't live no one would mourn her. I had to keep it together.

When the rest of them arrived, I triggered Pit of Despair. And nothing happened. I stared at the ground in rage. We needed out of here, but the floors of this office weren't random hallway floors. They were clearly warded against things like this. Smart call but REALLY unfortunate for us since my feet were starting to burn.

Wait...burn, defenses. I shifted into Mephistopheles. Nat was beside me, shaking her friend, crying as she cradled the body, and I tried so fucking hard not to look. Not to imagine that was me holding Benny, or Jessie, or Callie. Not to let my heart break for my cousin.

I raised my staff, which had absorbed a shocking amount of life force from that crazy fucking initiate who decided to play pencil topper. Then I focused Pit of Despair into it, shoving in as much of my super destructive armor breaking black flame as I could while I did. I slammed the staff down, releasing the attack, the death energy stored, and the flames all at once.

The floor beneath us flashed black, and I felt like it became a bit less stable. I slammed it down again. Pit of Despiar. Pit of Despair. Pit of Despair. The ground collapsed under us, the black flame mixing with whatever flame enchantment apparently destabilizing the structure enough for the attack to finally work. All I could see as we plummeted into darkness was hooded figures bursting into flames as the floors finally got hot enough, and all I heard was my cousin sobbing for her friend.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

As we hit the ground, we could still hear screams from above. Everyone was freaking out, but despite that, the person I was most worried about was Callie. Horror, guilt, self loathing, pain. Feeling a heart break in real time was an absolute nightmare. Perit hadn't been super close to either of us, but Nat was, and the tall blonde woman had still been part of the group. "Oh gods." She whimpered. "Oh gods what did I do?"

I was at her side in a second, catching her hands as I shouted out. "Chelsea, lights please." A blinding white flame coalesced on my sisters hands and flooded the room with light. Callie was crying, tracks running through the makeup on her eyes and trailing over her mask, mixing with the dust on her face. "Callie." She didn't respond. "Cal! Honey, it's ok. It wasn't you. It was the translocator."

Nat was sobbing over her friend's corpse. I let go of my girlfriend and walked over to check on my cousin. "Natalie." I said quietly, kneeling down and putting my hands on her. "Nat I know this is horrible, but we need to store her body. I've never done a resurrection wish before, but I imagine the less decomp the better. If we put her in one of our spatial rings it'll probably make it easier to bring her back."

She let out a ragged laugh, a hollow, empty sound. "Bring her back? Do you know how much that costs? Do you know how high rank the wish GRANTER needs to be? Never mind the payment. And it scales. Perit was a high F-ranker. It's not like bringing back a mortal."

I nodded in sympathy. "I know. Jessie has been trying to get her brother back. But it IS doable. I checked and the wish is valid, just outside my abilities."

"You're not thinking this through." She snapped. "This will ruin her life. Of course I'll bring her back, but think about what she's losing. People lose interest when a story stops. Any reputation she's got, any chance to get stronger, it'll be gone. Valk and I will be way higher rank than she is, and we'll have left her behind. Assuming we can even do it at all. What if we die? Then we wait what? Ten years for you to maybe bring me back? Death isn't something casual you can just shrug off."

I put up both hands, not missing Jessie's worried expression, but not having time for it. "I get that." I said soothingly. "But we CAN bring her back. Most people don't get that option. And you can help her when we do. Grant her wishes to grind up her stats. Fast track her."

She took a long breath. "I appreciate that Shane." She said, exhaling deeply and trying to calm her trembling voice. Tears still rolled down her face. "But that only works up to the edge of E-rank. Paths are soul bullshit, and you can't wish for them. Help forming one maybe, but not past that. You're right though." She waved a hand and the body vanished. "Better condition should make it easier."

Callie bolted over, eyes wild, and grabbed her hands. "Nat! Oh my gods, and Valk! I'm so, so, so sorry!" She flinched, eyes losing focus. "What am I saying? Who says that? Sorry I killed your friend? Like that even means anything. I'm a monster."

She burst into a fresh wave of tears, but Nat reached out and put a hand over her mouth. "Enough." She said finally. "It's...awful. Gods is this awful. But I saw what happened clear as day. It wasn't you. It was that catty fuck and his bullshit teleporter. If he wasn't probably dead I swear-"

Callen cleared his throat. "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but he probably isn't. Some of those robed assholes were stuck in the hall, chances are good he swapped with one."

"I thought translocators can only affect other objects?" I asked carefully. "Is it possible for him to do that?"

He nodded. "It is. Low level translocators struggle with the ability because it requires a large amount of Fantasy. Don't ask me why."

Valk, who had been standing to one side, stone faced and staring at his partner, spoke up, voice raw. "As terrible as this is, we do need to keep moving. I'm not sure where that bastard was going with that cup, but chances are good he needs to get back to the temple. Or somehow teleport out somewhere else. Who knows. Wherever he's going, we should be following. We need to get that cup back, or at least find a way out." He glanced at Nat's hand. "Or we'll never bring anyone back."

"Agreed." I said solemnly. "Anyone have any clue where we ARE?" I scanned the huge room we ended up in. It probably shouldn't have fit in the first floor, but then, when had that ever stopped Ascendant architecture. The room was full of pillars, and between them I could see tables. Long wooden tables wounds tight with dense green vines that almost seemed to be moving in the flickering light.

Oh, nope, they were ACTUALLY moving. Awesome. Jessie frowned at them. "Those aren't...right. They've mutated. The energy inside them isn't life force. Not really. It's like that gross green stuff coming off the skull. I can feel it twisting them, making them stronger in an awful way. We need to leave."

"Don't have to tell me twice." I said with a nod. "Chels, can you make a hole? Fire plus purify equals bad for plants plus abomination energy. I can pump you up if needed."

She reached out with her white flame and poured it on the nearest vine. There were some under us, we'd just been insulated by all the dust from the floor above. As the fire touched the plants, an unearthly scream echoed up, seeming to break in multiple registers at once. It sounded like nails on several chalkboards of varying distances. I couldn't help but wince.

"I got it." She said stonily. "These things will be cake." Raising her hands, she focused, and twin torrents of white fire like a flame thrower started to spew forth. She aimed them at the plants in the aisle near us, towards the closest door, and then slowly began to burn away those horrible plants, ignoring the screams.

I wasn't sure about the exact stat requirements, but judging by the sweat starting to drip down her brow it was hardly easy. She moved down the aisle, step by step, hands like flamethrowers as she burned away the obstacles before us. Callen was at her back, sword drawn, waiting and watching for any possible threat. As she did that, I took the time to walk over and put my arm around Callie.

My girlfriend was a strong person. The strongest I'd ever met, in a lot of ways. She was also a kind person, one who cared about doing the right thing. Killing an innocent person, much less a friend and someone that was loved by other people she cared about. It was anathema to her. It was just about the worst thing Felix could have done.

And FUCK Felix. I didn't care about gods or murder cults. I was going to kill him for this. For making the person I loved most feel THIS. I could feel the emotions through the bond, like a fucking parasite eating away at her until nothing was left, and there wasn't shit I could do about it. How do you fix something like that? How do you unring that bell?

She stopped, pulling me to a halt and looked at me, hands reaching up to cup my face. Or my mask I guess, but wither way. "Don't." She said softly. "I can't feel that too, baby. I can't take your heart breaking while mine does. I'll be ok. It's awful, but I have a way to fix it. I'll help you get strong so Nat can wish her back. Just like Jessie is. I believe in you. I know you can do this."

"I can FEEL you suffering." I said plaintively. "I can't just ignore that. Ignore you. How am I supposed to not hurt when you hurt?"

She chuckled wetly. "By letting me do this myself. I'm sorry, but knowing how much this hurts you is making it worse. I'm alright, I have something to focus on, but I think we need to close the bond until we get out of here. Just so we can both function, because the feedback is going to make us useless."

"Well can we at least beat Felix into a bleeding weeping mess and kick him into a ravine?" I asked hopefully.

Her face hardened. "We can kick him into TWO ravines." I wasn't actually sure what that meant, but she sounded like she had ideas. As ominous as that sounded, I was glad she was focusing on anger instead of guilt. I felt her rage before she closed down, and it was frankly a relief compared to what I'd been getting from her before. And then...it was all gone. Knowing she was hurting made losing contact all the worse, but I pushed it aside.

