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

[Malcolm Tent]

With the preamble out of the way, Camden had us all take a seat around a truly gargantuan wooden table packed with chairs. Callie and I sat close to the head where Camden was, just so we could be involved, but we didn't plan on talking too much. Listening was the best way to learn, and these meetings had been going on for ages without us attending. They had their own trajectory that we needed to pick up. At least that was the plan, sadly Camden didn't get the memo.

"Welcome everyone." Said Camden as we all sat down. "As you've noted we have newcomers among our number. Nightstrike and Solomon have recently reached E-rank, and due to special considerations in their contracts, will be assuming command of a century." I knew not every E-ranker in the army was in command. There were several squad leaders and trainers who were higher ranked, though his words led me to believe I hadn't seen all or even most of them.

A dark skinned man nearby with a placid expression and amber eyes nodded at us. "Lovely to meet you both." He said in a light, slightly melodic voice. "As newcomers, I suppose we should introduce ourselves to you. My name is Marco Powell, and I'm the captain of the first regiment of Baron Tolbert's military. The other commanders report to me when his grace is indisposed, so we'll be working closely together."

"That's IT?" Spat a sickly looking blonde man, slamming his hands on the table. His eyes were an odd golden color, and his dark hair was shaved on the sides and bleached on the top. His face was sunken and he was tall but unusually thin.
"They show up and hit the next rank and we hand over an entire century? We all broke our backs to be here, signed contracts that last for decades. I heard these bastards won't be sticking around for more than half a year? What the hell?"

Camden's eyes narrowed. "Sigmund." He said softly. "I don't recall where in your contract you were given the authority to question my decisions? Are you secretly the general of this army? Why was I not informed of something so important? Nightstrike and Solomon paid for their positions and more. Their contributions to our endeavors are substantial, and do NOT need to be enumerated at your request."

The other eighty plus people looked similarly upset. We had, from what Camden said, five regiments, totalling eight thousand people. Each of the five had two companies of eight hundred, each broken down further into eight centuries.
There were another two thousand elite troops under the command of Hamill, who were considered core forces most likely to become high ranking officers once the territory was settled. As century commanders we would be educated in field maneuvers, formations, training techniques, and various other base level instruction styles.

There had been talk, back when we were drawing up the contract, of just promoting us to company commanders, pulling soldiers from the core forces for us. In the end we decided to start small and earn our way up. It was less likely to cause problems, and most of what we needed to know for our territory we could pick up here.

Marco, smiling disarmingly, held up both hands. "Your grace, we don't question your decisions. If you say they've earned their place we're of course happy to welcome them into the fold. I think Sigmund is just voicing the concerns he feels may impede their integrations, so we might disarm a potential distraction before it becomes problematic. It is YOUR decision whether they're allowed to remain, of course, but we'll be working with them. Perhaps a bit of information on our new colleagues might put us all at ease."

Camden looked annoyed, but I could see that Marco's method of doing things was harder to just crush. Not to mention Marco was a regiment commander, one of only five in the main force, which meant he was probably pretty strong and had a lot of authority. "Fine." The Baron said with a sigh. "The two of them are the team leaders of Agria, the new healer we recently acquired. I trust you've all made use of her talents?"

To my surprise, that seemed to settle them all down a bit. Sigmund looked pensive. "She's been instrumental in keeping me on schedule." He admitted grudgingly. "Team leaders huh?" He glanced at us, then sighed. "Not used to how the other factions do things, but assuming that means she's like a vassal, I could understand the credit. Healers are invaluable. Especially one so useful."

Marco nodded with a wide smile. "Agreed. Lady Agria has been a great boon to the camp. She's saved us time, energy, and prevented not a few deaths. At this rate, she'll put us far ahead of our expected progress. Which century will they be taking command of."

Seemingly pleased with the return to matters at hand, Camden smiled back at the regiment commander. "I'm giving them Olena and Stern's centuries. Those two have been causing problems, and I've had them reassigned to Weber's unit in the core force for...disciplinary training." Every person at the table shuddered visibly as the seemingly innocuous words, and I made the brilliant deduction that I didn't want to ever find out why.

"The thirty third and the nineteenth?" Sigmund burst out with a laugh. "Why didn't you just say that? No reason to be jealous of them getting THOSE units. Laziest and most difficult centuries in the entire main force." He shot us a pitying look. "I actually feel bad for you all now. Olena and Stern were problems from the start, and they were given the most recalcitrant recruits. Thugs and morons mostly."

I grimaced. That wasn't ideal, but we had ways to handle things. I glanced at Camden, who was grinning at me mischievously, and rolled my eyes internally. "Is that so?" I said lightly. I should have known he'd find a way to screw me at least a little. If I brought it up he'd probably feed me some bullshit about learning more with a more difficult task, but I was pretty sure he was just passing the buck on a problem. "Then I want to request a few transfers. Two specifically. Gabriel Brightlaw and Abel Castleton. One for each of us."

Camden made a noise of amusement. I'd been polite about asking, knowing more about how far to push after my lessons on diplomacy, brief though they had been. Eventually, he held out a hand to Alister, who stood behind his chair. The seneschal passed a scroll, and the Baron opened it, skimming the names. "Mercy and Desmond. Those two are outliers in terms of productivity. They'll take your friends places in the tenth and forty third centuries. Acceptable?"

Since I didn't know who those people were, I just nodded. If these assholes were so obnoxious the other commanders were pitying us, we'd need all the help we could get. Sure, as E-rankers we could kick the shit out of all of them, but if we had to keep crippling and healing our people to get them in line it would look bad. Letting Abel and Gabe do it would be MUCH more reasonable.

"Well that's the easy part taken care of." Said Marco cheerfully. "Now we need to figure out who is going to be instructing them on training methods. It'll need to be someone running one of the more disciplined centuries, since they'll have to be away for a while helping these two adapt. Any volunteers?" He scanned the room, and a pair of hands went up. A small, olive skinned girl with aquamarine hair and kind blue eyes, and a tall tanned man with dark, intense eyes and long straight hair.

Camden reconsulted his list before nodding. "Demia and Niles, is it? The fifty seventh and sixth centuries?" At their agreement he glanced at me. "Very well, the two of you should be suitable. Make sure to help your new comrades to the best of your ability. This isn't a punishment detail. I have faith that Nightstrike and Solomon can whip those units into shape, and anyone found derailing that goal will be penalized. Understood?" He cast his glance across the table, and everyone nodded solemnly.

I was glad he'd said that. His little joke aside, if the other commanders got the impression we were intended to fail, they could make things difficult for us in plenty of ways. Making sure that we weren't the victims of hazing was the least he could do, and made me wonder if he really HAD given us problem units to make us better commanders.

The rest of the meeting was much less tense, and much less focused on us. Camden checked up on troop movements, assigned field exercises, patrol routes and just did general upkeep stuff I hadn't even known was going to come up, and once he was done, we were all dismissed. He asked Demia and Niles to wait for us outside and called for us to stay back to talk to him.

Once everyone was gone, he slumped a bit in his chair. "I hate doing these." He groaned. "Sitting all still like that is terrible for my back. Alister, get a back pillow made for my chair." The seneschal made a noise of confirmation and jotted down a not, and the Baron turned back to us. "That went pretty well, all things considered. Do you have any questions?"

"You mean like why you screwed us over on unit selection?" I said dryly. "I assumed its some nonsense about adversity building skill."

He barked out a laugh. "Nope. Politics. As you noted, once I mentioned your assigned units the dissatisfaction abated quite a bit. I can't babysit you two, and if the other commanders have a problem with you it'll make things much harder around here. Olena and Stern were bastards, no one liked them. If I'd given you a proper unit, I'd have had to take it from a more respected commander, and it would have turned everyone else here against you."

"This way we can prove ourselves." Said Callie in understanding. "If we can straighten up the problem children, we'll get a reputation for being competent, and without depriving some well liked commanders of their posts. But are you sure we can actually DO this? Olena and Stern were E-rank too, I assume."

He shrugged. "Barely, and they didn't really try much. They weren't exactly command material. Olena's brother Matthias is a particularly competent bastard who runs one of the units in the core force. I put them in charge as a favor to him, but once they proved they couldn't hack it he had no issues with me pulling their command. THEY had plenty of issues, but attacking fellow soldiers in the camp is taboo. They might challenge to a duel though, so I'd watch out for that."

I nodded solemnly. A duel wasn't too bad. We were newly minted E-rankers, but we had our own advantages. If these two were beginners we could definitely take them. "Demia and Niles." I said leadingly. "They're talented?"

"Two of my best." He said with a laugh. "I know all my top recruits, checking the list was just to make it look like I wasn't playing favorites. I had Marco approach them before the meeting to volunteer. The first thing you need to learn about command is to make sure you don't leave anything up to chance. That was all scripted, Marco, Sigmund, all of it. Now everyone knows what I want them to know about you, and nothing more. I've given you a good position, what you do with it from here is on you."

With that, he dismissed us, and Callie and I headed out to meet our new teachers. Demia and Niles were waiting for us at the entrance to the tent and once we joined them, they escorted us to meet our new units while Abel and Gabe were summoned for their new duty. Time to meet our personal armies.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Demia and Niles split us up, Demia coming with me and Niles escorting Callie. When I arrived at my section of the camp, I found Gabe standing at attention in full armor, waiting for us to arrive. "Commander." He said with a serious salute, thought I noticed a slight twitch of his lips that made me sure he was fighting a smirk.

I paused to think about everything I'd heard of military etiquette, and returned his salute with an. "At ease." I glanced at Demia, who nodded encouragingly, and Gabe finally let his grin show. "I can't believe you and Callie hit E-rank already. I'd already used up my elixir allotment, or I'd have asked her Ladyship to help me achieve those heights so I might better protect her."

"Hitting her up for money huh?" I said teasingly, avoiding mentioning Chelsea was my sister only with effort. "You sure Bethy won't get jealous?"

He chuckled. "Of which of us? She and Chelsea have been getting pretty close. I think it's been confusing her. She doesn't seem to know how to act around us anymore. At least not alone. I don't suppose you have any..." He trailed off. "Advice? The situation has been confusing me as well."

"I'm not getting involved in either of their love lives. Chelsea for obvious reasons and Bethy because she terrifies me." I said with a snort. "Figure it out yourself. Now isn't the time for that though. Demia here is going to help me whip my century into shape, and I asked for you specifically to aid us in the task. It seems like it would be frowned on for me to kick them around at E-rank, so I need someone to act as my fist." I glanced at Demia. "Or is that a bad idea?"

She smiled back at me placidly. "Not at all. Most commanders have an intermediary to establish discipline and order. Being forced to personally punish your recruits is considered a sign of weak management." Her tone was gentle and incredibly hard to parse for emotion. Not monotone, exactly, but she sounded the same whenever she spoke, and it made reading her impossible.

I'd been right. Politics. It pervaded every aspect of the Empire, including the more militant parts of the culture. Not to mention as Ascendants we were all somewhat impressionable, and prioritized reputation.

Recursion DID happen in the Empire. While the Job system protected people from individual recursion much better than heroic cultivation, it had its own effect on its users. Jobs themselves caused recursion, pushing their users to fit better into the mold. It was less extreme since a Job didn't define your personality, but the perception of what a thing SHOULD be definitely affected what it WAS. Given the political leanings of most of the imperial heirarchy, it was no shock that even lower ranking Jobs would be swept up in their games, just by virtue of the assumption that they always did.

These had been some of the things included in my political lessons, which had been substantially more complex and nuanced than what I expected.

"Well, either way, he's here now." I said, straightening up. "I think its about time I met my century. I'm curious why they have their own territory though? Shouldn't they be training with Hamill like we were?" The differing command structures was odd. Hamill must be high up in the heirarchy, so why was he teaching random grunts.

She smirked, the least peaceful expression I'd seen on her face so far. "The General likes to take a hand in the first two weeks of conditioning. He says it establishes the proper baseline of fear and resentment in the soldiers, even those not directly under his command. Once those two weeks are up, they get cycled out to normal commanders. There are eighty centuries, surely you didn't think you'd seen them all in your training class?"

That was a good point. I supposed when he mentioned 'training starting' back during our initial meeting, Camden meant this particular training cycle. "Ok. So...before I introduce myself, what am I going to be doing today?"

"That depends on your management style." She said with a shrug. "I've known commanders who invite every soldier to attack at once and crush them under their boots. But that strategy is unlikely to bear much fruit unless you have subordinates at the same rank, for reasons already enumerated. You can go with a softer approach, offer rewards for certain milestones, or even just ignore them like Olena did. I'm hear to give you the tools you need to train them, not to train them for you."

I stroked my chin. She wasn't wrong. But I had a few ideas that might work. Ideas that utilized elements from all of those styles.

Marching into the cordoned off area in front of the thirty third barracks (apparently each century had their own after they got through the basic training cycle) I found a group of ninety nine people in the standard armor Camden had given us to use in training. Some of them were grouped up into cliques, some of them lounged by the barracks, and a few of them were just hanging out individually sleeping or reading.

"Officer on the field." Snapped Demia, in the harshest voice I'd heard her use. "Attention!" The shout split the air around us and I jumped slightly, staring down at the unusually loud for her size woman. They all got up, lazily assuming loose rows, though most of them didn't seem too motivated. "This." She said gesturing to me. "Is your new commander. Solomon."

I nodded to her, and stepped up next to her as I surveyed the various faces. "My name, as she mentioned, is Solomon. I'll be assuming command of this unit. I hear some of you are problematic. I'm sure you resent my presence here, and if you don't you probably will once you dig into me a bit. I don't actually give a shit." Demia looked surprised by the tone change, though not disapproving.

"I'm supposed to train you." I continued. "To guide you. And to learn by doing so. The skills I'm going to pick up from this are important for my future, and I'm not going to let some whimpering devil may care assholes fuck up my plans. If you have intentions to fuck around, abandon them, if you're expecting this to be easy, don't." I nodded to Gabe. "This is Gabriel. He's a friend, and he's also my second in command. As an E-ranker, it's unseemly for me to discipline you personally, so he's going to do it for me. Which one of you is the strongest here?"

Everyone turned to look at an unassuming girl standing near the back. Her hair was ivory, her eyes a virulent toxic green, and her pale face delicate in a way that reminded me a bit of Callie. Her eyes met mine, and she smiled. "I guess that's me. My name is Alanna Sunwell. It's nice to meet you...sir. I take it you want me to face your friend there in combat? Establish his chops in front of us all to show it how its done?" Her tone was sarcastic and snide.

"Sure, but you can say no." I said with a shrug. "I'm sure someone else would be interested in the five E-rank chits I'm going to pay the winner."

Every eye in the place snapped to me, and I grinned internally. These people had signed up here as mercenaries. They respected money, wanted money, and would demonstrably FIGHT for money. I had officially begun speaking their language.

Alanna stared at me suspiciously. "That's...a lot of money. Are you really going to pay up if your boy loses?"

"I want you guys to fall in line." I said with a shrug. "That only happens if you're incentivized. Not only will I put up five E-rank coins on the outcome, but I'll be setting up a little tournament. Once Gabe proved his mettle, he'll be withdrawn, and I'll let the top ten percent of you fight it out once a month for an E-ranked chit."

An E-ranked chit was ten F-ranked chits and a hundred G-ranked. G-ranked chits were usually base currency. Acting as a single unit in most markets, which made the prize pool a decent chunk of change. Especially with Gabe being counted out.

I had to do that, because as an Adamant with a path he was almost definitely going to crush the competition, and if they decided I was fleecing them it would have the opposite effect.

It was two birds and one stone. I would earn some goodwill and establish my lieutenants superiority, thereby preventing future challenges.

As Alanna accepted and followed Gabe to a training field in the center of our designated area, Demia stepped up next to me. "You sure he's going to win this?" She asked casually. "It's going to bite you on the ass if she puts him down, and Sunwell is a nasty fighter."

I just smiled knowingly. "Gabe can handle it. Just watch." I pointed at the training ring. I was looking forward to this myself.

Alanna strode out into the ring, hands in the air like a returning champion, and several of the other unit members hooted and hollered encouragement. Seemed like she had a rep among my people. Good. That would make this so much more effective.

Gabriel flipped his wrist, and the massive lance he used for his charges appeared in his hand. I saw him adjust his grip as the pressure and his current near mortal state made it a trial to hold it up, but hold it he did.

"Wow, compensating for something?" Taunted Alanna gleefully. "Not that I can complain, I tend to work with a lot of hardware myself." She waved a hand, and a fan of gleaming spears made of ice arrayed itself behind her, shifting in the air to point straight at Gabe.

Demia nodded. "Lancer Job. Ice based main Skill. She uses it to deadly effect. Like I said, she's going to be a tougher opponent than you might think."

Of course, Gabe didn't seem phased. He stomped his foot, a starlight charger manifesting beneath him as the crusader took his stance, preparing to charge. "You may wish to defend." He said politely. "It would be a shame to kill such a promising recruit by mistake."

From anyone else that would be arrogant, or at least mocking, but Gabe wasn't like that. He wasn't arrogant, he was just certain. The charge of an Adamant wasn't something just anyone could withstand.

Alanna sneered, about to respond with some kind of scathing remark, but before she could Gabe began his charge. I'll give her this, she wasn't stupid. She could sense the momentum, the sheer POWER behind his assault, even as his roar of 'RUBRUM GLORIA' split the air and his body was endowed with the power of his Path. Adamant. Unyielding. Nothing could stop him.

The hooves of the charger thundered across the hard packed dirt as his lance flashed toward her, and Alanna panicked. Her hands went up, grasping two more ice spears from the air as the others overlapped in front of her, positioned in front of the incoming holy lance. Gabe hit her makeshift shield like the fist of an angry god, his lance punching through the ice and smashing into her defending spears as she crossed them to tank the attack.

There was an explosion of light and force and Alanna was sent sliding back, desperately trying to stop herself. It wasn't to be though. Her feet left divots in the ground as she was driven backwards until her spine hit the barracks building.

Her eyes were wide with terror as she stared down at the lance, the tip of which was pressed flush against her windpipe, having pushed just past the skin and drawn a trickle of blood. Following the lance up, I could see that Gabe's arm wasn't fully extended. He'd stopped on a dime before spearing her through the throat. He retracted his lance, and she fell to the ground, shuddering. Damned if that man didn't know how to make an impression.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"Alright." I said as everyone got back in line. There was a palpable air of fear overlaying the camp as they all stared at Gabe and I. Alanna was in the back, glaring at me, and everyone else seemed to afraid to even speak. "Now that we have that out of the way, we can move onto our real first day activities. Don't be so uptight, I already said Gabe won't be involved in any of the upcoming monthly tournaments. Alanna is the one to beat next time." I gestured to the silver haired girl.

That seemed to perk them up. Having Gabe fight the girl had been effective on multiple fronts. Establishing his rep was one, but it also diminished hers. She's had too much authority outside my command structure, and now she didn't. This had the added benefit of increasing the confidence of all the other recruits because she wasn't quit so unassailable anymore. Gabe hadn't just beaten her, he'd CRUSHED her. One blow to end the whole thing.

Bringing up the future prize pool seemed to shake her out of her funk too. She squinted at me in suspicion, but eventually her face smoothed into a determined expression. Demia looked pleased, and I was with her there. Step one of my plan was finished, now for step two.

"For your next exercise." I said with a grin. "We're going to be doing a bit of teambuilding. The winners of this exercise will receive points. That's how I'll keep track of the top ten percent and figure out who can participate in the monthly tournaments. If you all do well, I'm open to increasing the prize pool for the tournaments. Possibly including stronger gear or materials."

Carrot and stick. I'd never been a commander obviously, but I'd run raids in DS before. Managing a large group required a few special considerations.

One, give them a reason to do what you want. Two, give them a reason to be afraid to screw up. And three, give them a reason to ignore the second reason when it's not relevant. Now I just needed a better idea of what everyone could do so I could figure out where to focus my attention.

Once everyone had calmed down, I sent them out unto the training field. Alanna raised an eyebrow. "Ok...we're going to stand around in a big crowd? You gonna start shooting and see who ducks behind a rando?"

Snapping my fingers, I withdrew a series of brushes, passing them all out. "Nope. Your job is easy. You're going to pick teams. Ten people. Each team will get a color of paint, then I'm going to put you all under a stealth effect to prevent you from seeing. I want to see what Hamill's training taught you. Winning team gets a point each."

They took the brushes and I went ahead and got out some paint. I'd been considering a similar exercise for a while in the abstract so I had the stuff on me. Once that was done. I grinned and waved a hand. "Well, looks like we're good to go. Now...begin." I triggered Moonlit Night. After that, I triggered Piece of Mind.

While the stealth fog blanketed them, the secondary mental process tweaked the skill, splitting my focus so each team could see their own members but nothing else. The soul weight was minimal of course, given my current soul strength, so the mental component was all I needed to worry about.

Piece of Mind was weird every time I experienced it. I'd tried it out already, though not on anything big, and it was such a strange sensation.

In DS they obviously couldn't beam a second concurrent mental process into your head. It was closer to picture in a picture. A small image in your eyeline that let you keep track of more than one thing at once. In reality though, Piece of Mind actually let me focus on two things at once.

The biggest thing I had to get used to was that both minds were using my eyes and ears, but since they were focused on different things, it split my focus in a fascinating fashion. It was like trying to look at things individually with both of my eyes. My focus was split but it was still MY focus. I looked forward to seeing how the ability would advance, because I could already see so many uses for it.

My recruits, meanwhile, were shocked and alarmed. The whole area had been consumed with fog that muffled the senses, and aside from teammates they couldn't see a thing.

Gabe had stayed out of it, so I let Alannas team stick with nine. She'd get an extra point if she won, which I hoped would somewhat temper her frustration at being used as an example. Once their sight vanished, I expected them all to freak put, but to my surprise, everyone kept a level head.

They were all seasoned mercenaries and had gone through Hamills training, so maybe I shouldn't have been so shocked. Immediately, I smiled, triggering a shadow clone to slip out into the fog.

My shadow clone was a stored F-rank ability, so it wouldn't be too unfair, aside from the obvious visibility advantage. I had it slip among the recruits, tagging legs and shoulders with its staff, drawing attention to the proper directions to get things started.

"An interesting exercise." Admitted Demia. "I'm not familiar with any like it. Where did you get the idea?"

I shrugged. "Various tests and fights I've been in. You run into things like this enough and you learn to twist your brain into that shape. My own mentor loved doing stuff like this. My way is a bit more humane I think, but then, I'm not aiming to get them a paired combat skill." I paused. "My girlfriend and I have a Skill called paired duelling, that allows us to synchronize in battle, is there a large scale version of that?"

"There is."She said bluntly. "But it takes years in the same unit to build the cohesion necessary to get it. No newborn mercenary unit is going to manage. Especially on their first day."

I briefly entertained the fantasy of having them all wish for it, but that was untenable for multiple reasons. Firstly there was no way I'd be able to scrape together enough wishes on top of my contract, second I wanted them to get it and had a vested interest, which would make fair compensation nearly impossible, and thirdly I wasn't sure if it would be more expensive because it was such a rare Skill. Theoretically it could be cheaper because it required so many components, but that was unlikely.

As I watched a recruit get pinned to the ground by a swarm of ice spears that somehow didn't turn him into a lifeless slab of meat, I made a considering sound. "What is this Skill called if I might ask?"

"Legio Unius." She answered in a reverential tone. "It takes decades of training for units, even small ones, to achieve that level of synergy. Of the imperial armies I've heard of, only the Emperor's royal guard has managed, and every single one of them is at the Marquise level. Working in concert they're capable of holding off threats in the low King level. A full legion of five thousand soldiers all specializing in the same Path and able to synergize flawlessly. If they someday reach the Duke or even King level, they'd be unmatched."

I was...boggled. Five thousand B-rankers taking on an S-ranker was nuts. Even a weak one, it was staggering. The differences between ranks became more pronounced as you went up. For instance, the next rank up I'd get was D-rank, which would not only MASSIVELY increase my stat cap, it would also push my Impact up over one hundred points. At B-rank, two ranks up was more than a hundred points of Impact just for advancing.

Of course, I imagined their souls were all the full two ranks ahead and polished. Strung together with the kind of bond I had with Callie, it was no wonder they were terrifying. I hadn't considered the outliers that must be roaming the universe really. Like I knew the Vampire could fight a god at S-rank, but it was clear there were many other roads to power. What kind of monstrous aces did the Church and the Cult have up their sleeves that I just hadn't heard about? I'd have to ask Chelsea.

To my surprise though, I wasn't worried...I was excited. I had my own army now, and even if they didn't jump ship to my territory when I got it (I was sure I could buy out their contracts from Camden for a bit of extra wish priority) I was going to learn to make my own force like the one she was talking about. Maybe Nat could help me and the others all get that Skill if they ended up working for me. I was imagining a vanguard of attackers channeling Mephistopheles, cavalry with Belial.

Interpreting my silence correctly, Demia burst out laughing. "Learn to walk before you run, Solomon. And yes, I know what you're thinking. Every commander thinks the same thing when they hear about the royal guard. Usually as children, but still, it's a common thought process." I was pretty sure she was wrong, or at least only partially right, but I saw her point.

"Yeah, I might've gotten carried away." I chuckled wryly. "This is going faster than expected." I noted as Alanna demolished yet another team. "I have no clue how she's penetrating the fog, but she's perceiving something. Think she has some kind of truesight?"

The blue haired woman nodded. "Probably. Lancer's a precision Job. They're best served with extreme accuracy and a heavy perception focus. Might plays a role, but knowing where to strike is as important as how hard. You should have a roster waiting for you back at your barracks when the day ends, with a list of your recruits and their Jobs and specialties. That'll help with the formation training we're going to do."

We watched in silence for the next ten minutes as her team of nine finished sweeping up the competition. I allowed the fog to dissipate, nodding to the last of the team members, smirking around at the sprawled bodies covered with markings of orange paint.

"Impressive." I told her diplomatically. "I'm going to be learning more about formations for us to use, but assuming we need squad leaders you'll definitely get the job. As MVP you'll be receiving two points instead of just the one that the rest of your team will get."

The others didn't even look mad, but Alanna beamed. The points were nonsense, of course, though I was considering making them a kind of currency tradeable for better gear or something once I had my funds in order. I needed to talk to Anna about monetizing some wishes. I looked around at the others, all getting to their feet and resuming their neat rows at attention.

"Excellent work. I saw plenty of promising recruits, and I have a good idea of how you all operate." That was true. my second thought process had been keeping track of them via Piece of Mind, and I marveled again at how convenient that skill was. "Now that I understand how you fight, I need to know what your limits are." I saw faces fall, and I tried not to smirk as they all realized what I meant and collectively gulped.

Of course, that didn't save them. As someone who had spent the last week or two grinding myself into meat paste with shitty conditioning exercises, I had plenty of ideas for what to put them through and what kind of limits to place on the training. As they all dropped to the ground to start their burpees, I smirked behind the privacy of my mask. Misery loved company. And I didn't want them thinking I was TOO reasonable.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The next few days flew by. Demia was a patient and understanding teacher, shockingly so given the environment. The carrot and stick combination worked well with my unit, and they continued to improve over time. That comfort and relaxation obviously couldn't last. I was sitting with Camden for my nobility lessons with Celine, Chelsea, and Callie, when Alister hurried in to announce a new guest.

"Your grace." He blurted in an uncharacteristic tizzy. "You have a guest. I'm not familiar with them but they're...powerful. Viscount level, though I've never seen her before. She said to ask Solomon to vouch for her."

My eyes narrowed. Anna was here. Anna had never interacted with Camden that I was aware of. Her showing up to speak to both of us was...bad. I didn't know how but I knew it was. Camden glanced at me, raising an eyebrow. "One of my associates. She shouldn't be a threat." At D-rank, Zeke couldn't protect me from Anna anymore, but not only did Anna not know that, he could still protect Chelsea, who was in the room.

I had a bunch of stockpiled wishes to act as payment, in case she needed them, though my preference was to avoid using them. If she was here though, it meant something had gone very wrong. 'This seems like it might be a problem'. I heard
Callie's voice in my head. I didn't even jump at the sound, I was so connected to her I'd felt her intention to speak.
'Anna tries to stay under the radar. I'm not sure why she would interact with Camden directly unless it had something to do with the person targeting him. But why would she get involved?' I could only think of one real reason, and I didn't like it. Anna wouldn't have done something like this unless whoever was threatening Camden was going to be a problem for the planet at large. More specifically for Saltzberg and her own interests.

Hearing my tone, Camden nodded to Alister, and the seneschal fled to get Anna, clearly terrified to keep a D-ranker waiting. Which I got. They were terrifying.

Anna strode into the room a moment later, Alister on her heels. "Baron Tolbert." She said with a nod. "Thank you for seeing me. I'm glad our mutual friend saw fit to lend his support. I've been looking into your...situation. I expected our friend might charge me to find out more about what was going on. I've come across some disturbing news. Disturbing enough that I won't charge for the initial tip off, because I need your input to make sense of what I found."

Camden nodded slowly. "Understood, I appreciate your efforts and your willingness to share whatever you know. I assume this news concerns my cousin Spencer?"

"Possibly." She said with a shrug. "Do you have an isolation formation on this room? I'm not certain I trust my stealth Skills with this level of information. I don't know of anyone with spatial spying abilities on Stratholme, so the formation should be safe enough."

Nodding to Alister, Camden stood and walked over to close the door. The seneschal hurried away and came back with a large wooden box. Opening it, Camden withdrew an ornate bronze globe. Opening it, he lit a candle, then closed the small bronze hatch and spun the globe forcefully. The light from the candle surged and then expanded outward in a bubble of golden light that hit the walls and stuck to them like flypaper. "We're safe to talk for the moment." He said solemnly.

"Good. Now, I heard from my sources you came to Stratholme for the sole reason that you wish to distance yourself from family affairs. Is this accurate?" This really must be serious if Anna was being so formal. She never struck me as the type.

"It is." Camden admitted. "I prefer being alive and obscure to being famous and dead. Spencer is a particularly bitter enemy, or I doubt he'd have followed me. I take it he has some sort of plan that you think will cause widespread destruction? I'm afraid to say that's not out of character."

She shook her head. "You misunderstand. Spencer didn't follow you here to hurt you. In fact, Spencer didn't follow you here at all. According to my sources, Spencer was here before you were. Months before. He's been doing...something. Something involving the cave systems that run under most of the planet. I don't know WHAT exactly, but several of the people he sent down there didn't come back."

"That's not possible." Protested Camden. "I didn't tell anyone about my decision to come here. Hell, I didn't MAKE the decision to come here until a few months ago. Shortly before I arrived."

Anna raised an eyebrow. "Really. And it was entirely your own idea to choose Stratholme as your location? It wasn't suggested to you? Because the only way I can see this being a possible outcome is if he steered you to the planet in some way."

"No." he said firmly. "I picked the planet out of a carefully curated list of..." He froze. "Sara." He said in a daze. "She made the list for me. It wouldn't have been hard for her to surround this planet in particular with ones I wouldn't pick for other reasons. Thinking back the other options all had minor flaws that would have made them untenable to me. One was a desert, one had a strong magnetic field that eroded spellwork." He slumped back. "She aimed me here. Into a trap. I thought we were friends. She was my main source of intel after I left the family."

Sighing, Anna pulled out a chair and sat down. I saw Alister twitch and had to fight a smile, though Callie frowned at my amusement. I just shrugged, and she rolled her eyes. "Betrayal is never pleasant. But I'm sure you understand the implications of this information?"

"I was herded here. Spencer arrived before me and is doing something dangerous in a poorly explored part of the planet's crust." He said succinctly. "This is a trap, and the fact that he picked this planet specifically means it probably involves some deeply buried secret of Stratholme. Are you aware of any such dangers? And what of the Earl, will he step in? His mind appeared to be running full bore, sifting data and trying to figure out a next move.

Anna grimaced. "Your cousin is involved with the Magister, who is the Earl's right hand. I suspect he's made arrangements for the Earl to play a minimal role. Not ignore whatever is coming, that wouldn't fly, but minimize his footprint by occupying himself with some small part of whatever attack or event he has planned. As for the issue of lore, I'm no history student. I concern myself with the now, and not the before. At least not at that scale. I do have a friend we might consult. If you decide to involve me in this."

"Ah." He said with a smirk. "I was waiting for you to hit me in the purse. I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint. I don't have much in the way of liquid funds."

As she panned her glance to me, I crossed my arms. "He has an allotment, he can pay out of that. I'm not tossing you freebies because of this. I'm already severely limited in the wishes I can use for my friends, putting myself further into debt is a no go." I paused. "Actually, I do have a question Camden. I thought this guy was your arch nemesis. How did you not notice him vanishing for months before you left?"

For the first time in these lessons, his composure cracked as he threw his hands up in irritation. "We don't have sleepovers every night in matching twin beds, he tries to kill me sometimes. Usually by proxy. It isn't unusual for me not to see Spencer for years at a time. Houses like the Tolbert family span multiple galaxies, possessing influence wherever the Empire exists. We're one of the strongest Ducal houses. Keeping track of what everyone does is something only the head of the family or his direct subordinates can manage."

That was fair. It was like asking me to quote you the location of one of the Wyndhams. I didn't know who everyone in the family even was, how was I supposed to know where they went. Anna smiled placidly. "I can tell you this much. Given the number of people who have vanished into those caverns since he arrived, whatever he's planning is big. If you know what it is you can prepare ahead of time, if not you might die here."

