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

[Malcolm Tent]

The second the other members of the Horned Lords charged, the rest of us moved. I rose from my chair, foot touching down on the edge of the grill table and hurling myself up. My State of Grace was pretty much permanent in my armor, so I soared up into the air weightlessly.

I'd probably have hit the ceiling if I hadn't been paying attention, instead I pushed off into a gainer (a backflip performed while moving forward according to Abel) and bent my knees enough that my feet missed the ceiling at the top of my arc. Continuing the motion I came down towards the crowd of gangsters.

My staff appearing in my hands, slamming down in a brutal thrust to smash into the head of the one I was coming down on top of. He stumbled back and I pushed off his chest, purposefully using very little force so I'd land quickly.

Once my feet hit the ground, I triggered Mornax, and the crowd of them rushing me didn't have the time to stop as the first one slammed into me in a shoulder charge and STOPPED with a loud crack as something broke in his collarbone. He dropped to the ground howling in pain, and several more of them tripped over his flailing legs and ended up in a pile on the floor in front of me.

Tapping the ground, I triggered Pit of Despair, the group of enemies sinking effortlessly into the dust before I removed the Skill and let it harden around them.

"That's four!" I called gleefully over my shoulder. "And they aren't even-" My Danger Sense went off and I crouched, not wanting to lose my powerful defense by jumping. A fist erupted from the ground below me, smashing into the side of my knee with terrifying force, and I even felt a slight twinge as it made contact.

At sixty five Impact, not to mention being made of stone, not to mention density shifted, with the ADDITION of Mountain Stance, an E-ranker hurting me with a punch was a staggering accomplishment.

Literally, as it turned out, I staggered under the blow, and the ground shattered as the four gang members burst free and threw themselves at me.

Cursing, I slammed my feet back down, activating Mornax again and then stacking Belial on top. I could have used Mephistopheles I supposed, but explosions of destructive armor eating fire weren't exactly environmentally friendly. I could turn off the corrosion when I was done if it ended up tagging something I didn't mean to hit.

My staff licked out, slapping aside the fist of the closest one before smashing the knee of another trying to circle me. One appeared behind me, driving a fist into my kidney, but I shrugged it off with a grunt as I slammed my staff back and down, driving the butt of it into the foot of the third attacker. I felt about a dozen small foot bones break and heard a howl of pain before I drove my elbow back into the spot the sound came from.
There was a crack and a thump as my stone elbow crushed the nose of his mask and he collapsed. I stared at the two in front of me, eyes scanning for the missing fourth guy. I'd lost track of him when they came out of the floor (which I was going to need to fix probably). I heard a constant stream of breaking dishes and cracking furniture around me as my friends worked on the rest of them. Apparently someone decided to leave me to my fun, and I wasn't sure if I was grateful or annoyed.

"Ok, where did your friend go?" I asked the two still circling. I didn't expect them to answer, but I figured one of them might give away the game by accident. And they did, the one on the left turned his head unconsciously to look at something, and I spun to intercept… "Oh god WHY!?" I yelped, hurling myself to one side.

The fourth guy, the one I hit in the face to start, had turned into some kind of giant spider demon beast and was hanging above me, slowly lowering down. My Danger Sense had been pinging nonstop since they erupted from the ground, so it hadn't warned me.

Once he saw me notice him he tried to drop on me, but I was already flying through the air, so he ended up just landing on the gravel, viciously sharp forelegs coming over his shoulders and raking into the stone to tear it apart. He threw back his head and roared, and I caught sight of the mandibles under his mask.

I waved a hand, triggering Pit of Despair under him. He'd already seen it, so he retreated up onto his webs…which meant he was completely vulnerable to the forest of razor sharp spikes I sent spearing up toward him from the dust with Dust Construction.

The spikes perforated him in about a dozen places, and he roared with pain and fear as he tried to struggle. The struggling slowed, and I turned to face the others dispassionately. Play stupid games win stupid prizes, I was past the point of waffling over every enemy I killed in combat. I spotted one of the others but realize one was missing for a split second before I felt a surge of fear.

Not my fear, Callie had spotted the last one, and as I spun to intercept he drove some sort of ghostly blade into me. It had sharp hooked teeth and was viciously curved, and it slid right past my armor and into my guts with a thump.

Callie screamed in rage and fear, but I just sent her a reassuring pulse of confidence. The other one had come up behind me to help his friend, and when the first one pulled out his dagged my staff blurred back and slammed into HIS gut. There was a slight burn, and then the pain in my stomach was gone as the Horned Lord collapsed with a surprised scream.

The dagger wielder looked at him in confusion, and when he turned to stare at his friend I triggered Steam Arrow. I wasn't in Belial or Mornax anymore, but the normal attack was E-ranked like I was and with my Impact it was much more damaging than it should have been.

The plume of boiling hot condensed vapor hit him straight in the eye socket of his mask, and he reeled back, screaming. I choked up on my staff and swung it like a bat, smashing it into his jaw with all the force I could muster. He slumped over, his brain having been rattled against his Skull by the carefully aimed blow (thank you Overlay).

I glanced down at the one twitching and bleeding on the floor and sighed. He hadn't been the one to try to spider murder me or stab me, and killing one of them in battle was different than letting someone die in agony of a wound that should have been mine. I tapped him with my staff, funneling a heal burst into him.

I had three left and I was only using one on him. If he died anyway it wasn't my concern. He WAS an enemy, and there were limits to my compassion.

Turning to look at the restaurant I grimaced. The place had been totalled. We'd taken the fight right to them so most of the Glade survivors were fine, we'd avoided all the F-rankers getting murdered.

That had been why we'd had to attack. With so many there was no way we could have contained the damage if they spread out, and too many of our people were weak. Abel had known it from the start, I was sure, or he wouldn't have unilaterally made the decision to attack. Battle maniac he may be, but he had a good head on his shoulders.

Callie came rushing up to me, throwing herself into my arms. "Are you ok? How did he get past your armor?"

I squeezed back, then walked over and picked up the weapon. The hooked dagger hadn't been an ability, as I expected, it was a weapon. A D-rank weapon at that, and how the hell had I missed that?

Callie took it from me, examining it. "This seems to be almost MADE of ectoplasm. I've never seen anything like it."

Her spectral severer (though woefully out of date) was made to HURT ghosts, but not out of actual ghost material. I gestured for her to put it away. "Keep it, it seems like it might be valuable. Any of them die except spider guy?"

"Nope. Lots of injured, but none dead." She said with a smile. "Hopefully that makes whatever backlash we might face from their benefactors less of an issue."

I shrugged. "The Red Brethren sound scary, so they're probably at least partly C-rank. If they send anyone Zeke can take care of them, or if they send a D-ranker we have Callen. We're not exactly in a bad position." Glancing around, I realized the fight was over. "We should go figure out what the hell is going on I guess." I said with a sigh. "What do you think the chances are that this was just a random coincidental robbery?" She just stared at me. "Yeah, I was afraid of that."
Walking over to the front, we found the two original gang members. The big one, Bruno, was partially sticking out of a wall, groaning as Gabe leaned against the stone next to him looking bored. The short guy who had been talking though, he was…otherwise occupied.

Specifically, he was hanging from a series of long strands of silk thrown over a few rafters. Bethy was standing to one side, giggling madly as she hauled back on the silk, sending him flying up into the air and just out of the reach of Poptarts and Donuts, who were circling on the ground, lunging for him every time he got close.

"Oh gods, please!" He howled desperately. "I'm so sorry! I didn't know people like you were here. Please stop." He was actively sobbing, and I heard him yelp as Donuts (I think, it was hard to tell the difference) managed to score a scratch on his stomach.

Bethy clicked her tongue. "Well, I guess if you're sorry. I don't think interrupting people's dinner is very nice. Do you?"

"No!" He squeaked in panicked agreement. "It was rude. I was a rude, mean person, and I've learned the error of my ways and will never be man to anyone again and OH GOD THAT ALMOST TOOK OUT MY EYE PLEASE STOP!"

She didn't look convinced. "What about your friends? You said they were going to come hurt me if I didn't let you go."

Before he could answer, I cleared my throat. They all froze as they turned to stare at me…except one of the cats who reached up really quick and slapped him in the face with its paw before acting like nothing happened. "Bethy." I said in amusement. "Made a new friend I see."

"Yup!" She said enthusiastically. "He's been playing with the kitties. They're having a marvelous time. Can we keep him?"

His head snapped up to me. "NO!" He screamed. "You're in charge of her. Tell her to let me down please? I'll pay you. I'll give you whatever you want. Money, information, I don't care, just get me away from her."

"Let him down." I said with a sigh. "But don't untie him. I have questions, and if he doesn't give me the answers I what he can always go back to playing scratching post." She huffed sulkily and then let go of the silk, letting him crash unceremoniously into the ground with a thump. He groaned for a second before scrambling up, eyes wild behind his mask. I smiled at him as he looked around. "There, now that you're comfy, why don't we have a chat. I have SO many questions."

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The short Horned Lord (whose name we learned was Matthew) was eager to tell us what we wanted to know. And more. He actually ended up spending about fifteen minutes babbling about nonsense I didn't care about, and if I hadn't been sure he was absolutely convinced Bethy was going to feed him to her cats, I'd have suspected him of stalling.

"And then I stole my friend Ben's muffin tops." He yammered. "I shouldn'ta done it, his mom made them special, and it was his birthday. But I was so sad after my dog died and I just really needed a win that day. He never figured out it was me. I told him Sal did it and he blamed him for the rest of Sal's life, which wasn't very long because Ben jumped him in an alley two years later and caved his skull in with his boots. I know it was wrong but-"

I threw my hands up in frustration. "ENOUGH!" I was almost shaking with frustration. "I don't CARE." I said plainly. "I'm not your priest or your therapist. I asked for information on your GANG."

He shook his head. "No, see, I know but I needed to give you the context there so you'd understand-"

"He's stalling." I said to Bethy. "Feed him to the cats."

His head jerked back in shock. "NO! I promise I'm trying, it's just complicated." I glared at him and he slumped. "I'll uncomplicate it. Word came down from the Red Brethren, they were upping the taxes for all their subordinate gangs because of the visitors. They said we need to make quota or we'll BE quota, so they sent us out to raise a little hell, poke some high and mighty types who might be new to town."

"And none of you questioned this?" I said in exasperation. "Like say…you didn't wonder WHY so many new people were showing up and what kind of backing they had? Like you have no idea why they instituted this policy so suddenly? Because I feel like if you were actually that oblivious you wouldn't have lasted this long as a gang leader."

He shrugged. "The Red Brethren work for one of the Devil Princes. Nobody says it out loud, but it's common knowledge. Who the hell are we to piss off an S-ranker. Come on man, you don't need to do this. We learned of lesson. You already killed Julio. Bruno is going to have trouble walking, Marco is probably going to lose an eye. And don't get me stared on what you did to poor Ted."

I blinked, processing the discrepancy in names. No time to think about it too much. "Look, I don't have a problem letting you go. You'll need to settle up with the owner yourself, but our people are fine and you lost somebody." I sighed dramatically. "But see, Bethy here, she loves her cats." I gestured to the vampire, who nodded enthusiastically. "And now you got them all excited and if they don't get to play with you more they'll be sad."

"They totally would!" She said with a pout, calling Donuts (or Poptarts, again, not sure how to tell) from her shadow and shoving hes head right in front of the trembling gang member. "How can you say no to this face?" The cat peeled back its lips, exposing razor sharp fangs as it hissed menacingly at the man from inches away. Which Bethy proceeded to ignore as she cooed at her pet. "He's an ANGEL!"

He wailed, trying to scramble backwards, but the cat put a paw on the silk holding his arms and pinned him in place, keeping him from escaping. I swear the damned thing was SMILING. Fucking cats, man.

"PLEASE DON'T LET IT EAT ME!" He screamed. "I don't know why they sent us out to raise trouble, I swear. But it wasn't just them. The Weeping Blade did it too. And Ancestral Night. They're all vaguely related to S-rankers, but not the same ones. Please that's all I know, I'm not important enough to know any more!"

I glanced at Bethy. "What do you think? You've got some mental tricks, can you tell if he's telling the truth?"

"Nope." She said with a shrug. "I can normally get an idea from heartrate, but he's so terrified I don't think it can get any higher. I believe him though. He's genuinely afraid to die."

I sighed, turning to look around. Eventually I saw a tall, pale man with a ring of hair around his otherwise bald head and a white beard that flowed down to his knees. He seemed to be the strongest person here, and was standing in front of some people who I was pretty sure worked here. "You in charge of this place?" I asked him casually.

He gave a long, slow nod. "I am." He admitted. "I suspect I realize what you wish to say, and I have to be honest. I wish you had just let them rob us. We can't handle dealing with a gang on the level of the Red Brethren."

"Don't worry about that!" Bethy said cheerfully. "I'll make sure my daddy puts a good scare in them. They won't come bother your neat restaurant!"

He raised an eyebrow skeptically, but I just chuckled. "Her dad is Morgan Lark." I explained with amusement. "If he decides you're going to be ok, you will be. I'm not sure where the princes rank in terms of S-rankers, but I know for a fact who is at the top of that list."

Blanching in fear, he swallowed hard, turning to give Bethy an odd salute. "Apologies, young mistress. Had we known your identity we would have served you better."

"Your food is super good!" Said Bethy happily. "Don't be sorry, I like this place. I'm totally gonna bring the rest of my friends here before we go. Anyway, we'll leave this guy to you, you can get your money back from him, right?" She turned and gave Matthew a wide smile that showed plenty of fang.
He jerked to his feet, stumbling over the silk as the cat backed off. "Of course!" He said enthusiastically. "We're happy to help. We can clean up and put things back together and…" He turned his head. "Bruno!" He shouted. "Wake up and come help with the cleanup."

Gabe chuckled from his spot sitting against the wall. "I wouldn't bother, he'll be out for-" He was cut off by a groan and the sound of shifting rock as the huge masked man slowly started extricating himself from the wall. "Wow." He said with naked admiration. "That's actually really impressive. Even Abel would have had trouble shrugging that off."

Bruno groaned. "I'm up!" He said blearily. "What's goin' on?" I just chuckled, before heading back over to our table, meeting everyone else there.

"Well, that was bracing." Said Abel happily as we all retook our seats. "Nothing like dinner and a show." He glanced across the room at the perforated spider guy. "Not exactly the most appetizing decor, I'll admit. Those spikes going to go away?"

I shook my head. "Dust Construction is a crafting Skill. I made them out of the dust on the floor, they're not going anywhere. Before we leave I'll have to manually turn them back to dust and resettle the floor. Pretty crazy though, I have to admit." I glanced at my fiancee, who had taken her seat next to me again. "How was your pre-dinner workout honey? Also did anyone see what happened to the one I kind of gutted. I tried to heal him in passing but…"

"I got him." Said Jessie helpfully. "He might have lived anyway, but I saw you wanted to spare him so I figured I'd help out. That wound was nasty though. It needed more life energy than I expected to close. What made it?"

Callie cut in. "Some freaky ghost knife. Shane stashed it, we can have Zeke identify it later." She arched an eyebrow at me. "And my fight was fine. I only got one, because SOMEBODY had to be greedy and fight four on his own. And then get eviscerated. If you tell me you let yourself get stabbed to test that staff, you can forget the couch, you'll be sleeping in the trash can outside."

I put up both hands defensively. "Whoa, I'm reckless not stupid. I dropped Mornax because I got knocked off my feet, but I thought my gear would stop the attack. A D-rank knife that ignores armor was the last thing I expected."

She nodded, shoulder slumping. "Sorry. I just…that was scary. I could feel your life draining away. I don't suppose the wound transfer got rid of the blood loss?"

"Don't think it works that way." I said with a laugh. "I'll make sure to eat plenty. So…I guess I should bring up the bone wyvern in the room. Are we going to leave this alone? Because it seems like something is brewing and we can still probably stay out of it. We can just head back to the Church district and avoid the territory of any of the involved gangs."

Benny snorted. "As if we've ever been able to avoid getting involved in anything. Not to mention based on what he said this could be some bottom up plan to disrupt the conclave, which would obviously be bad. I say we look into it."

"Seconded." Said Abel as he popped a slice of red beef in his mouth. "We don't have anything to do until the conclave starts anyway. Might as well dig into this mess and see what's going on."

I nodded. "I'll tell mom about it too. Worst case she can't do anything without more to go on, but keeping her in the loop can't hurt." I glanced at Annalise, giving her a wry smile. "Sorry your dinner got lost in the mad shuffle of random street violence. Do you want to look into this with us?"