I half expected to be jumped by evil plants, but whatever the things were that were slithering around they weren't smart enough to ambush thankfully. Chelsea burned us a path to the door, and when we opened it, we slipped out into the hallway, ready to follow after Felix.

Before we did though, I forced everyone to stop. "Alright guys. This...this was bad. I know we're all tired. Scared. Hurt. I know this is a shit situation. But we have to keep going. We have to find Felix, because he HAS to have a way home with that thing. But I just want you guys to know, I'm GOING to get us out of this. No one else dies. So we do this careful, and we do it smart. First thing we need is to get out of here." No arguments at that, which surprised me. But I guessed they were pretty shaken up. "Callie, I want you checking for traps. Shadow clones, trap Skill, the works."

She looked at me suspiciously, probably wondering if I was giving her busy work...but she WAS the one with the trap Skill, so after a second she got to work. Chelsea was leaning against the wall looking worn out, sweat matting her hair. "I'm...gonna need a minute." She said, panting. "That was a lot. Whatever that energy is its bad news. It took some serious effort to purify it."

"You're fine." I said with a smile. "Callie needs time to do her thing anyway, rest up. I'll get Jessie over here to give you some juice. We have a healer for a reason."

I waved over the blonde, who was looking a bit pale. This whole thing was probably bringing up a lot of shit she was trying to push down. "Hey Jess, can you top my sister off. She's feeling a bit wiped." I saw Callen's eyes widen a bit, and realized he didn't know. Oops. Seemed like a bad time to worry about that kind of thing though. Hopefully he could be trusted, but if not we might all die anyway.

"Sure thing Shane." She said weakly. She stepped over, laying her hands on Chelsea, and green light poured out from her hands. I nodded to her gratefully and then went to stand next to Callie as she scanned the hallway. I didn't say anything, just took her hand and laced my fingers in hers. Even with the bond shut I got an echo of gratitude that she pushed over to me, and it made me smile. We'd get through this. Together. I just wished I could figure out how.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

We got out of the Academy again with minimal incident, thanks mostly to Luggage. While he didn't really venture downstairs much, the hound had an in depth feel for the school building, and was able to lead us around several traps he recognized. Callie showed him with love and affection after each victory, and I smiled internally at her mood. I think she was missing her own hound in her upset state, but I couldn't tell because the bond was closed.

Once we hit the outside, I triggered Eye of Revelation, trying to narrow down a trail, and once I found one, we hurried off after Felix and his cloak squad.

Once we got outside, we ran into...a lot of people. Some were fighting, some were dead, and some were trying to escape into the building. I froze when I saw the bedlam. "Shit." I snapped, looking around. "This is going to make following them nearly impossible. We need to get through. Abel, Randall, Jessie?"

My mentor grinned, stepping up to put hands on the other two. Closing his eyes, he focuses, and the image of a colossal glowing green bear appears above him, glaring down at the battling Ascendants. The bear threw back its head and roared. and everyone cleared back except the hooded figures. Nat stepped forward with Valk, all but snarling at them.
"Which one of you bastards is a translocator?"

Unsurprisingly, no one stepped forward at first, but after a minute, one figure emerged from the rest. Pushing back his hood, the dark haired man with the brown eyes smiled at us, a small scar splitting his face from forehead to upper lip. "I'm afraid that isn't my gift." He said in a soft voice. "But I'd be happy to show you what I can do." Reaching behind him, he withdrew a COLOSSAL two handed sword, blade as thick as my bicep and as long as I was tall.

Before my cousin could respond, a hand fell on her shoulder. "Don't." Said Callen as he stepped past her. "You can't beat him. You're Albert, right? the Lord of the Sword? I've heard of you. An independent sword master who managed to reach the peak of Expert. I didn't know you were one of THEM." He sneered the word.

Albert shrugged. "My lord is an honest and forthright lord. Can you say the same? Is the Red Revenant the kind of god who speaks truth to his followers? Or speaks to them at all?"

"Sophistry." Scoffed Callen. "Your god is a god of murder and bloodshed. He's a monster. As are his followers."

The tall, lithe man barked out a laugh. "Now whose a sophist? We're swordsmen. I know you too, Callen. High Crusader of the Red Church. Rubrum Gloria, yes? Tell me, where does all that red really come from. Does it spill from your enemies? From those you consider unclean? How many have met their end by your blade? But because your god likes to play pretend and act like he's friendly my murders are wrong and yours are holy? There's a reason your church are all considered hypocrites."

"Shut your mouth!" Snapped Chelsea from beside me. "Callen isn't like that. He protects me. He only uses his sword in defense."

Albert grinned at her, and his expression made my hands tighten on my staff. "Is that so? Is she right Callen? Has your blade on tasted the blood of those who attacked first? That's quite a trick. If it's true though, I doubt you could be considered a problem. With no natural drive for victory, can you even call yourself a swordsman? Not to mention you give up so much power raising that sword. Maybe-"

He was cut off by a blur as the big blonde man appeared in front of him, short sword drawn from the hip and already heading for his throat.

Albert just stepped back, casually catching the blade on the hilt of his massive claymore and twisting. Callen leaned back, the sword sweeping through the space his neck had just been occupying. Albert kicked out hard at Callen's knee, but the larger man rolled sideways to escape, disengaging.

The dark haired man guffawed. "Was that it?" He started to swing his blade slowly around him, cracking joints and working his muscles. "I have to say I'm a bit underwhelmed."

Callen stared at him, then resheathed his sword. Snapping his fingers, another appeared from his ring. This one
was...ugly. It was huge and made of jagged black metal. Not like someone was making a serrated edge, but like it had been broken. The metal was pitted and worn, and the hilt was covered in thorns that drove into his palm.

"That's a bit better." Albert crowed. "Honestly, do people really think you can generate enough fear to raise a blade like that with just a run of the mill sword? That's the one you use to make an impression isn't it? I can almost hear the screams coming off that monster. The question is, how well can you use it."

The big blonde didn't look away, but he called out to us. "I'll deal with Albert. You go ahead. I can catch up when I'm done." He blurred forward, massive black sword arcing up from below, only to be deflected by the big claymore. Stepping in, he smashed his forehead into Albert's face, driving the man back, then hauled his blade up and over for a downward chop.

Albert might have been an asshole, but he wasn't a weak one. He sidestepped, his sword flashing out, and Callen's came to meet him. Flashes of silver against black accompanied the ring of metal on metal as they dueled, like silver lightnings in a black metal storm.

My sister grabbed my arm. "You heard him." She said. "Callen knows what he's doing." Calling to any of the distant non cloaked figures, she yelled out. "We're tracking their leader, he might know how to get us home. If anyone doesn't want to be stuck here forever, help us take care of the hooded guys so we can pick up the trail before he's gone." The people looked relieved, I saw Travis, who had been Adrian's second in command, call out to his friends, and then set on the nearest crowd of cloaks.

We headed for the woods where the trail had been leading, but we were intercepted by another crowd of the BMP assholes. "Ugh." I groaned. "Why are there so fucking MANY of you? Are you bastards multiplying or something?" I could have sworn there weren't even this many people left in the last two trials.

"Maybe." Grinned one in the front. He looked pretty weird even for an Ascendant. Pale with pitch black eyes and no sclera. His teeth were cast iron and flat, like they were made to grind bones, and his hair was limp and seemingly flat to his skull, soaked with some viscous green fluid. "Maybe we're just better than you thought. Or maybe you didn't want to believe there were so many of us. That our lord was so beloved."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, sure. He's up there on everybody's list of 'best guys ever'. Can you guys stop pretending to be anything but fringe lunatics? You're not convincing anybody and its really slowing this down." Shifting into Mephistopheles, I positioned myself to attack. We were going to need to make this quick.

Before I could though, I felt the ground shudder. No, not shudder. I felt the ground quake. With the repetitive slams of a very large animal RUNNING at top speed. From behind the hooded figures, I caught sight of a shining lance, a familiar blonde haired blue eyed form, and beneath him, a MASSIVE furry body, with a plush bushy tail. Gabriel hit the crowd at top speed, bellowing "RUBRUM GLORIA!", and the majority dove out of the way. Iron teeth took a lance to the chest, though it just sent him flying rather than spearing him.