"What about us?" I asked him, suddenly remembering something he'd said. "You used someone specific for the information on us, is it possible your cousin will figure out who we are if he has that person on his payroll?" My wish power was one of our biggest aces in the hole against anyone who didn't know about it. It was also one of the main reasons I'd decided to stay here. Although now that I knew if I ran I'd be increasing my chances of running into trouble of a more personal nature I had another reason to stick it out.

He hesitated, but shook his head. "I used a different one of my sources to dig into you. But there are plenty of other secrets Sara knows about that might be a problem. I just..." His face twisted in hurt. "I can't believe she would do this. Spencer wants to kill me. She knows that. Herding me here is all but signing my death warrant."

I winced, but as much as I felt for him, I also knew we needed to stay focused. "I get it man, I really do, but it's not the time. Can you work something out with Anna to help us? Her abilities would be a huge boon to us. She managed to rescue a bunch of her people from the Magister after that mess at the banquet. She's good." I glanced sideways at her. "I assume you have potential measures to take to aid us should you be brought onboard?"

"Of course." She scoffed. "A few of my boys are standing by at some of the entrances Spencer sent his people through. They'll infiltrate the cave systems and do some scouting. Unlike his random mercs, my people are masters of stealth. They're never seen unless they want to be."

I nodded wisely. "Ah, of course. Like they never get beaten about the head and body with a magic stick. That must have been another group of shadowy thieves."

"Have we discussed medical expenses for that?" She asked sweetly. "Because that fucking stick did some serious damage."
I smiled. "Consider it the cost of doing business. Maybe next time he won't try to put his grubby hands on my girlfriend. She didn't exactly have pockets, and I can't think of any acceptable place he would have been able to check for valuables in that dress. He's lucky I didn't smash his fucking kneecaps and let them heal wrong."

Callie stiffened at that, clearly not having considered that aspect of things. Anna herself looked pensive, and I suspected her pickpocket friend was going to be answering some pointed questions. Good.

Finally, Camden seemed to finish processing and rejoined the conversation. "I agree to your involvement. I'll require a more detailed contract, but I see no reason for Shane, Callie, Chelsea, and Celine to stay for this part. We can end lessons early tonight, I'm sure you'll all be happy to get to sleep early."

"Don't have to tell me twice." I said, popping to my feet. "Let us know how this all works out. And Anna, set us up to talk with your friend who has a handle on the local lore. Best to know the possibilities in case your boys don't find anything." Planets were big, no reason to put all our eggs in one basket. With that we all waved our goodbyes and headed out. I really was happy to be leaving. I was tired, and had a lot to think about.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The next day was pretty standard. Tactics practice, training, some formation drills. We had a mock battle against the fifty third on friday to test our formation drilling, and I wasn't entirely worried we'd lose. Granted, the fifty third were a total joke, but we had been too until recently. Once I finished that, did the wishes for Camden (I was up to nine stockpiled) and then retired to my barracks.

Unlike the barracks for Hamill's training crew, or the barracks for the centuries, the officer barracks were, if not nice, at least more private. The rooms were about fifty by fifty feet inside, though they were built as five by five, and barely more than closets from outside.

I was in my room alone, but after an hour of my training there was a knock. I didn't bother getting up, just sending a silent 'come in' to Callie. She stepped inside, raising an eyebrow at me sitting on the floor in the middle of the room with a pile of rocks. She raised an eyebrow at my position on the floor, looking at the pile of stones trying to see how there were special.

They weren't of course. They were rocks. Not even particularly sturdy ones. G-rank rocks.

"What a flattering use of your alone time." She said wryly. "When you said you wanted to enjoy your solitude I assumed you had some sort of training to do. But I see now that your interests are wide and varied and I shouldn't have made assumptions. If I'd known I was driving you to play with loose rocks I'd have given you space ages ago."

I rolled my eyes. "Your rapier wit is as sharp as ever. Now if only you would stop clubbing people over the head with it, you might actually be funny."

She smirked, flipping me off as she strolled across the room to slump into my bed. "You love it. Now, explain your thought process here? I can tell emotions and hear things you send me on purpose, but you really do just seem to be playing with rocks like a moron."

I held up a hand, rock in my palm, and focused on it, flexing my soul. The rock dissolved into a pile of fine dust. I waited a second, then focused again, and it reformed into stone, though still in the shape of a pile of dust.

"Damn." She said with a whistle. "You've got that much control over Pit of Despair?"

I grumbled and tossed the pile shaped rock behind me into a pile of the vaguely cone shaped stones. "Yes, but that's not what I'm trying to do. Turning it to dust is fine, but when I turn them back I'm trying to restore them to a the shape they took as stones."

She seemed confused until she caught on. "Ah, you're trying to create a tangential Skill. Something like my shadow manipulation."

"Or like my staff forms." I agreed. "We can create Skills that effect other Skills. Even though Pit of Despair is a subskill, I should be able to make a Skill that can act on the things it does. It can dissolve and reform rock. With enough effort I SHOULD be able to alter the rock while its in its dust state. The first step to that is figuring out how to return the dust to its original shape. Once I can do that I can figure out how to assume more control over what the dust does as dust."

It was going to be a massive boon in combat, but more than that, I was pretty sure I could learn to make it into a crafting Skill. Seeing what my wishes had done with that room amazed me. If I could establish foundations, I could probably exploit that even more, or rather, Callie could. Plus the idea of being able to make things out of stone was cool.

"Is your Sapphire Soul Body really that strong?" Flexing skills was hard work, or it had been. Doing something like this...it was taxing, even for me. I was packing a massive skill effect into a small area, then I was reversing it early, and I was doing it on repeat. It was hard. My soul was strong now, like a powerful leg. That didn't make picking up grains of rice with my toes any easier.

I shrugged. "It gives me more stamina with skill alterations for sure. As for the effect..." I blew out a breath. "Probably? The thing is, this isn't doing one thing. Making my skill take a shape and tweaking a parameter is easy enough. This is fine control over time. It's difficult and draining. If you liken changing a skill to drawing a picture of what you want, this is more like trying to draw a picture while holding the pen with chopsticks. It's hard to put into words."

"This is your first time making a skill like this. She pondered. "Unique Skills are hard to make, and I imagine this will make it even tougher. You soul should help, but I bet this'll be a challenge." She perked up, the bond telling me she had an idea. "Wait a second. Here I want to try something." Sitting down in front of me, she took my hands in hers, placing a rock on my cupped palms. "Alright, now turn it to dust but don't turn it back."

I did as she told me to, and the rock dissolved into fine powder. Before I could ask what next she focused, and a wave of shadows climbed up onto my palm. I felt through the bond as she SHOVED the shadows into the sand, hard, using her own soul and an ability I hadn't seen her use in a while. The power to imbue darkness into objects. It was temporary and inefficient on most materials, but her blue soul made it possible in this instance.

As my eyes widened in shock, I felt her reach out with Shadow Manipulation Mastery, guiding me along our bond as she showed me what it looked like to alter and shape the dust. It wasn't going to give me a dust shaping Skill, but it showed me...how. Little mental constructs and tricks for how to move something like what she was working with, supplied by her baseline Shadow Manipulation Skill and refined through practice.

Finally, panting and sweating, she let the shadows flee the dust, slumping back to catch herself on her hands. I shot her a concerned frown. "That too much?"

She shook her head. "Not even a headache. Not yet at least. You were right. It's not the same as taxing your soul through brute force. Less like muscle fatigue and more like a hand cramp from making lots of tiny motions. Unpleasant but bearable. How was that though? Did it help?"

Focusing on the pile of dust again, I pushed with my skill. Pit of Despair wanted to return the dust to stone in its current shape, but Callie had shown me what to do, even if I had to do it with a whole different Skill. I focused on the feeling of the shifting shadow sand that I'd felt before through the bond, then enforced that feeling on the dust and SHOVED with my whole soul.

The dust smashed back together into a spherical stone shape, but did so with such force that the stone exploded into a puff of smoke. I winced. Little too much english on that one. I focused the same way, but instead of shoving my soul against the concept, I pushed it slowly. Raising the amount of soul strength I used as I went. The dissolved rock in palm began to slowly float up into a small cloud of stone dust, before putting itself back together into an ovoid rock.

I was panting by the time I finished. Callie had been right. It felt like a muscle cramp in my soul. Fine manipulation was harder than brute force in some ways. No possible breakage or massive headache, but the dull throb wasn't that much better.

Callie was bouncing in excitement. "That's amazing! Did you get a Skill?" She was fascinated by the rock, taking it from me and studying it carefully.

"No, but I didn't expect I would." I said with a chuckle. "Not from that. I made the rock its original shape, but that's just reversing the course of the Pit of Despair. Now I need to take it further. I put it back to 'rock' shape. Now I need to change that rock shape. I think a perfect sphere would work best."

I turned the stone to dust, then focused again the same way. This time, as I pushed with my aching soul, I had to split off a second consciousness with Piece of Mind to alter the shape, since this was taking all my focus. As I watched, the stone began to reform again, slowly taking its old shape, but my other mind pushed and prodded, altering the flow of the dust with some of the mental constructs we'd just learned from Callie.

Rather than an irregular stone, the dust reformed into a completely perfect spherical shape. When it finished, I slumped forward, the strain on my soul having magnified exponentially when I had my other self working with it. That was a good way to train with it, and I filed away the information for not only myself, but Callie, who still needed to reach Sapphire.

I spent the next hour working on some serious soul strain. I hadn't had a chance to put my new soul through its paces, especially since the rank up, but the dull throb turned into the usual soul strain headache eventually with my flagrant use of Piece of Mind. Still, I was able to learn quickly and advance my new training method, learning to shape the stones as they reformed.

Pyramids, diamonds, and as I went on, even more variable shapes. I made an hourglass, and what might, if one squinted, be considered a duck. By the time I finished going through my paces my head was in agony, but I had a bright grin on my face as I checked my stat sheet and found a new Skill.

Minor Dust Construction Mastery. An odd Skill name, but it WAS a Skill. I felt the click in my head as it became one, and I felt the soul strain decrease exponentially when it did. I wasn't twisting Pit of Despair into knots anymore, I was using a unique Skill I'd made. On PURPOSE. It was a great feeling. I would have practiced with it, but Callie forced me to stop.
"I'm not letting you give yourself an aneurysm because you want to play with your new toy." She said firmly. "You have training tomorrow anyway, you can deal with it after."

Sighing, I nodded grudgingly and got up, dumping the rocks on the floor as I climbed up onto my bed and wrapped myself around her. She snuggled up against me. I could feel her pride and happiness for me over the bond, chased by some worry about the soul strain. She was able to stay in here because apparently the gender specific dorms weren't enforced for officers. Sleeping next to her again was easily the best part of my rank up. I'd missed her terribly, and I found I couldn't sleep right without her in my arms.

"I think this is going to be the beginning of an amazing power." I told her as I started to drift off. "I can't wait to see what I can do with it." This unique Skill was completely different to any earth shaping Skill I'd seen or heard of and I was going to test it thoroughly. With my Perception letting me see the specifics, I could create incredibly dense and sturdy stones. I bet I could even focus Pit of Despair to make the dust even finer. Tomorrow after training I would start testing. I had so many ideas.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Waking up in the morning was surprisingly relaxing because I realized up doing so that Callie had been wrong. We didn't have training, we'd both gotten so wrapped up in working with our centuries we'd forgotten weekends were free time, even for commanders. Callie had to force me to promise not to strain my soul today, since I was still raw from creating my Dust Construction Mastery.

So we headed for Anna's place after stopping to pay, Camden and banking a tenth wish. When we arrived, we didn't even have a chance to go in. Anna met us at the door. "Oh good." She said, stepping out and pulling a shawl around her shoulders. "You're both here. I arranged a meeting with my historian friend, but we need to go now." It was surprisingly cold today, not that I really felt it in my costume. Our meeting with Camden's artisan had been pushed back, and would be tomorrow, having been delayed when he found out about the plot against him.

I glanced at Callie, shrugging. "I kind of wanted breakfast, but if it's time sensitive I'm fine waiting." I smirked at Anna.
"But it's going to be on the house." We were supposed to meet everyone, but Zeke would have heard this conversation even if Anna hadn't told him, and my uncle wasn't going to leave everyone hanging.

"You're a petty little thing for someone from one of the richest families in the universe." She complained as we set off. "Shouldn't you be inured to the trappings of wealth?" She was talking in her formal businesslike tone, which kind of clued me in to the nature of her friend.

I burst out laughing at that. "First of all, I'm a candidate. I grew up on a backwater psuedo D-rank planet in the ass end of Conglomerate space. No one on my planet has even MET a D-ranker, much less become 'inured to their wealth' second of all, have you met scions of wealthy houses? They're the most particular people I can imagine. In case you missed the overarching theme here, I'm cheap, and I want you to give me free food."

She threw her hands up. "Don't you have any pride as a Wyndham?" She said in disbelief. "The other people I've met with your ability carry themselves with a bit more...decorum. I doubt they would be impressed with your demeanor." Despite the words, I could see a twinkle in her eye, like this was some kind of test, not that I cared.

"Fuck em." I said bluntly. "I'm not overly impressed with them either. This whole cuckoo bird child rearing strategy is bullshit. I love my dad, and my cousin, but I don't know anyone else in my family. I'll act however I want to, and if they have a problem with it they can kiss my ass."

Part of my big soul realization in the temple was that I wasn't doing what I was doing for my family. Not really. I wanted to change them to make things better, but I didn't need their approval for that. All I needed was my own peace of mind, and I was going to prioritize that. It was the biggest part of what Abel had said that resonated with me. I wasn't like him, I cared what other people thought, but only to a certain extent.

Honestly, it almost felt hypocritical to make a declaration like that while trying to learn politics, but it made sense to me. I was here to make my own faction, to draw people in and convince them to support me. To do that I needed to know how to act in political situations, even if I made the choice to act counter to that information. Knowledge was power, and being stubborn wasn't the same thing as being stupid.

She laughed aloud at that. "Well look at you. How bold. How about you? You going to support your man as he tells his whole clan to go to hell?" She aimed that question at Callie, but I wasn't worried.

I felt a torrent of love and support rush through the bond, enough to stagger even me. Callie took my hand and held it tightly as she stared down the D-ranker. "Without a second of hesitation. You might not know this, but Shane supported me when I went against my family back home. It's the least I can do to offer my own support. He wants to win the competition, and I support that dream, however he decides to pursue it."

"You know." Said Anna thoughtfully. "Seeing you two looking all devoted and steadfast, I'd ALMOST believe he might pull it off. Almost. It's almost sad you kids have no clue of the depths of the waters you're wading in. But hey, I've been surprised before. Even if you don't go the distance, I think you'll make it far." Her tone was firm, like she'd just made a decision, and part of me realized this HAD been a test. She wanted to see if we were worth following. I didn't know what she'd decided, but I wouldn't have changed my answer even if it had been a negative.

Finally, we arrived outside a large stone building, columns holding up a massive stone roof. "Welcome to the Saltzberg Archives of Imperial Knowledge, the largest library in a thousand miles. It's not under the control of the nobles, but is an extension of the imperial power. All citizens are entitled to basic knowledge about possible jobs and career paths. It's what makes the empire function. Though some, like nobles, require certain conditions like birth or bestowal to gain."

"That's actually kind of cool." I said with interest. "Shame we don't have time to hang around. Maybe we should mention this place to m-" I caught myself. " To my friend Chelsea, she loves books." My sister had moved away from the Holy Dominion to experience life, but that didn't mean she automatically hated reading now. I was sure she'd be excited about such a big expansive library.

I was also hoping that Anna hadn't caught my slight slip up, though even if she had it would be covered by our contract. Gesturing us inside, she steered us through the stacks and to the back of the library. In a far corner, surrounded by walls of books, we found an overburdened table stacked with piles of tomes. I could hear someone moving around. "Syl." Called Anna loudly. "I brought guests, come say hi."

There was a thump, and a curse, and then an incredibly tiny woman crawled out from under the table between a few book stacks. "I'm here." Said the small blonde. She had huge glasses that made her eyes look massive, and was only about halfway past four feet tall. Her face was serious and focused, and she didn't give the feeling of being young so much as just very small. "What do you want?"

Anna had explained on the way, after our heart to heart that her boys had gone down into the tunnels. They hadn't found any easy answers, but had found a few clues. That was why we were having this meeting now. She wanted to get Sylvie's opinion on what they'd uncovered so we had a direction to focus on.

Snapping her fingers, Anna pulled out a stack of papers, passing them over to Sylvie. I'd expected some plesantries, but the small historian was apparently not one for niceties. She snatched the papers, scanning them over. She paused, raising an eyebrow. "Someone is mucking around with the Undertrek? Terrible idea. All sorts of nasty things down there. In the deepest parts there are things even the Earl wouldn't want to disturb. Planets don't reach C-rank overnight, after all. This one has been here for quite a while."

She flipped through the papers, held up a hand, and then climbed back under the table. There were a series of bangs and grunts as the table was battered from beneath, book piles wobbling as she knocked into them. Finally she came back out holding a pair of books. "Those will help us?" Anna said hopefully.

"A bit generalist." She admitted. "But yes. One moment." She flipped through the books. And I mean that literally, she riffled the pages, barely glancing at them as she 'read'. "Ah." She stopped on a page. "That might be it." She switched books, did it again, and then switched back. She pulled a pen from behind her ear, somehow woven into the braid and then started scribbling things down.

Callie raised an eyebrow. "Don't you need any more details? I mean they only went down and scouted around. Unless they found some kind of big neon sign that said 'CLUE' I don't see how any of their accounts will help."

Sylvie snorted, looking up over her glasses, which had fallen down her nose. It was a very disdainful look. "The Undertrek is made up of millennia of sunken architecture, natural cave systems, and various other oddities. I've made a career of studying this planet's history. I know when certain civilizations fell, how they interacted with others, and where those interactions took place."

"So...this planet predates the empire?" I asked in amazement. "I thought most planets people lived on were seeded by the five factions? To grow the population."

She rolled her eyes. "One!" She said sharply, holding up a finger. "Seeded by the five factions doesn't mean terraformed. Several powerful planets had native inhabitants. Second, most is an accurate qualifier, but you have to understand that there are hundreds if not thousands of lower ranked planets for every one that manages to Ascend. Low ranked planets are the strong majority, and the ones the factions seeded trended strongly toward those. Makes it easier to raise a new population."

"People like Sylvie aren't exactly uncommon." Anna said with a nod. "Archivists and historians that study the ancient ruins of previous civilizations on inhabited planets. They share and cross reference their findings between factions freely, using their knowledge to enrich us all. The Vikram family heads the History Hunters, and they're an S-rank clan. There are also a few other major subfactions under the banner."

I got the gist. "Ok, so Sylvie has all sorts of reference material and has been crossreferencing the various societies and cultures here. How does that help us?"

"Idiots." Sylvie muttered as she went back to rifling through books. "The cave systems are made up of sunken ruins as well as normal stone. The qualities and design of those ruins heavily informs what might be lurking there, as do the locations, the depth, the type of stone in the tunnels, and about a dozen other factors. These caverns were relatively close to the surface, so the problem shouldn't be too difficult to discern. The issue is as I said, C-rank planets take a long time to form. Close to the surface not only doesn't mean recent, but can be a variety of possible cultures."

I gestured to the list she'd been making as she came back out, and she passed it to me. I scanned it. "Mykean, Radikt, Vessar. Ground dragon nest? Bubonic hate rats. Toxic spores, Stone Lion Prides, Necromantic Armies, Tomb Guardians, Mummies, Lantern Fiends." I scanned the variety of possible suggestions, some monsters some just vague references to civilizations. "What the fuck is a Spine Burrower Horde?"

"What does it sound like?" She said sweetly. Obviously done with us, she shoved several books into my arms, which I slipped into my ring immediately. "That's everything you should need. There are detection methods and tests you can run. Now I've taken too much time from my latest paper. I'm researching the trace stat elements in the soil and how they've leached in. Some of it is from the planet, but I think I can conclusively prove the effect of groundwater on specific stat proliferation."

Anna cut her off. "That was all we needed Syl. No need to bother with us plebian morons. Just get back to work." From her hasty words, I gathered Sylvie would have talked our ear off. With a shrug the small woman slipped back under the table. I glanced down at the list. Seemed like we had a place to start.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"This is not a present." My annoyed sister informed me. "This is grunt work. Just because I like to read doesn't mean you can force me to do research and pretend you're doing me a favor." She gestured to the small pile of books on the table. "That said, I did look through the list, because I agree it's important, and I skimmed the volumes she gave you. My final determination is...I don't know."

I blinked at her. "That's not a determination." I said flatly. "That's the opposite of a determination. Also it wasn't like I just dumped it on you and expected you to get it done. I offered to help, you just sent me away after a few minutes."

"Because you wouldn't stop HUMMING!" She snapped. "And you were tapping your toes nonstop. I couldn't focus. "

I threw up my hands in a 'there you go' sort of gesture, and she snorted in annoyance, turning back to her books.
"Anyway, point is, no, I found nothing. Or rather, I found too much. There are at least five possible options for what
Spencer might be doing in those tunnels, even after factoring in all the possible eliminating features. This isn't some video game where the scouts use their identify spell to figure out the special dirt at the base of the walls and use that to puzzle out the answer. I'll need to go down there and look around. And I'll need access to someone with scouting capabilities. I think we should bring Bethy."

Smirking at her, I made sure she could hear the smile in my voice. "Oh really? You sure you don't just want some alone time with the pretty vampire? I have better things to do than chaperone your first date."

"I don't...I...that's...what are you even...shut up!" My sister's face had gone bright red, and it was hard not to crack up at the panic on her face. "Bethy is a valuable and useful member of this team, and I need her services so we can find evidence. Her cats and even her new dog will be invaluable for searching underground in dark tunnels. I wouldn't say we should bring her just because she's pretty." Her eyes went wide. "I mean not pretty. Well, not not pretty but-"

I held up a hand. "Please stop. I promise to stop teasing you if you promise to stop stammering and blushing. This is going from amusing to awkward at absurd speeds. I'm down to go exploring with you and Bethy, but I'm not sure how safe that would be. People are disappearing down there. Even though Anna's people made it out, that doesn't mean we can go down there without any worries."

"I know." She said with a sigh. "Even with Gabriel and Callen alongside us, we wouldn't be safe from most of the beasts that might trouble us. We need someone in the D-ranks at least. Higher would be better, but as long as we don't go too deep we should be fine. Which is why I think we should bring Anna."

Snorting, I shook my head. "You planning to pay her? Because I'm fresh out of accessible wishes."

"I could." She admitted freely. "Though it would put a big dent in my walking around money. But I don't think I need to. Try asking her. No offers of payment, just one friend requesting help from another."

My sister's naivete was kind of charming, so I decided to humor her, tracking down Anna and asking her outright. "Hey, we were heading down to do some recon on the tunnels but it's not safe to go alone. Will you come with us?" I expected her to just blow me off, so I didn't bother trying to wheedle or phrase it in some enticing way.
"Sure." She said with a smile.

"Ok, no problem." I nodded. "I figured you'd be bus-wait what'd you say now?" I blinked, my brain crashing to a halt at the weird about face.

"Traditionally." She said kindly. "When someone says yes you shouldn't question them about it. Not only does it make you seem unconfident, it makes them reassess helping you. But I'll let it slide this time since your shocked face is so funny to look at."

I gestured to my blank wooden mask. "You couldn't see my face. You had no idea it looked shocked."

"I have a good imagination." She laughed. "Plus you just confirmed it. Anyway, go get the others. You bringing your lady love on this recon trip?"

Shaking my head, I explained. "Callie has some training to do today. Plus she can feel what happens through our bond." It was also a good chance to spend time with my sister, though obviously I couldn't say that. Chelsea and I hadn't really hung out, and a big nerdy research trip seemed like a fun getting to know you exercise.

Bethy would be along too, but in my experience she spent half her time vanishing when you weren't looking and reappearing being chased by monsters. Chances were good we would have time to talk, even if we couldn't let on about our family situation with Anna nearby. She shrugged, sending me off to get the others, and I strolled off to find our resident vampire fashionista.

To my surprise, I found her out front of the inn. Gabe was sitting and reading a book and Bethy had her head in his lap, a small dark umbrella held between his thighs casting shade on her face as she napped.

"Hey." I said as I stepped outside. "Sorry to interrupt reading time, but I was hoping to talk to Bethy."

She sat up excitedly. "Are you finally going to let me fix your hair? I'm so excited, I thought you were never going to figure out how bad it looks!"

"No it's-" I froze. "Wait, what's wrong with my hair?" I self consciously ran my fingers through my sandy blonde locks. "I guess it's getting a little long, but it doesn't look that bad, does it?" I glanced at Gabe who just shrugged, and made a mental note to ask Callie.

Bethy shook her head. "Of course it is, you look like a wheat field after a tornado, but that's not important right now. What did you want to talk to me about?"

"What?" I said, having been checking the camera on my scan ring to try and figure out what she meant. "Oh, we have a recon mission I wanted help with. Poptarts and Donuts would be perfect to run scouting for it, and Luggage would be good to watch our backs down there." I shook off the hair stuff, cursing myself for getting sucked into Bethy's pace. First rule of talking to Bethy was not to let her lead the conversation. That way lay madness.

I'd gotten distracted, and when I turned around, I saw Bethy staring back at me seriously, wearing a big yellow hardhat with a light on it and holding an actual pickaxe. "Sergeant Bethy of the tunnel expedition team reporting for duty, SIR!" She saluted with the pickaxe, and Gabe had to roll out of the way so he didn't get caught in the face. Bethy glanced back and giggled. "Oops, sorry. This is an E-ranked pick, I underestimated the weight a bit."

"Where did you get..." I sighed, waving it away. "Never mind. I'm glad to have you along. But you know you aren't a sergeant of anything right?" She'd already walked away, humming excitedly, the pick over her shoulders as she strode inside. "Bethy?" I called after her. "Bethy I need you to tell me you don't think you're a sergeant! You're in the military, this is kind of a big deal!"

She didn't respond and I sighed, putting my hand on my mask. "It's fine." Said Gabe with a laugh. "Jessie keeps her from interacting with anyone in an official capacity. Healers get a lot of leeway, and she keeps Randall and Luggage around looking scary just in case. She's not going to walk into some random barracks and assume command." He paused. "Probably." He got up and headed for the door. "Actually it might be a good idea to clarify things."

After we clarified with Bethy that she wasn't an officer, and informed her that the phrase 'you are what you eat' did NOT mean that she could snack on an officer and get an official rank, we filled her in on the details of our fact finding mission.

"Of course I'll come with you guys!" She squealed excitedly, once we gave her all the context. "Donuts and Poptarts have been dying to get out and stretch their legs. Plus I love hanging out with Chelsea." She shot my sister a grin. "We're going to find all sorts of terrible monsters, right bestie?"

I grimaced. "No, Bethy we don't WANT to find any monsters. Like there's probably something, but best case scenario we find nothing."

She rolled her eyes. "Don't be a baby, Shane. Monsters will give us something cool to fight. Plus if I'm lucky there might be a new kind of kitty down there. Wouldn't it be so cool if I could get an underground kitty? Oh! I could get one for Chelsea too! She doesn't have any pets."

I debated telling her not to bring home any tamed monsters...but she never listened to me, so it would be wasted breath. "Alright then, lets go. Anyone know where the entrance to these tunnels are?"

Chelsea raised her hand. "According to the books, there's a bunch of them. Closest one is the wishing well on the south side of town. Apparently the thing is so deep it intersects one of the tunnels. They've never bothered to plug it because monsters don't go into that part of the Undertrek."

"Can we stop to make a wish?" Asked Bethy excitedly. "I've always wanted to make a wish and have it come true!" We all stopped, turning to stare at her in complete bewilderment. "What?" She said innocently.

I was...ninety percent sure she was fucking with me right now, but she had such a good poker face it was impossible to tell. "Right." I said slowly. "Let's go." Chelsea, Bethy, Anna and I all set out, heading for the south side of town where this wishing well was located.

Anna was talking to Bethy, laughing her ass off at the younger girl's antics, and I briefly wondered if it was a good idea to introduce them, but I doubted Bethy could influence a D-ranker, and I doubted ANYTHING could influence Bethy. Although, I still needed to talk to her about her bloodlust. We'd talked about helping her but things had been so damned hectic we hadn't had a chance.

When we arrived at the wishing well, I gestured for Anna to go first. "I'll follow you down." I said to the information broker. "I'm at E-rank, so I can catch the other two if either of them stumbles."

She agreed, and with a quick casual step she vanished into the hole in the ground. I followed behind her, stepping off the edge and activating State of Grace. I drifted pleasantly to the ground, touch down soundlessly and then having to scramble out of the way as a horde of bat winged cats carried my sister down through the hole, depositing her on the ground in a gigging mess.

"That tickled!" Said Chelsea with a laugh as Bethy reformed, grinning at us. "Why didn't you just let Shane catch me?"
Bethy gave her a solemn look. "Cats always land you on your feet." She said seriously. Before winking and skipping off into the dark a ways. When she was a bit apart from us, two dark shapes rose from the ground. As Donuts and Poptarts appeared, the world around her shimmered, her domain opening and a massive black dog with red eyes stepped out. I looked around slowly. The hound was here. Time to hunt.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The Undertrek was a whole different world from the surface. I'd expected it to be dark and gloomy, but the biggest difference for me was the silence. Even with my Focus to block most of it out, the surface was teeming with life and sound. Wind, small animals, distant people. The million little sounds of life that had become like a background symphony to which we all lived.

In the Undertrek there was none of that. No wind, no animals that I could hear, just complete and utter stillness. Silence and dark that made the atmosphere almost oppressive.

"Well." Said my sister sarcastically. "This is nice. It's what I always imagined under my bed to look like when I woke up from nightmares as a child."

Bethy sighed wistfully. "I never looked under my bed as a kid. My daddy used to rent the spaces under all our beds to some of his monster friends. It always felt like an invasion of privacy." At our collective horrified looks she giggled and held her hands as if to ward off misunderstandings. "Oh don't worry. They paid rent."

"This silence doesn't seem natural." I said, shaking off the Bethy shock more quickly after multiple rounds of exposure. "There should be like...worms and shit down here right? Insects and burrowing creatures. We didn't fall into the center of the planet, that was like two hundred feet. It wasn't nearly far enough for us to be in some kind of alternate exosystem or some shit."

Anna shook her head. "You're thinking like a mortal. Consider the difference in the nature of the renown for above and below ground, especially with the added dangers from past civilizations. There's probably a bunch of undead fortresses at the core of this planet or something. Whatever is down there, it's best avoided. We aren't going too deep, and if bats in the belfry over there lives up to her end of this we won't even have to do that."

"Hey." Snapped Chelsea. "That's not necessary. Bethy is down here helping us out of the goodness of her heart. You don't have to be a bitch about everything."

Smirking, the D-ranker raised an eyebrow at her. "Well if it isn't the princess coming to the rescue. You sure you want to pick a fight with me little miss prim and proper?" She gestured to the walls. "We just discussed the lack of sound. No insects or animals means nothing down here to hear you scream."

"If you think Zeke wouldn't notice us down here you're cracked." I said calmly. "Not to mention if you attack her you'd have to kill me, which even if you managed it means no more wishes. Not that it's a problem either way. I'd appreciate it if you'd stop pushing buttons to find out what we're about. If you have questions just fucking ask them."

She grinned. "You got me. I was testing." She smiled at Bethy. "Sorry about that little one. Just checking some things about your fearless leader. I didn't mean to scare you."

Bethy smiled sweetly at her, but she pulled back her lips, exposing razor sharp fangs. Her eyes began to glow a lambent red, lighting the darkness around us somehow far further than they should have and too dimly to see more than dancing shadows. "It's ok. There's no need to be sorry if you didn't mean it. I know you wouldn't really threaten my friend down here alone in the dark with me. That would be...unwise."

Anna's face went pale, and she stepped back slightly, swallowing hard. It was easy to forget that manic wacky Bethy was a Vampire, and the favored youngest child of a man who fought fucking GODS at the S-rank. I didn't think Bethy was E-rank yet, but even if she wasn't I wasn't totally sure she wasn't capable of hurting a D-ranker if she felt so inclined. The pitch black form of Luggage towering over her from behind probably didn't help.

There was also the fact that there was only one family in the universe who had fangs and red eyes like that. Even if Bethy didn't manage to hurt her, Morgan would not take well to someone touching his baby girl. Finding out you're sharing a dark tunnel with a teen apex predator would shake anyone's nerve. The most impressive part was how fucking scary she still managed to look wearing a big yellow hard hat paired with her puffy blacc gothix dress.

"Now that we've finished discussing Anna's gruesome horrible death and the variety of painful ways it might occur, I think we should get back to the mission at hand." I said casually. "She doesn't seem likely to stir up any more trouble." I chuckled. "I think we can just count that as a preemptive pass for any further tests you had in store for all of us, don't you Anna?"

She grinned at me. "You're a mean little bastard when you want to be, aren't you Shane? Yeah, tests passed. Didn't expect to get bullied by a bunch of brats, but hey, if you want to watch the gods laugh, predict the future." I'd never heard that saying before, but I kind of liked it.

"Anyway." Said Bethy cheerfully. "Poptarts and Donuts are back. They did a quick grid pattern sweep of everything within about five miles. They found lots of rocks and dirt, and not much else. But they said some of the rocks had carvings on them. We can check those out if you want?" I hadn't even seen the night pride return. Fucking shadow cats. Squinting, I could vaguely make them out.

Bethy pointed randomly down a tunnel. We had some light from the well above us, and with our Perception we could easily pick it up, but the direction she pointed was pitch black. "They said the symbols are that way."