She stared at me critically for a moment before sighing. "I might as well. The Fairieland has quite a few holdings on Tricorn, and one could say it's my duty to assist." Valsa and Dralka gave similar responses, and I was glad to know we'd have some friends on hand to help. Those three in particular had hit E-rank since the Glade too, which was impressive as hell.

Speaking of rank, I reminded myself to check with the others about theirs. I hadn't asked Callie about her stats in a while, and Benny and Jessie for even longer. I was betting they'd made some pretty serious progress too, especially Callie, who had been much higher than me to start.

I'd look into it as soon as we got back to the inn. For now, I just wanted to enjoy the rest of the night. Despite the fight and bloodshed, everyone seemed to be in a good mood, we'd had no losses and had cleaned up quickly so everyone counted it as a win. We were all in excellent moods, laughing and chatting, and I realized that despite not seeing them for a long time, I did consider these people friends after what we'd been through. It was good to see them again.

Eventually the night wound down, and we said our goodbyes, agreeing to meet up again before the conclave if possible. I used Pit of Despair and Dust Construction to fix all the damage the Horned Lords hadn't been able to repair, and the owner told me my next meal was on the house, which would have been a lot more flattering if he hadn't been side-eyeing Bethy in terror when he said it.

I had Bethy send Poptarts out to follow Matthew without him noticing so we could find out where their territory was so we could start investigating. Then we all headed back to the inn to get some rest. We had a plan for tomorrow now, and it couldn't come soon enough.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"I feel exposed." I complained as we walked into a shady empire controlled area. This was supposedly the central territory of the Horned Lords, and it was the first place we were cheking for clues about what the hell was going on. "Like, do we have to walk around like this? It's embarrassing."

Callie rolled her eyes. "You'll be fine. I think you look great. You're wearing plenty."

"I mean…I'm not." I corrected her. "I'm wearing leather pants and a vest with no shirt, but that's not what I'm talking about. Walking around with my naked face hanging out feels so weird." After more than a year of wearing my mask almost all the time, walking through a crowded street without it was INCREDIBLY stressful.

She shrugged. "No one here is going to recognize you without it. It's not like hiding your identity here is going to do much." She gestured at her own bare face. "And I'm not wearing mine either."

"Yours is a half mask." I complained. "It BARELY conceals your identity. Mine was a full blank face concealing piece of wood. And speaking of barely any mask at all, Bethy, what are you DOING?" I demanded of the vampire, who was standing to one side dressed exactly like normal except sporting a masquerade mask that just covered her eyes.

She put a finger to her lips. "Shhh!" She said emphatically. "Don't use my name! I'm in disguise."

"You're not in disguise." I said in exasperation. "And even if that mask did count as a disguise, how would people know your name? And what are we supposed to call you?"

She grinned triumphantly. "I've decided to go by Betty."

"That's…virtually the same name you already have." I groaned. "There's literally a one letter difference."

Snorting, she shook her head. "Nuh-uh, Bethy is short for Bethany, and Betty is short for Elizabeth. They're so totally different. No one is going to figure it out. As for the mask, of course it'll work." She turned to Callie. "Have you not explained to him how masks work?"

To my surprise, Callie cleared her throat sheepishly. "It hasn't come up." She said with a shrug. Turning back to me, she explained. "Masks are complicated, but they're kind of covered under recursion. Like if you're really stupid obvious people can figure out who you are, but it's harder than you would think. Wearing a mask is SUPPOSED to hide your identity, so it does, even if the mask isn't very large or complicated. Unless you give it away."

"Makes sense I guess." I said begrudgingly. "I could have used that info earlier though. Try to remember I have a lot less experience than you in some ways?" She smiled sheepishly, kissing me on the cheek and apologizing.
She refocused, waving the whole thing off for the moment, since she could sense I didn't care enough to dwell on it.. "So we're meeting up with some of the others here right? I'm not sure how many but I know it won't be everyone."

"Four more." I agreed. "Chelsea, Mel, Abel, and Gabe. They'll also be in disguise. We're just supposed to be lingering around, looking for 'work'. Bunch of E-rank muscle should be plenty useful enough to draw some attention, but keep your ear to the ground about anything. Especially with your shadow listening power."

She nodded. "I'm going to be tapping into Piece of Mind to keep up appearances while I listen. The shadows here are…thicker. I don't know how to explain it but it's going to limit my range a bit."

"Probably some defensive enchantment on the Tricorn." I said with a grimace. "Just do your best. Anything you learn might be helpful." Zeke was around to help if things got rough, but he needed to stay out of sight so as not to blow our cover. Callen was nearby too, waiting with him to jump in.

We found our friends easily enough. My sister was wearing a mask and hood, and gabe had a half skull mask on. Abel was shockingly bare faced, and it was so uncommon I barely recognized him, while Mel's face was a bit more familiar, since we'd seen it a few times. Chelsea waved excitedly as we approached. "Shane!" She shouted energetically. "I look so cool right?"

She spun around, clutching her black velvet cloak as she showed off her dark looking armor. Her mask had little black devil horns, and she mostly looked like some kind of assassin. I gave her a thumbs up. "Nice. I look ridiculous."

Callie clicked her tongue, giving me a once over. "I love the pants, and the vest makes your shoulders look way wider. You should wear this all the time."

"Why can't I wear big ass plate mail like Gabe." I gestured to the mans thick black suit of armor. "I'd look awesome in that." It looked kind of heavy and sweaty, but it was better than walking around super exposed.

She rolled her eyes, feeling my nerves. "Why don't you just shift into one of your forms and maintain it. Belial would probably be easy to trace, but what about Mornax, you could just pretend you have some kind of iron body ability."

I blinked. That…wasn't a bad idea. My feet were on the ground, and I could walk in Mornax, as long as I paid attention. With Piece of Mind running it in the background I could keep it up pretty much indefinitely with my Sapphire soul, especially considering Mornax was a pretty much perfectly structured Skill, at least by my standards.

Triggering it, I felt my whole body toughen, and I relaxed a bit in the knowledge that with my high Impact and all the defensive modifiers it would be easier to stab through E-ranked steel plate than scratch my skin.

"They we go." She said with a smile. "Now, where the hell are we supposed to start this little exploration."

I pointed across the street. A run down looking bar made of wood painted with dark, cracked paint stood recessed back into the shadows. "Damned Souls." I said matter of factly. "The bar the Horned Lords make their lair in. Don't worry, we made sure none of our friends from yesterday would be here."

Callie stretched, seemingly readying herself to enter the bar, and I noticed her own 'disguise' (leather pants, a vest, and a short white shirt cut to about her rib cage) wasn't much different from mine. She grinned at me, sidling close so I could put an arm around her, and cloaking us in stealth so no one would hear. "Did you JUST notice that we match?"

"I was distracted by other things." I complained. "This is a very trying time for me."

She clicked her tongue reproachfully. "So self-absorbed, you're lucky you're so cute." She studied me thoughtfully. "You've actually gotten better looking I think. How did I not notice that? Must be the mask."

I frowned, pulling a mirror out of my ring to study my face. She was…not wrong. My jaw was sharper, my features more symmetrical, and the green of my eyes had gotten brighter. I still looked like my dad with a little bit of my mom thrown in, but until she mentioned it I hadn't realized how DIFFERENT I was from the person I'd been back on my eighteenth birthday.

Now at nineteen, I'd changed in more ways than just internally. Callie just patted my cheek. "Don't worry so much about it." She said with a soft smile. "You're still you, and I still love you just the same." She gestured to herself. "You're telling me you haven't noticed that I've changed too?"

I honestly hadn't. It had snuck up on me really, her changes, like mine, were gradual. "Recursion I take it?" I asked in confusion.

"It's a common thing." She said with a shrug. "High rankers are venerated. Just think about the way they treat E-rankers back home. Not everyone gets prettier, but it tends to smooth out the rough edges. People like you have an advantage, having your face covered all the time makes people assume you're secretly hot."

I raised an eyebrow. "Couldn't they assume I was ugly?"

"Walking around with me?" She snorted derisively. "Have you SEEN me?" I knew she was joking, and wasn't nearly that vain, but she had a point.

I shrugged. "Whatever, a few cosmetic changes aren't a huge deal. It's not like I wasn't living with them already. As for you…you're beautiful whatever your features are like. I love you for who you are."

"Uh-huh." She smirked. "Good answer. Anyway, you're obviously stalling. You're really worried about this, aren't you?"

Sighing, I nodded. "Yeah, I really am. With Mornax active I can tank most anything below D-rank, but my staff is really noticeable, as are my Skills. I'm stuck with relying on subtle subskills and brute force."

She put an arm around my waist. "Don't worry, hon. I'll keep you safe. Now let's get in there and start poking around."

I squeezed her a bit tighter as we rejoined the rest of the world in time to hear Bethy explaining her fiendish plan to use a slightly different name. Chelsea was being politely supportive, while Gabe looked like he wanted to facepalm.

"Enough gabbing." I said, letting my voice roughen a bit as I roped them all into stealth. "Betty's not wrong about picking new names. I'll keep it simple, call me Nate." I tried to put on an air of menace as I talked, and nobody started laughing so I counted it as a win.

Mel cocked her head. "Call me Lacey. And he's Kyle." She gestured at a sputtering Abel, who immediately started complaining about not picking his own alias.

Chelsea put her hands on her hips. "Bella." She said confidently. "Short for Isabella."

"Alice." Said Callie with an eye roll. "I always liked that name. Gabe, you're the last one up. What do we call you?"

He sighed. "Mike. It works as well as anything. Now, I think Nate should go in first, given his durability, and Kyle and I should follow. Then the rest of you enter after. We don't know what kind of place this is going to be, and I need to protect 'Bella' unless I want a certain someone to peel my skin off and choke me to death with it."

Chelsea patted him comfortingly on the shoulder. "Don't be silly." She said in a compassionate voice. "There's no way my mother would let you die. Your agony would be neverending and eternal." He flinched and she pulled away with a giggle. "I'm kidding. She's here guarding me personally. It's fine. Don't worry so much."

"Yes." He said blandly. "Worrying about perpetual torment. How silly of me.
"Now YOU'RE the ones stalling." I announced as Callie and I let go of Callie and swaggered forward. "But Mike is right. I'm the best suited to go first. Even without my armor." Taking a deep breath as I strode forward to the entrance, and when I reached it I shoved both doors open dramatically, stepping inside.

The music didn't stop, people didn't turn to look, and nothing really changed. This wasn't a movie. One guy sitting near the door glanced at me real quick before going back to his beer, and I slumped a little in disappointment.

The others filed in behind me, also not drawing much attention, and I waited for Callie to rejoin me before we both walked up to talk to the bartender. "What's on tap tonight?" I asked, hoping I didn't sound like an idiot. I didn't DO alcohol, so I wasn't sure what I was supposed to ask in this situation.

He glanced at me, obviously bored and not remotely intimidated. "Beer." He said flatly. "We also have 'not beer' if you're feeling adventurous."

"I'll…have the beer?" I asked cautiously. He grabbed a mug, shoved it under a tap, pulled a lever and then shoved a mug of frothy yellow liquid at me. "F-ranked chit." He said dully, and I reached into my ring and dropped one on the bar. I took a sip, and I barely managed to keep from wincing. I hated beer.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Damned Souls was louder than the name implied. Or maybe it was just louder than the name led me to infer. I'd kind of assumed that the name spoke of a hallowed place full of dread whispers, but it was probably my mistake. I'd been in enough bars to know what they were like, and this one wasn't much different.

A pool table, a series of booths, what looked like a card game going on in the back. Nothing groundbreaking or mindblowing. Just a place for people to get drunk and be stupid.

Abel, or rather 'Kyle' had figured out the trick to this place pretty much immediately. Which was to say there was no trick, in order to fit in with all the drunk people doing dumb shit, he just did the same thing they were doing. He downed a pint of the terrible beer (I was nursing mine, which I think made it worse), slammed his hand down on the table, and howled "Who thinks they can beat me at bloody knuckles?"

"No gloves." Growled a huge bear of a man as he sat down at the circular table we'd taken up position at in the middle of the room. "And what's the bet?"

Abel grinned wildly. "F-ranked chit per punch. Before you swing, you put some in the pot, whoever gives first loses, winner takes it all. I'm Kyle by the way. Best to get the introductions out of the way before I humiliate you so badly you try to kill me."

The man barked a laugh. "Griff." He said simply. "We using abilities in this littler game? Or are we keeping it simple?"

"Your call." Said Abel lazily. "I can do either, though abilities or Skills might be a bit destructive."

Griff nodded thoughtfully. "How about this? No abilities or non-physical Skills. One inch of wind up for the punch so we don't break the furniture."

Having no idea what exact physical Skills Abel had I couldn't comment, but he seemed fine with it. Stripping off his gloves, he held out a fist. It stunned me to see how rock steady his hand was handing there in the air. Not a single tremble, like it was anchored to the world with a deadbolt or something.

Griff smiled wolfishly, set a chit down on the table, then raised his hand and place it in front of Abel's. "You ready?" Asked the wild looking giant, dark eyes gleaming under heavy brows and teeth glinting from behind his thick brown beard. His long hair was well taken care of and brushed, but still styled to give the appearance of being unkempt.

When Abel nodded, Griff MOVED. It was hard to describe, sort of like a line of dominos. First his heel picoted, then the motion rolled up his leg, along his hip, through his back, then up to his shoulder and down his arm.

By the time the force found his fist and propelled it forward, it felt like some kind of unstoppable tsunami of power, slamming his fist into Abel's hard enough that the one inch of movement shattered the sound barrier, creating a small sonic boom that blew my hair around.

Abel's fist remained rock steady, not even twitching, but I saw a ripple of force travel along his arm and down his body, and the floor creaked under his feet as he smiled cheerfully. "Ouch." He said wryly. "That one had some kick." He reached into a pocket and tossed an F-ranked chit onto the table. "My turn?"

Griff nodded, obviously trying not to look impressed and failing. "You've got some training." He said with respect.

Abel shrugged. "Just a bit. Not a lot of work for someone of my talents here. All the street gangs around town are just looking for big flashy abilities with lots of firepower. Not a lot of people respect what discipline and training gets you."

As he finished talking, something happened and Abel BLURRED forward. As opposed to the rolling buildup of power Griff had used, Abel's whole body just sort of shifted an inch forward, the full momentum of his entire form focused on his hand as it smashed into Griff's knuckles hard enough to crack a mountain in half.

The bigger man grimaced, breathing out through gritted teeth pulled back in an expression the uninitiated might call a smile. "Ah, I suppose we didn't mention Paths. Why do I get the feeling you picked bloody knuckles on purpose."

My mentor just shrugged. "Who can say? Be pretty stupid for my to bang knuckles with a peak E-ranker if I hadn't though."

Griff barked out another laugh. "Oh, I like you. Too many people out there mistake power for strength, but just as many mistake stupidity for bravery. We've got plenty of both in the Horned Lords, but not many like you. I assume this is an audition?"

"Your turn to stake." Said Abel helpfully. "And yeah, something like that. Word around town is the Horned Lords are moving up in the world. But I saw a few of your boys out and about and I wasn't impressed. Upward mobility is valuable, but not if it slams you into a rock wall. How high do you think the Horned Lords could take someone like me."

It was shocking to see Abel do his thing. I knew for a fact he didn't give a shit about mobility or advantages, but every single bit of body language stank of naked ambition. It was like he was a completely different person. And I supposed he was. He was Kyle, and Kyle was willing to do anything to get ahead.

Griff's eyes roved over the rest of us as he set down another chit and took another punch. Abel took this one just as easily, though as I activated my Eye of Revelation I was able to pick up slight tells of how much this was straining him.

Not from Abel himself mind you, but from Mel, who was tense and staring worriedly at her boyfriend.

"I thought you might be looking for work." Said Griff as his expression took on a predatory edge. "And we do have some openings. As for your question…that depends. If you want the Horned Lords to carry you, you've gotta be willing to work for it. Changes are coming to Tricorn, some obvious, some not so much. There's a lot of work for someone like you, provided you can be…flexible."

I had a sinking feeling this situation was a lot more complex than we'd assumed. This sounded less like rabble rousing and more like recruitment. Which was concerning, because where the hell would they be DOING that recruiting. There were S-rankers here, surely they would know all about it. If someone was trying to turn people before the war.

Then again…maybe they did. Mom had sent us out to look around, maybe this was why. Thinking it through, completely stomping out any traces of the enemy was useful, but this conclave was a big obvious target. They WOULD try something, and better to know which door they would be using when they tried to break in.