Gabriel pulled to a stop, grinning down at us. "Somebody call for the cavalry?" He hoisted his lance up over his shoulder heroically.

"Don't cavalry usually ride HORSES?" I asked pointedly. "You're here on a giant...holy shit is that Biscuit?"

The big squirrel snorted and Abel sighed. "He says yes, and your mother is a horse. He also says hi to-" He was cut off with a squeal as Bethy and Callie both hurled themselves as the big rodent, cuddling into its side. Gabriel looked kind of put out when he saw Bethy wasn't paying attention to his heroic rescue, and I had to hide my smile. The two seemed to have bonded over their three month trip.

I was thrilled to see Callie so excited after her previous shell shocked state. She was clearly thrilled to see her furry friend again, having never expected him to be real or to show up outside the...trial.

"Wait." I said, freezing. "Benny do you have any sort of rough map sketched for this place?" He nodded and handed it to me. "How about the earlier one. The trial we met Biscuit in." He raised a brow but pulled out the map we'd picked up down there. Laying them both against the obviously annoyed squirrel, I compared them.

He grinned at me. "They're the same. Or near enough. The academy building is obviously missing, but the layouts are similar."

I pointed along a line from where we were. "Yup. And THIS is where the stairs descended. It's also where Felix seems to be headed. So if we're talking as above so below, to the point where the trial seems to have used the spirits of real creatures, at least the native ones, then there might be an exit there. We're heading in the right direction at least."
Which begged the question though, why didn't we see the wolfhornigators in the trial. Did it have to do with that skull and the mutation energy? Were they just not part of the trial?

"Oh, hey Gabe!" Said Bethy brightly, breaking me out of my thoughts. "I didn't see you there. Did you come in with Biscuit?" We all gave her disbelieving looks she seemed to miss, though Abel clapped the crushed crusader on the shoulder, giving him a sympathetic nod. "Can we catch a ride with you, we're chasing down this three legged kitty guy. He's not cute though, not like my cats. He's a dick. Oh! And I got a new puppy. And I can turn into kittens!"

Taking all that in stride in a way only someone whose sense of shock has been completely destroyed by prolonged contact to our bubbly vampire could, he just nodded along. "Sounds like fun. I'm sure Biscuit will carry some of you. But I'm not sure he's willing to haul everyone."

"He's not." Said Abel in annoyed voice. "He won't carry me, Callen, or Shane. He's says we smell like herring, and I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!" He bellowed at the smug looking squirrel. "Because I don't eat fish. But FINE. We can run to keep up. Happy." Biscuit chittered sadistically, and Abel sneered at him. "That was a rhetorical question you nut mongering tree rat."

Biscuit just snorted, looking away smugly as most of our group climbed on his back, including, amusingly, Jessie holding a shrunken Randall. Once they were on board we gave Gabe a heading (he was riding a starlight saddle with reins that I was pretty sure was a partial power manifestation) and then we took off in the direction we needed to go. I heard fighting behind me, and looked back to see Callen still fighting off Albert while Travis and his friends cleaned up stragglers.

I wasn't sure if we could get them to the exit in time, assuming there WAS an exit there. I was pinning a lot on a random similarity, but it was all the plan we had past following Felix through some strange portal that would only lead back to the trials if he was a fucking idiot. We'd have to see, because whether it worked or not, I doubted is was going to be as easy as it seemed. It never was.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

There was, predictably, NOT a giant set of stairs sitting in empty space when we reached the site on the map. But there was something. A squat, dark building of matte black stone in a big clearing. And of course, surrounding the building was a fucking army of dark cloaked figures. Once again I was stumped by how they had so many here. There were only two hundred or so people by the end of fifth trial, and even if they all got brought over, they couldn't ALL be BMP.

"Ok, so the place is crawling with people." I said in annoyance as we stared out from the treeline. "I'm hoping that we can catch Felix in there, but if it's an exit chances are good he's already gone."

Benny's eyes went wide from where he stood next to me. "Shit, should we go after him? If he destroys it behind him we might be stuck. It would make sense to follow him through." He looked back into the distance. "And what about the others? Callen and Travis and them. Are we leaving them?"

"Nope." I said firmly. "And we're not following him either. Wherever that thing is aimed, it isn't going to be the same place we came in. I don't care how diabolical your plan is, dropping into the middle of all those A-rankers is suicide. Each and every force who had people in the trial is probably rabid with fury over us vanishing. If they pop up, they'll be under suspicion at least. Especially coming without any of us. Too big a chance someone will search them and take the cup."

Callie nodded. "He'll probably have a secondary exit point. Maybe another one of the temples. They might not function any more but they could have gotten the teleportation points working. They were able to subvert the one here, so clearly they know how it works."

"If there's a way out in that building, we need to hit them as he goes through. Stop him if we can, but the big priority is making sure none of them can wreck it behind him." I said firmly. "As much as I want to stop the rise of a bunch of evil gods, our priority is not being stuck here to be eaten by wolfhornigators."

Callie sighed, pinching her nose. "We aren't calling them wolfhornigators. That's a ridiculous name. They're...lizardwolfdeer, shit that's harder than it seems." She'd been feeling a lot better since we met up with Biscuit, cuddling the big squirrel, distracting herself from the guilt, but she only managed to joke around for a second before she remembered what she'd done and shot a guilty glance at Nat.

For her part, my cousin wasn't paying attention to Callie. She was staring daggers at the hooded figures. It was clear she blamed the translocator for Perit's death (as she should) probably at least partly to avoid focusing that anger on a friend. I knew that had to be hard, but I thought it was probably the healthiest way to go about it.

"Anyway." I said, getting us back on track. "We need to figure out some way to get eyes in there. Bethy, can you send in one of your flying squirrels to canvas the place? They'd be perfect for recon here. We need to get eyes on Felix if he's still there. If not...well fingers crossed we can cobble together a fix for whatever they did to the teleporter after he left, assuming there's enough left TO fix."

She nodded, closing her eyes, and when she opened they were glowing red. She flicked a hand and a squirrel appeared, sitting on her palm...as she sat on a squirrel. My life was so weird sometimes.

As the squirrel went in, Chelsea spoke up. "I'm concerned. This next bit...fighting is great most of the time. But we just can't waste the minutes mixing it up. We need to take them out fast even if it's only temporary. Otherwise there's too big a chance they'll destroy the thing, whatever it might be. That's assuming there's even anything in there. Lot of maybe's here."

"Agreed." I said with a sigh. "But we're in a time crunch. And I'd rather flail around half assed and have a chance of pulling something out of a hat then wait and lose our shot. We're working off ten different assumptions on this one, but I'm willing to be an ass if it means we get home. If we fuck it up we're in no worse a situation than we would be from just not trying."

Callie squeezed my hand. "You're right. But so is she, at least about needing to take them out fast. This isn't the time for an all out brawl. We shouldn't engage them at all if possible, and if we have to, we need to wrap them up fast in traps."

She had a point. Normally, I'd have asked her to take some of them out subtly. Pick off the stragglers with a knife in the back. She was our best infiltrator by far. But at the moment I just couldn't bring myself to mention it. Not knowing how awful she felt about killing Perit. So I turned to our next best hope. "Hey Bethy you hear me still?" She nodded absently. "Alright, once your squirrel gets back can you slip in and off a few of them. Try to thin the herd?"

Bethy didn't want to be a monster. But her definition of that word was pretty specific. Monsters killed innocents for no reason. Annoying Bethy was a reason, and these guys had gone well past that. She paused for a second, eyes remote and glowing red. "Sure. I can take out the ones that let their guard down. But it won't be all of them, not if I don't want to be noticed."

"We'll take care of that." I said in relief. "Don't move yet though. Tell me about the inside. Is there an exit in there? Is Felix still around?"

Still staring distractedly, Bethy nodded. "I see him. He's standing in front of some sort of huge box made of black marble. It's covered with symbols, and there are a bunch of dials on it. He's messing with one of them. There's a big glowing portal on top of the box, and as he flips the dial the portal is changing. He's moving it slowly though, sometimes stuff comes out and the others attack it before it can hurt him. Every couple of turns he keeps dumping more Lamentation Liquid on it."