"Do they know what the symbols are?' I asked hopefully. Maybe we wouldn't have to go down there at all. Rude or not Anna wasn't wrong about avoiding the depths being preferable.

Bethy just shot me a pitying look. "No Shane. They're cats. Cats can't read. Did you not know that?"

I suddenly felt a lot more sympathetic of Abel and his endless torment (even if I knew he played along). Sighing, I nodded and just followed them down the tunnel forlornly, stoically ignoring the muffled sounds of laughter from Anna and my sister. I was pretty sure even the fucking cats were laughing.

As we moved further into the tunnels, Chelsea held up a hand and conjured a fistful of white fire. The purifying flames cast a bright and sanctified glow on the walls of the tunnels, and somehow I felt the silence recede a bit. There were no noticeable sounds once it appeared, but the quiet just seemed...less.

Our footsteps seemed to echo further on the hard packed dirt and occasional stone we walked over as we traveled down the tunnel. When we arrived at the symbols, Chelsea held up her flame and I crouched down. I peered solemnly at the carvings for a few minutes before nodding sagely and saying. "I was afraid of this." They all looked at me questioningly. I pointed to the symbols."I can't understand a word of what this says."

My sister smacked her forehead with her palm. "Move you idiot." She said waspishly. I snickered as I backed up, having successfully gotten my revenge for their unfair mockery earlier by making them sit around and stare at nothing for five minutes.

She squinted through the light at the tiny etched letters on the stone, reading over them for about fifteen minutes. We all got a bit bored, and Bethy started shifting from foot to foot like she was resisting the urge to start a fire. "You ok?" I asked her quietly. Bethy was energetic and enthusiastic, but she wasn't one to freak out over nothing.

"I don't know." She said slowly. "I feel...like we're being watched. Anna would have noticed though I'm sure. I'm probably just imagining things."

I groaned. "On the list of things you should never say out loud, that's probably third, right after 'I'm sure nothing bad will happen' and 'it's probably just a power outage, I'll go check the fuse box in the basement'. Now I'm SURE something is watching. Can you send the cats to scout for it?"

"I did." She said with a frown. "They didn't find anything. I can't SEE anything either. I just...feel it." I'd never seen her this serious, it kind of worried me.

Anna stepped up next to her, peering out into the dark. "I'm a stealth focused D-ranker. If there's something there I should be able to pick it up. You Perception is well below mine I'm sure. That said, no one with a brain between their ears dismisses the instincts of a Vampire. I had no idea Shane had one of you with him." She narrowed her eyes at the darkness. "I feel something. The dark itself seems to be...alert. Not alive exactly. How did I miss that?"

My eyes widened and I swung them to Chelsea. "Hey, take a break from that and come here." Her flame cleansed whatever was making the air stifled, maybe that was an effect of offsetting whatever was watching.

She grumbled, but stood up and walked over to stand next to me. "Why are we staring into the dark?" She asked as she tried to peer through the gloom. As she stretched out her hand to see better, the dark receded, but even outside the light of the flame it seemed to thin slightly. "Oh." She said in interest. "That's fascinating. Let me try something." She reached into a pocket and pulled out a red metal symbol. Brandishing it in front of her, she bellowed. "RUBRUM GLORIA!"

As she shouted, she channeled flame into her hand, and it was sucked into the symbol, which began to blaze with an incandescent light. The expanded range of the light smashed into the dark around us, and I heard a high pitched scream, overlapping disharmoized voices hurting my ears.

Once it was done, I looked around, able to see the entire cavern we stood in thanks to the still blazing light. "So..." I said conversationally. "Did anyone ELSE notice the big black doors twenty feet from us?"

Anna whistled. "Sneaky. Some kind of stacked Perception overload. A woven charm of overlapping discordant voices pulled together into a spell. Whoever did it stitched it through the darkness around us seamlessly. My Focus pushed it away as useless noise. D-rank work. Probably the Magister. That's not...ideal."

"How did Chelsea break it?" I said in confusion. "If it was D-rank...she hasn't even hit E."

Chelsea shook her head. "I didn't. This is a D-ranked focus. Grandpa gave me the crimson icon to focus my powers of purification. It's basically useless ninety percent of the time, but curses, poisons, and dark based spells and Skills don't hold up well."

Nodding, I made my way forward, moving slow. "Alright folks, we just go in, check on the threat if it's in there, and then leave. Nothing else." I glared at Bethy. "No monster taming."

She pouted but agreed and we stepped up, leveraging the heavy dark metal doors open as we stepped inside. The cavern inside was also pretty dark, but the crimson icon was still lit. Looking out over the larger cavern mostly sunk below the huge ledge we were standing on, my eyes widened in fear.

I thought back to the list, picking through the half remembered possibilities until I found the obvious culprit. Blow us, stretching out into the endless distance, lines upon lines of large, leonine forms carved of dark grey rock. I stepped back, covering Chelsea's hand and pushing my sister out of the room as quietly as I could. We'd found the threat. Stone Lions. A LOT of them.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Chelsea and I headed back to the inn directly from the site of our…discovery. Anna split off to take care of her own affairs (which is to say, figure out how the hell we could survive this) and my sister wanted to dive into research immediately, but I called her back. I could understand wanting to learn more after such a terrifying sight, but I had other plans for the moment.

Seeing those stone lions down there, thousands, hundreds of thousands, all at least F-rank and many higher, had terrified me, sure. But it had also driven home a point that I felt the need to raise with my friends. This wasn't what they had signed up for. I needed to give them a chance to back out of this. Even if they didn't accept, even if they decided to do it anyway, this might be a suicide mission and they needed to decide for themselves.

Bethy had sent her flying squirrels ahead to gather everyone before slipping away herself to do who knew what.
When we finally arrived, everyone was gathered in the downstairs of the inn. Anna must have ordered Mattie and her brother to clear everyone out, because it was only my people down there, and I said a silent thanks to the spy mistress, for making that at least easier.

"So, thank you for coming." I said with a weak smile. "I have some bad news, and I hope you can all think over what I have to say." I filled them in on what we'd found, our trip down to the tunnels and the army of stone lions we'd seen below the earth.

Callie listened, and then smiled at me softly. "You want to offer us an out again." She said simply.

"Well it's not like you signed up for THIS." I said hotly. "Sure, we agreed to stay before, but that was mainly my lead, and it was predicated on the situation being manageable. We could all die here. I can't make this call alone. Everyone needs to get a vote. So…what do you all think?"

To my complete lack of surprise, it was Benny who responded. My best friend lacked any of his trademark levity or wit, his face solemn as he asked me earnestly. "What do YOU think Shane? I'm not saying I'll do whatever you say, not with this, but I still want to know where your head is at."

"I think we should stay." I admitted. "Not just because of our contract with Camden, but because we came here for exactly this. To train with an army. To experience war. This is going to be war, and sure, we can run from that since it's not exactly what we thought, but what will that accomplish?"

"It'll save our lives." He pointed out. But not like he was disagreeing, more like he was prompting me to elaborate. He got like this sometimes when he was considering.

I nodded. "It might. But then what? War is coming. Not just to the planet, but to the entire universe. And we're going to be involved, we played too big a role in uncovering things to be ignored. Sure, we can run now if we want, but then what? What about next time when we can't run?"

Abel laughed. "I mean, you don't have to threaten me with a good time, kid. I want to get my hands dirty here. I wouldn't miss a fight like this for the world. Can you imagine how many enemies will be here?" He glanced at Callie, who was glaring at him. "What? Are you pouting because I don't care about all the dead randos? You should try not to be so judgy."

"I don't know how to explain to you that you should care about other people." She snapped in exasperated fury.
He shrugged. "Then you should stop trying. You already made the sale kid, talking me OUT of helping isn't in your best interests. I'll do my thing and you do yours." He glanced back to me. "I'm in, obviously. Even if your girlfriend wants to throw a fit about why."

Mel scoffed, smacking him upside the head. "Ignore him." She said flatly. "Of course we'll help. And we care about SOME of the people here. We won't let you two down."

It occurred to me from that interaction that I'd missed so much subtext between those two it wasn't even funny. It explained so much about them, the way they talked, bickered, the way she'd moved past his switching sides in the temple. They were like Callie and I, as we were now, only they'd been like that for much longer. I wondered if that was our future.
Shaking that off, I turned to the others. "So? Abel and Mel aren't a surprise. What about the rest of you. What do you think?"
Benny nodded, sighing. "You and Cel have been doing tons of work here to prep for this territory. And you're right that if we run it probably won't solve much long term. Based on what Zeke told you fate sense would probably crash us into a pirate fortress or something. At least here we have time and resources to prepare. I'm in."

Celine nodded, showing her solidarity. Cark looked unsure, but when he glanced at Zeke who was playing with Cass, he sighed and accepted. "Agreed." He said in a sad voice. "Cass is taken care of, and I joined this army for better or worse."
Chelsea followed suit, and Gabe and Callen followed her lead. But when I got to the next person I'd expected to agree…Jessie remained silent.

As if she felt my confusion without seeing my face, she looked down, eyes swimming with tears. "I don't…I don't know if I can, Shane. I'm really scared. Fighting is one thing, I can do that fine. But I'm the healer. If this is going to get as bad as you said it is, I'm the one who's going to have to patch up all the victims and…I won't be able to save them all."
I winced, because I couldn't argue that. I considered just telling her to go, that we didn't need her. But we did.

Callie walked over and knelt down in front of our blonde friend. "I get it." She said softly. "I get how much it sucks to lose somebody. To watch another person die and know it's your fault. But we need you here, Jess. It's selfish, and shitty, but it's just true. People might die, but if we don't want any of OUR people to die, we need our healer."

She flinched back like she'd been slapped, looking around at everyone in fear. Nat spoke up, shocking everyone. "She's right. I know it's scary, that seeing so many people die sounds unbearable, but if you run, and any of them die, imagine how you would feel." She gestured to the three of us. "Could you handle that?"

It was nasty, and manipulative, but…it was true. And Jessie knew it. She nodded. "You're right. I can't lose any of you. Can't lose any more family. I wouldn't be able to take it."

Her eyes fixed on me, and I suddenly gained a spark of understanding through the bond as Callie took in her expression. Jessie had worshipped her big brother. He was her hero, her best friend, her parent. Since he died, she's been lost, until I told her I would help her get him back. Once that happened she had a place in the world. Had a family. Now she saw ME as her big brother, and I wasn't sure I could handle that kind of pressure.

Forcing my mind away from that complicated issue, or how I felt about getting ANOTHER sister when I just found my first, I looked at Callie. "I take it that means you're in as well."

"Idiot." She scoffed. "Like I'd let you fight an army of angry rock cats on your own. You're hopeless without me. Besides…I want to help. Not just Camden and other people we know, but our recruits, and the rest of the army, and the people here in Saltzburg. I can't just leave all these people to die."

Benny raised a hand. "Speaking of which, what about the actual ruler of this fucking planet? Shouldn't the Earl be read in on this?"

"He knows." I said grimly. "The stone lions resting place was under a spell to disguise it left by the Magister. He's the Earl's right hand man, so we can assume he's aware. Spencer probably paid him off."

He looked appalled. "Can he even do that? Ignore his planet? I thought the Empire enforced duties on the rulers. Won't he be punished if he doesn't protect this place?"

"Unfortunately no." Said Chelsea with a grimace. "Anne filled us in on the way back. The Earl IS the ruler of this planet, but he's an administrator. There are guards for martial protection. None of them will be able to help too much. The Earl would look bad if he did nothing, but there were some higher ranked stone lions, I imagine he's making preparations to immobilize them and take them out so he can claim he did his best."

Callie's expression was disgusted. "But there are millions of people on this planet. They're his citizens, how can he just let them die? And how can Spencer unleash an army on this planet and not care what happens?"

"Because he doesn't see them as humans." Said Celine, breaking her silence. "I've met nobles like him before. Generations of exposure only to sycophants and powerful relatives breeds out all compassion. Humans are either powerful family members or expendable tools. To him, this is just washing away a hill of ants."

That kind of casual apathy chilled me. The concept of just not caring as millions, maybe billions of people died was disgusting to me. What kind of monster was that divorced from their humanity. Turning your back was one thing, but wiping out a planet to kill one person, and a family member at that, it was despicable.

Nat spoke up. "I think you're right Shane. We need to do this. I need to get stronger, to go further. And you'll need my wishes to pull this off. We ARE allies." She smiled, the barest shadow of my effervescent snarky cousin showing through the grief and the anger.

One by one, they all agreed, every one of my friends had my back, and I felt my chest tighten at the show of loyalty and trust. "Alright." I said with a nod. "We need to tell Camden about this. I was going to do it anyway of course, but I waited to see if I'd need to break our contract as I informed him. Since that's not the case, we should go find him."

Everyone nodded, and we stood up, ready to head for the manor together. There would be lots of planning to do, lots of prep work. But deep down, I felt like this was the right call. Not just because of all the work we'd already done, but because of who we were. Leaving, running away and letting these people die, that wasn't us.

I felt Callie slide her fingers between mine and looked down to see her shooting me an adoring smile. Our bond was flooded with love and pride, and I shared my own feelings with her as I gazed in awe at the amazing woman I was sharing my life with.

I should have been afraid, should have been sick with terror, but looking down into those bright blue eyes, I couldn't find it in me to fear. We would get through this, we would win, like we always did, because we were together, all of us, and there was nothing we couldn't do if we set our minds to it. Because that was what heroes did.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Camden was, as we expected, furious. The normally composed noble grabbed the table we usually sat at under the end an without blinking, hurled it sideways, smashing the end into the fireplace in the dining room and shattering the brickwork so thoroughly we could see the next room through the hole.

"Fucking SPENCER!" He bellowed. "A whole planet? Are you fucking KIDDING me? I know he's a fucking monster but this is beyond the pale. And Sara? How could she be part of this?" He slumped into a chair, burying his face in his hands. "What the fuck do I do?"

I hesitated. "Can't we just deal with it later? We don't even have a time table. It might not be too urgent."

He laughed hollowly. "No. We know exactly when it'll happen. The day of the final showdown with Clairdon. Spencer wants me to die, and he wants it to be as painful as possible. Snatching defeat from the jaws of my victory is just his style, not to mention if we're already mid battle our defenses will be nonexistent."

"Shit." I cursed. "Ok…well, that might not be as bad as it sounds. We still have my wishes. We can rope in some of the other nobles and lock them into geasa to prevent news from leaking."

His head snapped up, confusion crossing his face. "You're not…leaving?" He asked in disbelief. "I mean, I appreciate that, but…are you fucking insane? This whole planet is going to be overrun by stone lions.You should leave. Hell, I want to leave, and I probably would if I wasn't sure my asshole cousin had at least one contingency for that, probably something involving a bomb on a ship. He likes doing that. He killed two of my siblings that way. And one of his."

"That's not a bad idea." I said slowly. "Why don't we evac the planet? If we announce whats going to happen-"

He shook his head. "If the Earl is in on it that won't work. Causing a public panic is illegal. He'd send the planetary guard to arrest you. That's a valid use of his power. I'm also guessing he issued a blockade on the mirror world. That's going to draw attention eventually, but inter-planetary calls are expensive, they don't happen too often at lower levels of society."

"And the nobles are all scared shitless of the Earl." I guessed with a sigh. The worst part was that while the Earl couldn't do shit to me, if the planetary guard showed up I'd be screwed. Those guys were all D-rank or lower. I cursed under my breath. "So what the hell do we do? How do we stop this?"

He shrugged. "We fight. If we take the battle to Clairdon early when he's unprepared, we can scoop up the territory. Once Saltzberg is under our control, we can start building up defenses and moving the citizens out of the way." He glanced at my sister, who had been unusually quiet since we arrived. "They'll come up out of the well, I take it?"

She started, needing a second to catch up. "Ah, yes. There are other entrances to the surface but they're further out. It's unnecessary to delay. They'll probably tear their way out though, and that hole will get wider. Any chance we can start on the defenses early? Some of the buildings near there are for sale."

Making a curious sound, he grabbed a map, rolling it out before realizing he'd thrown our table across the room and pinning it to the wall with a few throwing knives he pulled from thing air. "South side? Let's see." He ran a finger over the area. "Coulomb Bakery shut down a few months ago, and Art's Dirt Depot has been hemorrhaging money for years…damn, the Altamont Smithy."

He pointed at a specific spot and I leaned in to squint at the image. To my surprise, as I did, the map fucking zoomed in. Neat. "How popular is the Altamont Smithy?" I asked hopefully.

"Very." He said with a grimace. "They're also OLD. Place has been there since Saltzberg was founded. They won't sell."

I cursed. "Do we need them? Two buildings should be enough. We expand them into one large compound surrounding the well and then start reinforcing the ground there. When the big showdown happens, the lions will be held at the walls and so will Clairdons people. We hit them and then draw them out. Drip feed the lions and maybe even use them against Clairdon."

"Won't work." Said Chelsea with a shake of her head. "The higher ranked ones will punch right through. What we need is to make another exit point, something that leads somewhere we're less worried about them ending up. When the big boys come out the high rankers can take care of them."

I wished Callie was here. She'd have some ideas, but Chelsea and I had come alone, because my girlfriend wanted to check in with her recruits. Gabe was handling mine, but Abel was much less trustworthy when unsupervised.

Camden seemed intrigued by the possibilities, and I left them to argue particulars, turning to the one out of place person in this room. "Demia." I said cautiously. "Can you teach me a formation I can drill into my people that will help dealing with the lions?" I had some ideas for possible weaponry, but their use would be critical.

She looked surprised to be acknowledged. She'd come along because Camden had thought this was some kind of debriefing about my century, and he said he trusted her implicitly.

"I may have some ideas." She admitted. "I'd prefer to see the creatures, study their vulnerabilities, but barring that, there are several defensive formations that allow for spear work. I assume you did want to corral them and stab them to death and aren't stupid enough to fight an army of animals head on?"

I nodded. "We do need more information about their physiology, but most likely." I turned to call out to Camden. "We were supposed to meet up with your armorer, though that kept getting pushed back. I trust they can do weapons too? Or know someone who can?"

Callie had mentioned plans to wish for a detailed description of the Stone Lions, so I'd only be doing the base five today for Camden. Since it was Saturday we'd be free to get in touch with the armorer all day, and should have plenty of time to squeeze in some quick research. Callie checking in on her century was more formality than anything so it shouldn't take long. They were off for the weekend too, she just wanted to stay available. That was part of why I hadn't worried about sending Gabe to deal with things.

"Of course." He said with a smile. "Though I've seen your staff, and it's better quality than anything my smith is likely to have the materials for."

I waved him off. "Not for me. I had another idea. Anyway, let me go get Callie and the others. We should probably bring Bethy too, since I know she'll throw a fit if she doesn't get creative input. Where is your armorer anyway?"

He chuckled. "Sonia works in the basement. She says the sound of idiocy throws off the crafting process. I brought her with me when I came here. She's a distant relative, though not close enough to the main family line to be a potential threat. She's got an…interesting personality."

"I'm sure she and Bethy will get on like a house on fire then." I laughed, imagining the damage our fashionista vampire could do with access to a skilled armorer. We'd never wear the same clothes more than once ever again.

He shuddered. "Please don't joke about that. We had to pay triple for D-rank fire suppression on the basement. They weren't happy about tying the higher ranked spells into the general ward schema. Sonia is…enthusiastic, when crafting, and she isn't particularly worried about fire because of her inborn Skill."

I wondered exactly what that Skill might be, but I didn't have time to ask. Instead of going to find her, I flexed my soul and shot a message off to Callie to bring everyone here. It was an odd sensation, because while the bond worked over distances, this particular feature felt less intense when we were separated.

The message seemed to wing off into the ether, at least until I got a quick affirmative response from my girlfriend. "They're on their way, and I told Callie where to find us." I informed our host. "Why don't you take us down to meet your armorer, and I can ask my questions before anyone arrives to start work on their armor."

Shrugging, he gestured for us to follow. "A few rules before we go down there. First of all, don't speak to Sonia until she acknowledges you, if you interrupt a crafting session and something goes wrong she WILL try to kill you. Second rule, don't touch anything, even innocuous looking stuff, because it might be enchanted or possibly cursed."

We both nodded, and he led us to an innocuous door in the corner of an alcove off one of the main hallways. It didn't look too sturdy…but the bulky metal door covered in bars and locks behind it looked nearly impenetrable. Camden led us into the room between the two doors, closed the one to the hall, then stepped up and started yanking bars and turning knobs.

The metal door began to glow with a roiling blue green light, and the light brightened after each undone lock. Once he finished with the bars, he pulled out a ring of keys and started unlocking locks.

"This opens much easier from the inside." He said as the door finally swung back, opening onto a stone staircase leading down. "We're more worried about people getting in than anything getting out." He paused. "Except during Sonia's golem phase. But that was before we got to this planet, and she grew out of it after the…er, incident, at Lichtenbright."

Leading us down, he ceased all talking, and remembering his earlier warning I did the same. As we got deeper I could hear a rhythmic ringing sound echoing along the stairway. Clang. Clang. Clang. It was pretty obviously metal on metal. When we reached the bottom of the steps, Camden held up his finger to his lips and slowly eased open the door, waving us in.

We emerged into a massive stone room. Along the walls were dozens of devices and objects I had no knowledge of and couldn't begin to guess the purpose of. In the center of that room, standing over a flat cube of dark matte material glowing with blue runes, was a tall, willowy woman with scarlet hair.

She had on an apron over light clothes to protect from sparks presumably, but her heavily muscled arms were scarred and bare down to the forearm where her gloves covered her vulnerable fingers. Said fingers were currently gripping a huge square headed hammer set with glowing blue stones.

As she slammed down her hammer on the unidentifiable shape on the cube, I focused harder, triggering eye of revelation to try to see what she was staring at, since it wasn't her anvil.

I gasped as I saw the air around her manifesting a huge blue holographic image. As she brought down the hammer, a big chunk of it lit up, changing shape as the blow landed, and she used her non hammer hand to shift the pair of tongs holding the object. This time the image lit up in a different spot.

Inhaling sharply, I realized what this was. That anvil thing created a giant representation of the magic and material in that item she was making, allowing her to adjust her control and forging to address minute, normally imperceptible issues. Even if Perception could let you see fine details, that was only external. The internal stuff wasn't visible. I grinned to myself. Yeah, THIS was who I wanted making my armor. I couldn't wait to see what she could do.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Despite being in a forge and looking at the handling of glowing metal, it was surprisingly cool down in the basement. I could see the air warping closer to the cube, but I suspected some of those glowing runes trapped the heat.

As I watched, the glowing shape I could see with Eye of Revelation, slowly transformed, being compacted and refined until it went from a relatively oblong structure to a massive holographic representation of what I could see would eventually be a breastplate. It was fascinating to watch the metal warp and buckle under the hammer blows, sometimes being completely deformed only to be hammered out again into the same shape without a small defect I could only see in hindsight.

Finally, after about twenty minutes, the smith picked up the new breastplate with her tongs, lifting the still glowing metal and carrying it over to a peaceful basin filled with a dark blue liquid.

Dropping it in, I watched the substance swallow the metal slowly, like it was being submerged in pudding or something, and once it had vanished the blue liquid resumed its flat and undisturbed state.

Sighing contentedly, Sonia turned, noticing the three of us, and sighed. "Oh, Camden." She said dully. "Here to make more requests? I'm in the middle of my research on alloy compositions, so unless it's important can we do this another time? This new quenching bath I had the alchemists whip up SHOULD increase tensile strength by forty percent."

"So…like increasing the Impact?" I asked, curious despite myself. I knew there were differences between different materials even at the same Impact, but forty percent seemed pretty high.

She scoffed. "Obviously not. Investing Impact raising materials in equipment is not only prohibitively expensive, it's also wasteful. No, this treatment improves the base durability of the metal, creating a minor percentage boost PER point of Impact. It's less than a single percent per point, but cumulatively it's a groundbreaking enhancement." Pausing mid sentence, she blinked at me. "Wait…why am I talking to you? Who even are you?"

I laughed at that. "I'm Solomon. This is Chelsea. We came down here to talk to you about a few projects."

I'd been planning to wait until later to get the Stone Lion details, but when I'd found out I was coming down here I'd mentioned it to Callie and she had a better idea. She'd made the wish with Nat when she went to pick her up, and would be bringing the data with her.

"Projects?" She said archly. "And what gives you the right to ask me to undertake any 'projects' for you?"

I shrugged. "It's not for us. It's for Camden, though you could say it's for you too. I'll leave how much to tell you up to him." Raising my head, I grinned up in the direction of the doors. "Perfect timing, actually. Camden, Callie is here with Nat and the others. Can you let her in?"

Sighing, he headed back out of the room, though since the door opened easily from the outside he only took a minute before he came back with everyone.

I wasn't planning to stick around after designing my new costume, because this was going to take ages. There were so many people to get to. Callie grinned at me, holding up a small booklet, which she'd just closed. Chelsea snatched it up triumphantly, beginning to flip through it, and my girlfriend gave me a quick mental summary.

As I suspected, my plans would work fine. "So, the project we were hoping for was a special weapon made to kill a certain kind of creature. A spear that can pierce through stone easily, even when it's covering flesh."

Demia had stayed silent, but I made sure to meet her eyes and nod as I spoke, so she knew exactly what kind of formation we needed.

Chelsea finished flipping through the booklet and then passed it over to Sonia. "Something that could kill a creature like this?"

The redheaded smith opened the booklet and perused it, going much slower than my sister and girlfriend, clearly taking her time to sift through the facts. "This…is comprehensive. Magical structure, composition, vulnerabilities? I could make a weapon optimized for killing a creature like this easily."

Before I could get excited though, Chelsea cut in. "Would it be reusable?"

"Well, no." Said Sonia with a shrug. "Bane weapons are almost never multi-use. There's no point. You sacrifice longevity for efficiency. The more specifically the weapon is designed to counter a beast the less effective it is at anything else. Optimizing it for single use output means you get the most bang for your chit."

I turned to Camden, who sighed and nodded, and then I launched into an abbreviated explanation of what had happened. She waited for me to finish, then frowned, consulting the book again. "I suppose I could make something more durable. It won't be cheap, and it would be best if I could get a sample. This information will have to do though. Snatching one of them might set off the horde."

Walking over to the cube, she pulled out some paper and a pen and started scribbling. Not a picture, but a few vague outlines surrounded by large blocks of text. I stepped up next to her before she could get too into it. "Not just the weapons, though we need about ten thousand of those, we're also here for special custom armor we purchased from Camden."
I wasn't letting any of my people go into this fight without their best possible gear, and I wasn't sure how long it would take to make our armor.

Sonia nodded thoughtfully. "He did mention a possible slew of custom orders. More of you than expected, but He has enough jobs booked from me to cover it. Fine, I don't like being distracted and I want to work on this project, so go lets get that out of the way." She turned and strode off, calling behind her. "Follow me, we need to scout for your materials."
I glanced over at Camden. "Um…what does she mean scout? She's the smith, shouldn't she KNOW what materials to use?"

Sonia made a disgusted sound without turning. "This is CUSTOM gear, plebian. I'm a proper smith, not some mass production machine. You'll be interacting with the materials I have on hand, seeing what synergizes well with your soul and Skills. Utilizing gear as foci is one of the major benefits of custom work?"

I cocked my head as she stopped in front of a blank section of wall and tapped out a quick rhythm on the stone, only for it to life, revealing a massive carved in set of shelves, each filled with a different type of metal, stone, wood, or hide. "What do you mean gear as foci?"

She sighed, turning to my with a pitying look. "You have gear right? Magical items?" I nodded. "And these items, they DO things?" I nodded again. "Perfect. Now, you also have Skills. So what, pray tell, do you think happens if you channel a Skill through an item with a built in enchantment or Skill that MATCHES the Skill you're using?"

I blinked. "I…don't know?" I said slowly. "I'd never considered doing that. Does it make the Skill stronger?"

She waggled a hand. "It can. Though that's not exactly the best use of armor. For weapons that's a useful addition, but armor is more useful as means of lightening the load of certain Skills that might otherwise be taxing. Defensive abilities are particularly good choices. It'll depend on the materials that resonate with you."

"Ok, what do you mean resonate?" I asked as I stepped up next to her in front of the shelves.

She reached into her apron, pulling out a small metal object. It took me a second to recognize it as a tuning fork. She reached up and tapped it against my head, allowing it to begin ringing, and causing the metal to glow.

Stepping up to the shelves, she began running the tuning fork in front of the materials, walking up and down the rows as she stared intently at the device. I noticed the glow of the tuning fork brighten or dim regularly, until she came to a specific shelf. On it, I saw a black roll of leathery material.

Bringing the fork up to the material, she tapped it against the leather, and the glow was sucked out of the fork, causing it to blaze up with its own glow. She repeated this four times, finding a few objects, a purple gemstone, a bar of silvery metal, and what looked like a pile of black bones.

Nodding with interest, she grabbed them all then gestured me back over to the cube. She unloaded all the items on the cube, then began to explain what they are.

"These materials each resonate with something about you." She pointed to the leather. "Abyssal Wraithskin. Came from a demonic creature native to the devilish parts of the Fairyland." Next the metal. "Phantasmal Platinum is a Fantasy heavy metal with deep connections to dreams. The gem is a Venomblood Sapphire. A congealed drop of blood from a very venomous Wyveryn."

I nodded as she filled me in. I could see how those things might resonate with me for different reasons. Dreams and wishes were similar, I used poison often, and my dad was a devil. "What about those?" I said, pointing to the bones.

"Bones from a Stareater Thrall." She said somberly. She sounded almost reverent as she spoke of it. "There are many strange creatures in the universe. Some eat animals. Some eat plants. Some eat planets, or even the stars they orbit. However, as is the case with all predators, sometimes they fall victim to predation themselves. More commonly, they bring thralls to aid their assaults. These bones came from a thrall consumed by a black star."

Black flame. Much like Mephistopheles. I understood the connection. "Ok…so this stuff will all be turned into armor that will suit me and amplify my abilities? How are you going to do those enchantments, do I have to teach you my Skills?"

I couldn't and wouldn't do that. If she said yes I'd take some generic gear, it was better than nothing. She smirked. "Maybe if I was an amateur with amateur equipment. This, however, is a lifestone cube. It allows me to map the magical matrices of a material. I'm going to have you channel your Skills through these materials and then study the patterns caused by the effects. Then I'll forge your new equipment with those patterns inlaid naturally."

Blinking in shock, I gaped at her. "You can DO that? Is that something any blacksmith can do?"

"Blacksmith?" She chuckled. "I'm not a blacksmith. I can do blacksmithing, but I'm an Arcane Armorer. It's a specialized high level Job that involves a combination of enchanter and blacksmith Skills at a high rank. I also have multiple supplementary Skills. Point is, no, not many could do this. You're lucky you met me."

She sounded so proud of herself I had to smile. Her pride deflated when Camden coughed, gesturing to the rest of the group. "That's great, Sonia, but you still have another thirteen or so customers. Plus this bear." He gestured to Randall, who reared back on his stubby legs with a quiet roar, throwing his hands up threateningly.

Sonia turned to glare at him. "A bear? You want me to outfit a bear? Not just a bear either. A little cub. He's basically a stuffed an-" Her voice cut off as ANOTHER roar split the air. A much louder one, from a much bigger animal.

Turning, she saw Randall,in his full sized glory, towering over her, eyes fixed on her face in a narrowed glare. Camden smirked slightly at her obvious shock. "I'm sorry." He said in a tone that showed he was anything but. "You were saying?" I was lucky I was able to keep from laughing. Pissing off the woman making my gear seemed unwise. The look on her face was hilarious though.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

After resonating everyone and giving us a basic sketch of the spears we were kicked out of the forge. Apparently finding out about the time crunch and seeing just hot many items she was going to have to make sent Sonia into fits of rage (not that those were uncommon for her according to Camden) and we were all banished, told to return only when individually summoned.

Since today had been long and exhausting, we all said our goodnights and headed for bed. The library in the morning, then the Undertrek, our big meeting, then the meeting with Camden followed by our introduction to Sonia, the whole day was packed with excitement and we were all relieved to get some sleep.

Which meant in the morning I was nice and rested and ready to get started on a bit of crafting, with Callie standing by to act as a secondary source of soul strength in case I needed it. I was going to make the training weapons for both my century and hers since she was going to help me out with training. Since it was Sunday and we were still off we had the training yard mostly to ourselves, except a few training nuts supervised by Gabe.

"Alright." I said excitedly. "You sure you're willing to help with this? Now that I have the Skill it'll be a lot less exhausting to craft. If you help me offset the soul weight I can make your century some training weapons too!"

She grinned at me, leaning back against a wall as she watched me send a bunch of my people out to collect rocks.
"Someone's excited about doing more crafting. If you love it so much, why haven't you been focusing on it more? I know you used to do Enchanting. Why did you end up getting rid of that?"

I shrugged. "At the early ranks we moved up too fast for my own Enchanting to keep up. Using it as a part of my DS Mastery made more sense. Plus our life isn't exactly conducive to sitting around working on making things."

"Well, we've got nothing but time now." She giggled. "So you can sit around making stuff all you want." She gestured to the nearest rock one of the recruits had brought back. "I take it you're going to make some of the training weapons with your Dust Construction? Do you have the precision to do that?"

I shrugged. "If I don't I'll get it. I have the Skill now, so it'll be way easier. I just need to practice." I walked over, picked up the rock, and used my Dust Construction Mastery. It dissolved into grains of sand, then reconstituted as I shoved at it with my soul. I pushed as hard as I could, trying my hardest to impose the image of the spear onto the dust.

There was a bang as the air cracked from a rapid change in the volume of the dust, and a small dark item dropped into my hand.