Of course, I might just be making assumptions, but it felt like the right answer. If you were going to get attacked, making sure you knew who and where seemed like an important aspect of weathering the storm.

It was also possible that this was some kind of lower level testing to help us gain renown and grow, like how assassins guilds would use steadily increasing levels of assassin to take someone out. Hell, it was probably a bit of all of that, mixed in with a bunch of reasons I couldn't imagine.

Callie was on the same page, and we traded a few mental observations before she cleared her throat. "That's all well and good. But my brother here tends to think with his fists." She gestured to Abel. "Seems risky doing that sort of thing under the nose of…other residents nearby. How do we know this isn't some kind of trap."

Classic espionage 'How do we know you're not a spy?' is the first question most spies will ask you, because what spy would bring up spying if they were a spy themselves? Unfortunately, it's also the first question most non spies will ask you, because how do they know you aren't a spy is a valid concern.

Griff's eyes focused on her, seeming to drill down into her soul. "I don't recall asking you for your opinion, girlie. How about you let the menfolk talk and you just stand there looking pretty. You're real good at it."

I felt a flash of rage, but I choked it down. Callie could handle herself, and in fact, she NEEDED to do so in this instance. If she came across as a damsel needing to be watched over, it would give far too many of these assholes ideas.

Callie smiled coldly, and Griff's face blanked in surprise as the front two legs of his chair fell into its own shadow. From behind, a braided cable of shadows flushed up and wound itself around the big man, binding him tightly. I expected him to break out, but Callie was damned good at what she did.

The cable had yanked Griff's arms up and around into an awkward position where he couldn't exert much strength, something similar to a full nelson hold. The cable also wrapped around his neck, and every time he yanked it tightened around his throat.

He hung there, suspected off the table by his throat and upper body, and Callie drew her dagger. She pushed it into a shadow she made in her cupped hand, and Griif's eyes widened in terror as the point emerged from the shadow of his head, slowly inching toward his eye, stopping a fraction of an inch from his cornea.

"Oh gosh." She said with exaggerated ditziness. "Did I interrupt you? I'm so sorry. I can be so rude sometimes. I didn't realize this was a private conversation, I should probably just stay out of it. How about I just dissolve that rope around your neck and let you finish your game."

I expected him to panic, but instead he just chuckled. Within a blink his hair caught fire, the flash of light banishing Callie's weaker shadows. The rope was too strong for that, but the small shadow she'd been using to maneuver her dagger was banished and the blade went with it. Griff grunted and strained and the braided rope tore apart.

He was still laughing as he stood, rubbing his neck. "Well damn, girl. Put me right in my place didn't you? Good. I don't stand for cowards or wilting violets in my gang, woman or man. If you can't stick up for yourself you ain't got no place among the Horned Lords. The rest of your little clique as gutsy as you two?"

Callie narrowed her eyes, deciding if she trusted his whole 'I was just testing you' thing. Finally, she nodded. "Every one. But I'm guessing you're not going to take our word for that."

"Smart as well as tough." He said approvingly. "Ain't no free lunch." He paused. "Actually, that's not really true, once you're in the gang we have prime rib lunch days on wednesday. Those are free. But that's only for gang members. You want in, you've got to prove yourselves."

Abel swept up the pile of coins, getting a glare from Griff, which he countered with a grin. "You didn't punch, that's a forfeit. Should have spent more time on the game and less time baiting my sister." The big bearded man sighed but nodded, a few F-rank chits was literal chump change anyway. "So what are we doing?"

"A few days ago I got a suggestion that I should send out some of my boys to rattle some cages." He said lackadaisically. "One of my teams never came back, I sent them to raid some restaurant and they just stayed there."

Abel nodded slowly. "You think they got caught." He said, not letting on our involvement at all. "So you want us to what? Go break them out of whatever jail they're in?"

They weren't in jail, but it was important for us to figure out how much Griff knew. The gang leader laughed cheerfully at that, but shook his head. "Nah, nothing quite so complicated." He said with a jovial smile. "I want you to kill them and bring me their heads."

 

[Malcolm Tent]

We waited until we left the bar before Callie put us under Stealth. "Ok, that can't have been a coincidence right?" Chelsea asked in a harsh whisper. "We come there and he immediately sends us to deal with the fallout of a situation WE caused?"

I shrugged. "It could be. It's not even really that much of one. We went there specifically to find the gang of the people we stopped, and apparently they were the only team that didn't come back. It kind of makes sense for our test to involve something a bit gruesome, and if he had us kill some OTHER gang's people he risks tipping off a war when there's other stuff going on."

Callie grimaced. "Well we obviously can't kill them."

"I mean, we could kind of kill them." Abel said matter of factly. At her glare, he just shrugged. "What? It's not like we know or care about them. They attacked us first. It's justified."

"No." I said bluntly. "It's not. Killing people offering us violence is fine. Play stupid, games win stupid prizes, but killing defeated enemies who surrendered to us out of combat is wrong." He started talking but I cut him off. "And yes, baiting them into attacking us for the express purpose of murdering them counts."

Callie nodded approvingly, beaming at me in pride. It was staggering how her beauty could still beat me over the head after a year together, though admittedly we mostly wore masks around each other. Still, I'd drown in those eyes if I wasn't careful. I felt a pulse of adoration from the bond and realize all of that had been leaking through, and I took her hands in mine, smiling down at her.

"Ugh." Said Abel disgustedly. "You two can't get married fast enough. I can't wait until the shine comes off that apple."

Mel snorted. "How romantic. Maybe you're just mad Shane is making you look bad, Mr. 'I spent our first anniversary in jail for assault'. Why don't you ever gaze lovingly into MY eyes? Ass." Her tone was playful, but Abel just turned to glare at me.

"You see what you do?" He demanded in annoyance. I wasn't fooled though. Their bond was even deeper than ours, and there was no way Mel was secretly pining for romance and Abel didn't know about it. She was just giving him a hard time. "Anyway, if we can't kill the bastards what do you propose we do."

Bethy snorted. "I mean, duh. We're just supposed to bring him heads, we just make some fake heads and then sneak them off the continent so he doesn't notice they're still alive. Oooh! We can make them out of paper mache! I know a really cool mix of corn syrup and red food dye that looks like blood!"

"No one ask her why!" I shouted, cutting off several people in our group. "I don't want to know. Good idea though Bethy. Maybe not paper mache though."
She pouted. "Fine, I guess we can make a dumb wish or something. Nobody ever lets me have any fun. Can we wish for an extra though? Daddy showed me how to make a cup out of a skull when I was little but I've never been able to make one."

"I guess." I said with a shrug. "If you want. Does this love of morbid crafts apply to your fashion? You going to make a bone dress or something?"

Rolling her eyes, she gave a disdainful sneer. "No Shane. I make stuff because it's FUN and do fashion because it's PRETTY. We've been super busy though so I haven't had time for arts and crafts."

"We're getting off topic." Sighed Gabe. "Skull cups aside, we have a plan now, the question is what we think is going on."

I explained my theory about this possibly being some kind of training exercise or way to keep tabs on them and everyone agreed. We decided to get this out of the way immediately, heading for the restaurant where they would still be doing repairs. "So…how are we supposed to do this?" Asked Chelsea. "Because while ditching or adding masks and changing our clothes might work on most people, they'll probably figure it out pretty much immediately, recursion or not."

"Yup." I said with a grin. "Which is why we're going to use the situation to our advantage. Chances are good that Griff has figured out where they are, I mean, it's the last place he sent them, and he's not an idiot. He didn't have people watching them yesterday because they WERE the people, so we have that going for us."

Callie nodded. "Makes sense, but the main issue is that if we walk up and engage with them it'll become obvious what's going on. Hell, the restaurant staff might pick us out, though we had the advantage of being in a huge party."

"Which is why we don't give them the chance." I beamed. "I'm going to use Moonlit Night, and then we're going to have a quick conversation with them while some of us make noise. Then we make the wish and leave behind the bodies, sans heads, and the reaction from the staff will help sell the fiction."

"That's not bad." Admitted Abel with an impressed tone. "It assumes Griff will be watching us, but it's what I would do."

Callie snorted. "Oh he is, I've been tracking his people following us for about ten minutes now. They're having trouble keeping track because of my Stealth, but I'm trying to make sure we don't lose them completely. They can't hear us, obviously, but the occasional glimpse keeps them on our tracks."

When we arrived at the restaurant, we all stopped across the street. "Alright." I said to confirm. "Everyone knows the plan? I can rope them into the fog so we can all talk and no one else will pick it up, but we need to do this fast." Before leaving, Callie made two wishes (one for the entrance one for the exit), paying with a pair of D-ranked chits she had left from what Celine had paid for her century, to make sure things went as well as possible. We could still fuck it up, but as long as we stayed on plan, our chances of people taking things exactly the right way were pretty high.

Once everyone confirmed they knew their roles, we crept across the street. Callie was running Stealth for all of us, which was the obvious choice given her much higher Perception, but when we got close enough, I triggered Moonlit Night. Instantly, a fog billowed out, consuming the restaurant and some of the nearby street.

It was the easiest thing in the world to push the Skill to include the others so they could see, and all of us blitzed into the place, though I slipped my mask on before going in to talk to them..

Callie and I headed straight for where I was able to sense the Horned Lords, Matthew and Bruno working on repairing the wall where the bigger man had been smashed through the stone by Gabe.

It took a minor flex of will to include them in the Skill so they could see, and I stopped in front of them. Before they could speak, I held up a hand. In the background I could hear Bethy and Abel casually brawling to make a mess. "Look, not much time. Griff basically hired us to kill you, we don't want to do it, we have a way to fake your deaths but you have to trust us."

Matthew froze, looking indecisive, then sighed and nodded. "I understand. You already let us live when you didn't have to. What do you need?"

"I'm a Wyndham." I said bluntly. "I can offer you a few wishes to help." I couldn't tell them exactly what to do, luckily Callie didn't have that issue.

She jumped in when I stopped talking. "We need fake bodies, and we need you gone. Short range teleport or disguises or whatever you want to do, but when we leave here you need to look dead and not be around anymore."

Matthew nodded. "We can disguise and mix in with the crowd." He said, removing his mask. "As for payment…" He reached into a pocket, pulling out a bag. "I've got E-ranked chits, about fifty of them. I wish you had headless copies of our bodies that would stick around permanently and fool any form of inspection."

I grimaced as I got the feedback on that. "Too general." I said apologetically. "Any form of inspection is out of my depth."

It took a few more tries for them to get the right wording. By the time we finished we barely had enough time to shove them into the clothes and slap on the illusion jewelry they'd managed to swing with the five wishes their coins had afforded them. Wishing them well, we grabbed heads, then came peeling out of the restaurant, letting the fog fade.

Screams of fear and disgust erupted from inside when they found the 'bodies' left behind, and we all grinned at each other as we fled the scene, sure we were being noticed by whoever Griff had watching. Callie Stealthed us again once we got further away, and I turned to grin at my friends, laughing.

"That was fantastic." I said breathlessly. "With the two meta wishes Callie made I'm sure that went off without a hitch." I turned to Abel and Bethy. "Your fight was perfect. It sounded so lifelike. I swear I heard Abel screaming and cursing like he was really injured."

He glared at me, and I noticed he was cradling his left arm. "I WAS injured." He snapped. "That airheaded lunatic broke my arm in four places. I THOUGHT we were holding back!"

Bethy looked devastated. "Oh Andy, I'm so sorry. I thought you WERE holding back. I promise if we ever have to fight again I'll be super duper careful. Daddy says I'm never careful enough when roughhousing with weak people."

Abel's face turned red and he started sputtering, unable to form words through the obvious offense taken at her comments. I took the opportunity to walk up to him and put a hand on him. A quick Scan heal let me see how the bones were aligned, and when I noticed a slight misalignment, I grabbed his arm casually and jerked it, setting the bones before I double tapped heal burst, burning the last of my supply.

"Fuck!" He howled as the bones ground together. His face turned red and then faded back to normal as the healing energy coursed through him. "You could have been nicer about that!" He snapped as he rubbed his shoulder.

"Yup." I said jovially. "And you could have decided not to shock me with your stupid lightning gloves. We all make choices."

He blinked at me in shock. "Seriously?" He gaped at me. " Have you just been waiting for an opportunity to fuck with me about that since it happened?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about." I said cheerfully. "But if I did I'd suggest that next time you test your little static tricks on someone who doesn't occasionally hold their life in your hands. Ass."

Mel, to my shock, burst out laughing, having to catch herself on the wall as she howled with amusement, literally doubling over for a minute until she straightened up, drying her eyes. When she caught our eyes, she managed to choke out. "Sorry. If you could feel what he's feeling you'd be laughing too. He can't decide if he's proud or pissed."

"Yeah, yeah." He grumbled. "If we're all done we ought to get back to Griff's place. With the wishes Callie made he shouldn't connect us to the original fight, but if we take too long after they lose track of us he might get suspicious." I imagine he thought we'd refocus on the task at hand and get moving. Unfortunately for him we were still laughing when we got back to the bar. If nothing else, being so amused post 'murder' helped sell the impression we wanted to give.

 

[koya]

someone who doesn't occasionally hold their life in your hands.

Click to shrink...

Do you mean, [your life in their hands] ?

 

[Malcolm Tent]

To my surprise, we entered the bar to the whoops and cheers of all the patrons. I was shocked they'd know about all this, but apparently Griff wasn't shy about owning his decisions. Walking up to the big bearded man I reaching into my ring and dropped 'Matthew's' head on the table with a thump. Calle, Abel, and the rest of our group piled up the other fourteen heads.

"You seem to be short one." Said Griff conversationally. "We sent fifteen."

Apparently Callie felt like that was as big a trap as I did, because she just shrugged. "Who knows. The tracking Skill we used isn't that exact. You gave us a target and we found them. The tracking Skill we used wasn't that specific, but since the bar is their home base we were able to track them down easily enough. Is the missing head going to be a problem?"

We'd headed straight for the restaurant once we left, and though we lost our pursuers easily enough, we'd also made sure they could follow us to report back. A tracking Skill was the only explainable reason for finding them so quick, AND explained the Stealth. Luckily, Callie even actually had one.

Griff chuckled. "Not at all. We already noticed one was missing. Idiot probably ran off because he was too scared to go through with the raid." He swung to look at the bartender. "A round of drinks for everyone! And make them doubles for our newest members!"

Callie blinked in shock. "That's…that's it? We're in now? I expected it to be more complicated."

He barked out a laugh. "We ain't crafters, girl, we're killers. Honestly you impressed us. Takes balls to hit an active business. We were expecting you to wait until they were done and follow them home. Maybe hit them in an alley. Filling the place with Stealth fog and leaving behind the bodies as a warning? That's just art."

We looked around at the rowdy gang members (none of whom seemed bothered by the pile of heads belonging to what was ostensibly their former friends. I had a small shot glass full of red liquid shoved into my hands along with everyone else, and, since I was playing a part, I tossed it back.

The feeling of the liquid hitting my stomach reminded me of seeing someone drop a lit match on a gas range after it failed to light a few times. I felt an explosion of heat inside my gut (not literally) and it rolled through my veins, sending me reeling.

"What-" I coughed. "What is this stuff?" My eyes were watering and I felt like I'd just been poisoned. Which…I mean I had, because all alcohol is poison by definition. But this couldn't be how it felt to get drunk normally, or nobody would ever be stupid enough to do it.

A big burly man with a beard and a shaved head flashed unusually sharp teeth at me, slapping me on the back. "Devil Snot." He said with a laugh. "Hardest shit in E-rank. Been a while since we had anyone initiate in such an entertaining way. Your friends seem to like it."
He pointed and I turned to see Abel at the bar in front of a line of shot glasses. Head lashing out like a snake he wrapped his mouth around each shot and tossed them back so quickly he blurred before roaring. "I am all powerful!" And then falling off his stool. Bethy, meanwhile was lighting shots on fire and then tossing them back.

I should have known those two would fit in best. Callie grabbed my hand, pulling me away from the big guy and Griff to join Abel at the bar. I grimaced, but didn't bother to resist. I hoped I could avoid any more shots, but I was sure this party would be a long one either way.

True to my fears, the next few hours passed at a crawl. I was pretty sure Abel was playing up how drunk he was to get everyone to let their guards down, and I was worried I'd blow it so I mainly kept to myself. Eventually though, things started to wind down and we all ended up at the table with Griff, who was telling stories about the early days of the Horned Lords.