"Perfect!" I said in excitement. "That's exactly what we need. I'm guessing the portal is some kind of maintenance thing for the testing sites. He must be looking for the right one. I guess his crazy juice wears off quick. That means it'll probably take a bit."

I considered what we needed. I had a vague idea of how to do this. "Gabe. Take Biscuit and Abel back and help the others. Get them here as quick as possible. Here's hoping there's enough of that liquid left to get us home. Callie, you're with me. I have an idea for a trap setup that should do the trick, but it's going to be tough."

We needed to take them out either all at once or too fast to react. Which meant we needed some way to get the drop on them. Callie nodded, following me off to one side as I tasked Mel with keeping an eye out and the others with watching her. Once we were a bit back from the treeline I looked down, concentrated, and triggered Pit of Despair. Callie squeaked as we fell, but I grabbed her, triggering Ripple running to stop our fall.

Once I had a stable footing, I dipped a hand into the pit and dumped all the dust into my spatial ring. I let us drop, and we were standing at the bottom of a ten foot pit. Then I did it again. When we were twenty feet down, I triggered Eye of Revelation and Song of the Soil. "Alright, follow my lead here." I said as I knelt and put a hand against the tunnel. "I'm going to use Pit of Despair horizontally. I need you to reinforce the tunnel with shadows before I remove the dust."

"Alright." She said pensively. "Not sure what you're going for, but I'm game." I triggered the skill and she reinforced it, then I drained the dust. I sculpted the pit this time, doubling the distance by halving the diameter. Twenty feet deep but only five across. Then I repeated. Following Song of the Soil, I led us to just short of the building, and I created a couple tunnels to allow movement underneath the clearing.

Then, hunching down quite a bit (damned tunnels were so short) I looked at Callie. "Ok, step two of the plan. I'm going to make more pits. Not all the way up though. Just to a few inches short of the surface. Then I need you to reinforce the ground there. Not enough to hold up under a person's weight. Just enough so that the grass doesn't collapse."

Her eyes brightened. "Pitfall traps. Nice. I can do that. It's getting strenuous to hold so many constructs, but I didn't get all that soul work in for nothing. I can make a few of these." Once I got her go ahead, I made a series of pits, each one reaching up to about two inches shy of the surface, and when she reinforced them, I absorbed all the sand. I wasn't sure what was going to happen to it when it came back out, but that was a problem for future me.

Once we had a line of the things stretched out in front of the building, I let out a deep breath. "Ok Cal. Here's the not so nice part. I need spikes. Big sharp fucking things lining the bottoms. All pointed straight up."

She flinched. "I...Shane that's not...look. I don't mind killing them. Even after Perit. ESPECIALLY after Perit. But pitfalls are so dangerous. Anyone can fall into them. What if one of our friends drops in. I don't think I could take something like that happening again."

"And it won't." I said soothingly. "I'm the one on bait detail for this. That's the plan. You'll see, I know exactly what to do, and since I know they're there it'll be zero danger for me." I reached out and grabbed her hand. "I know this is a lot." I said softly. "You're hurting. And it's not fair. I should be giving you time to grieve, to work through what you're feeling. But in order to give you that we need to get home. And that means I need you to be strong for me for just a little bit longer."

She swallowed hard, closing her eyes and squeezing my hand. "I can do that." She murmured. "I keep seeing her face Shane. The look in her eyes as the light faded. The hurt and the confusion. We weren't that close, but she was still one of ours, you know? One of our people. I'm supposed to protect them. We all protect each other. And I killed her."

"You did not." I said firmly. "I mean that. But I know I won't convince you. So dedicate yourself to making amends. Helping me bring her back. And protecting those that are left."

Nodding slowly, she opened her eyes. "I can do that. I'll keep the rest of our friends safe. Even if it means killing all those hooded assholes to the last man." She waved a hand, and a wave of darkness flooded the floor of the pit nearest us, spiking up into large jagged spikes.

"Perfect." I complimented her with a grin. "And just to add a bit of zing." I snapped my fingers, pulling out some of the wolfhornigator venom. "A bit of special sauce." I smeared a bit onto each spike, and then we moved on to do the other pits. These assholes wouldn't know what hit them.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I wanted to fight these people. Badly. They'd killed my friend, broke my girlfriend's heart, and were just generally dicking in a variety of ways. But...sometimes violence wasn't the answer. Well, sometimes COMMITTING violence wasn't the answer. Them experiencing violence definitely was, hence the deadly traps full of sharp, poisoned spikes.

But the main thing I was taking from this was that sometimes the best thing for the team isn't hitting things with a big stick. Of course, I didn't need to share this wisdom with the enemy. "Hey assholes!" I called to the guards. "I'ma hit you with this stick!" I'd used the bond to stealth my way over here, coming around behind them and barely managing to avoid being caught thanks to abusing my State of Grace, and finally gotten into position.

As one would expect, they didn't take the threat well, and they charged me en masse. There were shouts from inside and several more of them came out. Luckily, insane murder cultists don't have much self control, and are unsurprisingly easy to bait.

Triggering Moonlit Night, I flexed the skill, letting myself remain visible to them, but tweaking it so that they couldn't see anything past me, and then I started to run. State of Grace was still active, so my speed was at a premium, and I bolted off to the side, cackling madly and spitting the occasional Steam Arrow behind me to stir them up. I needed them all focused on me completely.

I led them out and around, not hitting the line of traps horizontally otherwise there'd be a pileup, but not hitting them vertically because tricks aside, no line of people would continuously run into a series of pitfalls. I'd found a bit of a sweet spot. A diagonal that would maximize the number of them who went down and how fast. When I reached the first pit, I flexed the skill again, thickening the fog over the pits and between each of them.

They could se me, but they couldn't see down, or each other. I used Ripple Running, and then I hit the first pit. I stepped onto thin air, the first of them behind me, and his screams were swallowed up by the fog.

Now, as an Ascendant, he may have had some way to counter the fall, but I was banking on three simple things. FIrst, surprise. He didn't know the fall was coming, and it wasn't long. Second, a short fall wouldn't be anything much for an Ascendant to deal with so while it would be shocking it wouldn't be urgent, and third, the venom, which was VERY toxic, as shown by my Belial form's inability to resist it completely.

As expected, I saw the hooded figure hit the spikes, but wasn't able to stop and enjoy the view. Rather than keep going and hope they all slipped in, as a second one dropped in after him, I swerved out. The pursuers readjusted, since they could see me, and since they couldn't see each other, they only saw normal terrain.

This kind of fine control of so many details would have been beyond me before the Temple. I could switch up some factors, turn out the lights, turn them on, but detailed crowd control on this level was straining even my soul a bit, and would have been impossible without my Azure Soul Body.

One by one they dropped in, none of them noticing what was happening as they impaled themselves in the pits. There had been two dozen of the bastards total at the start, and by the time I finished there were only four left. Sadly I'd run out of pits, but while we didn't have time for a long drawn out battle, we DID have time to gang up on and kill a quarter of assholes with vastly superior numbers.

I allowed my friends to see through the fog, and kept the hoods isolated as they got in position, and we took them apart. These guys were murdering assholes, it was in the name, and they had already killed one of us. We didn't hold back. Randall bit one clean in half from ambush, Luggage tore one apart. Bethy walked up and snapped ones neck while Callie held him and Benny tranqued one to distract him will Abel created a giant manifestation of his hand and crushed the guy like a beer can.

No powers to deal with, no attacks. The whole process took less than five minutes, and when I cleared the fog, we were all standing in a field of bodies.

Some of them were still alive, twitching on the spikes like butterflies on a card, and I stared down at the carnage with a sick feeling in my gut. I hated this. I didn't become an Ascendant for THIS. But sometimes you had to what needed doing. While I wasn't one of those 'kill em' all' cultivators, some people WERE. Some people needed to be stopped permanently, and hesitating could get my friends killed. HAD gotten my friend killed.

It was a hard lesson. That just because I didn't want to become like that, didn't mean I would never have to make that call. This was worse than just killing them in battle though. Tricking them to their deaths had saved us time and bloodshed, but it felt more...wrong.