I squinted down as I picked the object up between two fingers. It looked like a toothpick at first glance, but on closer examination… I groaned, and Callie burst out laughing at the sight of what I was holding. "Oh, you've got this down." She cackled. "Tooth decay doesn't stand a chance against you. None of our soldiers will ever get corn stuck in their teeth again."

"You're not funny." I glowered. "It doesn't look BAD." I held up the tiny sharpened dark object. It was a spear. Well, more of a javelin really. Or it would have been, if it hadn't been about the length of my fucking pinky.

She chuckled, taking it from me. "Guessing you can't exactly take shortcuts here. Using your soul to impose the image of the weapon?" When I nodded, she smiled softly, handing it back. "Your soul was way too strong for random rock dust. It crushed it down into that shape, but condensed the dust into something much stronger."

I pinched the tiny tooth spear, and it took me a slight bit of effort to break it. Not MUCH, it was F-rank, but more effort than it would have taken to crush a normal F-ranked rock. If I'd had to guess, this was metal levels of effort.

My next attempt I tried to go lighter, pressing infinitesimally with my Sapphire soul, trying to avoid crushing the rock down too small. Callie snorted in amusement at the result. "Well." She said with a smirk. "At least it's pointy…kind of." The misshapen and only vaguely sticklike object was pretty much the opposite of what I wanted, so I decided to try something new.

"Alright." I said pensively, ignoring the potential embarrassment in favor of excitement at learning to use my new skill better. "Here, pile a bunch of them up in this circle." I told my recruits as I traced out a ten foot shape on the ground. My people were just coming back, so they carried the rocks over and stacked them up.

A huge pile of stone quickly filled the circle, and I had everyone stand back. I triggered Pit of Despair to turn them all to a fine dust, then using my Dust Construction, I grabbed hold of it, and CRUSHED it into shape. I triggered Piece of Mind as I did it, allowing my second parallel of thought to address the fine details.

The compression blew a wave of air that kicked uip a ton of dust, but when I finished, I was holding an intricate dark stone javelin. I spun it effortlessly between my fingers, then tossed it to Callie, who curled it a few times. She gave me a flat look. "You realize no one here is going to be able to lift this except us right?"

She tossed it back and I gave it a few swings. It was hard to gauge the weight given my current strength. I could easily lift tons, but considering the relative weight of the normal stuff I could carry around…shit. "I mean, I'm sure SOMEONE can? It's a few tons, and at F-rank any given Might specialist should have enough strength to lift that, albeit barely."

"Lift, yes." She agreed. "Wield, no. These are training weapons, we need people to be able to use them all day."

I nodded, grimacing. I'd taken a shortcut so I didn't have to learn to moderate the pressure from my soul and it hadn't worked out. I needed something lighter, which meant less material, which meant I'd have to do this slow and steady."
Still, I took a second to flex the spear with both hands until it broke, noting that it had required a bit more effort. This spear was definitely as difficult to break as a piece of F-ranked steel. Because of how much dust there was, I'd created a super dense stone that could stand up to most F-rank damage if I didn't miss my guess.

It was a fascinating bit of information, and one I would definitely put to use later if I had a chance. Sighing, I tossed aside the broken spear ends, walking over to where my century had continued stacking rocks. A hundred F-rankers carting stones from the nearby forest meant basically a revolving door of stones. I picked up a few decently weighty ones. I actually spotted a few E-rank rocks in the pile, but even if I made something of them no one here could use it. I shot Callie a message to put them aside.

Placing the stones in the circle, I checked to made sure I had enough. Rather than the massive pile I'd had my recruits set up before, this was a few hundred pounds of rock tops.

Triggering Pit of Despair and Piece of Mind, I began. The description Sonia had made was a sketch with a lot of detail, but it was all external stuff. I had to make the shape, but internal construction was just regular materials, no fancy smithing tricks or whatever. Since this was just a training weapon, it had to be quick to make.

Piece of Mind allowed me to carefully work on the task at hand, with one parallel handling the task of creating a mold, and one handling the task of filling it with dust.

Unlike the last time, I had to pay way more attention. Because I didn't want it to small or heavy, I couldn't fully condense the dust into its densest state, but I needed it to be denser than the normal rock at least, so it would hold up in combat.
After I shaped it, I triggered Eye of Revelation, scanning the spear to make sure I'd properly configured the material and hadn't left any weak spots in the construction before I allowed it to resume its stone composition, using Dust Construction to return it to solid form.

It took longer than expected, but I had my second parallel recording every instant, engraving it into my memory so I'd have a perfect recollection of how to repeat this trick.

Letting the spear drop out of the air, I snatched it up, spinning it at high speed in a whirling staff form Willow had taught me back in the Glade. Grinning, I whipped the spear around at top speed and hurled it behind me, right at the space next to Gabe's head.

I didn't aim AT his head, obviously, and I whistled as I did it, so my second in command had no problem snatching it from the air as it went by. As a lance used, the big guy also had no problem putting it through a quick spear form of his own, then tossing it up in a whirling display and catching it seamlessly on its way down.

"So?" I called over. "How does it handle? I need to know if it's too heavy to use for long term training."

He frowned, spinning it a few more times, passing it hand over hand and snapping it out in a fest test jabs. "It's…not light." He admitted. "Short term it's simple to use long term…possible. Difficult but possible. I'd say it's an excellent training weapon. The balance is superb."

I nodded. I could feel the density of the weapon, and see the composition with my Eye of Revelation, it made balancing child's play, especially with such a detailed design to work from.

Eyeballing how much rock had been in it, I walked over and picked up another four hundred pounds or so of stone. It was nearly weightless with my E-ranked Might. It occurred to me that having slightly higher Impact might make my effective Might slightly higher point for point, given the suppression.

That was a big advantage if it was true, and definitely something to leverage when I could. Setting the stones down, I cracked my neck and triggered my Skills again. The next spear was too light. The one after was top heavy. The one after THAT was brittle because I'd solidified the stone unevenly.

It took another ten of them before I managed a second perfect spear. Once I ironed out the difficulty though, the process became smoother and smoother. Not just faster and easier, but I was able to focus less per spear, which mean my second parallel could be set to the task of creating a second spear.

Two at a time, it only took me a few hours to finish, Callie lending a hand so I didn't overload my soul with all the work. By the time I finished, a field of dark stone spears were planted point first into the dirt of the training ring.

Callie stepped up next to me, beaming at the massive pile of weapons. "This…" She said with a grin. "This is amazing. I can't wait to get started on training. Demia said she had something that would work for tomorrow? She sounded almost as excited as I did, which I knew was probably because her own mentor and Demia were friends and she'd be learning the same thing. With a tired smile, I put an arm around her shoulder, answering in her head. Maybe getting ready for this war wasn't impossible after all.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Once we finished up the last of the spears Callie took her half back to her own barracks. I passed mine to Gabe, but before I could meet up with Demia for instruction I got a message from Camden. Alister showed up in person to let me know that I was requested in the basement of the manor to begin work on my new armor.

The seneschal escorted me to the door down to the lower floor, opened it, and then stepped back. I raised a brow at him.
"You're not coming?"

He snorted. "Sonia and I don't get along. I don't enter her presence without the Baron present. It usually starts a fight. Just follow the stairs, she's waiting for you."

Shrugging I set off into the basement, my stomach fluttering slightly in nervousness. This felt…consequential. Important in a way I couldn't comment on. My first set of real custom gear. Important and unique to just me. As long as I'd been doing this, all my gear had been generic. Even the suits that Abel's brother Cicero commissioned for us weren't specifically tailored to our abilities. Though Callie's had been close.

When I arrived in the room, it was empty except for Sonia. The tall redheaded smith was standing beside the black cube she'd been smithing on. "Sit." She said bluntly when she saw me, pointing to the top of the cube. I walked over and climbed up onto it, taking a cross legged position and looking down at her in cautious curiosity.

"You're not going to like…turn me into a hat or something?" I asked in a faux casual tone.

She smirked at me. "Too tall. Stovepipes are so out of fashion." At my lack of response she snorted. "No, I'm no haberdasher. I told you these items would need to be exposed to your Skills to imprint the signature of your power onto them, and so I can analyze how they resonate. I take it you have a decent idea of exactly which Skills will work for which material?"

I nodded. "I think I have some idea. What material do you want to start with?" I was excited to see how this worked. I'd channeled Skills through gear before, but the way she described this made it seem different. This gear would allow me to tap into my forms and Skills without almost any strain. That might not sound amazing, but considering that my Piece of Mind skill let me do two things at once…I had ideas.

Turning around, she walked over to a table covered with a variety of materials, grumbling about overwork as she dug out a small pile of bones that I recognized from my last visit. "Bones from a Stareater thrall." She said with a grin. "One of the most effective materials I have on hand. Only barely E-rank because of all the damage."

I nodded, already sure what I needed to channel into the bones. She stepped up, laying them down in my lap with my hands wrapped around them like I was holding a bowl in my arms. "You sure this will be enough?" I asked. "I'm only barely touching some of them."

"It'll be fine." She said with a lazy wave. "Just do it. I'm excited to see exactly what makes you compatible with such a rare and difficult to work material. Not many have Skills that allow them to harmonize with such a destructive element."
Without responding, I closed my eyes and triggered Mephistopheles. The black flame washed through me, pouring into the bones. I expected them to burn, but whatever fire the Stareater Thrall had been consumed in was much more destructive than even my black flames.

Rather than burn, the bones began to glow. Well, that was the wrong word. Glowing things gave off light. This was the opposite of that. They started drinking in light, to the extent that the dark was radiating off them in a similar fashion to a glow. Sonia told me to sit still and hold it, so I did, not using too much effort since I wasn't attacking.

Mephistopheles wasn't easy, even with a Sapphire soul. I could hold it for a decent chunk of time I was pretty sure, but I wouldn't be able to do much else. That was what had me so excited about this set of armor. If it offset the difficulty of my forms, I could use other abilities in combination with them more easily, or even use more than one of them TOGETHER.
Runes lit up along the surface of the cube, visible in the variety of reflective metallic surfaces as Sonia circled me, muttering to herself and occasionally smacking me in the head and telling me to sit still when I hadn't moved a micron.

"Alright." She finally said. "You can move. That's…a complex working. Messy and oddly lacking in cohesion for all that it functions properly."

I raised an eyebrow. "You mentioned something like that before, studying the patterns. You're not using enchanting? Runes can be made to do almost anything with the right modifiers, why bother studying anything."

"I am using runes, they're just more…natural." She explained. "I'm sure you've seen items before with naturally occurring form runes. Gems or metals or wood where exposure to a certain type of energy or a reputation for a certain type of renown causes them to form specific energy patterns?"

That did sound familiar. I remembered a year or so ago, back on Callus, Callie had been talking to a fae who had offered her a sapphire with a naturally occurring water form rune. "I have. It's kind of like formations right?"

She waggled a hand as she took the bones one by one with the other, carrying them gingerly to the table. I noticed her glove lightly smoking and worried a bit, but she just ignored it. "Sort of. Higher level enchanters certainly prefer to use more efficient runes, and the naturally occurring ones are the most naturally suited to the environment and materials."

"So by studying them you can learn what kinds of runes and patterns are most effective for certain tasks rather than trying to brute force it?" I asked, catching on.

Grinning, she snapped her finger and tapped her nose. "Got it in one. Micromanaging your runes manually and forcing the energy is the hallmark of an enchanter with either no Skill or FAR too much. Experienced crafters can make things manually that can equal a naturally formed item and with far more flexibility. For people like me though, this little trick is far more reasonable."

"What about my Skill?" I asked curiously. "What did you mean about it lacking cohesion? I made it myself and it works fine."

That got a laugh. "No it WORKS. It doesn't work fine. You're holding it together during use with your unnaturally powerful soul. It's functional, but it's not well crafted. Skills aren't just random imagination smashed together into a ball. The warp and weft of stats and energy has patterns, and the more you understand them and apply them to your Skills the less your soul needs to be leveraged to effect them."

I hadn't even considered there might be better ways to construct stats, but thinking about it I'd already seen an example. My wish ability. Something about its construction was so absolutely flawless it tripled the efficiency of stats used. If I applied any changes or synergies too it, that modifier dissolved.

Not once in all my time with the power had I followed that bit of information to its logical conclusion. Skills could be badly or expertly made. Mine were apparently mishmashes of total nonsense held together with twine and packing tape.
"Does that mean that you're going to make a better version for my armor?" I asked slowly. "So that I can not only use them easier, but slowly refine them into better Skills?"

She shook her head. "I'm not a Skill specialist. I'm an Arcane Armorer. I can't teach you how to fix Skills. I can make armor that help you utilize yours to their fullest, and in that vein, take this." She passed me the Phantasmal Platinum.
I held it up, looking at it cautiously. This one I was less sure about. I had the sneaking suspicion it might resonate with my wish power at first but…how would that work? If this stuff boosted wishes everyone in the family would use it. No, it did something else.

Dreams weren't just wishes though, they were also visions of possibilities. I squinted at the thing for a second and then triggered Eye of Revelation. It began to shine, swirls of energy rising off it in strange patterns. Through the haze I could see faint visions, shadows and hazy figures projected across the walls.

She took it from me. "Sensory Skill? How fascinating. Something for the head. Maybe a crown?" I opened my mouth to respond and she waved me off. "Not your concern, silence."

Next she handed me the Amethyst. This one was simple, I channeled Belial through it, and the stone began to blaze and flicker with green lights among the facets of purple. Next she passed me the roll of hide, the Abyssal Wraithskin.
Holding it, I was able to identify that the material was much thinner and more tightly wrapped than expected. I was holding a much larger spool of it than I'd thought, and I was sure she'd have enough for my gear.

This one had been a hard pick. I could go defensive, or offensive, or any number of other potential utility options…but I was sure I knew what this stuff was resonating with. I channeled State of Grace. The skin of a wraith, Abyssal or not, was meant for freedom of movement. Combined with my danger sense that would be my best possible outcome.

As I watched, the material shimmered, becoming sort of semi invisible before returning to normal. I passed it to her and she snatched it up. "Perfect!" She cheered. "Now MOVE!"

I did, hopping clear as she dumped all the materials there. After a brief pause, she strode over and snatched up another bolt of cloth, a purple silk I hadn't interacted with before. Stalking back to the cube she slapped it, and then reached into her apron for a series of tools she laid out as it started to hum, the same energy and projection coalescing above her.

And then, she started to craft. Her hands moved in fits and starts, sometimes flowing, sometimes jerking frenetically scissors split the fabrics, a small handheld blowtorch blazed up, rendering the platinum molten, and she handled it with just one hand as the other worked the leather and then the silk.

As I stared, openmouthed, my armor began to take shape. The bones were ground up into a paste, mixed with some of the molten platinum to form a dark metal, the leather was stacked, reinforced, and then stitched with platinum threads drawn from the seemingly ever expanding molten ingot.

The armor was huge and imposing, covered with intricate spiderwebs of silvery scrollworn. The joints and vulnerabilities were lined with the dark metal made from the bones, and as she poured the last of the bone dust into half of the remaining platinum she started to twist them together.

Metals mixed with each other, forming a black and white damascus, which she shaped into a wide crown with jagged spiked sticking up intermittently around its circumference. Into the front of it she set the Venomblood Amethyst, and as soon as she did, I felt the whole thing sort of…shift. There was an inaudible click as the power in the set merged into one glorious whole.

As she finished the armor, the purple silk was sewn into the leather with the platinum wire, tying the whole thing together. It even went with my mask, the damascus of the crown and the winding patterns of the scrollwork somehow creating a harmonious image with the grain of the wood. Stepping back, the Arcane Armorer grinned over at me. "Well, here you go, Solomon. A raiment fit for a king." And damned if it wasn't. I'd expected the crown to be too much, but it called to me. I couldn't wait to try it on.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Monday morning came just as fast as expected. Demia had gone over a rough outline of the formation we'd be learning, just to be sure I understood it enough to direct my recruits, and once we'd passed out all the spears, we were all ready to get started training. After a quick stop at Camdens for wish allocation (I granted an extra brining my stockpile to eleven) we all met the training field to get started.

I marveled at my new armor as I walked, how light and responsive it was, how secure I felt. Even the crown just felt RIGHT on me, in a way I definitely hadn't expected. The cape swished behind me gloriously as I walked, and I had to admit I felt pretty fucking awesome. The impression I was making was clearly the one I'd been aiming for because all of my recruits were staring in awe at my magnificence.

More than that, the ten lines of ten in front of me seemed much straighter and more orderly than before, and I smiled with pride at how well things had been going. We'd done a few more point exercises, and our next monthly tournament was coming up soon. The carrot and stick approach had really worked out.

"Alright." Said Demia "Anyone with a defensive Job up front. We're doing three rows of thirty with ten alternates standing by in case of injury. First thirty will be defenders. Crouch down in the front. Shields up if you have them, which you'd better if you're a defensive Job. Behind them I want Attackers. Have your spears pointed forward and be ready to thrust between the defenders. Underhand grip and coiled to strike. Last row is overhand strikers. Any ranged attackers will be there channeling their Skills through their spears."

Everyone nodded, taking up their positions. The first thirty recruits knelt down, though Demia adjusted their stance a few times. They needed to be able to stand and move if needed, but also be solid enough in stance to tank a hard push. Shields from the first row were interlocked slightly to share force among the others, with their spears ready to stab out between the gaps after an assault where they pulled back their shields.

The second rank was just regular standing spearman, using underhand grips to stab over the shoulders of their kneeling defenders. Last row was overhand spears, and anyone who could channel ranged attacks through a weapon was stationed there, both because they were the least defensible and to put them to best use.

"Now, to test out your defenses, we decided that we needed something a bit more…lifelike." I said with a devilish grin. "A good friend of mine let me borrow the services of her animal companion to serve as a sparring partner."
As if on cue, from behind the nearest building came a colossal earth shaking roar. A form stalked out, sized specifically to match the F-ranked stone lions we'd seen, but infinitely more terrifying.

Though also F-rank (albeit very close to E at this point) Randall was nothing if not intimidating. The huge bear was rippling with muscle courtesy of his heavy Might leaning, and the new outfit that Sonia had finished for him yesterday certainly didn't help.

Dark green plate armor ran the length of the massive animal, shoulders stacked with defensive pauldrons, midsection plated with flexible overlapping pieces of green metal, and arms covered with sturdy greaves that linked up to a set of flexible foot coverings with frankly unnecessarily long claw augments. His head was covered in a blank but bear shaped mask of green metal with lenses over the eyes that gleamed in the daylight like some kind of weakness sensor.

The material, according to Jessie, was something called 'Vital Vanadium' and was an allot of Might and VItality leaning metals that maximized both durability and forward momentum. Every plate was carefully and delicately carved with beautiful forest and plant scrollwork that worked to camouflage the enchantments imprinted into the metal.

I had no fucking clue what it DID since Jessie didn't want to share, but it did something. Who knew how animal Skills worked, but Randall just seemed so much stronger in the gear, though it being E-rank probably helped.

"You want us to fight THAT?" Squeaked Alanna. "He's a MONSTER. We'll all die if that thing hits us."

Shaking my head, I waved her off. "Nah, I told him to hold back. Plus it's safer. Nightstrike's century is training with a Hellhound. Trust me, this is way better. You can't hurt Randall in his armor, especially not with those spears, so he has no reason to try to hurt any of you. You're just going to practice holding charges. We'll start slow and then work up to his best. Once you can stop him you'll be well and truly ready for anything."

I didn't mention the stone lions directly, I wasn't sure what Camden was telling people, but this was his show.
Looking at he big metal clad bear I raised an eyebrow. "You ready Randall?" He chuffed, nodding in my direction, I swept an arm at the formation. "Then let em' have it!" With a savage roar, Randall bolted forward, his body blurring as the full weight of his massive form strwaked toward the defenders.

The front row panicked, standing up and trying to adjust to…something. Randall hit them head on and they went flying in every direction like bowling pins. Some of them went into the dirt, some into the air, and I saw one of the middle ranks get flung into the side of a building hard enough that the top half of him punched through it and only his legs were sticking out.

I waited until they got back up and resumed their formation stances. "Ok." I clapped my hands together to get everyone's attention. "I have some notes. All the stuff you just did? Do other stuff. Like almost anything else. You're in the stances you're in for a reason. Don't move before impact, that defeats the purpose." I glared at one of them. "Ichabod, if I see you trip Betty again you're going in the front row WITHOUT a shield. Or armor. Don't fuck up my day Ichabod, or I'll fuck yours up way worse."

The muscular dark skinned man averted his eyes, and I turned my attention back to the group as Alanna raised snapped.
"That's easy for you to say at E-rank. That thing is terrifying. He's fully armored in E-rank metal. Might as well be a giant wrecking ball."

I shrugged. "Impact affects durability and conceptual weight, that's true. But there's a HUNDRED of you. If you're in the right formation the armor vs. all of you. You should come out on top. Might is a factor too, but you're all mid to high F-rankers. Formations are made specifically for situations like this. It's a relatively small gap."

Part of my reason for this was to show them that the gap between F and E-rank was surmountable. On the off chance one of the E-rank lions took a shot my people should be able to stay calm. Low E-rank anyway. We'd take care of anything else. That's what the elite units and the commanders were for after all.

Eventually, I decided that their problem was less about power and more about appearances. I spun up my staff. "Alright then. How about this. I'll try to break your formation personally. I'll hold back enough not to punch through anyone's shield or armor. All you have to do is block my charge. That work for you?"

Despite making a complete lack of sense, they seemed to calm down a bit at that. I supposed it made some sense. I wasn't a bear the size of a bus (or more realistically a large car right now) and I was human and more capable of holding back in their eyes. Everyone shuffled, assuming their positions.

I set myself, getting ready to attack. I considered several strategies, several dangerous moves, and I almost wanted to battle test my armor, but any actual effort would tear them apart like wet tissue paper. In terms of raw Might I was probably lower than quite a few of them, but the pure multiplier of my Impact would mean anything I did would be exponentially more effective.

No poison, no black flame, and Pit of Despair would be a hard counter to a formation so it was useless for this. That left me with good old fashioned brute force. When I was sure they were ready for me, I set my staff across myself, holding it in both hands parallel to the ground so it would hit the largest surface area.

Then I charged. My body, under a consistent effect of State of Grace because of my armor, blurred forward, barely touching the ground with each bounding step.

With a primal shout, rather than retreating, the first row roared, shoving their shields forward to close any gaps and form the strongest defensive barrier. My staff hit length wise, the force spreading through all the shields more evenly because of the wide dispersal, and the phalanx grunted as they were forced back but not knocked over.

Hopping back lightly, I held up my hands. "See? You stopped me. I wasn't going all out or anything, but I'm an E-ranker, and quite honestly a tougher one than most in terms of pure Impact. Randall isn't E-ranked. He's just wearing some bulky armor. If you can stop me you can stop him."

That almost definitely wasn't true. Randall was Might specced, and with that armor in a head on contest of raw strength I wasn't sure I could even come close to beating him, but he was holding back quite a bit here, so it would be fine for them to think so.

I saw multiple faces firm with determination, and was glad I'd decided to show them that. Of course, I also made a note to show off my new functionality with Mephistopheles at some point. Wouldn't do to have them lose respect for my raw power. I had them reset again, and gestured to Randall.

He took up position as I walked over to Demia. "So, what do you think?" I asked my blue haired teacher.

"That was well done." She said with a nod. "It was clear you held back as well, but it built their confidence. At this rate, they'll be more than ready to grasp the proper formation when the real spears are finished."

I nodded. "Sonia worked up a design, but she has another specialist who works with weapons, so aside from the basic construction she won't be doing most of the work. She IS an Arcane Armorer. That means we'll be making good time with two crafters on the project. They should all be done in time."

Of course, there were the E-rank spears that would need to be made for the commanders and elites, but there were far fewer of us than the rank and file, so those would take a fraction of the time. We should be well and truly ready when those four months elapsed. Or as ready as we could be.

We watched as Randall hit the ranks of the defenders again, and they actually held this time…until he backhanded one of the weak links and smashed through the formation. I winced at that, but seeing their crumbling defense reminded me that I still had to upgrade my own. I smirked to myself as I realized this would be the perfect time to perfect my new stance.

Once training was over, I sent everyone away except Randall. The bear would be perfect for helping me perfect my new defensive form. I needed something that would soak damage. Something less dependent on stored attacks or stability. I had a hell of a lot of great defense skills to work into it, and some perfect ideas on how to make it work.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Defense. One of the biggest Issues I had facing me. My Impact was a little higher than most, but I was still substantially weaker than the majority without some kind of buff because my stats were so evenly distributed. I had quite a few defensive skills like Mountain Stance that would do the job, but I always ended up stacking a bunch of them together to stick out attacks.

As I'd seen with Belial and Mephistopheles, my forms presented an amazing chance to combine and refine my abilities. They created a method to tap into multiple powerful abilities without having to trigger them one at a time.

More than that, though, this particular session presented a method for me learn more about the concept of Skill creation, and to refine my own slightly. The better the job I did the less strain the Skill would place on me, and it might give me the insight to reconfigure some of my older ones to make them more efficient.

I doubted I'd ever reach the point my ancestor was at, where I created Skills so perfect they became more than the sum of their parts, but I was sure that refining the ones I had would make everything easier for me in the long run, and even in the short term it couldn't hurt.

The question then became, how was I supposed to see a Skill? The first step to making them more functional would be learning to observe the functions to begin with.

Before doing anything else, I sat down and crossed my legs, trying to think over all my experience with Skills. Randall grumbled, but I just waved him off. "Go nap or something, this is going to take a while." He snorted, but turned and laid down in a big pile of bear and metal, beginning to snore almost immediately.

Once the big baby was distracted, I closed my eyes to review all my Skill experiences. I'd altered Skills before many times, I'd now created a new Skill from repetition with my Dust Construction Mastery, I'd used other people's Skills, and I could store them. I'd probably had more experience with Skills than anyone I could name, but I'd never SEEN a Skill. Not in the way I needed to.

Frowning, I reached up and took my crown off my head. The metal and gem were both heavily enchanted with my own Skills, so if I could identify the enchantments, then use the Skills and compare the two, it would give me a much better idea of what I was looking for.

I started with the gem. I knew my forms better than anything. Comparing the naturally occurring rune Sonia used to my own experience with creating Belial should at least give me a place to start. Staring at the Venomblood Amethyst, I triggered Eye of Revelation, staring deep into the crystalline structure.

It took me a minute of scanning. I could see the runes here or there that had been added during creation, but I knew without even checking they weren't what I was looking for. It took me a minute to realize that I was looking too close, when I unfocused I could see the delicate construct made up of all the runes, a naturally occurring (seemingly) shape that was hard to track and even harder to puzzle out. As I stared, I triggered Belial, and used Piece of Mind so I could have one of my parallels study the rune while the other studied the Skill itself.

The gem began to glow in my hands, and I felt a harmonizing effect between the Skill and the crown. The runes all lit with an unnatural green glow, the shimmer making it easier to see the master rune from the Skill.

Staring into the blaze, I could see the curls and jagged cuts of the rune, and in spotting it, I was able to slowly identify each portion. Sharp teeth from Touch of Tears, solid lines from Stone Limb, and complex swirls from Consecration of Flames. Despite fitting together, it all looked kind of…unfinished. The flow of the rune was functional, but inefficient. These three skill just barely fit together, and I could see warping between the sections where the rune was bunched up like there were bad welding spots.

Putting the crown back on, I meditated on the runes I'd seen, on the subsections and how they fit together. As I sat, I started searching within myself, trying to find a way to see the rune fragments inside my head without having any external help.

It took me about an hour, but I finally figured out that if I tried to trigger a Skill, then caught it with my soul and wrapped it up to stop it from activating, I could preserve it in a way that let me observe. It took me a few tries before I perfected the process, and I needed Piece of Mind to do it, because it took all my concentration to hold the skill immobilized and I needed a second parallel to study it.

Once that was done, I went through all my skills one by one, draining myself with the consistent use of both Piece of Mind and extremely precise soul manipulation (that same cramp from using my soul delicately came back) after studying the runes and referencing the way they fit together as fragments in the combination skills I had I came to a few conclusions.

Conclusion one: most skills could fit together, but the more skills you combined the more difficult it was. Conclusion two: even if the skills DID work, the order in which you arranged them was still important. Conclusion three: my plan to use F-ranked stored attacks in my construction WAS possible, but it would require some serious delicacy.

Even my Sapphire soul was going to be hard pressed to complete the form I was thinking of doing, and I'd need at least two parallels of Piece of Mind on top of my normal brain to pull it off. Luckily, I hadn't pushed TOO hard with all my scrutinizing, the ache was more from fine manipulation than overwork.

I realized looking at it that I'd been using my soul in the least efficient way possible when I made Dust Construction. The Skill wasn't bad, but it was dinged up hard. Lots of welded points. I'd made the fragments from captured pieces of Pit of Despair without meaning to and smashed them together with my soul until they started working. It was disturbing to look at, but since it was so low level on construction I was able to smooth it out.

That was another thing I hadn't known. As Skills rank up, they change, much like the soul, they became firmer and more difficult to alter. Combination was still possible, but harder. The soul improved too, so it almost evened out, but there was a serious benefit to making your Skills at low levels and ranking them up, as the process smoothed out some of the rough edges.

Inhaling slowly, I focused on myself, on my soul, and began the complex process of attempting my first TRUE Skill construction. I started with Stone Limb. As I'd seen before, it had thick sturdy lines, and I was under the impression it would be a good base.

The central shape without any additions was basically a triangle, which seemed like a good start. Pulling off that, I expanded the rune, stone limb altering to cover more of my body, thick lines branching off each fact of the triangle. On each of those, I put one of the stored density shift attacks I had, stringing them together to create a shell of fractal patterns around the stable center, each instance reinforcing the rest of them to creat the solid enhancement I wanted.

Finally, I came to the last part. Where the first two Skills intertwined, the last one was its own separate segment onto which they had to be placed. A five sided rhombus burned itself into my sight from Mountain Stance, and with extreme delicacy, I set the fractal triangle inside it, shifting until it clicked into place in a way I couldn't explain.

The lines began to shift and move, thinning in some places and thickening in others as my extreme familiarity with the Skills in question allowed me to push form up to my current level of understanding. Intermediate, basically. Unlike my other forms, which were kind of just macros for using a bunch of skills at once, this one became a singular cohesive whole.
What that meant I had no idea aside from that looking at it I could tell it was demonstrably higher quality than the others. I'd have to rework them later to get them up to the same level.

I stood, stretching slowly as I worked out the kinks in my muscles. That had been rough. Three separate parallels working at once, juggling so many different concepts. It was absurd, and looking at my new Skill, I could see I had barely scratched the surface. My efficiency would have been improved quite a bit over other forms, but it wasn't perfect.

Confirming that was simple, all I had to do was isolate my wish ability and look on the masterpiece my ancestor had wrought. It was…beautiful. There were so many different elements, all woven together into a sprawling tapestry of complexity and perfection.

While ranking up would smooth out the edges of a Skill, they didn't automatically work. You needed to make something stable enough to actually create a Skill to begin with. I was still shocked I'd managed with my Dust Construction. I'd gotten absurdly lucky and only my freakishly strong soul had allowed it to work.

The wish power though…it contained dozens of skills. Maybe hundreds. I could see tiny fragments of so many types it made me dizzy. Imagining constructing a Skill like that made me want to vomit. Holding that many fragments together with my soul while slotting them in exactly the right places. It would require a mental fortitude I couldn't imagine to do it without Piece of Mind, and even with it that was far beyond me.

Strolling over, I took my place across from Randall, not wanting to think about it anymore. "Wake up you big lazy ox!" I called over to the bear. He opened an eye, grumbled a bit, then rose to his feet, shaking himself off to prepare. After we set ourselves, he charged.

Planting my staff for stability, I bent my knees, and then I activated my new form. "Goetia staff art third form." I intoned. "Mornax." The legend of the minotaur demon known for his invincibility had spoken to me for the defensive form, and as I felt myself shift, I knew it had been a perfect fit.

My body became stone, not just any stone, the densest stone possible. Mountain Stance multiplied my defense by three, and the triple stacked density shift combined with Stone Limb set the starting bar pretty high. I was probably ten times more durable than normal E-ranked stone with my Impact.

The charging bear, armor glowing green as he channeled his power into it to increase his momentum and strength, smashed head first into me as I stood, waiting to take the attack….and bounced right the fuck off. I didn't even feel it, though the stone cracked a bit from the armor.

Of course, Mountain Stance being part of Mornax meant I couldn't really move in this form. I could bully it into staying together for a slow step or two, but the soul weight multiplied dramatically. Either way, if I didn't move my feet, I barely felt any drain from this form. I'd accomplished my goal.

My soul was exhausted, but tomorrow I could start work on reforming my other stances, figuring out what to add or tweak to make them more stable and easier to use. By this time four months from now, I'd be going into battle a completely different person. Those stone lions better watch out.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

After training with Randall for a while, I went to bed. I was exhausted and needed to rest up a bit before formation training the next day. In the morning I met with Camden, granted seven wishes (he'd started having me give formation skills, albeit low level ones, to his elite units) and stockpiled another two, bringing my tally to fourteen.

I was planning to use a few of those for my own stats soon, I was falling behind, and a big jump was necessary to rollover some of that godslayer renown that should still be waiting to hit. Probably on the low end given how many points I'd already been getting and my recent rank up, but I couldn't stop growing just because I was at E-rank now.

Luckily, training today was much easier. Randall had a better grasp on how much to hold back, the unit was less afraid of him, and in general they improved a lot, learning to work together properly with their fellow formation members.