"When my grandpa ran things." He growled gloomily. "We were a real force. You know he was a C-ranker? Until he pissed off some Churchy and got himself burned alive." He chuckled morosely. "The factions, man. They're toxic."

I raised a brow at that. "In what way?" I hadn't really considered the ideological stance someone would need to be…like this. I'd kind of assumed they'd fit right in at the WCP.

"S'not natural." He said angrily. "They're too static. Too restrictive. Ascendants are about evolution, about riding the waves of legend into our own personal myth. Why do you think there are no more gods besides the six?"

Callie shrugged. "Because they killed them all? I heard they do that."

"Some of them." He disagreed. "But I heard there's another explanation. Gods can move on. Once you reach a certain level of Impact you can just punch through the walls of the world and go somewhere else. Somewhere better. But the six don't do that. They stay behind and lord their power over the rest of us. Stop anyone else from rising up like you said."

And suddenly, something I'd been wondering about clicked into place. I'd wondered about the reasoning behind purging other gods. I'd assumed it was some preventative bullshit, but the addition of this new bit of info helped me find the last piece of the puzzle.

The six were trying to keep us isolated from whatever this…god place was. I didn't know why, or if it would work, but it fit with a lot of the ways they interacted.

"Where did you hear that?" I asked cautiously. Because the weirdest part of that little revelation was that some E-ranked gang leader on a floating space continent knew it when I was pretty sure Zeke didn't.

His mouth snapped shut, and he looked around in paranoia. Apparently he thought there was a chance the authorities weren't aware of any of this, which seemed like an objectively stupid assumption to me, but to each their own. Then, after he confirmed we were alone, he leaned in. "There are other gods you know." He whispered. "New ones. Or I guess old ones. They've been sending people to talk to all of us. Tell us things the five faction alliance don't want us knowing."

Which was exactly what we'd been waiting for him to say. I saw Abel's eyes sharpen, the facsimile of drunkenness painting his features sloughing off to reveal the razor sharpness that was usually there. "Really?" He said in a faux casual tone. "What do they say?"

Griff guffawed. "So much. They tell us all kinds of things. Did you know the factions are holding some secret meeting here?" He tapped an earring. "They gave us these blockers so we could tell people about what's really going on, or I wouldn't even be able to talk to you about it." THe earring was glowing a lambent red.

"A meeting?" Abel asked innocently. "What about?"

Snorting, the gang leader shook his head. "What else? Us." He gestured around him to the drooling and often passed out forms of the other gang members. "The gods are all holding us back. Most of them try to preach tolerance and limitations. The Wishmaster doesn't care about anything but profits and Black Sorrow only shares power with her lunatic followers. We're stagnating, and they're worried we'll notice and side with their enemies."

He said it with the certainty and the conviction of someone who almost definitely hadn't ever seen a B or A-ranked Ascendant fight. Zeke and that Duke were both precision fighters, and even watching them go at it had terrified me. I was positive just from watching, even under Zeke's protection, that if the Duke wanted to he could have destroyed the planet we were standing on.

But of course, Griff wouldn't think that. Griff would listen to the flattering lies and the talk of rebellion, because he wanted to be special and powerful. I knew the truth, the god war would be between the gods. Having seen even a diminished god I had no illusions that I wanted to be on the other side.

Our gods were whole, and strong, and had been around for ages. Theirs were recently resurrected and still weak. Maybe I was oversimplifying since I was related to literally half of them, but I didn't think they were going to win this war.

And even if they had been the favorites I wouldn't have bought into this revolutionary bullshit. This was the kind of nonsense you fed meat shields to get them to die for you.

"They sound like they know a thing or two." Abel said, sounding intrigued. "Could we meet with them too? Or are their visits a secret?" He gave a low burp, eyelids fluttering masterfully until he shook his head to clear it. Abel was a damned good actor.
Griff nodded eagerly. "Of course you can. You're one of us now. Ten of us? You're a bunch of us. Us." He blinked, losing his train of thought. "Us!' He shouted as if shocked out of a stupor. "But yes…you can come. We'll have to show you where though. The meetings are a secret." He put a finger to his lips.

"They're not here then?" Asked Abel with interest. "This seems like a nice place."

Snorting, Griff shook his head. "Nah, not here. More than just us going to the meetings. There are plenty of people unhappy with the status quo. The new gods are strong and just. They appeal to so many different people. You ever heard of flipside?"

My mentor furrowed his brow. "I think so. It's the underground portion of the continent right?"

"Exactly." Said Griff brightly. "Big ass floating space world needs lots of enchantments and machinery. They didn't want to show all the inner workings off, so they stuffed it all underneath the surface. The whole place is a series of interconnected tunnels and chambers full of magic and mad science."

My eyes went wide. That was why they didn't know where they were meeting. Machines and magic had presence, they had weight. Machines made noise, enchantments could be sensed, and the high rankers wouldn't want to spend all their time using Focus to ignore the excess noise.

They would have sealed everything off so there was nothing to sense or hear. It would make actively trying to search the place almost impossible, not because they couldn't find what was down there, but because there was WAY too much to find.

I saw when Abel realized the same thing, and flashed a cheerful grin at our new 'boss'. "Well that sounds like something I'd like to see. When exactly is the next meeting?"

Griff slapped the table with a laugh. "That's the spirit, boy. You and yours can come along when we head down there next. If you're going to be part of the Horned Lords you ought to know what we're about. And I can tell you're the kind to appreciate the truth. The next meeting is tomorrow." He took another long pull of the beer on the table beside him and then belched. "You know Kyle. I like you. You've got a bright future here."

As Abel got back into his conversation, I slipped my hand into Callie's under the table as I felt her fear at what we were going to do next. I understood too, but we needed more information on what they were doing before taking this to my mom. Tomorrow we were going to be going to a cult recruitment. Fingers crossed we all got out of it alive.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The next morning found all of us in varying levels of discomfort. I was mostly fine, I'd minimized drinking as much as possible, and chased it with plenty of water, but the others weren't all so lucky. Gabe, Chelsea, and Mel were all twitching messes. Callie seemed like she might be a bit hungover, but she also just generally hated mornings, so it might have been that.

Abel and Bethy were both fine, of course. My mentor's physical toughness and Bethy's vampire constitution apparently made them better suited to long bouts of self poisoning.

"That was so much fun!" Squealed Bethy in a register that made several people in the bar moan and cover their ears. "We should totally do that again sometime. Shame everyone here is such a lightweight." She dug into her plate of eggs (the kitchen at the Randy Skink made breakfast for Horned Lords members before opening, and it was pretty good) unheeding of the scrape of fork on plate.

Gabe groaned loudly, wincing to himself at the sensation. "Please stop." He begged. "So loud."

I felt bad for Gabe. I didn't think he was a big drinker, but like me I was pretty sure he felt like he needed to blend in when we were undercover. I hadn't even had that much in comparison, but I was already mentally promising myself never to drink again if I could help it.

"Mornin'!" Said an unreasonably loud and cheery voice as someone slammed a backpack down on the table. We all looked up to see Griff grinning down at us, and at our collective wince he barked out a laugh. "Aww, you still get hangovers. That's so cute. How's your crew doing Kyle? You still want to tag along to the meeting?" He kept it vague but felt compelled to add. "It's a long and uncomfortable trip."

Abel snorted. "We're still in. I want to hear more of this 'truth' you were telling me. We just need a few minutes to get cleaned up. You got a shower around here?" We'd slept in the bar (and thank the gods for vitality because we'd be made of knots and sore muscles if we weren't Ascendants) and we all smelled pretty bad.

Chuckling, Griff just shook his head. "Nah, you won't need one of those. No real point where we're going." He turned and walked off with a snicker.

"What do you mean by that?" Ask my sister as he walked away. She turned to us, eyes filling with panic. "What did he mean by that?" She sounded so genuinely distressed I was taken aback. It took me a minute to figure out why, and when I realized it I felt stupid for not assuming.

My sister didn't come across as a neat freak. She didn't insist on extra stops or wince at germs or any of that. However, that was because her power was literally cleanliness. Purification flames could remove dirt, grime, anything unclean she wanted, and it didn't need to be used long or obviously to do it.

Thinking about it, Chelsea always looked clean to me, and now that I thought about it, her power was probably constantly in use keeping her that way. Since we were undercover she couldn't use such an obviously Church related ability.

"It's fine." I said kindly, reaching out to squeeze her shoulder. "He just means we're probably going somewhere hideously filthy. Maybe a sewer or some kind of charnel pit. We'll be covered in muck of one sort or another, made up of gods know what and we won't be able to wash it off as we travel for hours into an underground labyrinth of disgusting effluvia."

Her glare was so intense by the time I finished I was worried she might lunge across the table and bury a knife in my eye.

Callie kicked my shin, and I just shrugged. "What?" I asked innocently. "I'm teasing her. It's what siblings do."

She held her glare for another few seconds before finally breaking down in a fit of giggles. "Honestly." Gasped my sister. "You're so easy. I'm not a five year old, Shane, you won't hurt my feelings by teasing me a bit. Besides, you'll be almost as miserable as me, it's been like two days since your last shower."

I froze. She was right. I was filthy and I hadn't had any miraculous steaming tears of the gods pouring down on me from above like a storm of divine forgiveness.

"Thanks for that." Scowled Callie. "I'd been distracting him from that realization. Now I'm going to have to experience his moping about it all day. Well played." My sister grinned, but I was too distracted with surreptitiously itching at my skin to really get into it. I suddenly felt so unclean. I wondered if I could borrow a pitcher of water and dump it over my head.

Which was…weirdly extreme. I did love taking long showers, but I wasn't…I paused, turning to Callie. "Do you guys ever MENTION my shower addiction to anyone? Like outside of our general group."

She shrugged. "I guess. Like as a funny story here or there. Why-" She stopped, then her lips twitched, and she eventually dissolved into gales of laughter. "Oh my gods, you have SHOWER related recursion. How bad is it?"

"Not terrible." I shrugged. "But I might commission someone to make a portable shower for long trips."

Everyone at the table started laughing, and even I joined in. As far as recursion went I could think of worse. It made me smile to think about it too, even if I was a bit itchy. Sadly, the amusement didn't last long. Griff barked out a command, and the rest of us all headed over to him, ready to follow.

Everyone in the bar had dragged themselves out of their post drink funk, some splashing water on their faces to wake up and some not bothering. When we were all gathered, Abel raised a brow at Griff. "So…how do we access flipside. Is there an elevator or something?"

"Nah." The big man shook his head. "Flipside isn't exactly residential. It's more like maintenance tunnels. There are lots of entrances, but most of the access to deeper spots is under the central market. They have a sort of underground district made up of black market shops down there, accessible through staff stairwells from the larger buildings where the major corporations and clans do their business."

Callie cleared her throat. "Isn't that…risky?" She asked worriedly. "Like we're supposed to be avoiding scrutiny here, right? How are we doing that bringing a bunch of rough looking gangsters in masks into an upscale shopping complex."

"Excellent question." He said with a grin. Walking over to the back of the bar, he took a position next to one of the booths. Reaching down, he slid his hands under the edges and squeezed. There were a pair of clocks and he lifted, revealing that the whole booth was on some kind of trapped door and opened to reveal a slight indent in the ground with a big hole in the center.

The hole led down into absolute darkness via ladder, and Griff gestured to it grandly. "The entrance to the deeper sections can only be found in the underdistrict, but access to THAT can be gained from plenty of places. The easiest way to find the primary tunnels is sewer access. It's how we get around most of the time when we're on serious business instead of rattling cages."

I was actually kind of impressed. There was no visible seam on the floor and that table hadn't seemed unusual in any way. It was perfectly camouflaged, and the table itself was much bigger than the small vertical shaft, so it didn't like, thunk hollowly when used, at least not from my recollection.

He gestured us forward, and I shrugged, stepping out into the shaft and flecking State of Grace a bit. Always on or not, I could tweak the usage, and a quick pull of my soul let me drift gracefully down and touch the floor of the tunnel nearly soundlessly.

Stepping aside, I held out my arms as Callie dropped right into them. I'd felt her plan through the bond, and she'd even shot me a quick message, so it was easy enough to catch her.

We both moved as the others came down, though not just our group, the rest of the Horned Lords were interspersed throughout the descenders, until finally, we were all standing in the darkened tunnel.

I noted the edges of it were arched and made of cobblestone or something, and the whole place had a very historical feel. Griff snapped his fingers, and a lantern on a stick appeared. He opened it and lit it, flooding the tunnel with light, then closed it and held it out in front of us. Once that was done he removed a small remote from his ring and pressed a button, and the booth above us swung down, sealing us all in what would have been darkness without the lantern to light our path.

Callie grabbed my arm, looking unhappy. "Stay away from the walls." She said calmly. "Those aren't natural." She pointed at the stone, and I watched the movement of our flickering shadows along the walls in the dancing candle light. Or I WOULD have assumed that, if she hadn't said anything.

In between the naturally shifting shadows, a series of other dark forms danced, twirling and spinning and throwing themselves back and forth. As I watched, my heart started to pound, taking on a staccato beat like drums. I stared in fascination until I got a smack upside the head. "Ow." I complained, turning to Callie. "What was that for?"

"You were standing there almost a minute without responding." She said bluntly. "And it wasn't just you?" She gestured around at the others, some being woken from their stupor, some seeming fine. Bethy was chatting amicably with Chelsea, both of them seemingly unaffected.

"I don't think everyone has noticed yet." She said with a shrug. "Without my shadow senses I wouldn't have. Though I think Griff knows. That lantern seems to be keeping them away."

We all turned to look at the gang leader, who was grinning at us. "You got me." He said with a chuckle. "Just one more little test. The forsaken live in the dark down here. The lantern keeps them off but their dance is hypnotic." He turned to look at the others. "OI!" He barked. "Quit lollygagging."

Everyone who was distracted snapped out of it. I was curious why some of the others didn't seem to know about this, but before I could ask, he reached up and flicked a switch on the lantern, closing one of the four shutters, and the dancing of the flame was subdued. The shadow forms faded, not longer visible, and I realized he really HAD been testing us. And not just us either.

Once the little interlude was over we set off through the tunnels. I'll give Griff this, he was a damned good navigator. He took us through about a dozen nearly identical intersections and chambers, taking us up and then down a few ladders, until finally we came to one large chamber that was different than the rest.

Approaching the side of the room, he slid the lantern stick into a bracket in the wall next to a small waterfall. When he did, a small platform emerged from the water, splitting the flow and opening a door as a series of round stones rose to sit just above the water, forming a walkway.

He gestured us in, and we all entered. He removed an identical lantern from the opposite side and the waterfall resumed its solid form. It took another fifteen minutes before we arrived at the entrance to yet ANOTHER huge cavern, but this one was filled with people, rushing about in a variety of states of hurry. "Well, here we are." Said Griff happily. "Welcome to the underdistrict."

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Looking at the small town (or settlement or whatever you wanted to call it) in front of us, I was blown away. Not because it was nicer or more intricately crafted than most Ascendant cities I'd seen so far, but exactly the opposite.

The Underdistrict, as Griff called it, was unique in that the whole thing seemed to have been thrown together at a moment's notice out of whatever people had lying around. Not that the resulting buildings weren't beautiful, but it was in a messy, unfinished sort of way. Square shacks and booths and even small buildings built from cans and trash can lids and shuttle parts, all somehow merged into a singular whole while showing exactly what they had been.

Noticing our staring, Griff chuckled. "This place gets raided semi-regularly. Everyone knows we're down here, and the big wigs don't drive us off completely because this continent is so big they would lose track of us, but they come down and wreck things every so often to put the fear of the gods in us."

I heard the bitterness in his tone, and I might have sympathized…except this whole place was literally made from scratch by the gods. They could have just gone to another planet where things were less stringent.

Not that I couldn't see what upset them. In another life I could have seen myself maybe siding with them, but there was too much here I didn't like. The gods that Hatescream had recruited seemed pretty objectionable, and the Horned Lords were kind of dicks. I liked some of them, but I wouldn't lose sleep over switching sides when it was time.

For now though, I was supposed to be blending in, so Callie and I ooh'ed and aah'ed along with everyone else, and followed Griff into a big ramshackle steel building made out of lift parts and what I was pretty sure was a smashed flat dumpster.

Inside, we found a series of tables made from melded metals, and in the back, a big bar top with a man behind it polishing a glass. The man in question was amiable and quiet, with close cropped brown hair and a big curling mustache over a vest and a button up white shirt. He had a bolo tie around his neck, and smiled calmly when we approached. "Griff." He said to our boss with a nod.