Callie stepped up, and I felt her open the bond again, flooding me with feelings of love and acceptance and...admiration. For making the hard call when she was still reeling. For being the leader when they needed me. It soothed the disgust I felt for myself. "Come on." I said with a shudder. "Let's get set up for our push into the building. Bethy, we need layouts and a detailed description of who is left and where. Have the others arrived yet?"

She nodded. "Gabe just got back with Callen, they're in the forest with Jessie patching up the stragglers. Albert got away. Travis lost two of his, but there's still five left, and they picked up another dozen stragglers. We THINK we killed their multiplier. They had one filling out their ranks to look imposing. The translocator wasn't there though. Whoever they are they're dangerous, and we would have noticed if they were around. They're either dead or inside with Felix."

Great. Because THAT was what I needed. Still, it was good info, and I nodded, turning to Bethy who was describing a layout to Benny as her eyes glowed. He was drawing up a smallscale map, which I was figuring could only help planning this last entry. Her eyes glowed red, but she didn't look directly at anyone. "Shane!" She called. "He's still going. He's running low on the Lamentation Liquid I think though. We should hurry."

We'd need to use that stuff probably, unless we could decipher the enchantments, which was unlikely given how old and powerful they must be. "Alright. Show me what we've got."

Benny strolled over, proudly holding out his map. He was getting good at those. I wondered if it was considered part of Inventing or if he'd gotten a Cartography Skill. Now wasn't the time for that though. Kneeling down, he set the map on the ground so he had a flat surface. "Alright, it's small, but we do have some approach options."

He pointed at a hallway in the front. "Basic access, going in the front. I'd advise against it. Felix has four of them left with him, and we have to assume one of them is the translocator. Our best bet is to take them all out at the same time, try to prevent any of them from getting a shot off. We have the numbers, but if we do that we're going to be cutting it close. I wish we had a way to time the portal, even though..."

My head snapped up. "We do!" I glanced at Nat. "I wish that the portal would settle on the right exit as soon as we take down Felix." If we did it that way, I'd be able to ensure he was done for without worrying about screwing up our way home. "As for payment...Felix was the one responsible for Perit's death. Can I make his defeat a condition of the wish on both ends?"

Nat's eyes bore a hole in me. "Yes." She said coldly. "But I don't want him defeated. Kill him. I want his life as your payment." With a nod, she took my hand, the familiar purple electricity running through me. While we weren't REALLY supposed to do this as allied candidates, I was pretty sure the whole 'six new gods might come into being' thing counted as exigent circumstances. As for the price...

I'd already made piece with the bloodshed, and Felix was not a good guy. If it meant getting my people home, I'd do it. "Alright, so we need to hit them all at once. That opens up the front entrance as a means of access again, but we need someone strong on that. The rest of them will be distracted, but you need to be able to move fast and put them down hard. Is Callen in any state for that?" I asked my sister, who had been watching the proceedings with a slightly worried frown.

"He can make it work." She said solemnly. "I can hit them from this passage." She pointed to a back tunnel that come off in the next room. "I have some serious instantaneous damage potential. And this lets out near where she marked one of the sentries."

I nodded. "Bethy, you turn into an army of winged cats, so you can use the vent your squirrel has been entering through. You're on one of the two closest to the portal. Probably that one of them is the translocator, so hit HARD and fast. No mercy. If he sees you he could swap you right through the rotating portal as it changes. You'd be screwed."

Abel nodded. "I can go through the vents too. Spatial lubrication. I'll hit the other one with Mel. We should be able to take him down without being noticed in the chaos. I take it you're on Felix?"

"Well I have to be." I said wryly. "His life is payment for that wish. Don't worry. I won't give him time to run. Just have everyone else on standby ready to hit the portal. If anyone gets left behind...they're unlikely to get out of here anytime soon." Being stuck in this shithole sounded like pure awful to me.

Benny cleared his throat. "I'm going to help with Felix. I've been on the bench most of this trip, and I spend months training for this shit. Celine can stay with Jessie and the others, but I'm with you on this." I glanced at Callie, who was looking at me resolutely. Three of us then. I should have known she wouldn't let me do this without her. We were partners after all.

"Fine." I said with a sigh. "So me, you, and Callie. Let's catch everyone else up on the plan and get in position. We don't have much time to do this. The wish won't matter if we don't manage to time it right. We have to put Felix down so we can get gone. That means we're moving out in ten or fifteen minutes, tops. I know its tight but talk fast."

We also needed to warn the higher rankers. Even if this didn't work, they might have backup plans for raising the other gods. This was just a single team from a huge organization, and as much as it would be nice to assume that stopping them would save the universe, it seemed unlikely they wouldn't have any redundancies after so long planning. Hell the whole god flesh thing was unexpected. They had to have had another method for raising the fragments. Hopefully they'd be stuck using that one.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

It took ten minutes to get everyone prepped and ready to move in at a moments notice, slightly faster than expected. Upside to being trapped in a dangerous ruin of a world full of a mutated monster beasts is that it tends to bring a group together. Speaking of which, as we were finishing everything up, I decided to take a minute to talk to Travis and thank him for the help. Stepping up next to the man I held out a hand.

"Hey, I just wanted to say I appreciate the assist." I said sincerely. "Things are kind of awful right now. Your help really made a difference."

He just laughed. "Didn't have much choice. I wish Adrian had been in here with us, he'd have done a better job. But I was all we had, so I had to take charge. It was kind of a default thing, honestly. My group only gathered up a few minutes before the Blood Murder Palace hit us. Not much time for a vote."

"Yeah." I said uncomfortably. "Sorry about that. I was the one who knocked him out of here. I can't help but think this might have been easier with someone like him around."

His smile had no recrimination in it. "Hey, you did what you had to. The boss was a hell of a fighter, but you beat him. You had no way of knowing this would all happen. If you want to make it up to me though, you could let me in on the raid. I'm sure you could put me with one of the teams. Adrian may not be here, but he picked me as his second for a reason. I won't let you down."

I had to admit, his tone was earnest and I could tell he meant it. He had this sort of buzzing excitement about him, like he couldn't wait to get into the fight.

"Alright." I said with a laugh. "I'd say stick with Callen. He's going in the front, but he's a powerhouse so don't be afraid to hide behind him if needed. It was the least suspenseful and hardest to fuck up position, and he'd be right behind us anyway.

Clapping him on the shoulder, I told him to get ready and prepared myself to get in position. We'd be heading in the back entrance after that team hit their target. Straight for Felix. My grip tightened on my staff. I had some saved up death energy to burn, picked up over the last few fights. I'd be using it all on him. Hit him hard and fast.

With everyone in place, we all nodded, and the raid began. Callen smashed in through the front, Bethy vanished into the vents, Chelsea was ahead of us coming in through the back, and Abel headed through one of the other vents, all aimed at their targets.

I'd debated using Moonlit Night, but we didn't want to spook them and it wasn't the fastest spreading skill. As I came in behind my sister, I left her to do her own thing, attacking her target as my eyes locked on mine.

Felix was standing in front of the black marble box that Bethy described, in his hand was a vial of Lamentation Liquid. He was pouring it into an aperture at the top of the box as he slowly turned a dial. Above the box I saw a portal. Forest. Lake. Volcano. I saw different scenes flicker by with each turn. He seemed to be looking for something specific, because each time it came up he growled and flipped to the next one.

The others had hit their targets instantly, and none of them were in a position to destroy the portal. Which left just Callie, Benny, and I to take on Felix. Unfortunately he heard us coming. When the others started their attacks, Felix instantly checked his back, and saw us coming. Pulling out another vial, he poured a few drops into it and set it on the top of the device before shotgunning the rest of it, dumping it all down his throat.

My eyes widened as darkness filled his eyes, creeping blackness rolled over his body. Dripping another three drops into the aperture, he clicked the dial three times, and the thing started to destabilize. Then he turned to me, frustration bleeding off his darkening form. "You know. You're much more irritating than expected. I'm glad I get to kill you before I leave."

"Where's the cup, Felix." I said grimly. "Even with your little psycho power boost you can't take all three of us. Might as well just tell us. I can let you walk away." Which...was a lie. I was going to kill him. Premeditated murder. It wasn't a great feeling, but to be honest him drinking liquid soul torture and becoming a demonic rage monster was helping with my conscience.