To my surprise, after things ended and they all left, before I could start on working through my Skills and tuning them up, I had a surprise visitor. My sister was waiting for me at the edge of the training ground, smiling at me nervously as she waited for me. "Hey…Shane, good to see you. Seems like its been ages doesn't it?"

"Nope, saw you two days ago." I said flatly. "What do you want?" I chuckled to let her know I was mostly kidding, even if I did suspect she was after a favor.

She flushed, looking guilty. "I know you're busy but…I was thinking of breaking through to E-rank. I know I should talk to my guards, but I was kind of hoping you would watch over me while I rank up." She swallowed, looking away. "Actually, nevermind, it's stupid I can go ask Callen to-"

"Chelsea." I said firmly, stopping her self-conscious babbling. "Why would that be stupid? We're twins. You helped keep an eye on me and Callie when we ranked up." Mostly because her purification flame would have been really useful if anything went wrong with the elixirs, but regardless of reasoning, my sister needed my help. I was happy to be there for her.

Holding out my hand, I smiled at her before realizing she couldn't see my face. I coughed in embarrassment. "Um, I can help. Keep you under cover while you rank up. I have a skill that makes an area impossible to see into."

Giggling slightly, she grabbed my hand. "I know, I've seen you use it, moron." As I activated Moonlit Night, I let the skill flow through my hand and tag her, making it easy for her to see through the fog, then I let go. "Thanks." She said with a smile. "You sure this will be enough to stop us from being spotted?"

Chances were good that Chelsea's rank up would be uneventful, but I knew part of her reason for coming to see me was to be watched over by someone who knew her secret. And to keep anyone else from finding out. "Definitely. Unless someone with a Perception focus walks right up and tries to penetrate it at point blank range we should be fine." Even then it would be tough to manage. I was going all out here, having created a parallel with Piece of Mind to tap my girlfriend's
Perception, and having another going specifically to study what was happening while my main parallel held up the fog. Even for my soul it was tough to manage, but the extra insurance was worth the price.

"So, what are your specialties stat wise?" I asked. "I know you have a lot of Might because of the physical nature of the flames, and a lot of Focus from all your research. Any other big stats? And are you using an elixir to make the jump like I did?"

She nodded, sitting down in a cross legged position and closing her eyes as she tried to center herself. "Those are the big ones. Purification isn't healing, so it's not a vitality thing. It also has enhancement properties for the use, but that's an advanced technique I haven't mastered yet. Once you can do that, Vitality starts coming into play more, since people associate you with being an unwavering bastion of physical power."

Once again, I felt jealous. My sister got these awesome powerful abilities she inherited from our grandparents, and I got a support power. Wish was an amazing power, but it didn't help ME nearly as much as it helped others. I loved buffing my friends, but part of me just wanted to blow shit up. That was what excited me so much about Path of the Doom Sovereign.

The further I went, the more I was able to offset the issues with my inherent gifts. In fact, I was expecting quite a few bumps in stats with my next milestone, I'd demonstrated some scary abilities back at the temple, and stories about that had to be disseminating, even if they weren't as widespread as the godslaying stuff.

She nodded as she finally opened her eyes, exhaling slowly.. "But yes, Might is one of my highest. I made some wishes with Nat to push me up over the threshold and I've been holding back my rank up the last few days while waiting for you to be free."

"Alright then." I said with a grin. GO ahead and do it. I was a bit distracted during Callie's, it'll be nice to get a better look at the transition to E-rank, especially from this side of the line and fully stabilized.

Instead of just watching normally though, I elected to try something different. I triggered Eye of Revelation, focusing on my sister the same way I had focused on the gem on my crown. I wanted to see what changes would happen during rank up. Despite having a basic idea of what I was looking for though, when I turned my eye on a full person in that headspace it became difficult to process anything.

Forcing myself to look deeper (pushing through overwhelming input was a natural trick that all Ascendants learned, and using Focus to offset the senses from Perception to keep from going insane was good practice here) I was able to see…something.

I'd never looked at Impact before, not like this. It was something you could sense normally, just by glancing at a person, but seeing it like this was different. It was almost like a weight on my eyes, like pressure in a visual spectrum. It was difficult to describe, but I could see it slowly begin to deepen.

And as I watched that, I realized something amazing. That deepening was something I recognized. Not just from having experienced it, but because I'd seen the inverse dozens of times. Zeke used it constantly. As I watched, something shifted within my sister's spirit, deep resonant colors bloomed through her soul (which I hadn't even realized I was looking at) the endless cerulean blue boiling up, turning into a shining sapphire as it spilled over from her spirit the overflow making her…more.

This was how Impact increased. The rank up process improved the soul, and the spillover weighted the connection between spirit and body, increasing the conceptual weight through the Impact stat.

It was like watching the sun rise over the ocean, I was blown away. And as I watched it I identified the exact process that it went through and…reversed it.

I pushed my soul down, hollowing it out and allowing my Impact to drain into it, letting my body lighten conceptually as my Impact dropped. Not for real, granted, just in the same way Zeke did his little hiding trick. But I'd been trying to figure out how to do this since I first realized what he WAS doing.

More than anything this underscored how much more Zeke knew about the soul and the working of Ascendant power than I did. I could have done this it at any time, but I didn't ever realize what was happening to me well enough to reproduce it.

I was sure my uncle knew all about Skills and proper application and construction of them too. I cursed my dad again, enraged that there was all this information I could have used that I wasn't allowed by his ridiculous geas.

Sadly, both my experiment and my thoughts screeched to a halt as I realized that either suppressing Impact weakened Skills or I hadn't been doing it right because the damned fog was starting to dim. I pushed with my soul, flooding myself with Impact as I restored all the possible Perception to this fog to obscure my sister.

She hadn't even noticed, and under my Eye of Revelation I could see the runes in her body, too complex and intricate for me to possible understand, but with an obvious plurality of colors, specifically black and white energy clashing into each other, neither one claiming dominance as they pushed her further into her upgrade.

I wondered how that worked, and if I looked like that on rank up. Were my two abilities clashing? Harmonizing? The one thing I was sure of was that whatever was evolving her soul and increasing her Impact was also changing her abilities.

Ranking up changed patterns, I knew this, but seeing it at Intermediate as the two abilities she already had (the ones far too complex for me to process) became even MORE abstruse was too much. I felt a snap in my head as the parallel I had studying her collapsed from the strain and I screamed, grabbing my skull as the feedback filled my brain with agony.
Luckily my main brain was the one keeping up the Fog, and the second parallel was still working on tapping into Callie's Perception to help hide my sister, so it wasn't a particularly hard task to keep up the concealment until she finished.

When she was done she seemed exhausted. "Wow, that was a biggie." She said breathlessly. "Almost more Impact there than I had in total. Percentage wise that's even more than Master rank. Though I know breaking a hundred is a big milestone and really takes it out of you, so the D-rank breakthrough is still a bit tougher."

I was looking forward to that one actually. I already had my Solid Path as an ability, which meant I was good through C-rank and almost all the way up to B. I still didn't know what breakthrough to B INVOLVED mind you, just that I'd managed to get partway there with my second ability. Yay me.

Standing up, I let the fog fade. Glancing around I checked no one powerful enough to see through my fog was nearby. Nobody was close enough to have brute forced it, and with my Impact being a few points higher than normal, not to mention the Perception Callie and I had combined, it should have been more than enough to put off anyone below D-rank who wasn't standing five feet away.

Offering Chelsea my hand, I pulled her up and patted her on the back, helping her keep her feet as she wobbled. "Yeah, takes a bit of getting used to. Feels great though doesn't it? Not being smashed under the weight of super gravity?"

She laughed, leaning way back and cracking her spine and then her neck. "Understatement. This is amazing. Should have done it ages ago. I'll tell Callen he should break through. He's been nurturing that sword long enough at F-rank. Gabe should be pretty close too. He got as much of that godslayer renown as you did.

That was true, and I was excited to see my friends make it to the next rank. Speaking of which, Jessie and Benny needed help getting there over the next few months, just like Abel and Mel. Nat was going to be busy. I'd help where I could too, but for the moment, we had to get my sister back to her barracks so she could rest. These next four months were going to fly by.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The next day, post training, I went ahead and cashed in some of my banked wishes so I could use my powers to pick up some actual stat gains. I was anxious to see how much rollover renown I was still getting, and not progressing for so long was really bugging me. I granted four wishes for Camden as per the contract terms, and then had him find another three of his people interested in stat reallocation.

I was up to ten points per wish now, and he had several interested parties once we got the proper contracts and geasa signed. In the end I went with Might since I was only twenty five points from another big milestone (three thousand points). As soon as I wished for the stats after such a long break, I felt the power roll into me from all that backed up renown.

Another two hundred Might on top of what I got from the wishes, three hundred Perception, four hundred Focus, and a hundred Fantasy. I could guess about most of that (the Perception and Focus for discovering the BMP's plan, the Might probably remainders from godslaying as it continued to circulate) but in the end it didn't matter, it was a sizable gain and I was grateful for the increase.

In total I got about another thousand points, leaving me at eleven thousand and sixty. Despite the sizable bounty, I was blown away by exactly how LITTLE that was. D-rank was going to be a hundred thousand total, and I was a long way off. Sure, this war would help spread my rep quite a bit (once we won I was going to leak my identity as a candidate to drum up renown) but I was going to need to pick up the pace if I wanted to become a master anytime soon.

Speaking of pace though, I didn't want to fall behind in my combat training either. After training today I'd requested that Camden send me a sparring partner so I could test out both my new armor's capabilities and my new form.

While Randall was great, he was a bear, and F-rank besides. I wanted someone at my own level, if not stronger, to compete against (who wasn't Callie, because we knew each other FAR too well). Camden was all for it, and he sent Demia to spar with me a bit. Which is how I ended up in the training ground with my whole unit watching so I could show off a bit of what I could do for the lowbies.

Bowing to me, the tiny blue haired woman kept her eyes fixed on my mask as she swept low and then resumed her standing position, arms relaxed and at her side. "Demia Aqueous, Deep Sea Duellist. It is an honor to face you in combat."

"Solomon." I responded with a slow nod. "Not using the Job system. Same to you. What are the rules here?"

Her face was stoic as she began reciting a strict code of duelling ethics. When to stop, when to start, how hard to go, the usual stuff. Finally, she finished her recitation and I nodded, taking up my stance as I waited for the referee (Callie) to announce the start.

Since I didn't know exactly what her powers were, other than the strong assumption that they were water based, I went ahead and started things off by using my Mornax stance. It was my newest, sure, but it was a solid place to begin the fight, pun intended. As Callie made the call, I shifted, and Demia blurred forward.

As she moved, a thin rapier appeared from somewhere (probably her ring), and she lunged forward off her left foot, driving the blue metal blade right at my face.

Because of my mask and my stance, I didn't bother to dodge, just letting the blade's tip slip to the side as I faintly turned my head, carrying her past me. I expected to be able to smash her against my braced staff as she came in close, but as I looked down, I was shocked to see gently lapping waves of blue liquid energy under her feet.

Continuing the momentum of the charge, she leaned over so close to the ground I was shocked she didn't fall and rotated around me using her feet as an axis, swinging along the ground almost parallel to the dirt, swinging her blur blade out a few times to let slashes of compressed water slam against my back.

I expected damage, or at least a blow, but to my immense shock, the blades dissolved against the flowing silk of my cape. The energy washed over the purple silk, up through the metal tracery connecting it to my shoulders and then along the length of the armor through the platinum scrollwork, discharging into my STAFF of all things. I felt the energy boost the necromantic power stored in the staff and was almost too shocked to react. Almost.

Deciding to finally put some of my new tricks to work, I focused on Piece of Mind, creating a second parallel, then triggered Mephistopheles, offloading the strain onto the armor. My hair blazed up as black flame, my body still unyielding stone, and I slammed my staff backwards into the ground, creating a massive explosion of dark fire.

The blast chewed up the ground behind me, and I followed it up, spinning at the waist to push my staff further forward to try to follow Demia as she slipped away on those gliding waves.

When she got out of range, I really wanted to go after her, but Mornax required feet on the ground. I stayed where I was, tracking her as she circled me. She was grinning now, blue eyes wide with excitement as she slid over the dirt on her magical waves, gliding like a figure skater.

"Quite a powerful assault." She commended me. "And your defense is impeccable. I can see Sonia's good work wasn't wasted. Let's see exactly how much good it does you."

Pushing off, she began to increase the speed of her skating, circling me at a faster and faster pace. Her body became a blur, and as it did, clouds of that same, mystical wave energy began to roll off her. One, two, three times around, and the entire training field was blocked out by a massive vortex of blue watery energy.

From among the shifting currents blasts of cutting water burst out, a flurry of liquid edges shattering against my body, breaking like real waves on the rocks at the base of a cliff. Unfortunately, much like ACTUAL cliff rocks, my defensive skill wasn't unbreakable. It was sturdy, but the pitter patter of razor sharp water cutters was starting to breach my defense.

The water was hitting me from every angle, and I felt a tiny cut open up along the side of my neck and decided enough was enough.

I triggered Pit of Despair around us, marveling at how simple it was to let myself slide into the frictionless dust. I could feel the dust around me with Song of the Soil which I used on instinct. Dust Construction made it child's play to manipulate it, pushing me forward even as Mornax dissolved without ground beneath my feet.

Demia had been close enough that the Skill had caught her up in its radius (probably helped I'd pushed it to double to area, sacrificing a bit of the height) and she was trying desperately to move under the dust, finding it nearly impossible to do with her wave treading skill.

I smoothly glided forward through the dust, locating her easily. Planting my feet on the ground at the bottom of the dust pool, I brought my staff up, Mephistopheles still active, and drove it forward into her flailing back, an explosion of black flame blasting her clear out of the pit and up into the air.

Using Dust Construction, I grabbed hold of the dust and flung myself up after her, the cushion of fine material tossing me up into the air after her, State of Grace allowing me to hang in the air as I soared gently after the panicking duellist.
Activating Ripple Running, I slammed my feet down, pushing off with the explosive bursts of black flame as I blurred from one spot to the next, building up momentum for an attack. My blood was singing in my veins as I brought my staff around at her shoulder, an explosion of black flame ready to shatter her arm and put her out of commission.

To my surprise, when it made contact though, the image of her shattered, dissolving into rainbow arcs of light through refracted water. My Danger Sense triggered, and I used Double Trouble on instinct, vanishing and appearing behind the blue haired woman who had just been appearing behind me. I saw her flinch and start to spin around, her feet treading the air on glowing waves.

I smashed my staff into her ribs without much momentum, but the blast of black flame sent her crashing back into the ground, and I kept my guard up as I drifted down after her.

She'd almost had me there. Letting me push her up into the air and playing along by pretending she couldn't use her movement Skill anymore had been smart. I touched down, taking up a defensive stance again as I reactivated Mornax. The constant Skill use and the active parallel were draining, but not so much that I was anywhere close to done.

The armor was a huge help actually, offsetting a lot of the strain. "That was impressive." I said with a nod of respect. "I thought taking away your leverage would do the job." I watched her like a hawk, waiting for another attack.

She laughed tightly, one arm cradling her ribs. "It was a good move. How did you see through my Mirror Mirage?"

"I didn't." I admitted. "I sensed you popping up behind me." I should have probably used Eye of Revelation during the fight so far, that would have definitely shown me the illusion, but the crown boosted that Skill by a lot and I was still getting used to it. I wasn't sure I'd be able to react properly to stimuli in a fight with that much going on. Not until I had a better grasp on it.

She shifted her stance, ready to attack again, but winced as she tried to get in position. "Nope. That broke a few ribs." She chuckled and shook her head, dismissing her rapier. "I'm going to call it. This one was my loss. You're a tricky bastard." She gave me a nod of respect, then turned and started limping away.

I was pretty sure she had a lot more in her, and that a few broken ribs weren't much of an impediment, but I recognized that she wanted me to make a good impression on my recruits and probably didn't feel like revealing any more of her abilities for just a spar. I was pretty happy with how things had gone. I had plenty more ideas, but for now I'd successfully showed off and tested some new strategies.

Callie slammed into me from behind, arms wrapping around me as she squealed. "That was AMAZING! You demolished her! I was worried when she started doing that water vortex thing, but you sucked her unground and then BOOM just slapped her up into the air like a giant feather pillow."

I'd used Dust Construction to cushion the blast that had shot her up out of the pit, so I didn't blow any limbs off or anything. Her armor would need repairing, but otherwise things had been pretty relaxed since it was a spar. I laughed and turned to pull Callie into my arms.

Looking over to my unit, I saw Gabe grinning at me, offering me a thumbs up. I returned the gesture as I saw Alanna sitting next to him, gushing about the fight, along with Ichabod and Betty and a few of my other recognizable recruits. Mission accomplished then, I was definitely getting the proper amount of respect from my century. That would make all the upcoming training so much easier.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I was walking on air after my duel. Not literally, though I COULD do that, but emotionally. I was finally getting to the point where I could be considered a real contender at my rank. All the training, all the Skills, all the adventures, it was all finally paying off. Pound for pound, I was able to fight it out with real powerhouses at E-rank despite my stats being markedly lower.

And it felt good. Not just being strong, but the way I was doing it. Not unlike Callie, I'd always felt sort of…overshadowed, by my dad. Elijah Wyndham, a man they apparently called 'The Wish Devil', someone even other members of the family were wary of.

The comparison wasn't a pleasant one, but between the contracts and my powers, I felt like I'd been aping him for a while. Following the path he laid out of me, even if I took some small detours wasn't something that made me happy, especially after finding out more about the mess that was my childhood.

Now though, I WASN'T like him. I was like Aiden. The current Wishmaster had two abilities just like me, and he was considered such a monster that even my dad looked bad in comparison.

No, more than Aiden, I had a SOLID Path for my second ability. I wasn't completely certain where Aiden had been at when he was my age, but I somehow doubted he was that far ahead. I might not be the strongest person in the younger generation of the five factions, but I was only coming up on my nineteenth birthday. For my age I was definitely a real powerhouse.

But that wasn't what this was about. We were meeting with Camden today, because in four months we were going to be ass deep in alligators. Even as we spoke, the next member of my team was getting new armor, but that wouldn't be enough.

The main issue was that we had a whole bunch of people we needed to boost fast and only two people who could grant wishes. I'd been saving mine up, doing an extra two a day for Camden and keeping the rollover for out of contract stuff, but that wasn't going to fly anymore. Those twenty points a day might not be much, but over four months they would help.

After explaining this to Camden, and informing him of my goals of getting all my people up to E-rank before the big fight, he agreed to meet with Callie, Celine, Nat, and I to help. I laid out the dilemma after getting my cousin's permission to tell him about her identity, and he nodded along.

"Interesting." He said. "I'd normally say what you're going for isn't possible, but there's some glimmers of hope here. How far off are they?"

We'd been planning for Nat to help Abel and Mel, but Benny and Jessie were a ways off too, and between the four of them we needed over fifteen thousand points. Even if Nat got up to the point where she could do ten per wish she wouldn't reach half of that, we MIGHT be able to scrape ten with my contribution, and with another thousand each from elixirs we'd be CLOSE, but still not quite there, assuming we could even get them.

Abel and Jessie still had rollover from the godslaying incident, but Mel didn't, not to mention Nat as she was probably topped out closer to seven points per wish instead of ten. And that wasn't even taking payment into account.

Most of the rest of our party were pretty much peak of their rank, having come from larger forces, except Celine, who while working with Nat nonstop was still only about halfway there. Our elven friend would be getting plenty of renown once she registered as the owner of the new territory, so she wasn't as much of a current priority since we couldn't risk her in battle anyway.

The numbers were making my head spin, and Camden gave me a sympathetic chuckle as he listened. "I think your best bet is to leave your mentors to Natalie. One of them will be gaining points still from past exploits, and between that and her wishes she should be capable of squawking by. If she can't manage, there are still other options. You should focus on your teammates."

I nodded along. "What other options? And that's fair. Jessie has some Might and Vitality coming, both from her bond with Randall and from reputation. Just over five thousand remaining, and between elixirs and two wishes a day I'll be at forty four hundredish. Should be able to squeak by." Luckily I didn't have to supply points to Randall. I had no clue how he broke through but Jessie seemed sure he was right on the cusp, and when he did it would help speed her up even more.

"Tournaments." Camden said bluntly. "Renown allocation is strict in the empire up to the point of everyone getting their due. Past then, as you've seen, nobles can get a bit more…creative. Tournaments with stat based prizes are an excellent way to draw in new talent and increase the renown generated by ones own territory, which has a direct impact on expected payout."

I blinked at that. "Can outsiders participate in those? I'd have figured you would need to be on the empire's roles."

"Like I said, it's good for drawing in new talent." He said with a shrug. "Because of that, there are loopholes for citizenship. Entering an imperially sanctioned tournament temporarily gives you a 'Gladiator' Job, allowing you to count as a member of that noble's territory for the length of the tournament. They have to be registered with the imperial council, and they're taxed, but they're fairly common. Most of the larger cities have them monthly."

I grinned. "So we have Mel and Abel clean up in the tournaments to boost their stat gain, making up any shortfalls in Nat's wishes. Between that, Abel's godslayer income and the elixirs that should be enough. The only major issue there is payment. Abel and Mel will need some way to compensate her."

"I'll take care of it." He said with a wave. "I can dip into my coffers. You're all staying to help me, and funding a bit of advancement is the least I can do."

I nodded, sighing. "Alright, did you manage to acquire the land near the well? I assume you'll want to work on building up the defenses in that area? I was planning to actually start putting up some structures by hand. It's good practice, and my actions outside wishing aren't as limited. Though a lack of stockpiling means less wishes for me to build up my own territory faster after the battle."

Not that I was sure that would even work. I was pretty invested in that plan, and it might not be possible to compensate me fairly without my power deciding I was double dipping.

"I can help with it after this is all done." Nat said with a shrug. "I can't do wishes for you directly without raising a fuss, but since Celine will own the territory on paper there's some wiggle room. I do plenty of business with her already. This will just help her grow indirectly." She raised an eyebrow at the elf. "Sound good to you?"

Nodding slowly, Celine smiled. "I believe that works for me. Freeing up Shane to help Benny advance is going to be worth it anyway."

"Alright. So I keep up my training with Demia, focus on helping my recruits improve, and work with Jessie and Benny to rank them up. Camden can use his wishes for whatever, including territory reinforcement, since I don't own any of this personally and the contract already took care of payment. Any plans for that?"

He pulled out a scroll, unfurling it and then pinning it to the table with a few throwing knives he apparently pulled from secreted away sheaths. Alister winced at the damage to the wood, muttering something about carpenters, but Camden ignored him.

"So as you know, the well is going to be the exit point for the lions when they come up. There are so many of them some will undoubtedly take other paths, but most will focus on the path of least resistance." He drew a big square around the well entrance. "Now what we need is a durable palisade that will not only provide cover, but deal actual damage to the lions."

I nodded. "I can do that. I'll need a lot of supplies, preferably E-ranked stone. How are the specialized spears coming along?" i had some ideas for possible enhancements to the defenses, since I had so many wishes from Benny coming up I could pour a ton of density shifted attacks into the project improving on my already powerful stone constructs. Being as I had more Impact than any E-rank stone working them should be more than possible, even if I hadn't tested it. I had a feeling things would be harder if I tried to mess around with anything higher.

"I'll have the stone brought to you." He nodded. "Raw stone isn't particularly valuable, even at higher ranks, so we should be able to meet your demand. As for the spears…I see your idea there, but sadly we won't have the materials. Outfitting the whole force with them is going to be prohibitively expensive, and I'm going to have to leverage resources I don't even have yet to do it."

That was unfortunate, I'd been hoping to use them as spikes on the palisade, arranging it so the walls themselves could destroy the stone…I froze.

"Do you think Sonia could help me with a project?" I asked slowly. "Or assign someone to? I have an idea." If she could imbue Belial into my armor, whose to say she couldn't imbue it into the walls I was making. Or Mephistopheles? I had no idea what that would require, but even if it was too much, even just finding a way to enchant the spikes with Touch of Tears would help a bit.

We'd presumably need compatible material, but she might be able to help me find rocks that I could condense that resonated with the skill. The actual enchantment cost could be handled by a group of low level enchanters I bet. Poison walls would be a huge asset, especially ones I could presumably control at will with my Dust Construction if I got it high enough.

I had to push down amazing visions of a huge sentient wall with spikes set like jaws in the base, chewing up thousands of stone lions as I stood atop it laughing like a maniac. I blinked…that was a new impulse. Destruction in a small scale was common for me to daydream about, but that mental image had been…kind of maniacal.

Pushing away the worry that recursion was turning me into a demon lord or something, I gave a barebones concept of the idea to Camden, who had Alister head down to question his blacksmith, much to the seneschals distaste. I doubted she'd have time to do it herself given her workload, but I was hopeful within a week or two I might have some enchanters at my disposal.

For the moment, Camden agreed to send out the stone to the areas he's already acquired, and I could start condensing it as much as possible to build up my skill before we started the real work. I grinned excitedly as I thought about how much work I had ahead of me.

While most people disliked hard work (and I was no exception in a lot of cases) I'd always loved building things. Creation in general was a lot of fun, and hell, maybe I could score some points in that particular stat when I demonstrated my Skill. Creation was always a hard one to raise, so I'd be killing to birds by making one stone. Time to get to work though, I had so much to do.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The next week went by in a blur. Seven days, fourteen wishes. The promised five per day had been put to good use by Camden. With the other two free, I'd put most of my time and points into working with Benny to start. Twenty points per day, traded for density shifted attacks. Since I was higher rank than he was now, I could hold more of them, netting me twenty of them per day instead of ten.

A hundred and forty points into Might left him at over three thousand in that stat (three thousand forty five specifically) and the wishes provided me with a constant supply of density shifting attacks to use for practicing my Dust Construction.

Today I was supposed to meet up with that enchanter Sonia recommended, and had twenty charges of density shifting on hand for my forest time experimenting with E-rank stone. I'd officially reached Lesser Dust Construction Mastery, which massively reduced the amount of strain that even multiple parallels of Dust crafting put on my soul.

I'd asked Sonia about the odd dichotomy, where I had so much soul power but small delicate usage made me cramp up. She'd informed me that aside from quality, souls also had another aspect called polish. Not strength so much as utility, polishing a soul was difficult and time consuming, and was something only crafters ever really did.

So, aside from training my people and working with Benny, all I did all week was play with rocks. Polishing my control and working on minute alterations and delicate applications of my extremely versatile crafting discipline. I spent every waking moment learning more about construction in a general sense, studying castle wall designs, learning more about stonework, and studying whatever I could find about material density.

With the F-ranked stones I had my unit gather as 'training' every day, I worked on the best way to make bricks, put them together, structure the dust inside so they'd be more durable, and experiment with density shifting to try to make better stone. I put my all into the experiments, and had even designed a scale for the force I used so I could map exactly how durable each attempt was.

When I arrived at the area near the well, the building that had been there (a bakery I was pretty sure) was gone, and where it had stood was a pile of E-ranked stones about the same size as a house.

"Oh, you're here!" Said the small blonde boy with the delicate features who was waiting for me. He was sitting on the rocks, and hopped up, smoothing down his green velvet cloak and straightening the brown vest he wore over his white button up shirt. He shot me a nervous grin, green eyes glinting with enthusiasm. "I'm glad you could make it, my name is Adam. Pleased to meet you." He stuck out a hand for me to shake, and I did, feeling the need to hold back in case I broke this delicate looking person.

I gestured to the rocks. "So I figure I'll make some bricks, try to get the hang of this, and once I have the process down we can get started trying to adapt the enchantments. Can you do the same thing Sonia can? See the patterns of my skill as it affects the stone and then enchant them directly?"

He waggled a hand. "That's complicated. If I can learn how the Skill interacts with the material I can enchant a brick. But the less synergy there is the more effort it'll take, and more than that, weaving the enchantments in such a way that it can connect between multiple stones will be difficult. I might need you to alter the makeup of the stone a few times."

"How much difference will resonance make in terms of effort?" I asked cautiously. "Do you have that tuning fork thing?"

He laughed. "No, that's for gear. Buildings are more…organic. We have to go by feel, and there'll be plenty of variance between different stones. Weaving them together will be difficult. Make your bricks, then we can figure out the differences. Although there's one thing I was curious about, are you going to use mortar to hold the bricks together? A buffer might cause inconsistencies in the flow of energy."

"Nope. I'm shaping them so they fit seamlessly together." I cracked my neck as I prepared to work. "I know in a lot of castles the extra large blocks were set like that. Held together by weight. More than that since I'm making them I can join the blocks after they've been laid, making the wall one giant structure. If you think that'd work."

He seemed excited by the idea. "I think that would be perfect, if we can prep the enchantments to graft properly. Quite a challenge. Once I've designed the enchantments we'll bring in a few dozen enchanters for cheap labor. I'm sure you know enchanting takes Impact?"

I did, and I was fine with outsourcing. With that clarified, I walked over to the pile. I picked up a few stones, turned them to dust with Pit of Despair, and used my Dust Construction to catch the dust midair, molding it together into a brick shape. With Lesser Dust Construction I could maneuver the dust much more finely. I couldn't wait to test it underground like I had during my last fight.

I had to add a few more stones until I reached the limits of the dust I could hold like this, and then I started to PRESS. Slow and steady, because I'd found that I had more control over cohesion this way. While just slamming it into a cube might be possible, it tended to leave small bubbles or weak spots.

Consistent pressure continued to pour into the brick until I couldn't press anymore. Once that was done I let it drop, and the brick fell to the dirt with a crash as it slammed about two feet into the earth, leaving a big ass hole.

Leaning down, I reached into the hole and grabbed it, having to wiggle my fingers to get a grip, and then PULLED.

My current strength sat at over fifteen TONS of lifting power, and since I was higher Impact than the brick there was no additional pressure. Just raw weight that I had to try to offset, and I barely managed. Of course lifting with my fingertips didn't help, but as I dragged the thing out of the ground and adjusted my grip, I found myself staggering a bit.

Ten tons, give or take. The extremely condensed size didn't help, I glanced down at the hole in the ground and grimaced. "Ok…I think I might need to consult an architect. I wanted the most durable bricks possible, but I didn't consider the foundations necessary."

These bricks were absurdly heavy, and I wasn't sure what would be able to support a wall made of them. Not to mention I hadn't even used any density shifting. The F-ranked bricks I'd been making were somewhat offset by the native Impact of the planet itself, which bore up under the lower Impact easier. It was why despite the insane pressure F-rankers didn't get shoved through the ground.

E-rank though, was enough to ignore the offset. Crafting was great, but I wasn't a builder. After a second though I shook off the worry. I didn't need an architect. I needed help. I was pretty sure Camden could use some of his wishes to make me a solid foundation to work off of, but we still needed to figure out how well the bricks worked before I took the problem to him. For one I needed a weight to give him as a base, and we hadn't tried enchanting any yet.

Rather than just jump to that, i did what I'd said I would. I tested the bricks. I kept making them, different shapes, sizes, densities. I struck them with my staff, with my armored fists, or with attacks like my Steam Arrow, seeing what did the most damage to each shape and size of block and taking meticulous notes.

When I finally found the best specifications for durability, I carried it over to a watching Adam, who was staring wide eyed at the multitude of holes in the ground and partially buried bricks. Several of them had cracks and dents, with some of them being shattered from the sheer damage. The one I offered him though, only had a few scuff marks.

"This is the one I want to test it on. You need to study it before I use the techniques I have in mind?" He shook his head numbly, and I grinned, deciding to try out the most useful technique for a wall I could think of. I triggered Mornax, my defensive form, focusing it into the stone…and got nothing.

Mornax was built on Mountain Stance, and apparently rocks didn't count as standing on the ground. Shame. My next attempt was aided by my armor as I triggered Belial, and I was pleased to see it work flawlessly as the already dark surface of the brick turned pitch black as fractures opened up across the faces, emitting the toxic green glow of poison fire.

Adam swallowed loudly before reaching out to touch the stone, hissing and pulling back a burned finger. I raised a brow and he shrugged ruefully, shaking out his hand as he focused hard on the rock like he was trying to stare his way through the surface.

Which, I suppose, was exactly what he was trying to do. After a few minutes of focus he finally exhaled loudly. "This is…a complex technique. It isn't particularly stable though. Unbalanced Skills can't be used for enchantments because without a soul to stabilize them they'll just fall apart."

I cursed. "I was hoping that wouldn't be the case. What about my gear? Sonia was able to make that stuff work."

"Not the same." He said with a shake of his head. "Extremely compatible materials can act as a brace to hold a Skill together. It's part of why she tested the resonance on your armor before creating it. This, though, this is just rocks. Durable rocks to be sure, but they have no special resonance with the Skill that can hold it together."

Waving him off, I shook my head. "It's fine. I've been meaning to rework my other two Goetia forms anyway. I'll need a while to work on it. Do you want to wait, or should we just meet up here again tomorrow?"

He shrugged. "Tomorrow will be fine. I understand reworking Skills can be a complex and time consuming endeavor." I thanked him with a handshake and sent him on his way before heading back to my barracks. I needed to fix my first two forms anyway, and this was good incentive. I wondered how easily I'd be able to access them once I did the restructuring.

I'd already experienced Mornax and Mephistopheles, and I'd been blown away by the power. Near invincibility combined with overwhelming firepower. If I fixed the other two though, I'd be able to use Belial and Mephistopheles at once offloading both of them onto the armor, perhaps even all three at the same time.

Imagining the black flame of Mephistopheles mixed with Belial's deflection and erosion was so exciting I could hardly contain myself.