"Meechum." He said with a grin. He flipped him a chit. "I need todays patrol schedules and about two dozen beers." He turned and gave us all an understanding smile. "See a bunch of cringing faces here. You could all use a little hair of the dog."

I'd rather be drinking ACTUAL dog hair than more booze, but at least beer was pretty light alcohol by volume. Something else caught my attention though. "Patrols?" I asked curiously. "I thought they didn't care about people being down here? At least not most of the time, what are the patrols for?"

"Down here they can take or leave." He explained. "But deeper takes you into the parts of the flipside where they do actual maintenance. Messing with that stuff can actually cause damage to the continent, albeit not on a scale that would be anything but annoying. We don't interfere with that level of enchantment or machine though. That's a good way to get dead."

I nodded in understanding. "So…" I glanced at the smiling man filling mugs. "Meechum knows the patrol schedules and sells them, and no one does anything about it?"

"Does anything?" Snorted Griff. "Meechum is a member of the Freeholders Guild. A collection of powerful independents that act kind of like a clan. They have five S-rankers, and are probably one of the most powerful factions after the main six. Not counting solo monsters like Lark or Draylen Dread."

I raised an eyebrow at that last name, but he just glossed over it like it was common knowledge. "Anyway, we need to plot a course and time it so we avoid the patrols, so feel free to get something to eat. The baked potatoes here are amazing. Feel free to look around before we leave."

He turned and wandered off, and I shrugged, ordering a pair of baked potatoes for me and Callie before heading to one of the tables to sit down. The potato was so hot I could barely hold it and they'de like…injected butter into it somehow. Ever inch was a buttery white hot dream, and I found myself eating it so fast and I barely noticed it was gone.

"Terrible manners." Drawled a random member of the Horned Lords as he sat down. "Is that the way I raised you?"

I froze, blinking at the man uncertainly. He wasn't familiar, a freckled man with alternating green and red locks of braided hair. I shot Callie a thought and she covered us in Stealth as I gaped at the man. "Zeke?"

He chuckled at that. "Well I could hardly follow you down here as I was. I grabbed one of the newer members and made a temporary mask."

My eyes roved over his form, my Perception straining, and I whistled as I failed to find a single issue. No hints that he was who I knew he was. Because now that he said it I COULD tell. Something about his demeanor and the way he spoke. This was my uncle. "What the hell are you doing down here?" I hissed.

"My job." He snorted. "Flipside is designed for isolation. Even A and S-rankers can't listen in to what goes on down here. I can't get involved unless you're attacked, but my testimony might be useful, and in case someone DOES attack you, I need to be here to help."

I looked around. "Is Callen here? He was with you right? Did you bring him with?"

"He's around." He nodded. "Making a mask from an E-ranker takes about as much effort as making a sandwich. Though these aren't made well. They'll last three days." He seemed proud of himself, and I understood why. I'd never seen Zeke do this whole…turning into another person, thing, until he killed the Duke and hit A-rank. It was clearly a higher level application of his Path.

I checked to make sure everyone was ok (they were with my mom right now) and then he got up and left. It would have been suspicious for whoever he was supposed to be to hang around with us too long. Once he was gone, Callie and I got another pair of baked potatoes and then called over the others, Stealthing and filling them in on what we'd learned.

Abel seemed unsurprised. "I assumed he was here. After they told us about the blocking properties this place had he'd have needed to follow us. I assume you caught him up on what you learned inside the bubble from that disruption earring?"

"Right after I got some time alone I sent him the info via scan ring." I glanced around. "We're conspicuous grouped up like this. Let's split up and sightsee, get a feel for this place. I don't want to do anything too noticeable until we get back topside."

Everyone agreed, and we split up. I noticed a tall bald man following Chelsea, Bethy, and Gabe, but given Callen was around, I assumed either he was the one following them or whoever it actually was would be wishing they weren't before long. Callie and Iwere on our own, with Mel and Abel doing their thing, so we took the time to just take a romantic walk.

"Those baked potatoes were so good." Callie groaned. "I totally want another one. I wonder if any of these other places have food like that."

I chuckled. "They were pretty good. We can look around for some more food. I think I saw a place making funnel cakes, and another with popcorn. Reminds me of the circus almost." I could have sworn I saw caramel apples, and I was on the lookout for those.

One of the things that really entranced me about this place was the vibe. I could see people I'd noticed topside in cloaks slipping out of alleys between buildings. Towering pillars and stairways connected us to the surface, obvious maintenance exits from high rise buildings up above. It was like an entire secret world beneath the surface.

You'd think with the WCP I'd be used to that, but the palace had never really been secret. Even back in Valen we knew it was there. This place though, I bet plenty of the topsiders didn't even know it existed. Knowing it had to be rebuilt on the regular made it even more amazing, and part of me wished we had more time here.

We stopped at a few stalls where people sold discounted alchemy concoctions, flawed weapons, and dangerous inventions that people wouldn't pay for topside. I was tempted by a few things, but in the end I didn't have the cash to blow on things I didn't need. I made a note to come back here sometime after this mess was over though. Maybe pay Zeke for another identify spree.

After about an hour we got called back and we met up at Meechum's where Griff informed us of our next move. "We have about twenty minutes before the return loup on the local patrol, so shut up and follow me quickly. This will be close."

Without another word, he turned and strode off into a nearby alley, the rest of us trailing behind him. He took us down a length of street, then did a quick left turn, and we barely got into the alley he ended up in before he cornered again. We had to hurry to keep up, but he finally brought us to a large empty house built into the under structure of one of the stairwells.

Clearly not ALL the buildings were taken down when they did the raids, this one looked old, but we didn't stay long enough to confirm, heading down into the basement. We stopped at a large refrigerator, and he opened the door,pulling some of the shelves out partway and then sliding them up or down.

There was a click and the back of the fridge opened up, and he climbed through, not even waiting for us to process.

It was a tight squeeze, but we made it. The next twenty minutes was a blur of turns, climbing, dropping, and a few times crawling, avoiding glowing enchantment script or dangerous looking machine parts.

Finally, we came to a stop. "Alright." Said Griff. "We're here. Made good time too. Good work everyone." He stepped forward and turned a metal wheel on an oval door set into the wall. Metal security bars slid out of the surrounding steel brackets and the door swung open, admitting us all into a huge metal chamber decked with machines.

There were other people there, lots of them, all crowded around what looked like a big ass stage in the center of the room, upon which stood a tall dark haired woman in a long black dress and a bright red cloak.

I didn't recognize anyone here, but I hadn't expected to, this place wasn't exactly a hangout for my old friends from the Glade. Many of the Horned Lords spread out to talk to the oddly dressed people mingling, clearly other gangs, and I did my best to listen and remember what was being said without seeming like I was eavesdropping. Never knew what would come in handy.

Griff clapped Abel on the back. "Welcome." He said jovially. "Welcome to the place where your mind will be freed from the chains the six put on you. Free to return to our true origins. We're all just animals, Kyle, and the Law of the Jungle is the only Law we should be following. And after tonight, you'll know it as well as I do."

Glancing around at the milling crowd, I was worried he might not be wrong. Out of reach of most civilized people, even with Zeke here, I was just nervous of what might happen. In a very real sense we were off the edge of the map down here. Here there be monsters.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

We wandered around for a bit listening in, but we didn't have context for anything we heard so we didn't learn much. We hadn't expected to, really, we were here for the meeting to get a good idea of who our enemies were. It didn't take long for things to start though, and after a few minutes, someone walked up onto the stage and everyone went quiet.

It was odd, the first thing I heard, even over the muttering before it died down, was footsteps. The clack of heels on hard stone as the person in question ascended the stage.

The person who emerged onto the stage was captivating. Not because of any physical characteristic (they were wearing a heavy concealing robe and a sort of red veil that hid everything about them) but because they seemed to create an almost gravitational pull on everyone's attention.

Every step, every motion, every sound, it was all somehow shaping the room toward them. All eyelines led to this person, all sounds traced back to them. Paying attention to anything was part of an unbroken line of events that led to staring at the robed figure who took their place atop the stage.

"Family." They said, in a voice like the whisper of leaves over the icy surface of a midnight grave. "This is what we are. We who are outcast, who are shunned. We disenfranchised and abandoned and disdained."

I felt…rightness, from the words. My mind conjured images of times I'd been alone or forgotten. Times I'd be abandoned and maligned. I resonated with the idea of being an outsider, and that this person was the same as me, and that made us one. Or I would have, if I hadn't already been one with someone.

Love flooded the bond. Adoration and affection and a beseeching for the return of the same and I gave it. I wasn't alone. I was never alone. Not really. And suddenly something snapped and the figure was just a figure. They continued speaking though, and it was easier to pay attention without the mindbending.

"You have come to seek the truth." They whispered. "To find guidance. You've been told for too long that it was your own fault, that you needed to change to fit society, to become part of a greater whole. Is that what you wish?"

As one, the entire audience (barring a few of us like Callie, Zeke, and I) bellowed. "NO!"

The figure nodded. "Of course. Because to do this would be tantamount to self murder. To abandoning your core and forsaking your soul. They pretend society is some monument to perfection, that it always was and always will be. But we know it is not. It is simply the expectations of the mighty few, imposed on their lessers, shaping the world to be as they wish."

I wanted to roll my eyes, but I wasn't wearing my mask. Cult 101, telling the people you're recruiting they're special and better than everyone else.

"Power." The voice whispered. "Such a fickle thing. There is a finite amount of power in this world, and to attain it you must take it from others. That is the truth they hide from you, the truth you know deep in your hearts. Those who rule you have power, and in order to be free you must seize it for yourself."

The rhetoric was fine, not great but not terrible. I knew how they'd gotten so many onboard though. That weird mental compulsion would have made this sound like gospel if it was still happening to me.

I kind of wanted to argue, to point out that their whole conceptual model was petty and shortsighted. But if I did that it would just be obvious that I was here to spy. To my shock though, one of the gang members did it for me. "That's all well and good." Called one man in the back, an intimidating man with green skin and tusks. "But it sounds like you and yours just want to replace one master with another. How do we benefit from you new world order?"

"Because you are the predators." Reassured the figure. "The laws of nature benefit you most of all. This farce of the 'civilized' gods is unnatural. They force those below them to care for the weak to drive back the very beasts that would separate wheat from chaff."

I blinked. The six did NOT do that. Like…at all. Maybe the Emperor, but the rest of them were mostly a live and let die sort of people in my view. Exactly how brutal were these vanished gods that the WCPs complete apathy seemed SOFT to them?

The green skinned man laughed. "That's a lot of fancy words to use saying not much at all. The Wild Call doesn't work for free, or on maybes. We want assurances, contracts. You're hiring us to take part in your little coup d'etat. It's a risk for us no matter how you spin it, and you're an idiot if you think we're going to fight your battles for you in exchange for vague promises of advancement."

Despite not having visible features, it was clear the figure had turned to stare at the man. The rest of the crowd seemed to be stirring, the man had a presence of his own, and it was beating on the air, pushing back the subtle manipulation of the audience with raw warrior charisma.

Turning, I studied him more closely. Long red hair pulled back in a braid, threaded with loops of dark metal. His ears, high and pointed like an elf's, were pierced with the same material, five small ring along the cartilage of each pointed lobeless appendage. His eyes were citrine, blazing with intensity and power.

"Who." Whispered the figure, voice somehow rising despite remaining the same pitch. "Are you?" Where before the whisper had been a faint rustle, now it was a storm of whipping leaves, still faint but somehow more insistent.
"Davian Barrow." Said the man. "And who are you? Because you never gave us a name. No one ever asked. They were too busy being whipped into a frenzy by your poisonous muttering. I've sat here and listened for weeks as more and more of us fell sway to your nonsense. I don't care about the rest, if they're weak enough to be compromised that's on them. But I don't miuch appreciate you trying to mind control me and my boys to work for free."

The vibe in the room changed, the rest of the listeners tensing as they started to examine their own thoughts. The figure paused, seeming to be caught off guard, before it spoke in a reassuring murmur. "Family." It said again. "We are all one. I do not control, I simply share. My passions, my feelings, I communicate as best I know how, if these things sway you is that not what words were coined for to begin with?"

"This ain't about your mind tricks." Spat Barrow. "It's about payment. Make as many vague speeches as you want, but I'm not working unless I get paid. So make an offer or get lost. And don't think we didn't notice you avoiding the question about your name."

The figure drew itself up. "Brute! I am Patience, third chorister of The Catachism of Calamity, speaker of the radiant truth, voice of the undying dream, and bearer of the flame of knowledge! I bring enlightenment to your savage ears, and you seek only to scrabble for petty benefits? I speak to you a tale of freedom! I weave a path to an unbound future! Is that not payment enough?"

"Nice deflection." Said Barrow, unimpressed. "Fun fact, the power company that lights my apartment doesn't take tales of freedom, and my favorite butcher stopped accepting paths to an unbound future for a roast last month. I'll pass on the enlightenment, you can just pay me in chits."

The rest of his men, a variety of powerfully built warriors of various colors, laughed at that, and the chuckle sent a ripple through the crowd as they nodded along.

I heard a snicker by my ear and turned to see Zeke chuckling. I raised an eyebrow at him and he gestured to the stage. He must have been stealthing us because no one noticed him speaking. "Robey over there is using a form of mental compulsion called incitement. It's…old. Some of the Bishops in the Cult still use it, but its rare."

"It's a Skill?" I said, inferring the only way something like that might work.

He nodded. "Yup. It's a form of mass hypnosis. It's absurdly effective on large numbers of mentally weakened subjects, but there's a downside to everything. Incitement puts people in a suggestible state, but that state is universal. The green meanie hijacked the sermon, and now Robey is trying to course correct."

"How many people broke out of it?" I asked curiously. "Callie helped me, which means I assume Abel and Mel are fine. Gabe is an adamant and Bethy is Bethy. The only one I'm worried about is Chelsea."

He just chuckled. "Your sister is more than capable of resisting tricks like this. I suspect a small flare of her purifying flame would cleanse the influence. Even if not, like I said, the Cult uses this particular trick, and the Church warns their people against it. I'm curious how they're going to turn this one around."

"You think this will stop their plan?" I asked hopefully. "That he's put an end to whatever was going to happen?"

Zeke snorted. "Hardly. There aren't nearly enough people here to represent all the gangs on this continent. This is just the latest crop. Even if greenie turns the whole crowd against the Robe it's a drop in the bucket. I'm more interested in what they said about who they are. Ever heard of The Catechism of Calamity?"

"Not yet." I admitted. "I was going to check the book when we got back topside. I haven't had a chance to study it too deeply. Ascendent books are…dense."

Because of our increased Perception and Focus, books aimed at high level Ascendents tended to be written in absurdly small text packed very densely together. The book old Arble had given me on the gods was no exception.

Still, this was an interesting outcome. I stepped over to Griff, who was glaring at the big man who was arguing with the robed figure. "Hey Griff, who's the chatty guy? Like I know his name but where is his territory?"

"Barrow." He sneered. "He and his little crew run a block or two over in the Fairieland district. Think they're better than the rest of us because they charge for being thugs. Mercs not a gang. It's all the same shit, but any reason to turn your nose up, I guess." He sounded bitter, and I wondered if they'd had any personal conflict before. I got that kind of vibe. Still, if anything that made Griff's opinion more valid as a source, as long as I took it with a grain of salt.

I nodded slowly. "He any good in a fight?" Mercs could be useful. I was betting we could get mom to shell out for a contract. If we could hire them to snoop around on Patience and company it could be a huge coup for our information reserves. I'd have asked if he honored contracts, but in a world where gaesa existed that wasn't much of an issue.

"He's ok." Griff said grudgingly. "He's an axe Master at E-rank. Not too rare around here, but nothing to sneeze at. I might hire him for a job, as long as he had shutting up in his contract."

I chuckled along to his lame joke politely, but inside my mind was whirling. I needed to get in touch with Celine and have her reach out. We could contact The Wild Call in our normal identities to prevent these from being compromised, or have Benny and Celine do it themselves. Either way, we had a path forward.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

We managed to get out of the meeting without any bloodshed. Zeke vanished again soon after, and Callen reappeared only to take off to talk to my mom about all this. Griff and the others all headed home (thankfully they didn't live at the bars) and he told us to meet him back at there the next night because Patience had a job for us.

When we got back to the inn, the first thing I did was head to talk to Jessie. I'd been putting something off for far too long, and I needed her help to get it done. When I found her, she was hanging out with Celine and Benny.