He held up a darkening hand. "You mean the one in this ring?" He took it off, setting it next to the vial. "You'll have to be stronger than me if you want it." There was a blur, and he was gone. In his place, a pitch black panter with glowing red eyes. As I watched, the blackness pulsed and a new leg grew where his missing on had been, a grotesque dark pulsating mass of a limb.

With a yowl, he blurred forward, and I exploded into motion, my staff lashing out to meet him as I triggered Mephistopheles. I didn't hold back either, I poured all my death energy and explosive power into my blow, trying to put him down in one shot.

Felix flipped in the air, his dark limb detaching and slamming into my staff, exploding as he rode the wave of energy away, landing once more on four feet as the Lamentation Liquid regrew him ANOTHER limb. I was kind of glad Billy had thrown himself into a fire after drinking this stuff, fighting him while he was on it would clearly have been a nightmare. The portal was flashing behind him, changing scenes still.

Unfortunately for Felix, I wasn't fighting him alone. I was confident in beating him even in his augmented state given enough time, but time was something we didn't have. So I'd brought backup. The shadows under the cat exploded into a complex webwork of bindings, wrapping tightly around the cat.

Benny appeared behind him, pulled back his fist, and started hammering triple strength tranq punches into every piece of exposed fur he could find.

The bindings gave way after about thirty seconds, but I was already there slamming a blow into the cat. Callie got him in another binding, and I turned to Benny. "Help me get the vial and the ring while she holds him!" I bellowed. We bolted for the altar as Callie redoubled her restraints, trying to deny him any leverage to break free from her. "Hold on." I said as I snatched up both objects. Just watch my b-"

I stopped, staring down at the half foot of steel sticking through my gut. My brain couldn't process what was happening. Looking over my shoulder, I saw Travis smiling back at me.

"Sorry Shane. I'm afraid I need those." Reaching down, he plucked the ring and the vial from my hand. The wound in my gut started to burn. Poison. Probably the same stuff I'd used on the BMP initiates. I dropped to me knees, the burn quickly growing into a bonfire.

I looked around frantically for my best friend, and found him...standing bewildered next to Callen, who was finishing off his target. My eyes flicked back to Travis. Translocation. He'd wanted to be in here so he could get the cup instead of Felix. He'd even told me he only met up with the others a few minutes before we arrived. Travis was the translocator. We'd never actually seen his face.

Slipping the ring on, he clicked his tongue at me. "Honestly, you should be more careful around strangers Shane. Just because someone doesn't have a big black hood on, doesn't mean they aren't out to get you." Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out two objects. One a small metal orb and one a rock. "Don't worry though. I'm not going to strand you here. In fact, I'm going to guarantee you don't get stuck."

Eye balling the shifting portal, he waited for a specific scene (a swamp) then tossed both objects. The rock went through the portal and the sphere landed right next to Felix. With a wink Travis switched with the rock, leaving it to clatter to the ground. My eyes snapped to Callie, and I flooded the bond with terror, hoping she would get it.

She did, dropping into the shadows instantly when she felt my panic, just before the metal sphere exploded, consuming the black cat in an orb of eerie blue flame. There was a scream as he died, and then the portal, which had stopped when Travis went through it, erupted in a cascade of purple sparks and shifted again.

I stared as my friends all crowded around me, Jessie rushing in through the now undefended front as she heard Callie screaming my name. They caught me as I fell over, and I just stared at the portal. With Felix dead, the wish was fulfilled. The portal led home now. I recognized the outside of the temple.

"Shane!" Snapped Callie, waving he hand in front of me. "Stay with us baby. Jessie says the poison is blocking her healing. Chelsea is going to purify the wound, but she says it's going to hurt a bit. Just bear with it for a minute ok? It'll all be over soon." Her voice was slow and soothing but I felt her terror through the bond. There was a lot of blood.

The venom was preventing my wound from closing, and I was bleeding a lot. My head was fuzzy. Not fuzzy enough that I wasn't cursing myself though. Fucking Travis. I'd TOLD everyone to be on the lookout for double agents. I'd just assumed that once they made their move they'd all be with the hood groups. He'd fucking played me and I'd taken the bait hook like and sinker. That hurt even worse than being stabbed. I paused as my sister applied white fire to the wound. Oh, nope, wait, being stabbed hurt more.

I screamed. Loudly. I felt my fucking throat tear and the room around us shook as my incredibly powerful lungs blasted out vibrations that rattled every surface around us. In the background I saw my friends move through, flooding through the portal. At least they were safe. Once the pain subsided Callie lifted me up, Benny getting my other arm, and they started carrying me through.

Nat came last, seemingly incoherent with rage, though getting stabbed apparently spared me from being the target. She seemed to have taken the attack personally. Valk put a hand on her shoulder, pulling her through before the portal closed, leaving us all sitting on those circles where we'd started, staring dazedly at the golden pavilion and the flame inside.

There was a fuss as dozens of new figures appeared, older figures, surveying the, after a quick count, thirty survivors among those still inside. I recognized some of the early exits, like Vinnie and Simon, and some of the late departures like Adrian. I resolved to have a word with him about Travis, but now wasn't the time.

I was just lying there, bloody, as Jessie continued to pour in healing energy now that the wound was clean. She must have waited until we crossed over to begin. Smart since the portal had collapsed. I saw a shadow fall over me, and glanced up, expecting to see Zeke rolling his eyes. Instead, my eyes landed on something else. A familiar face, half remembered in hazy memories. I reached up and took off my mask, grinning through bloodstained teeth. "Hey mom. I'm home."

 

[Malcolm Tent]

My mother was...intimidating. I recognized her. Barely. Not just from me memories but somewhat from my own features, and especially from Chelsea's. Still, the soft smile I remembered as a kid in that one blurry image was nowhere to be found. The woman towering over me as I lay bloody on the ground looked like a warrior. An amazon or something. Tall, blonde, with stern yet kind features. She looked like a saint.

"You're lucky I erected a barrier around us already." She said tiredly. "Someone might have heard you."

I glared up at her, sitting up as Jessie finished filling my body to capacity. I still had healing to do but she'd topped me up and now I just had to wait. Callie helped me stand, and once I was vertical I stood a few inches taller than my mom, not that she seemed to notice. "That's it? No 'thank the gods you're ok'? No 'I'm sorry"? All I get is 'watch your mouth Shane someone might figure out we're related? And I thought dad was the shitty parent."

She flinched like I'd hit her, and I immediately felt bad. Then I got pissed at myself for feeling bad because fuck her, this was her fault. But...she was still my mom, and seeing her like that, looking like she was afraid I was going to attack her or something, made me feel like a scumbag. She swallowed hard. "I...I won't ask you to forgive me. I don't deserve it. I did something unspeakably cruel to you, and there's no way that an apology would fix that."

"Is that what you think an apology is?" I demanded. "Some band-aid you slap on a problem to make it go away? You shouldn't apologize because you deserve it. You should apologize because I do." The fact that she wasn't even trying to defend herself made me even more pissed off.

"That's enough." Said Chelsea as she stepped in between us. "Shane...you're right. Mom screwed you. It was awful. But it's not her fault. It's mine. I-"

My mom held up a hand. "No. Not here. He deserves an explanation, but this isn't the time or place. As much as I wish it was. I'm not sure what's happened, but SOMETHING did, and we need to discuss it. The others are in a frenzy. Ezekial is holding them off for now, but even his insolence can only stall someone for so long."
I snorted at that. "No one calls Zeke that. Do you say it to his face? I bet he hates it."

Her grin in that moment reminded me a lot of mine. "Why do you think I do it? He's insufferable, and very few things bother him. Using his full name is one of the few ways I have to really irk him. He's like the annoying kid brother I never had and usually don't really want."

It was hard to be upset at her when she was acting like a gleeful big sister, especially given I had so few ways to rankle my uncle myself. Still, she was right. This wasn't the time for this discussion. We had bigger fish to fry. "We need to talk to everyone, but probably Zeke first. Some stuff went down where we ended up. I'm glad we're back but we need to get the word out to every faction what's coming."