When I got back to my room I hurried over to my bed, sitting down with my legs crossed and closing my eyes as I tried to slip back into the same state where I was using Eye of Revelation to find the patterns of my Skills and identify what was wrong with Belial and Mephistopheles. It was easiest to do it the second time, thankfully, and I was able to get right to work.

As I started the process of repairing two of my forms, I wondered what would happen when I finally completed them all. I was roughly thinking about making nine different forms, but what would the staff art be when that happened? Would it become its own Skill? Would my path change? Whatever it was I had a feeling it would be a big change, now I just had to reach that point.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I sat down to study my Goetia forms, excited to get them all fixed up, but as I got into it I made an unfortunate discovery.. Unlike the last time I'd made a form, I wasn't working with partial Skill forms low level enough to be glued together. This time though, my Goetia staff art already existed (albeit folded into my DS Mastery) which meant I had to BREAK those patterns and remake them properly.

Now normally I suspect this wouldn't have been a problem. Skills were easy come easy go, and I'd combined multiple Skills with DS subskills in the past without any lasting effects. Breaking them shouldn't have been much different.

Except for the fact that my Goetia Staff Art was technically part of my Path of the Doom Sovereign, meant to act as a bridge between my legend and the Doom Sovereign Skill. A Skill that was now part of my fucking SOUL. My soul physique had been created by winding my soul through that Skill to make it part of me, the same way my original ability was.

Because of that inextricable link, DS Mastery and therefore my Staff Art were part of me in a fundamental way, and breaking my forms was HARD. Using the amplified version of Eye of Revelation granted by my crown, I'd been able to find the runes that represented my two current forms easily enough, and I winced at how terrible they looked.

Where Dust Construction had been a little dinged up and ugly from being mashed together with my soul, these two looked like someone had put a tumbleweed made of barbed wire in a trash compactor. Jagged edges, crushed spots, and the whole thing was barely holding together.

In fact, looking closely, I could see that both Skills were putting a small but consistent amount of strain on my soul just by existing. Not enough to cause damage or tire it out, but diminishing my capacity just a bit. So, with a plan of attack in place, I reached down and began the process, grabbing hold of Belial, the first of my forms.

It wasn't the less complicated form by far, with the pieces being made of subskills I was intimately familiar with and used constantly. Now, I could and sometimes did use them together without the staff art, but it was more powerful, versatile, and useful when I used the form. I recognized the warped runes that represented Touch of Tears, Consecration of Flame, and Stone Limb, having worked with the last when making Mornax.

The process of Skill building was hard, kind of like making a pair of hands out my soul and using them to perform surgery, except the hands in question are formed from a quarter inch of skin on the back of your hand that you have almost no control over.

Focus and effort let me work with my soul in the delicate way necessary, and all the practice lately had relieved some of the cramping in my "hands". And I reached out and started to slowly untangle the ball of twisted patterns. As I did it, they cut deeply into my hands, the soul damage insignificant on a larger scale but agonizing because of how much of my will was shoved into the appendages.
One of the big questions I'd had from my last time doing this had been what exactly I was doing it WITH. What made up these fragments of energy I was welding together. As I sifted through the form I was working on though, it became clearer. Stats were the building blocks of Skills. They made up the entirety of my self that wasn't soul, filling in the rest of me to balance out the soul growth so my physical and mental self didn't get left behind.

That was what smoothed the rough edges off Ascendants, making them less human and more story. Pouring in stats diluted our core personality with legend. I hadn't realized that when people said stats were the building blocks of Skills they were being LITERAL.

All of these runes were made of of Stat points. I didn't know what else they would have been now that I thought it through, but it was a shock to discover what I was working with.

It also made me cognizant of the face that Skill creation was more than just jamming together runes. I mean, it had to be, or else where did THOSE runes come from, they had to be made up of something, but what I was doing was entry level. If I wanted to make really perfect Skills I'd have to start constructing the patterns from the ground up using stats.

That was a problem for future Shane though, current Shane was just stalling because this next part was going to suck. I'd managed to unwind the barbed wire construct of Belial, but the wires were still connected at the weld points. I took a deep breath, steeled myself, and then exerted my will on the Skill.

Snap, snap, snap. Once by one I tore apart the fragments of Skills, separating them into component parts, and I was barely bale to bite back a scream. My SOUL. Cracks were spiderwebbing through it as I snapped the intricately interwoven pattern. It was…horrifying. My soul was past the Master threshold, which meant that while it was much more durable, real damage was harder to recover from.

Strain was fine, but CRACKS were dangerous. I'd heal from them, but it would take a bit of time. It didn't matter, I'd already started, and if I didn't finish the damage would be worse. Patching up the Skills themselves should help.

Focusing hard, I began to pull apart the shattered remnants of the pattern, identifying what I knew. Stone Limb had been on the outside, slapped over top of the others, and that wasn't ideal. Consecration of Flame was the interior, also not what I wanted. After I identified the right fragments, I started to mold them.

Stone Limb was the base. Obviously. It was stable, reliable, tough. It made a perfect foundation for the form to sit upon. Ignoring the feeling of internal bleeding of the soul (ten out of ten, would not recommend) I pressed the fragments of that Skill that had been smashed throughout the ball of barbed wire and gently pressed them together.

Using my soul to weld them like last time, now I understood more about the process. Wearing this crown instead of studying it and then basically ignoring what it could do had been the right call. When I welded the Skill, I needed to use stats to smooth out the bumps. I couldn't rework a whole Skill yet, but deciding which kind of soul solder I needed was easy, and I poured Might into the pattern to join the Stone Limb fragments.

Once that was done, I started adding the fragments of Consecration of Flames. Unlike Stone Limb though, I didn't rejoin them completely. I welded them into place along the outside of Stone limb as a framework before stringing the fragments of Touch of Tears along them and pulling it tight. There was a SNAP as the Skill recombined, and I felt the pain in my soul decrease exponentially.

There was still a light throb in my head from the damage, but it was offset by the lack of the almost unnoticeable strain from maintaining Belial all this time. I wanted to do Mephistopheles too, but after that experience I was pretty sure I'd need at least a week to recover enough to fix the second form.

Releasing a breath, I opened my eyes, and screamed in surprise, falling over backwards as I came face to face with Callie, glaring at me menacingly from where she was crouch RIGHT in front of my face.

"Oh…" I said with a weak laugh. "Hey honey. Fancy seeing you here. If you're looking for the bakery that used to be here I'm afraid they demolished it."

I literally heard her counting ten under her breath before she pasted on a bright smile. "Shane. Darling. Light of my life. How has your day been? Do anything noteworthy? I'm sure you didn't for instance, CRACK your soul casually during meditation for no apparent reason without warning me or asking me to watch over you."

"I had a reason." I shot back indignantly. Then I winced. "Ah, probably should have had someone keeping an eye out for me." I looked around the rock filled clearing pock marked with holes and partially buried super dense bricks. "I guess I got distracted. In my defense, I DO have Danger Sense."

She raised an eyebrow. "And would you have NOTICED those danger senses going off in your prior state?"

"No. Sorry." I said with a sigh. "You're right, that was stupid and thoughtless. Are you ok? Did you hurt yourself because of the surprise or anything?

Rolling her eyes, she huffed. "See, this is why you infuriate me. You do something stupid and scary when we're under threat of death and then you ask about me like you weren't just in agony. I felt that pain and thought you were under attack. How are you both so sweet and so inconsiderate at the same time?"

"In my defense, when are we NOT under threat of death?" I joked. When she didn't crack a smile I decided to change tactics and just apologize. "Look, I really am sorry. This was my first time accruing real soul damage since the rank up. Strain didn't feel different, so I thought it was fine, by the time I experienced it I was already in the middle of resetting my Skill and any delays would have been worse.

She slumped, collapsing from her crouch and turning fluidly in the air to plop down in my arms. "That's…pretty reasonable." She winced. "Sorry. I overreacted. The new bond is intense, and the sensation of feeling your soul crack was super unpleasant. I shouldn't have bit your head off though. You don't deserve that."

I pulled her against me with a low chuckle. "Deserve to have you care about me so much it drives you crazy? Nah, I haven't done anything good enough in my life to warrant that kind of special treatment. Lucky for me we don't get what we deserve, or I'd never have met you."

She snorted, which I was pretty sure was to cover a sniff as she looked away. "You're such a sap. How do you get away with saying stuff like that without it sounding cheesy?"

"I have a great poker face." I said solemnly. I pointed to my featureless wooden mask. "See, no tells." She burst out laughing at that, snuggling up against me, and I laughed along with her. I could feel the throb in my soul ebb slightly, and I realized that Benny's belt might not be the only way to relax the spirit and improve recovery.

Standing up, I ignored Callie's squeak as I maneuvered her into a princess carry. "What are you doing you big thug?" She laughed, half annoyed and half amused. "I can walk you know, I wasn't the one injured."

"Ah, but you were." I said sagely as I strolled off towards the barracks. "My thoughtless actions wounded your gentle heart."

"I'm going to punch you gently in the throat if you keep treating me like a helpless bimbo." She said sweetly, fluttering her eyelashes. Through the bond I could feel it didn't bother her that much, she just liked keeping me on my toes.

I dropped her. She squawked, flailing in the dirt, and I ignored her, laughing as I strutted away. Over my shoulder I called. "Fair enough, you can walk."

"Shane!" She shouted through her own gales of laughter. "Get your oversized ass back here! I didn't say I didn't want to be carried! Shane! You got dirt all over my coat!" I might have been more worried if not for the reassuring pulse of adoration coming through the bond. I knew she wasn't really mad. Besides, it was hilarious. After all, I liked to keep her on her toes too.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"Alright, are you ready?" I asked Adam. He, Callie, and Benny were out near the site of the old bakery with me. Camden had used up all five of his wishes setting the foundation for the wall when we got started building it, and we could now set the bricks without worrying about them sinking into the ground. Once he was done he'd headed back to the manor, though.

The small enchanter nodded. "Go ahead. If you've repaired the Skill it should be easy enough to grasp the pattern."

After a night of rest, the pain from Belial's reconstruction was mostly gone, and I was going to be using the crown to channel the Skill so it wouldn't be putting much strain on my soul in the tender spot that was my Skill pattern. Reaching down, I picked up the brick from yesterday, the one I'd made after all the practice, and focused hard, triggering Belial.

Once again, the smooth edges turned pitch black and green glowing cracks opened up along the surface. Adam stepped closer, staring down into the rock intensely. Finally he smiled. "I can work with this. It's stable, even if it's not perfect. I'll need some practice to interweave the Skill between multiple stones. Let me study the enchantment for a while, you can get started on the wall if you want."

I nodded and then headed over to the rock pile. With the enchantments being worked on, it was time for me to officially test out the full extent of my crafting.

Holding out my hands, I triggered Pit of Despair, floating the dust into the air with Dust Construction and condensing it. As I did so, I triggered a single triple stack density shift. As soon as I felt the density increase, I ended Pit of Despair, hardening the condensed dust into a full block and letting it slam into the ground with a resonating crash.

Whooping with joy, I ran up to it, grabbed it and HAULED with all my strength. I was able to lift it…barely. The weight hadn't tripled (that wasn't what triple strength meant) but it HAD more than doubled. Twenty five tons of dense stone strained my muscles as I dragged it over to the foundation that had been laid down by Camden's wish. There was a carefully cordoned off area where we were supposed to fill in the bricks.

I dropped it onto a layer of packed dirt surrounded by strange black rock partitions in vaguely a wall shape, and despite a loud noise and the ground shaking slightly, it held up fine. I wasn't sure what the hell this structure was made of, but whatever it was it was a LOT sturdier than most E-ranked materials.

"Alright folks." I announced. "I need someone with a lot of damage potential to try to put a mark on this thing before I add the next one." I was going to be doing the bottom layer first, so Adam could reach them all, but I wanted to make sure the bricks were a finished product first.

Callie, grinning, strolled over and cracked her neck. Drawing one of her daggers, she gave a shout of effort as she drove the point down right at the block…where it stuck.
Pulling it out, she knelt down to run her finger over the spot it had hit. "An inch deep, maybe two. With my Might that's nothing to sneeze at. A wall of these should hold up against most things below D-rank. Maybe over some stuff above it, at least for a bit."

Reaching down, I poured a handful of sand over the knick in the stone and condensed it down into a patch before allowing it to set. Knocking on the result I was satisfied with how it had come out. Then I got to work. Another brick, and another, I stacked them next to each other, having to adjust a few sizewide until I'd completed twenty density shifted bricks, creating a huge chunk of wall about fifty feet by ten filling in part of the foundations.

Turning to Benny, I gestured him forward. My friend whistled at the progress. "Not bad. That density shift is useful I take it? I thought it was just a temporary effect, how are you making them stick like that?"

I chuckled. "I'm cheating. It's a small flex of Pit of Despair. It converts ground to dust, then converts it back. By forcing the conversion to settle after the dust has been altered it freezes it in that state. Takes some extra effort to push the change, but I think it's worth it. I'm tapped on density shifts though, so if you'de be so kind."

He barked out a laugh. "Sure, as long as I'm not the one expected to do manual labor. I wish for twenty points of Focus, I'm paying with twenty charges of density shifted attacks."

Wish detected. Grant wish?

I confirmed, grinning at the building charge on my skin. "You couldn't life these blocks with a full crane setup. In order to use you for manual labor you'd have to be USEFUL." I snickered at his outraged expression as I grabbed his shoulders, the flash of purple electricity running into him and then back to me.

Not that I felt much. Collecting F-ranked attacks at my level wasn't much more than the tingle of some strong toothpaste.

With the new charges in hand, I got back to work, creating and slamming down bricks on by one. With the foundation as a guide it was easy, and honestly kind of fun. I got lost in the work, enjoying the mild soul strain by the end. Without Piece of Mind active or using Belial directly I wasn't prodding the sore spot in my soul so I was fine on that front, and it was nice to just…work.

Finally, I used up all the new charges of density shift, and was left staring down at forty fairly large and very sturdy blocks. "Man, we need to get you to E-rank soon so you can do this for me. Twenty at a time isn't going to do it. Though I guess its good to have a starting point for the enchanters. Once Adam figures out how to tie multiple skill runes together they're going to need to practice."

If they fucked up I could replace the bricks, which was why I hadn't joined them all into one big stone amalgam yet. That would come at the end. I was hoping to get a few more ranks in Dust Construction before the battle too. Three months, three weeks left until showtime, and so much to do.

Adam strolled over, a glowing green brick floating next to him on a cloud of shadows as Callie held it up. I could see a bit of strain on her face, but she was trying to play it off like it wasn't an effort, so I just ignored it. "So, you get it done?"

He gestured proudly to the brick. "I did. Enchanted with a modified version of your 'Belial' Skill.I heard you mention a density enhancement, but that shouldn't have much effect on the enchanting. I just need you to examine it and make sure it's functional, then I'll attempt it on one of the new bricks, and then another and try to link them."

I studied it, triggering Eye of Revelation with my crown. I examined the weaves of power inside the block, and I was amazed to see a recreation of the very Skill I'd smashed and reworked just yesterday.

"It looks pretty good." I admired. "Looks like you've tweaked the makeup of a few of the fragments, specifically Touch of Tears. I can see they're different but not what you did?"

He looked pleased. "I did make some changes. The granular macro construction of the pattern was decent, but the more granular makeup was off. I switched some of the Might stats from the poison fragments for Vitality. It might seem counterproductive, but most dangerous poisons have a life component, it gives them more versatility and helps them persist in the face of healing."

"I hadn't considered that." I said with interest. "You're saying you can reword patterns down to the granular level? Like with particular stats assigned?"

He waggled a hand. "More that I see weak spots with certain analysis Skills and see how to patch them. It's not perfect, or particularly deep, but it helps now and then. So you think that's ready to be applied to the wall?"

Poking it again, I checked to see how much resistance I felt. It was hard to calculate freehand, but I was pretty sure it was tougher than it had originally been. Stone Limb reinforced structures but not so much actual rocks. It had a bit of a hardening effect though. Most important was the powerful heat and damage I could feel briefly when I touched it. That was why Callie was floating it instead of carrying it.

"Alright, looks good. Go ahead and try it on one of the blocks already set out." I pointed to the area where I'd packed in the bricks. He scurried over, kneeling down over one of the outer blocks, and placed a hand on it, beginning to murmur. "So this is one rune right? Does that mean you only need one Impact per enchantment?"

Unlike the style of enchanting they used in the conglomerate, the empire engraved theirs internally using a Skill. It lasted longer but was less immediately powerful. Despite his focus, he was still free to answer though. "Hardly. A natural pattern rune isn't the same as a form rune. It encompasses multiple aspects of Skill usage. This rune isn't taking one Impact. It's taking ten. Why do you think Sonia is only doing one set of that armor per day?"

I nodded in interest, but quieted down. I was using Eye of Revelation again to watch him work, and it was amazing seeing the pattern rune slowly form inside the stone. It looked almost natural there, which was the point, but watching him make it was amazing.

My own forays into enchanting had been lackluster and uninspired. Singular functions modified by specific runes that I had to create by hand, and not particularly powerful ones. I briefly wondered what my runes would look like under Eye of Revelation. It didn't matter now, I wasn't an enchanter anymore. By the time he finished, he looked winded, presumably because he'd just used twenty Impact of his sixty three total.

When he was done, the stone had shifted, no longer dark grey, it was now a glossy pitch black with the same lines of erosion. The stone around it was WAY too dense for corrosion to spread too fast, but we would need to take some of the bricks out to prevent them from being damaged between sessions.

"Next one." He said tiredly. "This is delicate. I know you said you'll merge the blocks, which means I need to tie the enchantments together so when the objects combine neither one overloads. Otherwise the one will either consume the other or explode."

Placing his hand on the next block, he began again. I watched once more, intrigued but also wary. When I combined the blocks with my Dust Construction (I'd been training using Pit of Despair more surgically by working on targeting specific rocks) I'd have to make sure not to mess up any of the internal engravings. Song of the Soil would help with that too.

Finally, he finished, slumping onto his side, nearly half his Impact depleted. No wonder he said they'd need help. Luckily enchanters were a dime a dozen here, and now that he'd created the enchantment he could just show it to them instead of relying on their own Skills. Sure, finding enough E-rankers would be tough, but for a job this specific even F-ranked enchanters should work.

I reached down, placing my hand on the bricks, and triggered Belial using the crown. I pushed on Dust construction, noticing how easily I could flex and move the enchanted stones with Belial as a carrier, like they were a part of me. Laughing, I plopped down on the ground next to him, staring in awe at the beginnings of what would become a true masterpiece. I'd need to improve Dust Construction up to hopefully Expert or at least Intermediate…but I could think of so many ways to use this.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Once we got the enchantments down, Camden hired us a bunch of enchanters to start work. With a whole team we made serious progress day to day, but we started running into problems pretty much immediately. Twenty blocks of Darkstone (got sick of not having a name for it so I started calling it that and it caught on) wasn't going to get the walls done anywhere close to fast enough.

Because of that, Camden ended up having to let me front load some of my extra wishes. He wanted to give some of his to Benny, but since he'd already paid I wouldn't have been able to charge him the density shifted attacks I needed to complete construction.

In order to make it work, we had to calculate how many wishes he had left (we were about ten days in after that last week so we had a hundred and ten days left) and give me my two a day all up front. He had five hundred and fifty wishes and I had two hundred twenty, and he let me knock those out all at once.

Two hundred and twenty wishes at seven a day was basically a month straight at seventy points a day. The entire next week I was able to crank out seventy blocks daily, for a total of four hundred and ninety blocks, and four hundred and ninety stats for Benny (he put them all in Might) bringing him up to eight thousand one hundred twenty three total.

I had to do twenty blocks, then do more wishes, and repeat, because I couldn't hold a full seventy charges of even F-ranked density shifting, but we got it done, and it was more than enough for the enchanters to work with.

Now we were a hundred and three days out with five hundred blocks and counting. At about ten blocks wide that wasn't as much as we'd hoped, but once Benny hit E-rank he could spam the damned attacks FOR me and we could really start production. I stood in front of the massive black stone wall, whistling at what the current segment looked like.

Because of the cost of the foundation wishes, Camden had done them in segments. Both to maximize power and because his enchanters said it would help them set up the connections between the larger segments later.

We had more than a hundred extra blocks already on the next segment but the four hundred hundred we already had enchanted were officially ready to be joined together, once we finished one last bit of addition. We'd used four hundred for this section to keep things even though.

The first segment of wall would be proof of concept for my plan. Not only did it have the Belial enchantments, but Sonia and Adam had come up with some secondary linkage enchantments designed to let them connect more smoothly AND allow my Dust Construction to function better. I'd even gotten the Skill to Beginner from the week of non stop work.

Before I could join the blocks into one huge massively enchanted wall segment and test them out though, we had to add the spikes for the palisade. Those would stop the stone lions from trying to scale them before we could mount a proper offense (Camden was planning a wish that would limit the air maneuverability over the walls). Sonia had helped design some specially made anti lion spikes that we needed to slot into the base of the wall before I made it one solid piece.

We had a hundred of them, which was only possible because she'd stripped out a lot of materials needed for things like shafts and designed them just to be slotted into the walls.

"Ok, you know what to avoid, right?" Said Benny as he handed me the first spike. "Because if you accidentally dissolve any of the enchantments in the stone bad things will happen. Not that we'd be alive to worry about it after this four hundred brick pile of explosives goes up and vaporizes us down to the atomic level."

I glared at him. "Has anyone ever told you you should write children's books? You're so inspiring and hopeful."

"I'm just being realistic." He said indignantly. "There is a decent chance that you're going to fuck up and kill all of us by accident. Besides, silver lining, if we're all dead we don't need to worry about the invasion."

Snickering, I shook my head. "Well, I guess it helps knowing that if I screw up you won't be around to say you told me so. Now shut it so I can concentrate."

Eye of Revelation active, I used Piece of Mind twice, splitting a second parallel so I could trigger Song of the Soil, and a third so I could trigger Pit of Despair. I'd had a LOT of practice with Pit of Despair, and I needed every bit of that as I slowly and carefully dissolved a small section of wall between the loops of engraved enchantment where I could slot in the spike.

Once it was dissolved, I used Dust Construction to funnel out the stone dust before slotting in the spike at an angle and then packing the dust back in and hardening it again. Making sure the density shift didn't fade when I dissolved it was tough, but I managed by not completely shifting it to grains, keeping it in a semi-liquid state that I was still able to work with. Once it was done and set I shook the spike to confirm it wouldn't move.

Then I did the next one, then the next. I did two rows at the base of the wall, and then once I was done I stepped back to admire my work. "So?" I asked Benny. "What do you think?"

My best friend knelt down to try to wiggle the spikes, then nodded slowly. "That should do it. You ready for the big show? This is proof of concept, and it's going to be the hardest part. You remember what the enchanters said?"

I nodded, exhaling loudly. "I remember. I can't let the spells overbalance. If I merge two blocks, I need to merge the result with another two merged blocks. If I try to combine a large and a small amalgam the enchantment will overload the smaller one and blow the whole wall. Start with one and one, then two and two, then four and four. Keep scaling up until I finish." I was pretty terrified because I was going to have to use a BUNCH of parallels to keep track. They got exponentially harder to handle as I went on. Even with Beginner Dust Construction, this was going to be the first REAL strain on my soul in terms of raw strength since my rank up. The other strain had been mostly detail oriented and was more a lack of polishing.

To my surprise, I felt a hand slide into mine, and I turned to see Callie grinning at me. "I might not have a Sapphire Soul Body, but my soul is still blue. I can offset some of the load. Plus this'll be good for my own soul training. Who knows maybe I'll finish my sublimation and catch up to you." She winked at me and I laughed, nodding in relief.

With her to take up some of the slack I was way less worried. I triggered piece of mind, and then began the process.

First up Callie and I each did a pair of blocks, one and one into a single whole. With Eye of Revelation peeled I was able to see the pattern of Belial latch onto the second pattern and tie itself in, smoothing out into one larger enchantment. Callie did the same. Then we started using the parallels. To make sure we didn't overbalance we split our attention as much as possible, creating two-hundred two block amalgams one by one.

Two of us and multiple parallels of each made short work of that, then we started combining the pairs of blocks into chunks of four. One hundred. Then again into fifty, and then twenty five. That was when things got tricky, because we couldn't combine them evenly anymore, we had to speed up and smash them all together before the enchantments had time to overload.

More and more combos, faster and faster, merging the stones together as the enchantments chased us through the wall, merging and mutating and growing. My head was on fire, I could barely breathe, and all I could feel was POWER running through me as I forged the four hundred block wall into one huge piece of reinforced spellworked darkstone set with spikes at the bottom.

Callie dropped out about eighty percent of the way through, her blue soul unable to keep up, but despite the pain and disorientation I still managed to finish.

When I was done, I let the Eye of Revelation fade, looking on the huge solid chunk of stone directly. It was…amazing. Fifty feet long, ten feet wide, and twenty feet high. The first layer had been the same width and length, but we'd needed twenty layers of blocks the same size to get the kind of height we wanted.

I exhaled in relief. The massive block of stone was one huge chunk of E-ranked acidic danger rock. It was black and glossy, and I could feel the heat coming off it in waves as the toxic green poison crackled inside. I'd debated trying to incorporate the wolfhornigator venom I still hadn't used yet into the design, but I was worried it would melt the foundations.

This was also why we'd had to split the thing into segments. We had to merge equal sized sections to prevent overload, which meant when we eventually did combine the section with the next one it would need to be already complete, and then we'd need to combine two more to combine with THAT combined section and so on. Still, it was a monument to danger and violence and I couldn't help but grin up at it.

"Give me a minute before testing." I wheezed. "Need to let my head clear." We had plans beyond just burning for this wall, that was why we'd made it like this. This whole thing was basically one massive enchanted weapon.Even with the size it wouldn't be enough to take out a Master, not with my stats backing it up, but it would let me crowd control whole packs of the stone lions, or so we hoped.

Like Benny had said, proof of concept. Once my head stopped pounding, I got up and triggered Belial, using the amethyst to offset the strain as I jumped the full twenty feet onto the wall. Closing my eyes, I knelt down, resonating Belial with the wall.

It took a second to get used to, but I could FEEL the power. All that Impact. None of it higher than mine but spread so far across the stone. I could also feel the linking enchantments they'd designed, and the stone itself, so thoroughly steeped in the power of my soul. Made by my hand, imbued with my Skills, enhanced with attacks I'd traded for.

Standing up there, I WAS the wall, and it was me. All one big chunk of Belial. I focused on the stone, using Dust Construction and the linked spells to will it to change, to move. The wall dropped about two feet as the stone shifted, all the enchantments already locked in place just flexed instead of breaking, and all that extra stone jabbed out as a fucking FOREST of razor sharp block stone spikes bristled out of the front of the wall, stabbing out and then retracting as the stone rose back up to its full height.

I opened my eyes, woozy and falling over, and Callie caught me, hopping off the wall with me and laying me on the ground as I came out of Belial. I stared up at the stone wall with a shit eating grin. It worked. With this much soul strain I could only do one attack, but that was with Beginner level Dust Construction. With a sound soul and Intermediate or Expert in the Skill? I should be able to wield the entire palisade as a weapon against the hordes. My plan was going to work.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I wanted to celebrate that night by doing some crafting, but Callie told me in no uncertain terms that I wasn't allowed to do anything soul straining for at least the rest of the day. So, since training was done, crafting was over, and I'd already done all of today's wishes, I decided to relax and take my mind off things by spending some time with my sister.

Since I wanted to get to know her, I'd let her pick exactly what we did, and she'd excitedly dragged me to the library where Anna's friend hung out (albeit a totally different section) and plopped down in a big chair with a book, reading contentedly.

I tried to enjoy the downtime, really I did, but I'd never been super into sitting still. There was a reason my favorite pastime was a video game when I was mortal. I liked DOING things. I slammed my book shut, clearing my throat. "So…this is fun."

"Mm." Agreed Chelsea distractedly. Her eyes were glued to the pages of her book.

Sighing, I tried again. "So…I thought the reason you came on this trip was to get away from the solitude and loneliness. Do…like, non book stuff? Shouldn't we be out playing a game or fishing or racing cultists on the back of wild hyenas through an exploding gorge or something?"

"Why does that sound specific enough to have actually happened?" She said suspiciously. "And I'm NOT lonely. I do plenty of social things. Sometimes I just like to relax. Is that so bad?"

I held up both hands. "Not at all, I just…I'm not the sitting around type. I like to be up and doing things. Not just combat or training or whatever, but just something. I'm sure we could find something fun to do in the city."

"We could ask Bethy." She said with a slight blush. "She always has good ideas about how to have fun. I think she's probably the most fun person I know."

Despite her obvious crush, I couldn't really argue that. Bethy was a blast, though her brand of fun was often way too exhausting. I shrugged, hopping to my feet. "Sure, we can see if she's found any spots around town to hang out." Literally anything to get me out of this damned library, not that I would say that. I didn't want to hurt my twin's feelings.

I needn't have worried, the promise of possible Bethy time had her up and heading for the door with no hesitation. I still didn't know what the deal was with her, Bethy, and Gabe, and I was staying out of it, but I was happy to see Chelsea opening up and bonding with other people at the very least.

When we reached Jessie's healing workshop, we headed right in, and were immediately buried in an avalanche of small furry bodies. "Go my minions!" Cackled the tiny vampire in the black ball gown standing on a table in the center of the room. "Retrieve your spoils of war, bring them and lay them at my feet!"

"Bethy!" Shouted Jessie over the rustling and chittering. "This is NOT a valid way of cleaning up a mess! You don't need to control a horde of flying rodents to pick up the cotton balls one at a time! I just asked you to get a broom!"

Bethy looked scandalized. "A broom?" She said, putting a hand to her chest. "But I'm a Vampire. Witches use brooms. Vampires have hordes of bats that do their biddings." She paused. "Or thralls, but I didn't bring any of mine with me on this trip, so who else am I supposed to have clean up my messes?"

My friend closed her eyes, taking a deep breath, than gave a slow nod. "Please recall the squirrels. I'll clean up the cotton balls."

Looking dubious, Bethy shrugged. She snapped her fingers and a red sky blurred briefly into existence behind her as they all flew into her domain. I still wasn't sure how she did that, but it seemed useful. Glancing down at her feet, I saw a pile of misshapen and partially chewed cotton balls next to her shiny black platform boots.

"See!" She said excitedly. "That's like…three quarters of them. There's almost none of them anywhere else in the room."

Gesturing around, she pointed out the rest of the infirmary, which was indeed pretty much free of cotton balls. It was covered in glass, shredded pillows, and ripped up sheets, but there were basically no cotton balls that I could see.

Turning to give Chelsea and I a much to wide smile, Jessie clapped her hands together. "Oh look, guests. Wonderful. Bethy was just about to take her lunch break."

The vampire cast a shifty eye at one of the beds in the corner. "Well…that artillery engineer does seem like he's pretty out of it. I'm sure he wouldn't miss a pint or two. He smells B negative, but I'm in the mood for spicy."

"Not what I meant!" Snapped Jessie in exasperation. "Will you get her OUT of here please? I love her to pieces, but she isn't made to be trapped in a small building for weeks on end. She's getting antsy, and it keeps making her do crazier and crazier things!"

I smirked at her. "Fine, we were about to ask Bethy for some advice on party spots anyway. She can come with us." I glanced at my blushing sister. "You don't mind if she tags along, do you Chelsea?" When she didn't answer, I nodded. "See, everyone wins. Although Agria still needs a guard. Bethy, can you leave Luggage here to keep watch?"

The big hellhound didn't spend all his time in the real world, often retiring to Behty's domain like the squirrels. It didn't take much effort though, for her to snap her fingers and let the big black dog out of her personal world.

Once he was out, we said our goodbyes and left. As we walked out of the camp, I raised an eyebrow at Bethy. "So how much of that was you poking her until she broke?"

She shrugged. "Just a little. I was super bored, but Jessie has gotten so used to being the healer on call that she just does whatever people say. She needs to stick up for herself more. It's going to get pretty bad soon, and if she can't put her foot down they'll run her ragged."

"Is it really that bad?" I asked in concern. I'd been so wrapped up with my own training and hurrying to get things done I hadn't had time to check in.

The Vampire shook her head. "Nah, not yet. But she's been pushing back her downtime more and more to keep up with demand. That cotton ball thing was only my most recent attempt to push her over the edge." She shot me a fang filled grin. "Yesterday I wrapped Randall in the infirmary's entire supply of bandages. When he was full sized. She looked like she was about to pass out from trying not to yell."

"And it never occurred to you to just…talk to her?" I asked in amusement.

She just giggled. "Where's the fun in that?" Before I could continue that line of questioning, she perked up. "Oh! Speaking of fun, you and Chelsea wanted to know good hang out spots right?" She shot my sister an equally wide but much less menacing smile than the one she wore talking about her time in the infirmary. "What kind of places were you hoping to find?"

Chelsea gulped. "Oh, nothing crazy. Just…Shane thought I could use a day out. Says I shouldn't spend all my time reading in the library."

"He's totally right!" Bethy squealed. "I would love to help you pick out some new clothes! You're so pretty and your hair is super cute. I can think of a dozen outfits for you to try on. Oooh, I have the cutest parasol that would just look darling with your-"

I shut that shit down real quick. "No!" I snapped, drawing strange looks from both of them. "Chelsea and I wanted to hang out, is what I mean. You two can try on outfits another day when I'm busy. We're looking for things to do as a group. You can even come along like I said, but it has to be an activity we'll ALL enjoy."