"Hey all." I said as I headed into the room where everyone was lounging. "Jessie, I was hoping you could help me with something. Before that though, I have some wishes to burn today. I want Jessie to make two of them, but Celine, you or Benny want the other five?" I knew my best friend had been working on himself over the last few months and change, though I hadn't seen the results.

Benny hopped to his feet. "Give them to Celine. I've made a ton of progress. Between the Glade, the war, and the role I played in the ruined soul temple I'm starting to build up some actual rep. Nothing on the level of you or Callie, but I've made some serious progress." Grinning, he wrote out his numbers and passed them to me smugly.

Benicio Cortez- E-rank. Ability: Expert Body of Inspiration- Allows the integration of existing artifacts into the users body for the purposes of strengthening and enhancing them, two items per placement. insignia is a half gear in the shape of a C

Might-6974
Impact-65
Fantasy-556
Vitality-441
Focus-7141
Perception-582
Creation-471
Progress to next rank: 16230/100000


Soul strength: Sapphire Soul Body

Pet- Wolf named Rolf

Current integrated tech. 14/20. Torso: G-ranked intangibility for short bursts, Three times multiplication of Might for five minutes. 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, Three times multiplication of Focus for five minutes. 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, Three times Multiplication of Perception for five minutes. Heart: Illusionary double, Three times Multiplication of Vitality for five minutes.

I whistled at the improvement. "Six thousand points? I mean they go faster at E-rank, but still, that's pretty impressive."

He shrugged, buffing his nails on his shirt cockily. "Well you know, word about being involved in killing a D-ranker at E-rank got around. Granted, Callen got most of the rep for that, but since he ranked up and we didn't some people are still talking about it. Apparently it's spread around the Church quite a bit."

"Plus you're E-rank. So you're starting to pull up some of your lower stats just buy virtue of a rising tide raising all ships." I noted mercilessly. He glared at me, and Celine had to hide a giggle at me taking the wind out of his sails. "Anyway, now that I know he's doing ok on his own, I take it you're hoping to pump your own stats a bit?"

Still smiling, she nodded. "I've reached E-rank myself from the renown I gain as a noble. Baroness now, I suppose. I get a decent amount of income statwise, but not enough to keep up with monsters like all of you." Slipping out a bag, she poured five more D-rank coins into her hand and held them out.

"Man, your family isn't shy with the purse strings huh?" I asked as I took them, waiting for her to make her wishes. She did so, wishing for ten points each in various stats. I pocketed the coins and she sighed before finally answering.

I saw her deciding what to say, and waited until she had her bearings, happy to hear out whatever was bothering her. "They see you as an opportunity." She said finally. "You've done various things of note to prove yourself distinct from the average candidate, if one can claim such a thing exists. They consider funding our cooperation an investment."

She said it like she was scared I'd flip out or attack her, but I just laughed. "Well obviously. That's not a big secret Cel. They benefit from investing in me long term and I benefit from it short term, that's how investment works. I know you're worried about me feeling like you're working both sides, but you don't need to be. You've proved yourself time and again since that mess on Callus. I trust you."

In my mind, Celine's willingness to go to bat for funds to help us grow was more than reasonable, it was basically a favor. I'd been commenting on the AMOUNT of money, not the fact that she had it. I said as much, and her shoulders relaxed.

"Ah, I understand." She chuckled. "My mother is a Duchess. And like most major noble houses we're descended from a Princess." I opened my mouth and she rolled her eyes. "NOT the one that lives here. We're not all related. Her liquid funds are substantial, and a few C-ranked chits worth of coins is a small investment. Now, what exactly did you need Jessie's help with?"

I blinked, having gotten distracted. "Ah, right, sorry." I turned to Jessie. "Need to get a few attacks off you. I'm trying to design a new Goetia form, and I'm going to try to lean into something more healing based. I'm not sure if I have enough pieces to make something stable though. I can use your stored heals, but I need more than that for structure."

Jessie frowned. "Hmmm. I don't really know much about Skill creation. But I might have some ideas for you." She perked up. "Actually, I think I definitely do." She turned to Celine. "Can you go get Chelsea, tell her we need her up here." She seemed excited by whatever had popped into her head, so I just nodded to the elf and waited, this could be pretty good if she was thinking what I was starting to suspect.

When my sister arrived, Jessie bade her sit down and then looked at me. "So, before we start, just to make sure I'm not barking up the wrong tree, can you tell me why this particular form is different than the others? Why are you having trouble with it?"

I hummed, thinking it over. "All the other forms have been built on a foundation of my own powers. I have abilities for most things, and I use those as a base to create Skills. Not just in terms of stats or patterns, but in terms of experience. I don't really have any healing Skills, and while I've used your heal bursts enough to have that experience, you can't build anything stable on one point of failure."

"Exactly." Said Jessie. "You need more than just life energy. You need another positive influence right? Could you use the flames of purification?"

I'd expected her to ask that, and I nodded. "I can." I said, sure of it. "I have Afterburner, which amplifies anything and is particularly attuned to fire. Mix that with life energy and purification and that'll be the healing form I need."

Grinning, she gestured to both of them. "Well, as usual, I wish for ten points of VItality, and I'll pay with ten heal bursts." Chelsea did the same thing, and I got ten charges of purification flames to work with. "Ten points is a drop in the bucket for me." she said with a sigh. "Focusing so hard on just one direction is tough. Still I think I'm doing alright. Don't you?" She wrote out her own stats for me.

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

Might-1425
Impact-65
Fantasy-458
Vitality-10004
Focus-555
Perception-465
Creation-458
Progress to next rank: 13440/100000
Pet- Wolf named Lily and Undying Lifestorm Ursa named Randall(Intermediate Beast Bonding with Jessie)

soul strength: Sapphire Soul Body

Skills: Intermediate Horticulture,Intermediate First Aid, Minor Herbalism, Minor Flower Arrangement, Intermediate Beast Taming Mastery, Intermediate Beast Bonding, Intermediate Shape of the Wild


She'd gained three thousand points (and ten more from the wishes), not having gotten the exposure from the war that Benny did. Still, breaking ten thousand in Vitality was absurd. And the rest of her stats had been dragged up along with her rank.

"Anyway, enough stalling." She said bluntly. "You need to get your Skill made. Strike while the iron is hot. I'm sure you can do it."

Chuckling, I sat down and closed my eyes, triggering my Eye of Revelation in that way that let me study myself. Once I was…I started. Building a Skill out of only stockpiled attacks was something I didn't think I could have done until recently. I'd scanned through a bit of that book, though not nearly enough, and I was pretty sure I know how I was going to manage it.

First up was the heal bursts. I drew them from the spot where all my stockpiled attacks sat, smashing them up into fragments. Now that I knew they were just patterns of forged stats it was easier. Vitality, obviously, and I knew exactly how and where the break points were.

Once they were torn apart, I pulled out the purification flames. That was tougher. Might and Fantasy, mostly, with some Perception, and a bit of Creation oddly enough. They were…complicated. But they were only stored E-rank attacks, and I had more Impact than a normal E-ranker. I don't know why that helped, but it did.

I found points to break them up, then used the pieces of heal burst to reconstruct them around an empty central point. I needed the foundation to be part of me, to actually connect the Skill to myself. Consecration of flame was exactly what I needed. The name and purpose was so harmonious with my intent and purpose it just clicked right into place.

Last, but not least, I built in the little extra kick I needed. Afterburner. As a fire based ability this was exactly the right mix, and I smiled internally at the most stable and harmonious Skill I'd ever made.

When the last piece was slotted into place, the whole thing kind of…shifted. I triggered the form, and I felt green flames roll over me, my hair shifting, my eyes glowing brilliants as swirling tattoos that reminded me of the vitality patterns of heal burst lit up my skin, I felt my body ignite with life and purity and power.

As the new form became a part of me, I allowed myself to breathe out the name of the stance. "Zagan." I said with a smile, as I stared around the room at my shocked friends. "This one is called Zagan."

I felt so at peace. So warm and alive, and I knew that in its own way, this was probably my most powerful form. No combat potential to speak of, but in terms of pure utility it was unmatched.

With this, I could heal allies, cure their poisons, curses, afflictions of any kind. More than Jessie, more than Chelsea. Zagan was the true first step in showing how my versatility could build itself into something that surpassed specialists. Granted, Jessie would eventually surpass me so heavily in Vitality that quality would cease to matter in the face of quantity, but until then, I'd developed a unique and potent new power that would keep us all alive.

 

[Lone-sith]

This man is so fucking cool, him and his forms

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The biggest problem that I ran into with Zagan was that I wasn't sure how the hell I was supposed to use it. Not the mechanics, I could just shove healing energy into people, but the actual staff form. Each of my forms possessed a physical moveset, a series of staff arts that anchored them to Goetia and made them a holistic part of my combat style.

Mephistopheles was a lot of sharp brutal thrusting attacks, Mornax was a defensive stance that involved rooting my staff to the earth to soak up a charge, and Belial was all deflection and misdirection. The physical forms were all heavily influenced by their natures.

Which was why I was sitting in my room in the inn, spinning my staff in circles between my hands as I contemplated Zagan. Its nature was simple, but also complex. Purification, life, Vitality. It energized and cleansed and empowered. I considered a series of short sharp swipes of increasing speed, playing into the energy aspect, but nothing felt right.

I heard the door click, and looked up, unsurprised to find Callie beaming at me. "I felt all that excitement." She said as she walked over to flop down on my bed. "Seems like this was a big one. Now I'm just getting frustration though, anything I can help with?"

I shrugged, keeping up my slow spin as I passed the staff to from hand to hand. "Not sure. I'm trying to figure out an actual staff technique to anchor my form, the way I have with the others."

"Well, why don't we try to test it out?" She said with a shrug. Hopping to her feet, she drew a pair of daggers, gesturing me to the middle of the floor. "First thing is first, maybe try telling me what it's NOT."

That was a good idea. I gave a hum of agreement. "It isn't violent." I paused. "It isn't ONLY violent. It's not an attack. It's not exactly defensive, standing and tanking or knocking aside blows isn't right. It's not slow, but not too fast." I groaned aloud. "I sound ridiculous and this isn't helping at all."

"No, it is." She said in a pondering tone. "Maybe it's defensive but not of you? Protection?"

I paused, feeling that out in my mind, I slowly shook my head. "That's…wrong, but closer? I think I've got it! Try to chain me up with your shadows, just cover me in them." She shrugged, and with a flick of her fingers the shadows around the room lanced out as chains, trying to wrap around me.

A few quick flicks of my staff and a few flashes of green white fire and the shadows dissolved. "Got it!" I cheered happily. "It's a counter technique for control abilities. Goes perfectly with the purification thing. It's meant to cleanse effects, and most control Skills are some kind of effect."

It was extremely useful, even if it was also functionally incapable of dealing damage. I could feel from the Skill that Zagan couldn't hurt anyone, and it would fundamentally clash with things like Belial or Mephistopheles. However, it was an excellent support power, and would synergize well with Mornax.

"That tore through my shadows like wet paper." Callie said in an impressed voice. "My Might is HIGH now, being able to do that is no joke."

I raised a brow at her. "Actually yeah, I hadn't had a chance to ask about your stats. How much exactly did you improve over the last four months, Miss Godslayer?" I grinned to let her know I was mostly teasing, at least about the snarky title. I really wanted to know exactly how far she'd come.

We'd been so busy I hadn't really had the time to check in on her progress. I knew she'd been keeping it to herself so she could surprise me, the same way the rest of us had. When I was using all my wishes on myself for stat gain I was much less involved with my friends and their advancement, for good or for ill. Callie grinned proudly as she wrote out all her stats, and I whistled in awe.

Calliope Reynolds E-rank. Ability: Expert Abyssal Infiltration- Enter the shadows and emerge where you will within range, shape the darkness to your call, moving it as if it were part of your body, and even extend your senses through the shadows to spy on your enemies.

Might-11,550
Impact-65
Vitality-742
Fantasy-10,105
Focus-908
Perception-9375
Creation-2485
Progress to next rank: 35230/100000

Soul strength- Sapphire Soul Body
Pet-Wolf named Rellia

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

Path of the Abyss-Illusory.

"Damn." I said in shock. "You weren't kidding about your Might. Now I see why you were so shocked at how easily Zagan dispersed those bindings. I guess being completely specced toward healing and purification makes it way more broken than I expected."

I suspected that the pieces I'd used to make it played a part in that. The Purification Flame was a bloodline power, and one that I technically HAD the bloodline for. I was curious if it would have worked so well for someone else. Chelsea's version of it was the real one. I knew from seeing Enshrining Darkness around that you could make lesser copies of bloodline powers, but from what I could tell they were much weaker.

More than the stats though, I was impressed with her Skills. "I can't believe you hit Expert in Shadow Manipulation. Not to mention Intermediate in Stealth AND Traps, and Beginner with your daggers. When the hell did you have time to do all this training?"

She grinned at me wolfishly. "I didn't. Or rather, I did, but I also didn't. I've been spamming my shadow clones and imbuing them with Piece of Mind. It wouldn't work for anyone else or I'd have mentioned it, but my ability lets me see the world through shadows, and my clones count. The combination with Piece of Mind means I can actually learn with them."

"That is so broken." I said in an amazed voice. "I love it. Can you do it with any Skill?" I was excited about the possibilities of this. Could she learn all her Skills faster? I couldn't copy it I didn't think, at least not at this level of the bond, but maybe someday, I cut off my fantasizing as she shook her head.

"No can do." She said sadly. "It basically stops working at Intermediate. I can practice rote stuff, but innovating like that doesn't work for some reason. Shadow Manipulation was an exception because I was using shadows to do it, and the actual learning seemed to count."

I sighed unhappily. I had a few shadow clones saved I'd been planning to try it with, but for Intermediate Skills it wasn't worth the soul strain. My DS Mastery was my most important Skill anyway and it was at Expert. I'd already passed the phase where I could just smash new Skills into the old one to try and improve it too, I knew too much about Skill crafting and how badly that had almost fucked me over the last time.

Any combinations of Skills I made would need to be carefully crafted from specific Skills or stored attacks. It was made even more complicated by the fact that they were subskills of my Expert level Path Skill, which was why I'd been working on my forms instead of trying to directly alter DS Mastery.

I'd even considered condensing all of my individual subskills into various forms and trying to alter my Path into the Path of Goetia or something similar to slim down my focus a bit, but I was still a long way off from that. I could feel that I'd need to finish all nine forms for that to even be an option, which meant I was less than half done.

"So…" I asked as I walked over and slumped down on the bed next to Callie. "What do you think Griff needs us for tomorrow? I get the feeling that whatever it is, we're not going to be doing something nice."

She smirked at me, hair falling over her face as she let her head loll to the side to stare into my eyes. "Oh, you don't think Griff is planning a puppy parade? Maybe we're going to brush ponies for charity."

"I…I don't think you understand how charity works." I said with a snicker. "It's like…giving to those less fortunate."

She snorted. "I guarantee you that I'm richer than a pony." She paused. "Actually, there are probably A-rank ponies with like Imperial Platinum tassels on their manes and saddles made of dragon leather. I'm probably richer than most E-rank ponies."

"More money than an undersized beast of burden." I said solemnly. "Clearly we've come up in the world."

"I want ponies at the wedding." She said loftily. "I need to teach them their place so they don't mouth off about how much money they have when they get stronger. We could have Bethy tame one for the ceremony, and I could ride it down the aisle!" She seemed to be getting more and more excited as she talked, and I couldn't help but laugh.

Reaching up, I covered her mouth with my hand. "Ok, please stop. Because this started as a joke and I feel it spiraling out of control. You are not riding an E-rank pony down the aisle. Half the guests are lower rank than that, and I'm positive ponies aren't trained to restrain their aura. It would crush your mom like a bug."

She slumped and I removed my hand, noting her pout. "I bet some ponies are trained." She muttered.

"Yes, but we can't afford them, I'm sure." We actually probably could, but I wasn't paying for an E-rank animal trainer for a pony she would ride one time. "Actually, can animals talk?" I asked as I thought back to her joke about ponies making comments. "Like, they seem to get smarter, I'd imagine that they reach a point where speech is possible."

She blinked at me. "You don't know about that? I always forget how little time you've spent as an Ascendant. No, animals can't talk, but when they hit D-rank they have a chance to evolve into humanoids. They rarely do, because animals in general tend to be pretty content as animals, and D-rank animal forms are terrifying, but that's the only way they gain speech."