She looked like she wanted to question me herself, before realizing that I was WCP and possibly Unity, but not with the Church and hence not part of her chain of command. "I'll get him." She said softly. "After things have calmed down...maybe we can talk. You and Chelsea and I. It won't fix things I know, but you're right. You deserve to know, and you deserve an apology even if you don't accept it. Because I AM sorry Shane. So very, very sorry."

The sincerity in her voice, the pleading in her eyes, it almost broke my heart, but I firmed my expression, gesturing for her to go.

Chelsea was watching me nervously as our mom left. "I know I'm the last person who should be saying it, but she feels terrible. Once you know why...well, like she said I doubt it'll magically fix everything, but at the very least I don't think it'll hurt as much."

"You're right." I said sharply. "You ARE the last person I want to hear that from." She flinched just like mom had, and I quailed internally. I might be willing to lash out at my absentee parent, but my twin sister, regardless of whatever nonsense she'd convinced herself of, had been a child when we were separated. She wasn't the problem here. "I'll hear her out." I said more gently. "I promise."

Mom came back with Zeke a minute later, and my uncle smiled and waved casually. "Oh, hey kid. You're not dead. Cool, that would have been a bitch to deal with."

My mom smacked him upside the back of his head. "What he MEANS." She snapped. "Is that he's glad you're alright, because he cares about you, and because if he'd let my son get killed I'd have cut out his tongue and nailed to his forehead." That was...weird. Not the graphic threat, I was used to those. The feeling of my absentee mom telling off my guardian who was always there for not caring enough. It must have shown on my face that I didn't like it, because she blanched. "I mean..." Her shoulders slumped. "I'm sorry."

"Be easy kid." Said my uncle firmly. "Sasha might not have been around much but she..." He hissed, the symbol on his forehead glowing. His eyes snapped up to the empty dark sky around us. "Are you fucking KIDDING ME?" He yelled in outrage. "She's right HERE Eli! When does this fucking thing BREAK?"

My mother sighed sadly. "He's gotten more restricive about his geasa. Ever since he made the shift to devil to break through to A-rank...I can't believe he's changed so much."

"We ALL change Sasha." Said my uncle bitterly. "None of us are the kids we used to be." He looked at me. "Not even the kids we used to be. It's the price we pay for what we are. It's easy to forget that when you live in the Red Revenant's special holier than thou clubhouse I guess. Now, since apparently your bastard father is STILL shutting me up, kid, hows about you do the talking?"

I nodded slowly. "Ok, well the first thing is that this whole mess was apparently caused by the Blood Murder Palace."
"What?" My mom said in alarm. "How? Hatescream is dead. My father was there when it happened. He killed about six S rankers when as he died. He ALMOST killed Black Sorrow and our Lord, and would have if the Wishmaster hadn't stepped in."

"Both of them?" I said, appalled at the sheer power that must have shown. "I heard they worked together for that fight, apparently that's rare?"

"Very." Said my mother firmly. "They hate each other with a passion. God executions are probably the only time I've heard of them putting aside their differences. Lots of bad blood between the churches, it goes back millennia obviously. It proves how seriously they took Hatescream."

Callie, who had been standing protectively beside me, holding my hand, finally spoke up. "I've been wondering about that for a long time. Why? Why do the Red Revenant and Black Sorrow hate each other so much? More than the other gods I mean. It can't just be a worshipper thing or they'd have it out for everyone, but it seems so focused, the grudge between the two of them."

"They were married." Said my mother with a wince. "Before their Ascension. Still are I suppose. Regardless, they have many grudges between them. But we're getting off track. Your story?"

I started. She was right, crazy faction history was interesting enough to distract me, but I needed to get this out. "Well apparently this place was connected to an Academy from some old empire that's been exctint for tens of thousands of years or something. They used the trial as a cover to break in to steal some kind of spiritually reactive biomatter that'll let them sort of clone god flesh."

Then I laid it out for them, told them all the story as I'd heard it. About Hatescream and his plan, about the guy who bought the mountain, about how all of this had been a leadup for a coup, a way to distract the factions and let Hatescream work in the dark to resurrect his people.

By the time I was finished, their faces were both grim. "That's...bad." My mom said, her tone implying a truly monumental understatement. "If that's true then this is going to be war. Not a crusade or an extermination, but exactly what the factions have been trying to prevent for all these millennia. A War of the Gods." I could literally HEAR the capital letters in her voice as she said it.

"I'm sorry." I said through gritted teeth. "It was my fault. I was a moron. I thought that since all those cloaked figures showed up we didn't have to worry about traitors anymore. I HAD that damned cup, and I basically hand delivered it to the BMP like a fucking idiot."

"Hey." Snapped Callie. "That's bullshit. You got us home, which was borderline impossible to start. It wasn't your job to prevent some ancient dark murder sect from accomplishing their grand scheme. You were responsible for us, and you got us out of there. Or...almost all of us." She glanced at Nat, who had left the bubble of isolation when we arrived and was sitting by herself nearby, with Valk hovering a ways away watching her.

My mother nodded. "She's right. They've been planning this for longer than any of us have been alive. If it hadn't been this way, they would have found another. This opportunity only recently presented itself, so there's no way they didn't have a backup plan. Speaking of..." She glanced down at our joined hands. Holding one of her own out to Callie. "I'm Sasha Anders."

My girlfriend blinked, wide eyed, at my A-rank mother, then swallowed hard and, letting go of my hand took hers and shook it. I was secretly grateful to my mom. She'd noticed Callie's sorrow and tried to defuse it by making this an awkward meet the parents thing. It had worked. "I'm Callie, Calliope, that is, Reynolds, miss. Ma'am, madam?" She looked like she was getting more and more flustered.

Laughing, my mom released her hand. "I like you, but let's stick with Sasha, shall we? The rest of those make me feel old, and if you SAY a word Ezekial, your next mask is going to be your own ass." She held up a finger threateningly without looking, and I saw Zeke slump sulkily, muttering about harpies in a voice that was hidden from no one in this bubble."
"Now." She said as her smile slipped. "We need to go talk to the others, tell them what's happened, and try to get some sort of conclave on the books. I'm guessing it'll be a year out at best."

I blinked. "What? It's a potential GOD WAR." I sputtered. "How can they possibly justify that? They should be meeting TOMORROW."

She shrugged. "Might be faster given the severity, but you need to remember how big each faction is. Freeing up big actors like the gods and their subordinates takes a LOT of micromanaging. My father is one of the busiest people I've ever met. Though it's not all downside. Given your involvement I wouldn't be surprised if the Wishmaster brings Malachai for this, so you might be able to meet both your grandfathers."

With that, she said her goodbyes, kissed Chelsea on the forehead, looking uncertainly at me for a moment, and then left. Zeke sighed as he watched her go. He looked like he wanted to speak, but couldn't muster the words, then he too just turned and left. I wasn't sure about the whole mess with my family or what the truth was, but I knew one thing. I needed to find out. That conversation couldn't come soon enough.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I didn't see my mother again for a few hours. We went back to the Necromedes and retired to our own rooms in the building Killian had lent us. It had been a long...however long it had been. I honestly didn't know, with the time distortion we'd felt like we'd spent weeks, but as far as I could tell it had only been a day since we were transported, at least based on my wish ability.

Despite that, I decided to meet with her alone, and everyone else had gone to sleep by the time she showed up. Her knock on my door was tentative, like she was scared of my reaction, but when I opened it I couldn't tell if she'd been more scared I'd open it or that I wouldn't.

My room was pretty spacious, and I even had my own little side kitchen. I'd been nervous and couldn't sleep so I'd made cookies, and I made us both some tea to go with them before we sat down to talk.

"So..." I said, taking a long, slow sip. "Explain." I didn't stammer, or make nice, or try to distract. I wasn't going to make this easy for her. As much as part of me felt bad about how miserable she clearly was, part of me was just pissed off. Why did Chelsea get a real parent while I got dad? Why did she leave me and never reach out. Why had dad all but told me she was fucking dead and made Zeke imply the same?

She let out a shuddering breath. "Alright. Explain. That's going to be tough, but I can do it. I'm just trying to figure out where to start. I suppose at the beginning. Do you remember I told you that the Red Revenant and Black Sorrow used to be married?"