"Boo." She pouted. "What a buzz kill." She pondered for a minute. "I haven't had much chance to get out during the day, what with guarding Jessie. I've been taking really enthusiastic night time walks though! The forest is super pretty. Oooh! How about we get Chelsea a pet! Pets are the best. I know this super cute bunny that would be perfect."

With nothing better to do, I just shrugged, agreeing to follow her out into the woods to look for a rabbit my sister could keep as a pet.

As we walked, Chelsea and Bethy chatted, seemingly pretty comfortable with each other barring Chelsea's initial shyness. I chimed in once in a while, but I didn't try too hard to intrude. I wanted to get to know my sister, and she and Bethy were discussing plenty about her life. Plus she looked so happy I couldn't bear to interrupt.

We walked for about an hour before we felt the first quake. I cocked my head, a little confused. "Interesting." I said casually. "I didn't know this planet had earthquakes. I guess it makes sense, even a huge place like this must have tectonic plates."

Bethy just giggled, turning to look at me. "What? That's not an earthquake silly." There was another shudder, and focusing harder I realized that it was the crash of something hitting the ground. I froze, turning in the direction the sound was coming from.

"Just to be clear." I said slowly. "You seem to know what that is, and that it is NOT an earthquake. Is it possible, then, that the shaking we're seeing is the…'bunny' you brought us here to find?" At her cheerful nod, I closed my eyes, sighing in frustration. "Bethy…how BIG is this bunny?"

Not bothering to respond, she just pointed happily behind me. As I turned, I saw a COLOSSAL white rabbit sail through the air, feet descending toward the ground like a falling meteor. It was E-rank for sure, and seemed strong, and as it struck the dirt, the ground quaked again, so intensely the three of us almost fell over.

We both turned to look at the Vampire in disbelief. "How exactly is she supposed to CATCH that thing, much less tame it? Did you even consider how dangerous this is?"

She rolled her eyes at me with a huff. "Of course I did. I'm not stupid. He's a big boy, so we definitely need some treats to calm him down." She snapped her fingers, a box appearing from her spatial ring. She held it out, flipping it open to reveal a small round cake covered in white frosting with a single orange carrot on top in icing. "Ta-dah! I brought carrot cake!"

I just stared at her. "Bethy, I don't think that carrot thing is even true! I'm pretty sure it's an urban legend. I doubt the giant rabbit is going to car one way or the other abou-" I froze as the rabbit perked up, ears twitching.

It gave a long, deep sniff, looking around suspiciously, before it's beady eyes turned slowly to fix on us. It stared unblinkingly at the box in Bethy's hands. "Oh look!" She said cheerfully. "I think he likes it!" She sounded happier about it than I was, considering the massive size of the rabbit in question.

"Bethy." I said quietly. "Put the box and the cake down on the ground, and then back away…very slowly."

She looked at me seriously for a minute and then shrugged and said. "Nah." Before holding the box up and bellowing. "LUNCHTIME BUNNY!" At the top of her lungs. The rabbit bolted for us as if fired from a cannon, and I groaned internally. Why had I agreed to consult Bethy about ANYTHING? I always seemed to forget that Bethy stories only seemed fun AFTER they happened. Oops.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

State of grace was pretty much always on in my current armor, and my Danger Sense had tipped me to the incoming rabbit attack before the thing had even moved. These two factors were the only reasons I managed to tackle my sister out of the way before the rabbit slammed into Bethy, who dissolved into a series of hissing cats on the spot.

"Hey." Snapped the reconstituting vampire from a tree branch overhead as the cats swarmed back together. "That was rude. You're a nasty bunny. I'm going to call you Chalk. Chalk is gross."

I gaped at her. "Ok, you're not supposed to name other people's pets, but also WHAT THE HELL? That thing almost took our heads off. Why would you possibly think this was safe?"

She pouted at me. "I'm really good with animals! I thought the cake would be enough. Poptarts and Donuts are such good kitties, and Luggage always listens. I can totally help her train him!" She frowned sulkily down at the rabbit, eyes flashing red. "Though I thought it would be easier than this."

"Bethy." I groaned in annoyance. "Poptarts and Donuts have STOCKHOLM SYNDROME! And we used a magic collar on Luggage. You're a terrifying apex predator, but you're STILL AT F-RANK! Of course you couldn't tame that monster!"

Once again, I reassessed my perception that Bethy was an evil genius playing at being a ditz. Apparently she was just actually somehow both of those things at once. Grabbing Chelsea, I kicked off the ground, landing on a branch seamlessly as the rabbit finally finished sniffling around for any more cake and started searching for us.

Bethy, who was on the nearest branch, sniffled sadly, and Chelsea looked heartbroken, hopping over with surprising dexterity to wrap the smaller girl in a hug. "You didn't have to be mean about it." She told me reproachfully.

I debated on just telling her she was being crazy, and that Bethy had put us both in danger, but…I did kind of feel bad. Bethy wasn't malicious, at least not in this case. My Danger Sense would have triggered earlier if she'd planned for us to be hurt. She was just completely divorced from normal human limitations.

"Sorry." I said with a sigh. "I get you didn't mean to almost get us hurt." I glanced down at the forest floor where the rabbit was stalking around. I actually wasn't sure why it hadn't attacked us yet, at least until I noticed the slight rustle of black grass below our feet. Which was weird since we were standing a hundred feet up on a branch. "Are we in your Domain?"

The vampire nodded pitifully. "I pulled you in once you got up here. We're only sort of skimming the top layer, but it's enough to keep the bunny from noticing us."

"Ok, we need to have a discussion about boundaries and what is and isn't dangerous after this." I sighed tiredly. "But for now we should figure out what to do about the giant rabbit. CAN you tame it? Actually you must be close to E-rank anyway. Any chance you could rank up?"

She shook her head. "I'm still finishing up my soul refinement." She looked genuinely guilty. "I really am sorry Shane. I just thought it would be fine to come get Chelsea a pet. I didn't think it would be dangerous. Since you guys are both E-rankers already it seemed fine."

I shrugged. "Probably would have been, but based on how large it is an how high it can jump. I suspect that thing is stupidly Might heavy." I paused. "Actually, that gives me an idea. You can do illusions right? I remember that being a thing. Some kind of trance you combine with your domain? What stat resists that?"

"Perception." She said. "It's one of my best stats. It takes a lot to process the world from a hundred different points of view. Strength and speed I have modifiers for from my racial trait, but leaning into Perception is one of the reasons I'm the best at illusions and hypnosis."

"Can you hypnotize the rabbit?" I asked excitedly. Maybe she really was a natural beast tamer. It would explain the squirrels. I was suddenly feeling bad about snapping.

She shook her head again. "I can't. I tried. Impact is too high." She looked miserable. "I didn't mean to put you guys in danger. I promise I just thought it would be a fun day out. My domination usually works."

"I get that." I said with a sigh. "But you seem to forget not all of us are as strong as you. The natural modifiers your Vampirism gives you are a huge advantage, not to mention all the apparent subskills like turning into bats and stuff. There's a reason your dad is the only S-ranker to have ever beaten a god in a fight."

She waved that off. "Oh he's not really S-rank. He's a demigod. It's kind of the same thing but kind of different. Once you pass the five hundred mark in Impact you go through some big changes. That's the halfway point to becoming a god. Natural Impact gain stops short of that point, so not a lot of people make it."

"Wait…" I said, distracted from the matter at hand. "THAT'S how you become a god?" I didn't think I'd ever had someone confirm that for me. A thousand Impact. That was insane. "Also why didn't you ever mention this before?"

"You never asked." She said innocently. And I blinked because she was right. I'd never brought up Morgan Lark's fight with the Unity in front of Bethy that I could remember.

Forcing myself to push past the shock and excitement of finally learning more about my road ahead, I closed my eyes and took a breath. Later. I could talk to her more later. For now we needed to focus. "So, hypnosis is out." I mused. "But illusions work?"

"Illusions use Perception to affect the world around you. It's like painting a big fake picture." She explained. "Anyone with a reasonable amount of Perception can still punch through, but it's a way to slip around the Impact disadvantage."

It was always odd to see Bethy in combat mode. She wasn't super calm and focused like Jessie could get sometimes, almost the opposite. Bethy in battle was…predatory. Like a cat playing with a mouse. She knew all the best ways to make her opponent squirm, and she seemed to take an almost savage joy in the process.

Which brought to mind our conversation in the glade, about how badly she wanted to shed some of her bloodthirsty nature. That made even more sense after learning about her mother. For Bethy, bloodthirst wasn't just some primal drive to feed, it was FUN, and she didn't like that about herself most of the time.

This didn't seem to be one of those moments, luckily. Despite her clear entertainment she wasn't upset about anything aside from having been reckless with our lives.

Chelsea had stepped back from the smaller girl, and was looking worried. "I don't know… do we need to get the rabbit? Can't you use your Domain to sneak us away? We should probably just leave and let it get back to doing rabbit things."

I shook my head. "Bethy is right. A powerful pet like this will do a lot to help you survive. Her intentions and instincts were both good." I frowned at the Vampire. "Though NEXT time we should prepare better for any outings like this. Getting this thing for you is important now that we have a plan. It'll make you much more likely to survive the Stone Lion assault for one thing."

Having an on hand pet she could use to just hop away (Jessie's necklace would make transporting it a breeze outside battle) was a huge advantage. I'd seen that rabbit jump and it got some serious air.

"So, in order to make this plan work, I need to know exactly what our win condition is." I said bluntly. "What do we need to do to soften him up?"

Bethy bit her lip. "Pain should do it. Restraining him would help. Domination is kind of like hypnosis, but it works a little differently. It's more like posturing with my inner Vampire until the target cracks and then worming my way in."

Sighing, I cracked my neck. "Alright. That's fine. I can soften it up, I even have a way to handle the legs. Chelsea, can you take nonlethal shots at it from up here?"

She nodded firmly and I grinned. "Alright. Perfect. Then you two focus on taming it, and I'll soften it up." I glanced down at the ground, triggering Moonlit Night. Fog filled the area and the rabbit froze, ready to fight.
Of course, that was fine. The rabbit was huge. Massive and powerful and way stronger than me. But I wasn't planning on getting into a wrestling match. I wouldn't have suggested doing this if I hadn't been sure I could beat him. I triggered Pit of Despair under the thing's feet, and the ground turned to ultra fine dust under its paws.

I leveraged quite a bit of soul strength that I probably shouldn't have to push the width and depth up higher, but Dust Construction helped me dissolve things. I hadn't considered using it to empower Pit of Despair instead of the other way around, but it worked great.

The rabbit yelped as the ground dropped out from under it, trying to kick its massive legs off a surface that wasn't there as it fell into the pit.

I was on my down after it without a second of hesitation, arms out like a diver, staff leading the way. By the time I hit the dust I was already a solid humanoid figure of molten green and block, with dark flames billowing off my scalp as I activated Mephistopheles and Belial at the same time.

Hitting the dust, I propelled myself forward through the substance like a fish through water, Dust Construction pushing me along as it cleared the dust from my way. Eye of Revelation blazed through my crown, and with it and Song of the Soil active I could see everything in the dust, the rabbit's massive form basically a sitting duck for me.

Pushing off with Ripple Running for extra thrust, I blurred forward, my staff licking out with an explosion of black green flames. Where it hit, a trashcan lid sized patch of corruption burned out the fur, beginning to expand at a noticeable (but admittedly not fast) rate on the giant furry limb.

My Danger Sense picked up the return kick easily, and with Dust Construction moving me I flowed to the side, circling behind the rabbit for another blow, and then another.

Every hit was devastatingly powerful, but they were starting to put a strain on my soul again. I grunted, doing my best to offload some of the strain onto my armor, but I knew I couldn't keep this up for long.

An explosion of white light went off overhead, jarring the dust enough that I picked it up with my Song of the Soil. I was about to return to my attack when I realized there was no reason to do so. The rabbit had stopped moving. I watched in surprise as the dark patches of corruption were cleansed by my sister's flames of purification before the monster went limp.

Hopping out of the dust by expelling myself at an upward angle, I landed smoothly thanks to State of Grace, and let Pit of Despair fade, leaving the rabbit trapped in dust up to the waist.

Not that I'd needed to bother, when I turned around, Bethy was standing proudly next to Chelsea, who was nuzzling the face of a giant adorable bunny. The thing hadn't gone limp, it had leaned down to cuddle.
As I met up with them, the two girls excitedly filled me in on what had happened. Apparently cleansing the rabbit of the damage I was doing had caused it to let its guard down enough for Bethy to dominate it, and since Chelsea had cleansed it the beast had imprinted on her.

With a grumble, I started using Pit of Despair again at their urging to get the thing loose. Next time I wanted a day off, I would NOT be inviting Bethy. Good intention or not she was almost as much of a trouble magnet as me. In fact, I wanted this particular vacation to be over so badly I could taste it. I just wanted this to go home and go to sleep.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Two more weeks. Eighty nine days and counting, a bit over tthirteen of them applied directly to Benny, bringing him up over nine thousand and within range of the elixir bump that would get him to E-rank. From his original eight thousand one hundred twenty three, Benny only needed eight hundred seventy seven points. Rounding up, that was eighty eight of the ninety eight wishes I'd used dedicated to his growth.

Eight hundred eighty points put him at nine thousand and three total, with four hundred forty each to Focus and Might. Not to mention the soul strain of paying with attacks at that volume for that long had bumped him up to fifty percent of the way through green. He was damned close to E-rank now, only needing the thousand point bump from the elixirs.

Of course, we didn't HAVE those elixirs yet, but Benny was pretty much up to snuff, which had allowed me to switch focus to Jessie to get a better idea of where she was at with my last ten wishes of the two week period. Those extra hundred points had been put into Focus, her lowest stat, so we could track how much she was still gaining from her bond and from renown.

The first three wishes didn't seem to be enough to tip her over a milestone, but the seven the second day had officially set off the avalanche of points our healer had been accruing. One hundred to Focus from me was nothing, she'd gained another five hundred Vitality and three hundred Might from Randall.

She was now up to eight thousand three hundred and eight total, and between the four hundred ninety points I had left to give her over the next week before my allotment returned to Camden, and the native income from her Bond and renown, she was definitely going to make it in time. She'd even reached Intermediate in her Beast Bond, which seemed to be increasing the improvement, and she was certain she could rank up Randall alongside her when she reached E-rank.

Abel and Mel had been crushing it in the tournaments from what I'd heard, and working with Nat besides, and they were well on their way to ranking up as well. That put most of our friends on the path to E-rank when we needed them there, and had allowed me to slow down and breathe a little bit, at least aside from the constant construction projects.

Speaking of construction projects, eight hundred and eighty bricks had meant two more wall sections, and the enchanters were quickly catching up. We weren't making the time we would when Benny hit E-rank, but we were definitely putting a dent in the preparations, which was part of what I was currently meeting with Camden about.

"We need more enchanters." I said bluntly. "I don't care where you get them, but once you get Benny those elixirs we're going to outpace the ones we've got. Enchanting is supposed to be big business in the Empire right?"

He groaned, rubbing his temples. "I KNOW. Trust me, I know. But my finances are shot. Between paying them, the materials for all the spears, and the supplementary materials for all the armor your people have been receiving, I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel. Without any wishes I have no way to get the capital I need to crank production." Which was fair, his last few days of wishes before he'd let me frontload my extras were all resource based, and I could see how his stockpile could have dried up in the last few weeks.

That said, Jessie was getting close to next rank, so there was no way I was folding on my last free week.

We'd have to worry about it when we finished ranking up Benny. "Also, how goes work on those Might and Focus elixirs. We need Benny up and running on this as soon as possible." I was ready to push him a bit further on this if needed, because we were on such a time crunch, but I stopped myself when I saw the look on his face when I brought it up. "Hey…you ok man?"

He gave a strangled laugh. "I'm… I'm really not." He slumped back in his chair. This meeting was just us, and apparently I'd earned enough trust from him by staying that he didn't mind being seen as weak in front of me. I was kind of touched. "This is a mess. I didn't sign up for this. I just wanted to get away. Is that so wrong?"

I shrugged. "Can't tell you that. My family isn't exactly the picture of civility, but I get the impression that my dad shielded me from the worst of it, asshole though he may be." Having heard horror stories from Zeke and Nat about how many of my relatives got murdered in these things, I had a feeling I'd gotten VERY lucky.

Too lucky, in some ways. Nat just happening to stumble on my planet seemed a bit coincidental. I only had two cousins that I knew of (on my dad's side, I had no clue about mom's siblings) and meeting one of them right out the gate?

It made me wonder if the old man hadn't been putting his thumb on the scale a bit, in the most undetectable way. Not that it would make up for all the shit he'd pulled, but it was nice to think maybe BOTH of my parents were decent human beings, at least deep down. Of course, i couldn't ever voice that suspicion, because if I did, I'd be screwing myself and probably him, but just considering it made me feel pretty good.

"I hate my cousin so much." He said tiredly. "I've always hated him. He was just…awful, even as a kid. There's something wrong with him, I think. He doesn't see people as people. I know Celine mentioned that, and told you how some children of powerful people get like that because of how they're raised, but I think that was always Spencer."

I cocked my head. "What do you mean? Like he was evil from birth or something?"

"Maybe." He shrugged. "It always felt like it. He would pretend when the adults were around but…his eyes gave him away. So cold and detached. Do you know why he hates me so much?"

I shrugged. "Jealousy?" I guessed. "He wants to be in charge of your family and he's just taking out everyone in the line of succession, right?"

He waved me off. "Not remotely. I'm not IN the line of succession. I'm tangentially attached enough that with the right twist of fate I might BECOME a candidate for head of the family, but I left before that could happen. I didn't want to get caught up in the games, in the backstabbing. But he followed me out here anyway, or I guess herded me here."

"Why then?" I asked, curious as to what kind of grudge could push someone to go to these lengths.

"Because I made him look bad." He said simply. "It happened when we were children. His parents and mine were called to a family conclave with my grandfather, and all of us came to the main estate with them. The kids were all being watched by an older cousin, but the girl who was supposed to be keeping an eye out wasn't paying attention."

I had a distinctly bad feeling about where this was headed. "Please tell me you spilled tea on his coat or something?"

He gave a hollow laugh. "I wish. Spencer had come with his siblings, there were four of them. Three older, though not by much, and one younger. She was about four years old. We were walking through the grounds, and Spencer decided we should all race. We picked a spot on the other side of the hedge maze, and we were all supposed to go a different route. It was a big maze, but it wasn't too complicated."

His voice was distant, a little horrified, and the bad feeling in my gut got worse. "What happened?" I asked quietly.

"I went down the center path. It crossed through a few of the others, and it was longer, but I figured it would be the closest to a straight shot. I just wanted to win." He swallowed hard. "Spencer took one of the left hand paths, and Olivia went with him." He shuddered as he remembered something distressing. "I don't even know how they ended up in my way. I must have gotten turned around."

He closed his eyes, grimacing. "She was already dead when I stumbled on them. Face down in the water. A small pond along the path. Spencer was just standing there, staring at her body, smiling a little. When he heard me arrive, he ran for her, pretending to be upset. But I'll never forget that smug little smile."

"Is that…" I grimaced. "Is it always like that?" Maybe the way Wyndhams raised their kids wasn't so wrong after all. "In the big clans?"

"No." He said firmly. "And that's my point. We're a bloodthirsty bunch by outside standards, but kids killing each other? Killing their own siblings? Spencer isn't just driven, he's WRONG. Off in a way that I've never been able to quite describe. Even at a similar rank, Spencer scares me. Scares me because he's willing to do shit like THIS. He's not going to leave this to chance. He'll have a backup plan, something to make sure I die even if the lions fail."

Thinking about it, about Camden and how scared he was… it PISSED ME OFF. Camden was my friend. We'd been working together for over a month now, and he'd been nothing but supportive and helpful. Sure he was getting something out of it, but I liked the guy. He had style, panache, and was just a genuinely nice guy. Though I was curious about one thing."You said you made him look bad? How?"

"I told on him." He said simply. "Told my parents, my aunt and uncle, everyone I could think of. I told them what I saw and what I thought happened." He shrugged. "No one listened. Olivia didn't have any signs of injury or having put up a struggle. He wasn't near her anyway, standing about five feet away. I think he poisoned her somehow, he likes poison."

I frowned, thinking of what kind of person could do something like that to a fucking four year old. "Why does he hate you then? If no one listened?"

"Because I tried." He shrugged. "Spencer doesn't like being caught. It embarasses him. I avoided him after that, so he couldn't really get me as a kid, but the assassination attempts started around the time I turned twelve. Never obvious enough to pin on him, of course. He got sneakier as he got older, but I always knew. That day when his parents took him away, I caught a glimpse of him over his mothers shoulder as he pretended to cry over Olivia. He looked right at me." He went silent for a second. "I've been stared down by monsters before. I know when something wants to kill me. I always recognize it as feeling just like that."

My knuckles cracked as I clenched the table. "I'm not letting anything happen to you Camden. Aside from you being a friend, I owe you plenty of wishes still, and who's going to hand over that territory if you die. Don't worry, we can handle your nutjob cousin."

He gave a weak smile. "Maybe you can. Maybe I can. But I can't help but be afraid. Olivia never saw it coming. Will I? In the end, will he find some way to get me? He got to Sara, convinced her to sell me out. Who else could he turn? Alister? Sonia?" He didn't mention me, but I could tell when the thought crossed his mind, just like I could tell when he dismissed it."

"Whoever he tries to turn, however he tries to do it, I wouldn't worry." I said solemnly. "We already lost someone to a traitor on our last mission. I'll make damned sure it never happens again." And I meant it. I was going to need to talk to the others. Our battle plan needed tweaking. Camden needed a bodyguard. We weren't going to lose another friend, even a new one.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Camden seemed shaken after we talked, but I think it was something he'd needed to get off his chest. He'd been a rock since we met him, but running himself ragged trying to prepare had clearly caused some cracks to form. After unburdening himself about Spencer and how afraid he was I could see a weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

"Thanks for listening." He said quietly. "I've never told anyone outside my family that story. After I tried and failed to make them all see what he was like…I just never bothered."

I was speechless for a minute. I didn't know what to say. I wasn't going to bug him about elixirs after THAT. "I'm going to talk to everyone. I want one of ours with you when everything goes down. Maybe Callen, he has experience." He ALSO had that monstrous sword, and while I knew he wouldn't draw it unless it was absolutely necessary, he should be able to drive off even a D-ranker with it, at least once he was E-ranked himself.

"And I'll get you your elixirs." He said after a pause. Seeing my surprise, he smiled. "Don't be too touched. This is all about priorities. You're right, the spears we can do later, but we need Benny to get the walls done in time. And we NEED those walls."

Though I was excited to hear that, I couldn't help but feel bad. "Look, this is your operation, man. I don't want you to feel pressured into caving. Benny can wait if needed."

"No." He said with a sigh. "You're right. I was too focused on offense. Thinking about what Spencer is capable of, a strong defense is the priority. We can rotate centuries for the defense points if needed, and keep working on the spears. But if we get overrun we're screwed either way. I'll cancel some of the material orders." He scribbled out a note. "As much as I'd like to fund our healer's early ascent now too, I can't spend THAT much. Take this to the same Alchemist you used last time."

I took the note gingerly, scanning it, and my jaw dropped. "This…Camden this is basically a blank check. Giving me this is ridiculous. What if I clean out the shop and take off?"

"If you were going to run you would have." He said with a shrug. "And without you here I'm as good as dead anyway. Holding back is just going to weaken us, and with the alternative being death…I'm not sure I'm taking as big a risk as you think."

But looking at his face, I saw this for what it was. An expression of trust. After finally telling me what he was afraid of, I think he'd decided to go all in. He'd realized that he had to trust somebody, and he was betting it all on us. Considering how terrified he'd sounded earlier about being betrayed and what had already happened…I couldn't imagine how much courage that must have taken.

"I won't let you down, man." I said solemnly. "We're in this together. All of us. Once you join our group we have your back no matter what. Count on it."

It seemed ridiculous, given the size of my crew, that I'd feel so strongly for them, but I did. Whether because fully half of them were my closest friends and family, or just because of all that we'd been through and all they'd gotten me out of, I'd have risked my life for anyone of them. Even the ones I didn't know very well, like Callen, were important parts of my life now.

That wasn't the kind of thing you can put into words though, and even if I could, it's not the sort of thing you believe when someone says it out loud. You showed loyalty and trust with actions, and I was pretty sure we'd made a good start from both sides here, if we hadn't already when we decided to stay.

I thanked Camden for his help, and told him to get some rest and let Alister handle some of the day to day for a bit, and not to run himself ragged. Camden was an E-ranker, and was bound to be needed in the field even if he was a noble. It wouldn't do to run himself ragged with busy work.

After that I went to go find Benny. When he heard what was going on he got so excited I thought he'd drag me to the Alchemist, and the two of us took off to go shopping for pills. As we walked, I chuckled at his enthusiasm. "Man, you're pumped about this upgrade, huh?" I asked.

"Of course." He said bluntly. "I hate being left behind, but more than that, my stats are INSANELY focused right now. I'm not as focused as Jessie, but you know as well as I do that having hyper focused my stats means my next rank up is likely to improve my ability somehow. I can get stronger. I WILL get stronger."

There was a fire in his voice that I respected, and I clapped him on the back. "Damn right. I'm pretty curious myself actually. Focus and Might? Could really go either way. Or maybe you'll just end up with a stronger variation of your current. Able to hold more items."

He shrugged. "No point in guessing, the number of variables is uncountable. All I can do is hope."

After that we went quiet as we entered the shop, giving the Alchemist Benny's exact requirements and getting a bag of pills in return. He even gave us seven single point pills, so Benny wouldn't need a wish to bridge the gap.

Once we had everything we made our way back to the officers barracks, figuring we could use my room for his rank up. It was a dangerous thing to go through, and I'd been stressed enough keeping Chelsea hidden. I didn't mind playing guard for him during rank up, but I'd prefer to do this one inside.

When we got to my room he took out all the pills, laying them on the floor carefully. Four hundred ninety nine points in Might, and four hundred Ninety eight in Focus. With his current soul strength, withstanding the pills would be easy, but even at green the upgrade to E-rank wasn't going to be easy. It couldn't be, since Impact was going to almost double.
I watched my best friend grit his teeth as he suffered the pain of his Ascension, and as much as I wished I could just wave it after seeing it once or twice, I couldn't. This was rough to watch, no matter how many times I saw someone go through it. He took the pills one by one, tossing them back without much reaction until he hit the last one.

His body locked up, muscles tensing as the Impact hit him. I watched with my Eye of Revelation, seeing that same burst of soul energy that overflowed and spilled over, improving the rest of him as he struggled not to scream.

Finally he toppled over, panting on the ground. I passed him a glass of water, helping him sit up to drink it. While Callie's soul was stronger, and presumably Chelsea's too, I was shocked by how bad this was for him. If he had this much trouble how much pain would the process cause someone with a normal soul?

When he was done, he checked his stats and grimaced. "Well, I got a bit of an upgrade. Guess for a bigger change I need a Skill to mix in there." I wondered if that was true, or if he'd just mixed his ability badly. Not that I was even remotely willing to try my Skill building bullshit on something like an ability. I was likely to fuck up and kill someone.

"Well." I said impatiently. "Why don't you show me then, you overdramatic bastard? What did you get?" He chuckled weakly, pulling out some paper from his ring and scrawling out the details before sliding it over to me.

Benicio Cortez- E-rank. Ability: Expert Body of Inspiration- Allows the integration of existing inventions into the users body for the purposes of strengthening and enhancing them, two items per placement.

Might-4474
Impact-65
Fantasy-256
Vitality-141
Focus-4641
Perception-282
Creation-171

Progress to next rank: 10030/100000


soul strength: Blue 65%

Pet- Wolf named Rolf

Current integrated tech. 10/20. Torso: G-ranked intangibility for short bursts. Right fist: triple punch. Left forearm: F-ranked energy barrier or variable shape. Left fist: minor slow acting tranquilizer effect. Right foot: Density shifting to create heavier kicks and more powerful jumps. Left Foot: momentum neutralization to allow stopping instantly. Head: slight cognitive boost to allow more thinking time. Back: ability to grow a shell to tank damage. Chest: Pair of golden G rank spider legs that arch up from the shoulders. Waist: Belt of spiritual calming. Heart: Illusionary double

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

I nodded with interest. "Not bad, double the chances to integrate is pretty solid. It's not a qualitative change, but like you said you might need a Skill to include. But hey, at least your soul got stronger during the process." Risk vs. reward, that was how Ascension worked. More pain meant more gain.

Looking at his stats though, I wondered about something else. Abilities. Abilities weren't usually phrased like Skills. Mastery wasn't part of the names most of the time, they were more freeform and unusual. I'd always written that off, but knowing what I did about how Skills worked and how Ascension itself worked…

Was it possible that keeping your ability made it easier to form a Path with it? I'd lucked into Path of the Doom Sovereign, but most people had trouble forming a Path, let alone a solid Path. Maybe there were more reasons than just fast growth that people preferred heroic cultivation.

I filed it away as yet another thing about cultivation that made no damned sense to me, and focused on my friend. Seeing his troubled expression, I rolled my eyes. "Stand up, idiot." I said almost gently. "I get you're bummed you didn't get too big a change to your ability, but you're ignoring the best part."

Raising an eyebrow in confusion, he climbed to his feet and…nearly leapt into the ceiling. Touching down, he gaped at me before his face bloomed into a full on grin. "Ok…that's fantastic." He hopped from one foot to the other, and I grimaced.

"Damn it, your Might is way higher than mine." I groused. "You're going to be substantially stronger than I am now. I'll have to beat you with cleverness and tact."

He smirked at me. "I think you'll need to DEVELOP cleverness and tact first."

"I think you need to develop shutting the fuck up." I replied with a pleasant smile. "Though to be fair, that's been a long time coming so I don't know why it would happen now."

He rolled his eyes, but I could tell he was thrilled. Benny had been feeling a bit left behind recently. Sure he was helping by paying me with his density shifts, but it wasn't like he was doing the actual work. He'd been pushing himself to get to E-rank so he could help again, really be of use.
"You realize, of course, that both of our workloads just like…quadrupled?" I asked him bluntly. "Now that you can density shift those blocks, we'll need to work non stop to get done in time. Aside from wish time with Jessie we're going to be doing manual labor almost non stop."

He shrugged. "I don't mind, as long as I'm better at it than you." Despite the camaraderie of the moment though, I couldn't resist the urge to snicker. When he heard me he looked annoyed. "What's so funny?"

I dissolved into a gale of laughter, and it took me a second to choke out. "Sorry, it's just. Your mom tried so hard to push you into being like your dad." His eyes narrowed as I gasped out. "Now you're going to spend the next few months working with rocks." I knew it wouldn't really bother him, Benny had a good relationship with his father, but still, the look of horror on his face was totally worth the lamp he threw at my head. He missed anyway.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Jessie's next bout of wishes actually DID get her to nine thousand, even without additional boosts from renown. I'd actually had ten more days left of wishes to devote rather than a week (I'd had thirty one days total, which in my mind was a month, which I tended to think of as four weeks exactly). That was seven hundred points, added to her existing eight thousand three hundred and eight, bringing her up to nine thousand and eight total points.

Apparently there hadn't been enough time for her to gain more stats from renown, and as she closed in on E-rank her bond with Randall was giving less and less Might, but regardless, she was within elixir distance of the rank up, and that was all I needed.

We didn't push Camden to get her pills fast though. We still had seventy nine days left, and seeing Benny make the jump had made it clear that even if your soul didn't make it to the peak, the further you went the easier you could break through. Jessie's soul was the weakest of us all. Even after working on it during Benny's boosting it was only at thirty percent of green, and that wasn't going to cut it.

On the upside, Benny and I had been working our asses off making blocks, and between his new blue soul and the lack of twenty charge limit per day, we'd made some SERIOUS headway.

"Five sections." I groaned. "That's all they've finished? I know we have to wait for Camden to wish for more foundations, but still, we've done so much work."

Benny snorted. "Are you kidding?" He gestured at the huge stone monoliths I'd finished merging, all already enchanted and ready for war. "Two thousand blocks? I mean, I know we already had some of it done, but still, that's great time. Almost eighty days left, if the Enchanters can keep up we'll get it done."

"You're not wrong." I said with a shrug. "We need those other foundations up quickly. My Dust Construction is up to Intermediate as of today, which should help us speed up. I still have no clue where Camden pulled all those Enchanters from, not that I'm complaining. Speaking of random bursts of power, any ideas on what to do with all those new slots?"

He chuckled at my abrupt subject change. "Hardly. I think I'm going to try to find some passive stat amplifiers. The kind of things you see from racial traits. There are ways to do Enchantments like that." He grinned at me wolfishly, clearly excited about our new discovery in that area.

After reading over Benny's new ability a bit more carefully, we'd become aware that we'd both missed an important change in the description. The word 'inventions' had become 'artifacts'. Benny had never tried integrating an enchanted item before, but the change implied he couldn't have if he'd wanted to. It made sense given Inventing Mastery was part of his ability.

"You're charging Camden for all this building work aren't you?" I asked with a laugh. My own payment was coming in the form of elixirs for the others and payment for Abel and Mel's upgrade wishes, so Benny wouldn't need to shell out for his own pills and could focus his windfall on what he needed.
.
My best friend just grimaced. "I am, but the Enchantments I'm talking about are EXPENSIVE. Luckily armor works better for me than weapons, so Sonia can help. She's just REALLY persnickity about accepting jobs. After finishing up all our armor sets she's free though."