"I'm surprised, I keep expecting Randall to start talking." I paused. "Or I guess he does, but like, talking our language."

She shook her head. "His throat isn't designed for that. Some of them develop telepathy, but it's really rare. Much more common to find them bonded to a person or to just not care about talking to humans. I'm interested to see which direction our animal companions all go when they hit D-rank. Especially Luggage."

The idea of a humanoid hellhound sounded pretty interesting, I had to admit. I was curious about that too, though who knew which way Bethy would try to push her pets. They were getting stronger fast so it might not be too far off that we got to actually find out. One of the many interesting perks of traveling with a Vampire.

We sat there like that for a few hours, chattering about nothing, cuddled up and enjoying our time together. I hoped I never stopped making time for moments like this with Callie, after the wedding or a hundred years from now. I was never happier than when I was holding her, sitting in a feedback loop of love and adoration through the bond. Eventually we drifted off to sleep, and I did so with a big smile on my face. Whatever came tomorrow we'd be ready, for now I was just happy we were together.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The next day, we all had to get ready for whatever the hell Griff was having us do. We hadn't headed back to the bar yet, but we'd all gathered up to go over some of the details before we had to leave, and all of us were more than a tad worried about the direction things had been going in that meeting before Barrow had derailed it.

"So, anyone else worried that whatever he wants us to do will blow our cover to hell?" I asked grimly. We were all sitting around a big table at my mom's place, the same one by the pond she'd made us those sandwiches. Zeke, my mother, and Callen were with us, and I was glad to have their feedback going into this. "Not that I don't see why we would go, but don't we have enough now that we know who Patience is?"

Mom shook her head. "If you aren't up to it you can always back out. I admit you were more proactive than I expected. This might be dangerous, and part of me wants to tell you to back off, but at the end of the day we don't know as much as you might think."

"Between those obnoxious jamming devices and their use of the flipside for meeting and travel, they've done an absurdly good job shielding their activities." Zeke said with a grimace.

I could see why he would be upset. As A and S-rankers, the faction leaders and higher ups must be furious that some measly E-rankers were part of this and they had no way to keep track of them. It just went to show that proper tactics and strategy could offset quite a bit of raw power, though to be fair I was pretty sure whoever was making those jammers was strong on their own.

As if sensing the thought (though she hadn't this time, even if she'd caught the emotion behind it) Callie cleared her throat. "Speaking of the jammers…who is making those? Should they even be usable by low ranking Ascendants if they can stop people like you from listening in?"

"Nah." Zeke said, shaking his head. "They're dimensional shunting tech. Basically dumping the vibrations from speech and movement into the void. You have to remember that the physical aspects of stats are just byproducts. Stats are the building blocks of Skills and abilities. Perception isn't a measure of how well you hear or see, so there are ways to get around those aspects without directly pitting your stats against someone else's as with Stealth."

That just left me more confused. "Ok, but then why don't people do that all the time? Why even use Stealth, and why don't people with legitimate Perception based abilities scour this whole place for the cultists?"

"It's not cost effective." My mother cut in. "Dimensional shunting only works on small areas, as for the latter…" She shrugged. "Politics. There are quite a few treaties in place prohibiting the kind of scans you're talking about. I'm sure you noticed the black market that gets 'overlooked' in Tricorn?"

I blinked in shock. "Wait…nobody is doing scans? I just assumed you were combing this place top to bottom? They tying the representatives up in red tape? That's so…stupid!"

"Welcome to politics." Zeke said with a snort. "But there ARE some scans being done, they're just pretty much only on topside and they ignore a lot of problem areas. You know as well as I do how binding a contract can be, some of the people in charge of Tricorn don't even WANT to uphold the contracts, but they're binding all the same."

My mother sighed. "Don't judge them too harshly. There are certain promises that needed to be made to establish a place like this to begin with. Agreements put in place by higher authorities and engineered to have extravagant escape clauses that would do serious financial damage to even factions like ours, or worse."

"I hadn't considered that." I admitted. "Is that why the contract in the Glade is so important? Because it provides loopholes in existing contracts? That seems like it would need to be written in on purpose and I don't think any of us did."

She just chuckled. "Some of the contracts involved in the creation of Tricorn would take up a library. While this does provide EXCRUCIATING specificity in terms of requirements, it also provides plenty of space for wiggle room if proper precedent is set and applied. There are people whose whole lives are dedicated to maintaining and updating those contracts, when updating is possible at least. It's part of why this conclave was called. Tricorn isn't the only aspect of the alliance bound up in red tape."

"That might explain why Lark showed up." I said with a nod. "He didn't want to miss out on what might be a huge change in the way things operate."

Zeke snorted. "More likely he smelled blood in the water and is here to rip a chunk off anyone who looks vulnerable." He paused, then glanced at Bethy. "Sorry kid, didn't mean to bad mouth your pops."

"Oh it's fine." She said cheerfully. "Daddy says that not pouncing on a bleeding foe is insulting. Can you imagine being too pathetic to be considered lunch?"

That got a laugh out of me. "That's pretty hardcore, but I can kind of see the logic." I didn't agree, obviously, but it made sense in the way Abel's philosophy made sense. It was jarring to see that side of Bethy sometimes, but it was clear after I'd helped her that not all of it was bloodlust. Nature AND nurture had played their parts in forming the exploding ball of napalm sunshine that was Bethany Lark.

Glancing around, I posed the question that had been kicking around my brain. "So…what do we do to prepare? Because I still want to go. If we don't have enough information this could be a huge help to preventing needless death down the road, so what do we do to be as safe as possible?"
"Wishes." Said Callie bluntly. "You still have seven today, we can stack the deck in our favor, even if we don't know exactly what cards they'll play. Not enough to do escape wishes for all of us sadly, but we might be able to swing some good luck, a bit of early warning in case things go bad, that kind of stuff." She glanced at Zeke and my mom. "You two have way more experience with this than us, any ideas?"

Zeke grimaced, miming a zipper across his lips, but my mom nodded. "I might have a few." She glanced at me. "Shane, dear, can I have a few minutes with your darling fiancee?"

Knowing they wanted to prevent me from weighing in and possibly compromising the fairness of the compensation (though I was beginning to think I was far too cautious about that most of the time) I turned and gestured to my sister. "Hey, you know this place better than I do right? Since it's like…a standard layout?"

"It's not standard." She chuckled. "But yeah, I can find my way around. You want me to give you the tour?"

I laughed. "Oh sure, I imagine there's all sorts of cool stuff in this building I haven't seen yet."

"Not as many as you would think." She laughed as she led me away. "But a few." We left the others behind to discuss the possible wishes while she took me around and showed me various rooms. There was a small arena inside the building used for sparring, an awesome armory stuffed with impressive weapons, and a hanger full of shuttles of various shapes and sizes.

Mostly though, I just enjoyed the chance to talk to my sister away from everything. "So, how have you been enjoying your time out among the stars? Is being back in Church territory making you miss the Holy Dominion?"

She shrugged. "Parts of it. I might be sheltered, but I DO have a few friends, mostly other relatives of powerful clergy members. I miss seeing grandpa, and sleeping in my own bed. My bed is…" She trailed off, giving a happy sigh. "Well, it's made from some very high tier materials, and it's lovely. Made with Dream Sheep Wool. I highly recommend getting one."

"Dream sheep…" I said suspiciously. "You mean like counting sheep before bed?"

She giggled. "Dream Sheep are real creatures. The practice of counting sheep is an ancient one, and it's supposed to allow a Dream Sheep to enter your Dreams. They eat nightmares, and their presence promotes health and good rest along with good dreams. Even their wool helps people sleep more deeply and wards off bad dreams. Not to mention it's SOOO soft."

"That sounds awesome." I said with interest. "I might try to pick some up for Callie, she loves a soft bed, and good dreams are always nice. How much?"

She froze. "Um…" She looked embarrassed. "Dream Sheep are A-rank creatures. Well, the full grown ones, Lambs are B-rank, but they're way softer and harder to get so they're more expensive. I think my mattress cost like four B-rank chits."

I choked out a laugh. "Yeah, bit out of my price range. What is that? Forty thousand D-rank?" past D-rank, each successive rank was a hundred of the previous. A hundred D-rank chits would net me a C-rank, but I'd need a hundred of THOSE for even one B-rank. It really put into perspective how little money I had in the grand scheme of things.

Wincing, she just nodded. "Sorry, but it's not like you won't make that much long term. Consider Celine paying a D-rank chit for your current wishes. Not many people make money like that. Seven chits above your rank per day? And on your next rank up it'll be eight on top of the stat and Impact increase." I did look forward to seeing what breaking one hundred in Impact would do for my wish ability, aside from the obvious one I was expecting,

"Plus I'll be able to start making scrolls." I pointed out. "I was told D-rank was when I would be able to make those." That was one of the things I was most looking forward to about D-rank. Not having to actually manually use wishes daily to avoid wasting them would do wonders for my versatility. I could stockpile them and sell them (or give them away? I wasn't sure how compensation worked with those) all at once when I was in a good position.

I didn't bring up Zeke, or how he would probably need to leave when I hit D-rank. At the very least he wouldn't be my guardian, and whether that would give him more freedom or less I had no idea. I hadn't had the guts to talk to him about it much, though I'd need to change that soon.

After a few minutes of walking around chatting we got called back. "Alright." Said Callie happily as she rubbed her hands together. "We put together a pretty good list. Lots of useful little wishes." She pulled out a familiar bag (one of the ones Celine used) and tossed it to me. I opened it and counted out seven coins. "That'll be your pay for the day, so get ready."

Laughing, I took my seat, interested in what they'd come up with. I felt a lot better going out there with precautions in place in case everything went bad, because I had the weirdest feeling something was coming.

Whether it was the big mess of the conclave, the possible attack, or something more immediate I had no idea, but I wanted to do everything I could to get us ready. Whatever happened, I was going to make damned sure my friends and family had the best chance at surviving it. No way in hell was I missing my wedding, god war or not.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Seven wishes. Two of the same type as last time, luck entering and getting out, and five serving a variety of purposes from information gathering to defense. Without any overarching info, they had to go with vague language like 'best possible position to overhear important information' and 'luckiest position for witnessing nefarious actions'.

Mom and Zeke must have coached them, because there were quite a few wishes that seemed worded to get around the weakness my power had to secrets by explotioting chance and probability in a vague enough way that it minimized cost.

"So…" I asked as we stood across the road from the bar. "Anyone have any clue what they're going to ask us to do?"

Abel shrugged. "Probably rob some people, same as they had the others do to draw attention."

"You mean the ones they hired us to murder and decapitate?" I said bluntly. "Those others? Because I'll be honest, that comparison does not fill me with confidence."

"That's fair." He admitted. "But then, we're not them. We don't trust Griff, and between our own abilities and quite a few preparations they have no legitimate way of countering we're as safe as we can be in this situation. If shit goes south, we bail."

Callie nodded. "He's right. Between me, you, Abel, Chelsea, Mel, Gabe, and Bethy, we have some of the most dangerous E-rankers I've ever heard of. Vampires and Adamants and Abel, nobody is going to be ready for that. But this is a unique chance to find out what's coming. They're DEFINITELY going to take a shot at the conclave, and we're going to be AT the conclave. This is the best way to ensure our long term safety."

"I know." I sighed. "It was my idea. I'm just having second thoughts. Then third thoughts. I was double taking any more, I'd be spinning in circles like a confused dog chasing its tail."

Abel opened his mouth, probably to make a dig at me related to being dumber than a dog, but at a glare from Callie he shut up, recognizing this wasn't the time. Or just being scared of my fiancee, she was a pretty scary person when she was pissed.

"Abel, you're up." I finally said, gesturing to the door. "Griff thinks you're the boss, so lead us in. Keep your eyes peeled everyone, this could go bad fast and easy."

When we stepped inside the bar, I was expecting it to be wall to wall with people. As far as I knew, the entire gang should have been here, but instead, it was just Griff, sitting at a table reading a book, sipping whiskey. When he heard us enter, he looked up with a wide smile. "Kyle, Alice, so glad you could make it. Come, sit."

He gestured across his table to a bunch of chairs. Not enough for all of us, but three or four. It was obviously some kind of test to see who would sit. Abel, Callie, Mel, and Bethy sat down. Griff scanned them, then nodded slowly.

"So, I'm sure you're wondering why you're here?" He said cheerfully. "Well, the rest of the gang are out making a mess, and I need you all to go pick something up for me." He pulled out a box, pushing it over to reveal a series of small blue gems set into a variety of jewelry. "These are jammers, like mine, and you'll be wearing them to make the pickup."

Abel raised an eyebrow. "No offense meant, Griff, but…why us?"

"You mean because you literally just joined?" Griff chuckled. "Well damn, boy, that's the whole point. New members are less likely to be watched. Of course, if you manage to get caught or turn on us, we just lose a single shipment. Small price to pay to catch a traitor."

Callie frowned at him. "Not filling me with warm feelings, but fine. What kind of shipment? How is it getting here? Where do we pick it up?"

"Well, it's about a metric ton of none of your fucking business." He said bluntly. "But we have it cut up into crates. You go to the address I give you, stick the crates in your rings. You bring them here and drop them off. You don't ask questions, you don't open the boxes. If one of them is missing or light, you'll be joining our old friend Matthew over the bar."

He pointed over our shoulders, and we turned to see the severed heads we'd brought them mounted up over the liquor shelf, faces all locked in a screaming rictus. Classy. I hid my grimace as I turned back. It helped that they weren't real heads, but I was really glad we'd wished for them to indistinguishable from real ones, or else we'd have been fucked.

"Ok, damn." Said Abel, hands up defensively. "We were just trying to get a handle on what we were being asked to do."

Griff glared at him. "See, that's the issue. You ain't being ASKED to do shit. I gave you an order. You'll follow it or we can test how tough those knuckles of yours really are. I'm not fucking around about this Kyle. Missing a shipment isn't going to kill me, but it'll definitely kill YOU. Still, I'd prefer to just avoid the mess completely."

Abel nodded, and the big man sighed, pulling out a piece of paper. "You have one hour to get the goods and come back. That's a generous travel time. If there's traffic, you better figure it the fuck out. Understood?"

He passed the note to Abel, who read it over before slipping it into his coat. "Yeah." He said solemnly. "We got it. No delays, don't fuck with the merchandise. I assume this pays? Because I joined a street gang, not a charity." He held out his hand, eyes hard as he glared Griff down, daring him to counter.

It was a good move. Griff was pushing, possibly to rattle us enough to do something stupid, possibly just to assert dominance, but nobody at Abel's level was going to take shit for free. He might do what he was told, but money would be his first priority.

Griff smiled, reaching into a pocket and pulling out a coin, flipping it to Abel. I glanced down, confirming it was a D-rank chit. I knew that though it didn't seem like that much to me, a D-rank chit was serious pay. "One before the job, one after." He said succinctly. "If you have any more questions, you can mutter them to yourselves bitterly as you get the fuck out of my bar. Your time starts now."

With a snap, he slammed down an hourglass and Abel cursed, standing and spinning to stalk out the door, the rest of us on his heels.

"What the actual fuck?" I said quietly. "This isn't what I was expecting…but it might be worse. What the hell are we supposed to be picking up?"

Abel threw his hands up. "How the fuck should I know? You think he was blinking at me in code? Whatever it is we better move. Escaping is one thing, but if every member of the Horned Lords comes after is we're not going to be able to keep our cover. And this seems like it's important. The timing of this being right after that meeting can't be a coincidence."

"I wonder if that wish to put us in the right position to learn more is the reason we got picked?" Asked Callie. "It sounds like they alternate groups so no one gets followed." She played with the black bracelet with the blue stone on her wrist, the jammer.

We made our way down the road, hopping a bus toward the Imperial District. "So, how do you think they get it into Tricorn?" I asked. "Whatever IT is."

"Probably the same way they're hiding from everyone." Said Chelsea. "I was thinking it over the whole time we were in there, and I bet they're using maintenance tunnels through flipside to get it up top. Not sure what it is or how it helps them though. Maybe like…bombs?"

I considered it, but shook my head. "No, I don't think so. Besides, wouldn't someone have seen them approach?"

Bethy giggled. "Nah, daddy says too many baby Ascendants think of universe like a plate. It's more of a globe. There's as much up and down as there is side to side. Tricorn is pretty big, if they came in from the bottom and used stealth tech in their ships I bet they could reach the bottom unnoticed."