That seemed like a bit of a non sequitur, but I wasn't going to interrupt. I just nodded, hoping I was giving her serious 'get on with it' vibes.

"Well, they also had a daughter. Her name was...well, most people called her Drowning Shade. She wasn't always exactly a nice person, though stories of her nature were somewhat exaggerated. Regardless, she was their only child, and they both loved her. She spent most of her time with her mother, but she would visit Holy Dominion, and while things between them had long since devolved into aggression, she was allowed to come and go as she pleased from a young age."

I frowned. "That...doesn't match what I was told. I thought your dad killed her. In fact, legend has it he wiped out a whole planet doing it."

She nodded. "That's the story. But it isn't what happened. The Red Revenant had one daughter, and seven disciples. His most trusted students. Drowning Shade grew up in and out of the Holy Dominion and she spent time with all of them at one point or another. But she was especially close to the man who would eventually become the Radiant Pope. My father, Nicholas Anders."

"So they were an item?" I asked in surprise. "And grandpa killed her? That's...cold." And honestly fucking disgusting to me. Imagining having to kill Callie, for any reason, made me ill. My mom seemed to notice, because she shook her head.

"Shane, Drowning Shade isn't DEAD." She said emphatically. "She never was. The planet my father 'destroyed' was a false flag operation. He evacuated all the inhabitants before he wiped it out. He and Drowning Shade had been secretly together for years at that point. Something her mother didn't know about or she'd have killed them both. Despite loving her daughter, recursion had long since eroded most of Black Sorrow's humanity. Especially in regards to her husband."

"Alright." I said slowly, still not seeing the relevance. Still, it was interesting history, so I wouldn't derail her. "So why then? From what you said this was ages after they first became a couple. Why did they suddenly need to fake her death after presumably centuries together?"

"Because she got pregnant." Said my mother. "With me. Ascendants, particularly high level Ascendants, aren't the most fertile people. It's rare for high rankers to have children, at least comparatively speaking. Your father and I having twins was...a shock. Twins are fairly common in lower ranking Ascendant couples, for obvious reasons. But you two were a surprise. It's not time for that yet though, I'll get to it."

I was still processing. "So my grandma, who I've never met was...what? A demigod? Except both her parents were gods. What does that even make her? Was she born a god?"

Mom shook her head. "That doesn't happen. The Impact would be unsurvivable. As far as I know she was born with a divine soul. Specifically a Mirror Soul. Past black, which is what you hit at S rank naturally, is the Obsidian Soul Body, which becomes a Mercury and then a Mirror Soul respectively. I'm sure you're well aware of the benefits of having a powerful soul."

I tried not to shudder at what someone could do with a divine soul from birth. Hell, the things I could do for my level with my Azure Soul Body were already absurd. I had more flexibility and raw control over my Skills and abilities than anyone my rank with a normal soul could match.

"So grandma was...scary. Ok." I forced my brain to move past that admittedly huge revelation. "Grandma was born terrifying. Good to know I guess, though I don't seem to have inherited any of that. Did you? Or did Chelsea? Is that why you had to take her away?"

Her face twisted in pain. "Sort of. You know Chelsea was born with two abilities, yes? One my father's Flames of Purification. The other was her grandmother's Enshrining Darkness. The power she got from her own mother. If anyone had found out...Black Sorrow would have killed you. Your sister. Your father. Me. My mother. MY father. Probably the guy who sold us breakfast the day before."

Ok, angry god I could understand. That was a rough thing to deal with. But it wasn't like she was the only one. "But what about your grandfather. The Red Revenant would protect his daughter right? You said he loved her. He must have known about all this."

"You have to understand that my grandparents relationship isn't a healthy one." She said, possibly attempting to attain some sort of universal record for understatement. "My grandfather hates my grandmother. But he also loves her. They've been locked in constant battle for millennia. I don't think he's even capable of killing her at this point. Not just because their powers are at a similar level, but because he couldn't bring himself to do it."

"I don't suppose Black Sorrow SHARES these deeply hidden feelings?" I said, pinching my nose as I started getting a headache.

My mother laughed. "The Red Revenant is a different kind of god than Black Sorrow. Emotion and passion are part of his nature. They aren't part of hers. If she found out about us, she would kill us, all of us, and he wouldn't stop her. At least that's what my father says. He wouldn't tell her, of course. But we wouldn't get any help from him."

"Ok, but what does that have to do with leaving me?" I asked. I could see the problem, obviously, I just didn't get why the solution they'd come to was necessary.

She swallowed hard. "Because Chelsea was born with the REAL Enshrining Darkness ability. The one you see Black Sorrow passing out like candy is a modified version mixed with other Skills to make it more easily teachable. Something like the Fist of the Red Revenant my grandfather made for his disciples. Very few beings have that ability, and that in itself would imply her father was a high up in the cult."

My eyes widened in realization. "Except I have the Wish power, and we're twins. Which means dad was her father and there's no place the ability could have come from except you or him. Considering grandpa is an S-ranker with the WCP I imagine dad's lineage is well established. If your daughter suddenly developed the Enshrining Darkness ability at birth, Black Sorrow would put two and two together easily."

"Despite being a sociopathic lunatic, my grandmother is quite bright." Mom said miserably. "The truly absurd amount of Focus she's got probably helps. So, yes. I had to leave. I had to take Chelsea. Because leaving her and taking you wouldn't have solved anything. I had to abandon my baby." Her eyes were welling up with tears, and it hurt to look at, so I kept following the threads.

"My ability." I said after thinking it through. "You traded it to dad for the first eighteen years of my life. You wanted to make me irrelevant to anyone paying attention for long enough that when I did develop powers they wouldn't associate me with Chelsea. Hell leaving me with Zeke probably helped even more. Most people don't know Elijah Wyndham even HAS a son. Is that why dad left?"

She nodded. "Eli...Eli isn't the same man I fell in love with. He hasn't been in a long time. He reminded me a lot of you at your age actually. But he didn't have the Conglomerate to soften him. The Empire is a harsher place. Eli's response to the difficulties most candidates face was to codify relationships. Make contracts. The stronger he got the more he detached. But he ALWAYS loved you. Chelsea too. His method of keeping you safe wasn't the one I'd have chosen. But it was effective."

I couldn't argue that. Even I hadn't known I had a sister. I was, for all intents and purposes, completely uninteresting. Dad had made me basically invisible. Or at least I had been. I'd been doing a lot to demolish that particular defense. He HAD warned me. If I wasn't ready to risk my life I should just stay home and fade into obscurity. I'd made my choice. But that left one thing I was curious about. "What about the Wishmaster? The original one I mean. Dad's...great great grandfather or whatever. Couldn't he have protected us?"

"The Wishmaster's nature is...mercenary." She said with a grimace. "If we wanted protection we'd have needed to pay. We didn't have enough. Even my father can't throw around the kind of resources you'd need to pay to get him to go to war with another god. I promise you Shane. We couldn't see any other way. I'd have done ANYTHING. Given anything, to stay with you."

Her eyes burned with sincerity, tears still streaming down her face. I had to look away. "I believe you." I said hollowly. "I believe that it wasn't a matter of choosing. That it would have killed all of us, including me." Her face was starting to brighten, become hopeful, and I felt like an asshole crushing that hope. "But I don't know if it matters." She flinched like I'd hit her. But I kept going.

"I don't hate you." I said gently. "Not now. I don't think ever. But I can't just...forget. Maybe I can get past it. Eventually. I'm not making any promises other than to try. But as of this moment I just can't let it go. The years of abandonment, the pain. The damage you and dad caused. I can't just wave my hand and say bygones. I get why you did it. But you still did it."

She nodded slowly, almost like it hurt. "I know." She whispered. "I knew it would be like that. And I did it anyway. I knew it would hurt you. I don't deserve your forgiveness. I told you that. But you were right. You deserved to know."

I stood up, walked around the table, and opened my arms. She fell into them, her tears finally breaking into open sobs. I might not forgive her, but I didn't hate her. She was my mom, and the very least I could give her was a hug. We had a long way to go. I had a long way. But despite the pain I was in...part of me was happy. Some wounds need to be reopened so you can clean them. I was pretty sure we were all going to be ok.