I gestured at his new armor. "Why not just integrate it as is?" My best friend wore a black leather suit of light armor with a woven cloak of burnished bronze. The suit was edged with angular bronze designs, with cog wheels set strategically at the knuckles and joints to serve as strike plates. Unlike my set, Benny had gone with a more traditional hero choice of having his sigil put on the chest, a half cog in the shape of a C.

"Because it wouldn't do anything." He said in annoyance. "The suit is designed to lighten the burden of using integrated tech to affect my whole body. It strains the soul over time. Not a ton when I'm only doing it once, but spamming attacks gets tiring. I wouldn't have been able to manage this last week without it, that's for damned sure."

I nodded in understanding. "But integrating that kind of defeats the purpose." I said with a wince. "Plus if its the whole suit enchanted that way you'd need to burn too many slots to get all of it. Not worth the price."

"Pretty much." He agreed. "Which means I need custom gear to integrate. I'm hoping to get amplifiers that let me effectively use double my Focus and Might at least. Optimally Perception and Vitality too. Non physical stats are tougher to find stuff like that for sadly, so I'll have six empty slots to fill even if I get all those."

I whistled at the idea. I knew about modifier effects. I had a few, stuff that let my hits land twice as hard for instance. But Benny was talking about something else. Persistent stat changes, basically creating his own racial trait. It was a fascinating idea.

"Let me know how that goes." I said with a laugh. "Anyway, you glad you didn't take a commander position when you ranked up?" I asked with a smirk. "You've been having a laugh at my expense this last week, Training my century has been rough."

Even with Randall simulating a Stone Lion in his armor, we'd run into diminishing returns after a while. We'd had our monthly tournament a few days ago though, and that had helped morale at least. Alanna had won, to no one's surprise, but Ichabod had done shockingly well. She might not be our next month's victor at this rate.

Benny had been vocal about his relief that he hadn't needed to bother with them, to the point where Abel had offered to train him since he had so much free time. Not being stupid, Benny had said no, and had mostly just spent all his time working on making blocks with me.

There was a spread out pile of them behind us that would need to be hefted up out of the dirt and carried to the new foundations when they got made, because we'd run out of room and if we wanted to keep up with demands we'd need to keep going as we had. They'd partially sunk into the ground, but one of the locals had rigged up an earthen platform that had mitigated the problem at least.

Benny was smiling at my misfortunes, but when he glanced at the wall sections his smile wilted. "You sure they're ready for this Shane?" He asked quietly. "You sure WE are? Like how are you even going to access all the sections with the gaps between them for the spear formations?"

I pointed down. "Foundations connect to each other." I said with a smile. "Each of them is a highly sophisticated piece of engineering. It's why Camden is burning an entire wish on them. You know how high my Might is right now, not to mention my Impact. Triple those values? You can make some scary stuff."

I'd been shocked at the results of that first foundation with. A solid block of dense, powerful stone shaped to withstand quite a bit of weight and containing natural formations that allowed the wall to operate more effectively.

My wish power was so versatile, sometimes even I forgot how much. It made me look forward to building up our own territory more than ever. Callie had been workshopping ideas with Camden and the others when they had free time, and making a list that she wouldn't show me. She was also pocketing quite a bit of cash saving up for the wishes.

"And this gets easier right?" He said gesturing the the massive stone blocks. "I've noticed you're merging them more quickly, especially the last one we did today. I assume ranking up your Skill helped?"

I nodded. "More than you can imagine. Once it's done we'll still need to improve our coordination, of course. I'll need to train with the centuries in their spots between the sections, learn how to avoid crushing or stabbing them by accident. But other than that…I think this can work. This is a huge undertaking Benny, but making something like this? It's basically an oversized siege engine made just for me."

"Trust me." He laughed. "I know. I AM an Inventor. I can see how useful this is. I'm guessing that was partly inspired by the tower we made during the scavenger hunt?"

"Partly." I admitted with a chuckle. "Why? Are you flattered? That building was damned useful. Shame we can't have you make more now. Unless we could?" I hadn't considered that, but it might turn things around.

He just shook his head. "Intermediate Inventing means Intermediate materials. F-rank stuff basically. Given how suppressed those kinds of things are here, the buildings are pointless."

I hadn't considered that, though it led me to another question. "Can you integrate a building?" I hadn't really considered that, but it might be pretty useful. Invented buildings could have amazing effects, as we'd already seen.
"Probably." He admitted. "But there would be a lot of caveats. I'd have to have enough strength to handle the weight of the materials, plus nothing with a high Impact could be used, because trying to push that into myself might crack my soul. I imagine once my stats are high enough it wouldn't be impossible, hell I could probably do a planet in the later ranks, though it would be pointless. Most of them don't have abilities?"

I raised a brow at that. "Most?" I asked with interest. "There are planets with abilities?"

He waggled a hand. "Sort of." He looked to be deciding how to phrase something. "Formations are naturally occurring enchantments, and they can vary in size. Gems can naturally form runes, and so can planets. That's what dungeons are, at the least the natural ones. Obviously stuff like the Glade isn't naturally occurring but its based on a formation the same way our armor is. Studying dungeons lets your recreate them."

"So there are man-made Enchanted planets out there?" I asked curiously. "Because that sounds amazing."

He shrugged. "I think so? I researched this kind of thing a bit after hearing what Sonia could do. I wanted to see if it could improve my own crafting abilities. It was interesting but I don't exactly have many sources on planet. I spent a couple days after block making over at the library though. Syl is a fountain of knowledge, when she bothers to speak to you."

I chuckled, remembering Anna's researcher friend. I could see how she might be able to help digging into that kind of thing.

"Anyway." I said, getting back on topic. "Buildings would be useful as hell, at least of you could rank up your Inventing Skill. Well, useful or deadly. Inventing IS still pretty random, isn't it?" I'd been wondering how that was going for a while now. I knew Benny was trying to learn to steer the Skill a bit more, but only the strongest mad scientists could really do that. If he could manage though it would be a huge coup, especially if he ranked it up soon.

Benny looked amused. "I've been working on it. Steering Inventing is a matter of soul strength, surprisingly. Guiding the mad inspiration of the Skill. Once I hit Sapphire I think I can at least get close."

That was fantastic news. It meant one more possible weapon in our arsenal, and not a minute too soon. Seventy nine days left, and we still had so much to do, but I knew we could pull it off. I wasn't letting a monster like Spencer Tolbert get away with hurting my friend. In fact, if I had my way, he wouldn't even be leaving Stratholme alive.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The next day, my allotment of wishes for the four months was up. I'd gotten my thirty one days, and Camden had the next seventy eight covered by the contract he'd paid off with our armor. So, after our training for the day, he wished for another seven sections of foundation, and Benny and I got back to work making more bricks as E-ranked carried them over from the pile to stack them up in their wall shape.

Once that was finished for the day, we decided to take some time off and go check in on Abel and Mel. Camden mentioned a small tournament they'd been taking part in. Abel was up to about eight thousand stats total including his godslaying rollover, and he'd been cleaning up for renown, letting Mel take more of the wishes than not, so she wasn't far behind at seventy five hundred.

When we got into town, it wasn't hard to find the tourney, we just followed the crowd, ending up in a large warehouse (larger on the inside) where we had to pay a small toll to get in. It was later in the day, so we'd only bothered coming for the final match, but that was all we really needed to see anyway.

Once we found the place, we took a seat, waiting for the fights to start, and I triggered Stealth through my bond with Callie to keep our conversation private. "So, been a while since I've seen Abel fight, this should be pretty fun right?"

"Hell yeah." Said Benny excitedly. "And not only that, I haven't seen his new armor in action yet. His or Mel's. Can you imagine if it lets him use his Ragam easier, or his spatial lubrication? Not to mention his stronger soul. After so much time training on their own I bet they're both monsters now. Even more than before."

Before I could respond, the lights went out, and the crowd went silent. From the darkness, a deep, resonant voice boomed. "Ladies and gentlemen!" It echoed through the warehouse. "Tonight's battle is one we've all been waiting for. For weeks now, a mysterious newcomer has been dominating the local tournament brackets. Low stakes, high stakes, he sweeps them all. In the right corner, weighing in at one hundred eighty five pounds of pure muscle… I'm having a little trouble here folks, what is his name?"

As one, nearly the entire crowd roared. "APOLLYON!" I felt the tension ratchet up, and I had to grin at the skill this guy was showing. He really knew how to whip up a crowd.

There was a blinding spotlight suddenly cutting the air, illuminating the form of my mentor one on side of a huge empty ring. I was impressed by the show he was putting on, the new armor making a hell of an impression as the bright light silhouetted him against the darkness.

Abel's armor was more…esoteric, than I'd expected. His normal silver half mask was present, but above it he wore a dark tri corn hat. His outfit was a crisp silver vest over a rough leather shirt, and over that a huge leather coat with a mantle over the shoulder, covered in pockets and fasteners. His pants were leather too, worn over heavy leather boots, and the whole outfit looked dangerous and mysterious.

I cheered with everyone else, but it wasn't long before the announcer started hyping the opponent. "Now our next contender needs no introduction. He's the undefeated champion of the Saltzberg fight scene, the city's favored son, the living shadow, the dark of knight. Ladies and gentlemen give it up for CHASM!"

The light came on again, this time aimed at the other side, and revealing a slight looking man wearing a pair of beat up looking leathers and a large hooded cloak. The inside of the cloak showed no face, not even a slight reflection of eyes. It reminded me of the cloak Nat was wearing when we met, just a see of unpierceable darkness.

Another few clicks and more lights came on, about six of them, just enough to show the whole ring without illuminating the stands at all, giving the illusion that there was nothing beyond the two finalists.

I could see my mentor's amused smile perfectly as he took in his enemy, and in the stillness of the warehouse, my advanced Perception made hearing them child's play. "So. I like the look. Most kids are afraid of the space under their bed, but apparently you were the only child brave enough to ask the question 'what if I asked it for fashion tips?' "

The opponent didn't respond. Abel waited for a minute before rolling his eyes. "I hate when they don't take the bait. Fine, edgelord, we'll do this the boring way."

Abel blurred forward, the sand kicking up around him as he wove in a serpentine pattern towards his opponent. Cicada stacking step left afterimages behind him as he approached and then started to circle the enemy. He threw out a few testing jabs, all easily avoided or deflected, but didn't commit overly much, just feeling Chasm out.

Suddenly, one of the testing blows became a full haymaker, aimed right at the hooded man's head. There was a subtle shift in the dark of the hood, and when Abel's fist punched through…it kept going. It was like he'd fallen into a hole, and his eyes went wide as Chasm's hands, wafting black smoke, scythed up, fingers hooked into claws, right for Abel's throat.

When they hit, they tore apart one of the after images, and Abel grinned viciously. With a snap like a rubber band recoiling the next closest afterimage was pulled backward, slamming into each image and building power and solidity as the strength of each image stacked on top.

At the end of the chain Abel rode the momentum, spinning up and whipping his leg around to smash into the side of Chasm's head.

The other fighter tried to dodge, but I saw him get stuck, and my eyes widened as I realized that Abel hadn't just used those afterimages to create a distraction. Each of them had warped the space they occupied. Not in the usual way, but into a sort of spatial quagmire that held Chasm like a mosquito trapped in amber.

We were all on the edge of our seats as Abel's kick, with enough power to smash an average E-ranker's defenses, plowed directly into the side of Chasm's fucking HEAD. I was half expecting it to kill the guy, and I watched in horrified fascination, waiting for someone to call the match.

But they didn't, and for good reason, his leg hit the cloak and it wrapped around him like a bat hitting a piece of hanging laundry. There was a flare of dark smoke, and patches of the spatial quagmire vanished.

I wasn't sure to be more shocked at Abel or at the opponent. Escaping that was nuts, but what Abel had done… it was insane. His spatial lubrication ability was a method of altering the viscosity of space, and he'd clearly taken that to the opposite extreme. It was a feat of absurd control and precision.

Inverting your ability might not seem like something that impressive, but it was the equivalent of Cark using his fine power to freeze things by sucking the heat out of them. It was possible, but it was fucking HARD.

On top of that, Abel's power was a spatial ability, and they were notoriously difficult to control and figure out. Even his current skillset was a truly staggering level of technique for someone at our level. To do THIS? Well, I wasn't sure who the hell Chasm was, but I was impressed he was still standing.

Abel, to my shock, didn't pursue him, he stepped back, foot landing on a trail of lubricated space I hadn't even seen as the distance between his current location and the spot he was retreating to just…dissolved.

"Void." He said in annoyance. "I hate void abilities. I assume you're some kind of duellist variation?"

The darkness coalesced, revealing a smiling guy probably the same age as me, with long dark hair and pale skin. "You took my hood off." He said reproachfully. "That wasn't nice. Chasm was a useful fiction for keeping my day to day free of distraction." He cracked his neck. "I can't say I'm not impressed though. Most don't manage to push me this far."

Abel laughed. "Kid, I'm going to push you a hell of a lot further than that." And then he VANISHED.

I'd seen my mentor move before, REALLY move. He was fast. But this was next level. He'd used his ability to lubricate the ground across the ring, creating a sort of winding path of slipstreams only he seemed to see and magnifying his already terrifying Might score with ability based propulsion.

He appeared periodically around the ring, fists flying, and I saw his old standby, massive fist manifestations, crash down around Chasm, whose eyes had gone wide.

But that wasn't all. The large scale strikes seemed to be herding the other fighter into a pattern, and Abel's physical body was appearing in the gaps, throwing more condensed close range punches, often at the same time as the larger ones, mixing afterimages with his insane speed and both ranged and close up combat.

When the fist manifestations hit, they exploded, creating still zones with that cloying, sticky spatial energy to slow down Chasm, and the void user was having to expel bursts of dark energy to eat through them. Abel's smaller images were hitting him after a burst, taking advantage of an apparent cooldown.

To his credit though, Chasm was no amateur. In the short range fight, he was doing better than expected. Shifting his body slightly to take the surprise blows in the least unpleasant places he could to prevent them from wearing him down, giving as good as he got, shattering images left and right.

In the end, as it so often was, the soul was what made the difference. Abel was two full ranks ahead of where a normal person would be. His powerful soul made the constant barrage of complicated techniques and tricks tenable for him, while Chasm was forced to overwork his with huge bursts of void energy at F-rank. Eventually, he couldn't hold on and slipped up, one punch missing by a hair.

Abel punished him for it, the local fighter having overextended himself and leaving his jaw open for a brutal uppercut.

The entire warehouse was quiet as a mouse as the man toppled over into the sand, slamming down on the ground and not moving. Abel watched cautiously, fists still raised in a guard, but finally, there was a bellow of triumph and every person in the place, Benny and I included, came to our feet and screamed in victory at the brilliant fight.

"Yup." said a voice behind us. "That was definitely a good one." We turned to see Mel sitting behind us, winking at us with one orange eye. "Glad you boys could make it. Sorry you missed my fight earlier though. What did you think?" Her voice was amused, and I rolled my eyes at the obvious jump scare.

I shrugged nonchalantly. "It wasn't bad." I said in a faux casual tone. Benny rolled his eyes. "Ignore him, he just wanted to mess with Abel after all the harsh training. That was amazing. I take it you won yours too?" He seemed so pumped he could barely sit still, and I smiled at the enthusiasm from my best friend.

"I did." She said with a laugh. "And I don't mind the lacking praise. He doesn't need a bigger head anyway. Good for you. Not that it would work, but thanks for trying." We laughed and started talking about what they had been up to, hearing more about the tournaments and the training they'd done for them.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The next seventy eight days flew by. Word of our godslaying must have still been spreading, because I got the occasional burst of stats when I hit a milestone, as did Callie and Abel. I got five hundred each in Might, Fantasy, Vitality, and Perception, bringing me up to thirteen thousand total or so. Callie got a thousand in Might and two thousand in Fantasy and Perception and made the jump to fifteen thousand total, managing to inch her soul up to ninety five percent of blue in the process.

During the downtime, most of our people had managed to make E-rank. Abel, Mel, Gabe, Bethy, and Callen had all ranked up, though Nat herself had been unable to make it, having been paid directly for all the points she gave Abel and Mel.

In the meantime, Benny and I had been working our asses off, and had FINALLY finished all the wall sections. I'd put in so much work over the past couple months I'd even managed to hit Expert with Dust Construction Mastery, allowing me full use of the monstrously large and powerful walls we'd set up.

"Forty sections." I said in awe, staring at the defensive lines we'd erected. "Ten per side, all heavily enchanted. Sixteen thousand blocks total. It seems so crazy, even though we ended up losing most of the enchanters early on."

Once we'd gotten a better idea of our timeline (Camden had used a wish to confirm the attack date) they'd been pulled for other projects, we'd only needed a little over two hundred blocks a day to stay on track, and they'd been required on other projects. I'd actually wanted to go bigger with the wall, but I knew that wasn't feasible.

Benny, who was aware of this, helpfully reminded me why we'd done it this way. "There are limits to what you can control, even with a Sapphire soul and Expert Dust Construction. Not to mention the majority of the centuries need to be committed to keeping Clairdon's men off us, not to mention preparing for whatever nasty surprise Spencer has waiting. Assuming we don't get hit with any of the big boys this will hold."

"He's right." Said Camden as he stepped up next to us. On his left, Abel stepped up, silently regarding the wall, with Mel on his other side. They'd been picked for guard duty, given how hard it was to surprise Abel. "We've done the best we can with this. We're ready."

I cocked my head at that. "Yeah, I've been wondering about that…why exactly are we ready? Like why do we know exactly when the attack will happen." It seemed stupid to be so obvious about it to me, but everyone just acted like knowing the exact date this was going down was totally reasonable.

"Why else?" Said the Baron with a chuckle. "Reputation. There have been studies done about the impact of surprise attacks vs. declarations of war. On the whole, that anticipation seems to generate greater results, and it's easier to spin a narrative justifying the attack ahead of time and then fit into it. Being forced to attack from the dark makes you look like the underdog, which is fine if you're taking a position from someone, but it's a bad look for a defender expected to hold the land in question long term."

That forced a laugh out of me. "Now imagine how bed they're going to look if Clairdon gets linked to the Stone Lion attack."

"Which is why I don't think he knows about it." Agreed Camden. "Or if he does he's being lied to about the scale. Sadly any attempt to reach out to him is being taken for mind games. My people have been positioned and trained for the attack, for both attacks, but he's going to take some serious damage."

Part of me had expected to feel pleased that our enemy was going to be taking the brunt of the Stone Lion invasion, or at least helping but… it just felt wrong. All those people dying at the whims of a psychopath like Spencer, and for what?

I hated him. Camden had opened up more about his life, about Sara, the information broker that betrayed him, about Spencer, about his home. It had added context and depth to the already profound loathing I felt for the other Tolbert. The only person I'd ever hated this much was Travis, and he'd LITERALLY stabbed me in the back.

"So the other centuries have been engaging in lots of mock battles right?" I'd been looking forward to those myself actually, but I knew my people would be needed at the walls, so they'd continued training with Randall, Gabe, and sometimes Abel. They'd gotten frighteningly competent at stopping a charge from a strong opponent, with my cover from the walls, they would be fine during the melee.

He waggled a hand. "I wouldn't say mock battles. More…codified engagements, but yes. Especially the elite unit, they've been crossing swords with Clairdon's people on and off for months." He grinned at me knowingly. "Of course, they haven't been showing off the extreme bump in power from all the wishes. Skills, gear, consumable items, we've outfitted my best people with quite a few toys to turn the tide."

"You're the expert." I shrugged. "I haven't had time to learn large scale tactics, between working, politics, and wishing, I've been booked solid. Callie's had to drag me away from work on the weekends to force me to decompress. Gods bless that girl."

Benny snickered. "I think that was half for your good and half for hers. You two are both miserable if you don't get a decent amount of time together. Not that she was the only one who benefited, you're even worse. A few days is fine, but I don't want to put up with a Shane that hasn't seen Callie in more than two months."

"Yeah, because you and Celine definitely don't spend every waking moment together." I said dryly. Turning to Camden, I held out a hand. "Oh, forgot to ask, did you finally get ahold of those elixirs for Jessie? Tomorrow is the big day, and we really don't want our healer unable to make a difference."

He nodded, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a bag. "Vitality." He said as he passed them over. "Given the coming battle those have become scarce. I had to overpay, so I hope you're grateful." Despite his words, I could see his excitement at the prospect of his hired healer ranking up. Jessie had done quite a bit for his forces, and she was likely to be key in our victory.

One of the things I'd noticed in my time as a cultivator was that healing wasn't nearly as common an ability as one might expect. People didn't like being left behind or coddled, especially not dramatic and bold people like high ranking Ascendants.

Most of the Ascendants that did heal tended to tweak their ability to make it versatile enough to be used in combat. People like Serenity and the Peace Lord, who were excellent healers but could be just as terrifying on the battle field, were the norm among healers.

Jessie was one of the few people I'd heard of who pushed for a more traditional healing discipline. Sure, she'd tweaked her ability same as most, but she'd altered to to allow overcharge and long term changes. It was still a potent and direct healing method, with beast taming being more of a side benefit.

As someone who was ostensibly a support myself, I was impressed how integral she'd managed to make herself. She had enough Vitality on hand to be an effective support for E-rankers literally as soon as she ranked up, and the further she got with her Vitality, the stronger her ability would become. Not to mention the dividends it would pay in terms of renown.

Thanking Camden, I left Benny talking with him to head to the healer's tent. Tomorrow was the big day, so I wanted to make sure the last holdout from my main team was ready.

Arriving at the tent, I came to a stop at the flap as I opened it to find a familiar face hanging in front of me upside down. I sighed at Bethy. "Why?" I asked simply, assuming I didn't need to explain my confusion.

"I'm guarding the door." She said solemnly. "I'm even wearing pants." She gestured to the armored leather outfit she had on to replace her usual ball gowns. "Sonia made it for me. Pretty cool, huh?" She seemed smug about the new outfit, and I smiled, rolling my eyes. "Not as cool as yours though. I wish I had a crown." She added, flipping down to land perfectly on her feet, arms up in a V like a gymnast.

I chuckled at the showmanship. "I'm sure. Now if you don't mind, your highness. I need to see Jessie. Is she here?"

"She's in the back." The Vampire said with a smile. "Chelsea brought Chalk over, and he's playing with Randall." I shuddered slightly, feeling sorry for the lower ranked bear. I wasn't sure what that rabbit considered playing, but I doubted I'd like it. I thanked her and headed for the back of the tent, where a sectioned off part of the space doubled as a break room.

When I entered, Jessie smiled at me, holding up a finger to her lips as she gestured to where my sister had fallen asleep against a wall. I nodded gesturing her out, and then handed her the bag Camden had given me. Looking inside, she nodded excitedly. "Five hundred." She said happily. "It's all I need at this point, I've been slowly gaining Vitality for the last few months. You mind watching me while I get this done?"

"Sure." I said with a smile. "Is your soul up to it? Benny said he's been helping you train it, I know his spiritual calming is WAY more effective because of the rank difference. What are you at?"

She grinned. "Sixty three percent." She said proudly. "Benny even got up to seventy five percent of blue working with his so often, though a lot of that was probably crafting those blocks. Anyway, I'm higher than he was on his last rank up, I should be fine."

"Alright." I said, blowing out a breath. "Let's do this." I gestured to a spot in the center of the tent clear of stuff. She nodded, sitting down as Bethy got closer, her expression serious as she stood guard, letting Donuts, Poptarts, and Luggage out to keep an eye on our friend as she pulled out series of small green pills.

Because of the shortage it looked like Camden had gotten five one hundred Vitality pills instead of one five hundred. One by one, Jessie slugged them back, unworried about the weight of them given how little they represented as a percentage of her highest stat.

She went through the process much more smoothly than Benny, as we'd hoped, and though there was some adjusting, she got past it quickly and was able to share her new status with me right away, though there was nothing too surprising. She'd gotten a few hundred points extra, dragging some of her low stats up, probably by virtue of being so behind in so many of them at such a high rank.

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

Might-1425
Impact-65
Fantasy-208
Vitality-8004
Focus-305
Perception-215
Creation-208
Progress to next rank: 10430/100000
Pet- Wolf named Lily and bear named Randall(Intermediate Beast Bonding with Jessie)

soul strength: Blue- 63%

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

I grinned as I took in the subtle changes, but that wasn't the end of it. I heard a small rumble as sparks began to come off her, green light leaping up and falling on the small form on her shoulder. The form hopped down, and we dragged a few objects clear as she returned Randall to a bigger if not full sized form. Jessie wasn't the only one ranking up. Randall was about to hit E-rank, and I for one was excited to see what that would be like.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

We'd had contact with lots of beasts over the time we'd been travelling. Even back on Callus there were quite a few of them, animals like my wolf Jin and the other puppies, or even Randall himself, but we'd seen more powerful beasts since leaving our home planet as well. We were well and truly used to dealing with them at this point, but despite our extensive experience, none of us had ever seen a beast rank up.

Strolling over to the entrance, I called Bethy over and as she made her appearance, I leaned up against the tent wall. "So…what can you tell me about beast evolutions? You're good with animals right?"

The Vampire nodded. "Oh sure, I've seen plenty of animals evolve. My family interacts with them a lot. Animal companions are easier to bond with than thralls, since Thrall is a Job that needs to be adopted rather than a process you can do at any time."

"So how does it work? How do animals reach the next rank?" I asked as I stared at Randall. The bear had laid down, head on his paws, and I could see his soul changing with Eye of Revelation, but it was MUCH slower than it had been for any of the humans I'd seen.

Shrugging, she tilted her head thoughtfully before answering. "Age?" She finally said. "Or, I guess not. But kind of. You know how passive item and material cultivation works right?" When I nodded, she continued. "Well beasts are like that. Which means that longer lived animals tend to develop the kind of reputation that makes them grow. Actual rank ups for animals are a bit different though, since they don't have abilities it works more like a racial trait, changing what they are. When an animal ranks up they evolve into a NEW animal."

"That makes sense." I said slowly. "But how do we know what kind of new animal? I can use Eye of Revelation to see some details, but it's not like he can share his stat sheet with us."

She shrugged. "You can't. This isn't some game where you can identify things with a magic spell."

I laughed at that. Identification actually WAS a possible ability of Divination classes in Doom Sovereign, but it was an extremely high level ability. I might be able to develop it when I hit D-rank, but I couldn't say for sure. I had to admit though, I was excited to see what Randall would become.

"Is this safe though?" I asked as I stared at the tense looking bear. "Like is there any risk to him?"

Her smile was reassuring as she patted me on the shoulder. "Not at all. This is a totally natural process. Jessie helped with the bond, but it's still something his body was designed to handle. Plus Jessie is here to help." She nodded to my friend, who was kneeling on the other side of her bear with a patient and encouraging smile, hands on his side as she channeled life energy into him.

It was a fascinating thing to watch in real time. Unlike Jessie, Benny, and even myself, Randall's body wasn't full of Skill patterns. Rather, he seemed to be made up in a similar way to a Skill himself. It had taken a bit of tweaking the crown to get a better look, but her mention of a racial trait had helped me figure out what to look for.

Randall's body was built a lot like a Skill, in that he seemed to be made of stats constructed in certain ways. I saw lots of Might, which was expected, but also lots of Vitality, more of which seemed to be flowing in even as I watched. I could see the Vitality points trying to break up the Might chains, inserting themself into the patterns to try to alter the way the bear was made. It was sort of like what I imagined watching a virus infecting a person would look like in a microscope.

Thankfully, it didn't seem like it was causing any damage or harm, just altering the patterns in unusual ways that seemed to ripple out and change more and more. Despite his physical form not changing visibly yet, Randall was already a very different being than he had been to start.

His soul wasn't what I expected, being green after the upgrade, apparently some of Jessie's training had gotten through the bond, as the soul changed and overflowed, it rolled through the body, lubricating the stats so the changes could happen more easily, and I saw spiderwebs of faint patterns too small and quickly fading to understand.

I had to flinch back and let my brain process for a second, because I wasn't equipped to understand what was going on. Racial traits (if that's what this was) were WAY more complicated than Skills, taking up the whole body and beating out maybe even my wish ability for complexity, though it was hard to say since I couldn't really understand either of them. I heard Bethy gasp, and saw nothing, but I realized my Eye of Revelation was hiding the changes.

Allowing my skill to fade, I saw the changes she was seeing. Randall, who had always been a big brown bear, had started to change. The brown darkened to black, swirls of green rolling across the visible fur. His eyes blazed with green light, and he shrank in size, condensing to a more durable and stocky form.

The changes took a few minutes, and when he was finally done, he stood up on his back legs (still easily fifteen feet tall, lucky we were in a tent with a vaulted ceiling) and let out a bonerattling roar.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Demanded our healer as she glared up the bear. Randall stopped roaring, looking confused as she planted hands on her hips. "This is a sick tent. There are injured people resting, and we're in the middle of a camp. People could be sleeping, working, or who knows what else."

Randall hunched his shoulders, averting his eyes as he grumbled out a low growl. It didn't seem hostile, more sullen, and Jessie was having none of it.

"I don't CARE how Mighty you are." She snapped. "You use your inside voice when you're in the camp. How am I supposed to explain to all the scrambling soldiers that there isn't a beast attacking them? We're being invaded by lions tomorrow!"

That was…a really good point actually. I turned to see if anyone had shown up to check and saw Chelsea coming back inside. She was laughing at the sulking bear and waved us off, a smug rabbit sitting on her shoulder. "It's fine, I told the first person who showed up what happened and he promised to spread the word."

Jessie sighed in relief. "Well that's good at least. Tomorrow will be stressful enough without a bunch of people glaring at me all day."

"You're the healer." I said with a scoff. "Nobody gives the healer shit. That's like…the first rule of having powers."

Chelsea nodded. "He's right. I'm not exactly a healer, but my flames can do similar things when it comes to say, poisons, and even I get plenty of leeway from others." She paused. "Also my grandfather is the Pope, so that probably helps. But mostly the healer thing."

I snickered at her. "You undermined your point there a bit. Anyway did you see Randall's cool new color scheme?" I pointed at the bear, hoping to amuse him a bit so he would cheer up. As expected he preened, leaning back to show off the green and black pattern under his dark metal armor.

The combination, I had to admit, looked pretty sharp. I'd seen some intimidating beasts in my day, but Randall was up there, even moreso than before when he'd been a giant bear the size of a bus.

Chelsea made the appropriate oohs and aahs of amazement, and Randall's smugness ratcheted up a few notches, until Chalk got jealous and hurled himself across the room. One of those big thumping bunny feet slammed into Randall's helmeted head, rocking the big bear to the side and the rabbit cheered in victory, hopping up and down on his defeated foe.

"Chalk!" Said Chelsea with horror. "You can't just attack people…" She trailed off. "Or bears I guess. Bad rabbit, is my point."

Jessie walked over, zero fear in her as she snagged the rabbit by the scruff and tossed him at his owner. She knelt down with a wince, rubbing Randall's head. "Poor baby. Did the mean old bunny hurt you?" He cooing voice appeared to embarrass the bear, who hid his head under his paws with a whine. Jessie scoffed. "There's nothing wrong with me worrying about you. It's not humiliating at all."

I tried suppress my snicker, but must have failed because Jessie just glared at me and I put my hands up. "So…do you know what kind of bear he is?"

She nodded. "I can see specifically actually." She smirked at me. "He might not be able to show you his stat sheet, but he shows up on mine." She squinted into space. "Apparently he's an 'Undying Lifestorm Ursa'. Not sure what that is, but it sounds pretty impressive. I wonder how that happened?"

"You, obviously." I said bluntly. "That bond is two way, and he's been dumping Might into your stat sheet for months. I imagine you've been doing the same, not to mention your lifeweaving can improve animals over time with consistent application. You've been pouring high level mutation energy into him for as long as you've been bonded. No wonder he got a nice upgrade."

Jessie's class was a rare variant that had evolved from her earliest plant ability thanks to some mixed in Skills and what we assumed was a LOT of influence from stacking Vitality. It was normally impossible to weight yourself that heavily to a single stat, and it seemed to have worked out well for her, as shown by some of her amazing abilities.

Right now though, I was more curious about what an 'Undying Lifestorm Ursa' could do. "Hey Randall?" I asked the bear. "Why don't you try…doing something." I trailed off lamely,flushing as everyone gave me flat looks. "Sorry, I don't know what to suggest. He'd know better than I would."

The big bear snorted, looking away dramatically, and suddenly… there was light. Green flames erupted from his eyes and the green portions of his fur. I saw his muscles stretch, making him bigger without much skeletal change. He blurred forward, paws swiping out as he attacked Chalk, who effortlessly slipped aside from the attacks.

Jessie snapped at him, but at that point it didn't matter, the smug rabbit was MUCH higher in E-rank than Randall and was well accustomed to the power.

Still, Randall attacked with blistering speed, hundreds of blows so fast I could barely keep up, and didn't seem to tire out. It appeared that Jessie's buff had become a permanent part of him, as his 'Lifestorm' tag had implied.

While the bear snarled at the smug rabbit, my sister walked over and scooped her pet up, bopping him on the nose. The sheer horror and outrage on the face of the rabbit at her audacity was hilarious as she turned and walked out of the tent, holding the shocked and furious bunny.

"Well, seems like we did everything that needed doing." I said as I looked around. "I know you'll be needed her tomorrow, but can you take some time to come to dinner? I wanted to eat as a group on the last night before the big battle, considering we're all going to be split up."

She smiled, using her pendant to shrink Randall before snatching him up like a plushy. "Sure, sounds like fun." She said cheerfully. "Lead the way." And with a smile, I did just that. Bethy trailed behind us and I was glad to see her come along. It was important for us all to spend time together before everything got crazy.