I blinked. "Holy shit." I said in awe. "That's…a REALLY good point. Whenever I think about other planets I think of them in terms of cardinal directions on a flat place. I never even considered the three dimensional heading. There could be a planet billions of miles straight down from us right now and we'd never even know it."

Callie looked just as poleaxed, and we spent the rest of the ride bullshitting about the universe and how small we all were. Or at least, most of us. I knew an A-ranker with a decent movement Skill could cross from one planet to the next nearly instantly, like the Duke had. I was pretty sure that Skill couldn't be used too quickly in quick succession because he hadn't used ti to kill Zeke, but still. It really put the absurdity of higher level Ascendants into perspective.

By the time we reached the address on the note, we were all…well, not relaxed, but distracted at least. I triggered Eye of Revelation, feeling for Danger Sense just in case, but I got nothing. We entered the abandoned house on the residential street tentatively, worried about possible ambushes.

The inside was empty, barren, and torn apart. No furniture, paint stripped from the walls, and sections of drywall stripped out leaving exposed gaps where I was pretty sure wires and pipes had been. We reached the stairs, and Abel consulted the note, reaching over to twist a bannister knob. The stairs (or a section of them) fell inwards with a thump, leaving a new small staircase leading down into the dark.

We descended into the secret basement, which opened into a large cavern carved into rock, and inside the cavern we found a huge pile of crates.

Stepping forward, I approached a crate. "Alright, we can't pop the lids without them showing it, but I think I can at least get a peek inside. Should I give it a shot?" I wanted a second opinion on this because it affected all of us. If I tipped them off to our intentions everyone would be in danger.

All of them agreed, so I stepped up the one of the crates and closed my eyes, triggering Piece of Mind. With one of my parallels I triggered Pit of Despair, smashing it down until I was only dissolving a coin sized section of the wood.

It was a small strain, since wood wasn't rock, and because of the change of size, but my Sapphire Soul handled it easily enough. My other parallel kept the dust from falling in with Dust Construction, removing it from the hole so I could see inside…and I saw nothing. Or rather. I saw more dust.

A quick sniff clarified that it wasn't dust. "Ashes." I said in confusion as I resealed the box. I checked a few more. "All ashes. We're smuggling ashes." I gave them all a confused look, but something about the situation bothered me. When things got confusing it meant there was a threat you couldn't see all of.

We stashed the crates away quickly and headed back up to catch the bus. We needed to get back to the bar before our time ran out. We also needed to pass the info about this to Zeke and my mom. This bore further investigation, and by someone a lot more skilled than us. Something was going on, and we needed to figure out what before it was too late.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Returning to the bar was anticlimactic. We weren't pressed for time, so we didn't need to worry too much about safety, which meant we were mostly just sitting around trying to guess what the crates were full of for twenty minutes. We shut up as we arrived, bringing them into the bar and stacking them up next to Griff's table.

He checked a watch (a surprisingly stately pocket watch with nice internal gearwork visible) then flipped Abel another coin. "Alright, you're done for the night. Get out of here."

"What…that's it?" Said Abel incredulously. "You called us down here to run a one hour errand and then just send us on our way? Doesn't seem like the best use of our time there, boss." His smile was easy, but his eyes were hard and sharp. He wasn't pleased.

Griff just smiled grimly. "I don't really care how good a use of time it seems to you, Kyle. You just hit the nail on the head. I AM your boss, and I'm not going to explain myself to members of my own gang. You can down here because I wanted you to, and now you're leaving for the same reason. I don't pay you to think, Kyle. Remember that."

And suddenly it became much clearer why we'd been picked for this. Or at least why HE thought he picked us. I imagined to wishes probably steered things our way, but the second reason was simple. He'd wanted to show us our place. Make it clear to Kyle the ambitious badass that Griff would use him but he'd better remember who was in charge.

I triggered Eye of Revelation, and sure enough I saw miniscule signs of concealed people in the room. Not sound or even visual cues, but shifted chairs, slightly out of place bottles. Griff wasn't alone here, he just wanted it to look like he was.

Not wanting to draw attention and fuck up our dynamic, I mentally asked Callie to intervene, and she stepped up to grab his arm. "Kyle." She said pleasantly. "I for one am glad to have a night off. And a paid one at that. Griff is being generous, and I say we don't look a gift horse in the mouth."

"Listen to your sister Kyle." Said Griff coldly. "This doesn't need to be a problem. I trusted your to get a job done and it's finished. Go enjoy your downtime. And leave your jammers on the table."

To my shock, I saw something I didn't think I'd seen since that first night when I watched Abel kill that guy who had been beating Alden. True anger. Fury eve. Abel was enraged, and I could see he was seconds away from attacking. I felt his Path manifest, the weight of the lives he'd taken and the blood he'd shed weighing down on the bar for a second as a crazed gleam flickered in his eyes.

And then it was gone, and he was smiling cheerfully, dropping the bracelet he wore onto the wood. "Fair enough, I'm always glad for some time to relax. Come on sis, let's go." He turned and strolled toward the door not waiting for us to follow him, and we all filed out, depositing out jammers as we left. Before we even hit the street Callie had us under Stealth again.

"You ok man?" I asked Abel cautiously. "Haven't seen you that pissed in a good long while. Why did that get to you so much anyway?"

My mentor's face had lost its smile, eyes hard as he stared ahead of us. "I'm a weapon." He said shortly. "I know that. I embrace it. But I'm MY weapon. I follow your lead because I trust you and because it was my own choice. But being used like that. Forced to do some menial nonsense just to 'teach me my place?' My place is standing over that fucking trashcan of a gang leader grinding my boot into his throat. That's where my fucking place is."

He was hissing his words and I heard the crackle of electricity from his gloves as his fists clenched. Mal was looking at him sadly, and it occurred to me that Cicero had used him in a very similar way, based on the stories I'd heard. He left to get away from that, but never actually stood up to his brother until years later.

I made a mental note that if we had to deal with Griff and company in a more permanent fashion, I'd leave the gang leader to Abel. He deserved at least that much.

We headed back for the inn, and it was nice enough out that we decided to walk. I'd snagged a minute sample of the ash in the box while we were on the bus. I didn't touch it, but I'd found that Dust Construction applied to it so I'd made a marble of the stuff and stuck it in my ring. Maybe mom had someone on staff who could figure out what it was.

I hadn't been planning on taking any of the stuff, but one I realized Dust Construction worked I'd decided to take a chance. Between that and the wishes we'd made to minimize our traces I doubted they would notice, and if they did…well we were going to fall out with them eventually.

Zeke was waiting when we got back. He'd been following us, but from too far for us to see. "I missed most of that because of the jammers." He said calmly. "Though I caught your teacher's little tantrum. I have my own thoughts on that, but now isn't the time. Fill me in on exactly what happened and leave nothing out."

He sounded off, and I couldn't figure out why until I took a minute to go over everything in my head. Zeke had been worried. He knew this was the best move, but he didn't like me going, even with his protection.

I filled him in on everything, and by the time I was done he was frowning. "That's…I mean, if your wish pushed you all toward that situation it has to be relevant. Unless it was just to get you in deeper with the Horned Lords. You said you took a sample?" He looked concerned, so I didn't bother commenting, instead just pulling out the marble and passing it to him.

He took it, then held it up to an eye. He spent the next two minutes rolling, sniffing it, throwing it up and catching it, and a dozen other strange tests. After he finished he pulled out a trunk I'd seen before and popped it open, digging around inside of it.
Withdrawing several glass beakers, he poured in a bunch of solutions, measuring them out before scratching a bit of the marble into each. I raised an eyebrow and he shrugged. "The further you get into crafting the more crossover there is. I don't do alchemy, but I do make solutions. Or did you think my masks paint themselves?"

Each of the beakers began to bubble. One by one they had different reactions, and he pulled out still more of them, pouring new vials and solutions, mixing some of them and making notes. By the time he was done, he had one last beaker, and he dropped the marble into it.

"What is it?" I asked as he stared at the final bubbling beaker, filled with coruscating red lightning after he'd dropped in the last of the substance.

He stared hard at it. "The non-gaseous, non-aqueous remnants of solid material post combustion." He said firmly. I raised an eyebrow to see if he would elaborate, but I was surprised to find Chelsea glaring at him.

"We KNEW that!" She snapped. "Tell me you didn't waste our entire sample confirming that it was ash."

He shrugged. "Well not all of it. I have some suspended in this beaker. I'll pass it along to an expert. I don't actually know much about this stuff. I'm not an alchemist." At my glare he winced. "Sorry, I was probably more confident in that situation than I should have been. There ARE some small bits of crossover in crafting disciplines, but I guess not as much as I'd have liked to think."

"It's fine." I said, rolling my eyes. "I assume you put someone on the crates anyway, since following them to their distribution point is the next common sense move."

Barking out a laugh, Zeke tapped his nose with a finger. "That's my boy. See, you CAN be taught." He frowned. "Speaking of being taught where is that good for nothing disciple of mine. I got distracted for a bit after ranking up, has he been slacking?"

I blinked at him. "You got…Zeke that was four months ago. You haven't thought about Cark's training for almost half a year?"

"Like I said, just distracted for a bit. I take it he and the kid are sitting things out?" He didn't sound particularly unhappy about that, and I suspected it was what he'd have done in my situation.

Chelsea giggled. "Cassidy is staying with mom. She hasn't had a kid around in ages, and she's loving the chance to spoil the girl rotten."

I hadn't known that. In fact, i felt bad for not knowing that. Between wedding prep and whatever big mess we were currently ass deep in, I hadn't even questioned where Cass and Cark were. How had I missed that? Callie felt my distress and took my hand, squeezing it with a reassuring smile.

"So…where do we go from here?" I asked the others. "I say we stick it out with the Horned Lords at least until the conclave starts. We already went through the trouble of getting ourselves embedded, so it would be stupid not to take advantage."

Benny looked annoyed. "Oh sure, run off and play gangster while Cel, Jessie, and I are stuck here like prisoners. We would have liked to come along you know? You don't have to leave us out of everything."

"I left you out because Celine is a noble and too important to risk, Jessie is freakishly powerful for her level and has a really obvious power, and you're not far enough into E-rank to be helpful." I said bluntly. I saw him flinch, and part of me felt bad, but I respected Benny too much to sugar coat it.

He scowled at me. "I'm plenty strong. With all my multipliers I could keep up with anything you can. What do you have that I don't? Hell, what does SHE have?" He pointed at Callie.

"Same answer in both cases." I admitted. "A Path. We're getting to the point where it's a liability not to have at least an Illusionary Path, man. Hell, Callie's almost halfway to D-rank. Until you can form a Path I can't have you out with us. Not in a place like this, not out among elites and hardcore gang members. It's too risky."

He looked like I'd slapped him. Glancing around at the others, he didn't see anyone to take his side, so he stood up, shoving his chair back, and then stalked off.

I glanced at Celine. "Talk to him?" I said with a sigh. "I don't want to sideline him, but if he can't form a Path he's going to top out at D-rank. It's not fair to expect it this early, but we don't exactly live in a fair world." She grimaced, but nodded, standing to follow him out.

"That goes for any of you without a Path." I said, looking around at the others. "You've all got various bullshit cheats or incredible powers, but at the end of the day, if you can't hit D-rank you can't continue on with us." I looked them each in the eye. "You'll be sidelined more and more until we have to leave you behind."

Not wanting to talk anymore, I stood up and strode out of the room, heading for bed. Today had been eye opening in a lot of ways, and I'd finally laid down an ultimatum I'd been trying not to think about since Perit died. I just hoped I hadn't ruined my oldest friendship in the process.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I left the inn on my own after talking to Benny. I needed to think, and I wanted to be alone with my thoughts. I wore my mask and armor though, so none of the Horned Lords drama would affect me. I was just a relative nobody walking the streets in the dark.

It struck me as I walked how long it had been since I'd done this, wandered off on my own to just be by myself. I knew Zeke would be keeping an eye on me, but other than that…there was no one. I'd spent so long constantly around my friends that I'd almost forgotten what it was like to walk by myself.

Part of me expected to be worried or lonely, but I'd come to terms with solitude of a much deeper nature in the Ruined Soul Temple, and this was a trip to the bathroom in comparison to that.

Strolling through darkened streets lit only by lamp and starlight, I took a deep breath, enjoying the crisp, clean air. It struck me that being in space it was weird that there even WAS a night, much less air, but I chalked it up to one of the many huge enchantments or machines down in flipside.

I walked for hours, not talking or thinking, just living in the moment, enjoying the peace. There was something surreal about the darkness around me, something almost alive. I realized I was feeling Callie's ability through the bond, at least a bit, but I liked it. I hadn't entered the shadows so I couldn't hear voices, but there was a comforting buzz to the dark I'd never felt.

Something pushed me on though, rather than sit and wait, I felt my legs carrying me almost on their own, my divination and fate sense pushing me this way or that until I came to a stop at the end of a dark alley.

Feeling with the bond, I pulled the shadows around me as I used Callie's Stealth, maximizing my cover for some unknown reason as I looked out into the street.

Across from me were a pair of men, one small and broad shouldered with an angry red nose and an angrier red beard. His eyebrows were thick and hung over his blue yes like a stormcloud, and his mustache nearly buried his belligerent scowl as he shoved a bag toward another man. "Look Danny, I'm not paying a forty percent mark up on an order I make every week. We have an arrangement."

"And I told you that you are, or you're not getting your Hallow." He held up a small plastic bag full of something grey. "Five of our shipments have been interrupted. We've lost three delivery vessels coming into Tricorn, and two of them disappeared in Flipside and we STILL don't know what happened to them."

The bearded man snorted in derision. "I know what happened. The Darklings got them. I told you idiots not to run around down there."

"The Darklings are a fairy tale, Rudy." Said Danny with an eye roll. "There is NO evidence that prolonged exposure to any of the machines in Flipside can mutate a person, much less turn them into a soulless people eating monster. Even Recursion has limits. Now, I gave you the updated price. Are you buying? Because I can see this to someone else in a heartbeat and you damned well know it."

It was hard to see Danny, who was hunched under a large hood that shadowed his face. I'd seen similar cloaks before, devices made to obscure features. The red bearded man, Rudy, gritted his teeth, but he shoved a small clinking bag toward the man.

Danny took the bag, pouring it out onto his palm and counting the chits before stowing them away. He tossed the bag to Rudy. "Cheer up. This is seriously good shit. You know how it works, increased Skill development is nothing to sneeze at." With a chuckle, he stepped back, vanishing into the dark the way Callie would have.

I froze as I stared at the bag, realizing what it was. It was ash. Specifically it was the SAME ash we'd found in those crates. I furrowed my brow. Why? Why smuggle what appeared to be some kind of cultivation drug into Tricorn.

Something about this seemed off. Also familiar. Ever since the Glade, I'd learned to be wary of miraculous substances that had crazy effects. This 'Hallow' apparently let people advance Skills faster, which was impressive, but also suspicious. The Moonglow Dew had been secretly tainted by the power of a dead god. Was that happening again?

Even if it was, what the hell could a bunch of low ranking nobodies do to people like my Grandfather? Even if the drug was designed to make them stronger or berserk or something, there was no chance they could do anything to anyone important. I was missing part of a bigger picture.

Glancing around, I wondered what the hell I was supposed to do? I could just go home, but I'd walked a long way. I debated chasing the dealer into the dark, but I wasn't Callie, and picking a shadow fight with a dark aligned Ascendant IN the dark seemed unreasonably stupid.

So…I walked. Something in me was pushing me on still. My journey wasn't over, and I trusted my divination and fate sense to lead me further. They'd brought me this far after all. I kept walking, and the path beneath my feet began to change. I'd wandered into the church district, and fairly deep into it somehow, taken a turn from one of the others.

Eventually I came to a small open field of grass in the middle of one of the blocks. A big pond of water sat in the middle of it, and over it a red wooden bridge.

On the bridge was a man, a guy about my age, with pale blonde hair and bright blue eyes, holding a fishing rod. I felt my fate sense pulling me toward him, and I obeyed it, walking along the bridge and sitting down next to him. "Nice night." I said cordially, having no idea why I was talking to this complete stranger.

"It is." He agreed, eyes never leaving the water. "But then, it's always a nice night for fishing, don't you think?"

I shrugged. "Don't really know. I don't have much experience with fishing like this." My mind flickered to punching flying rainbow fish on a rocking boat as they flew around us. "But I think maybe there are some nights that aren't the best for fishing." I glanced down into the water. "Are there…even any fish in that pond?"

"I don't think so. Why do you ask?" His tone was politely interested, and I just raised an eyebrow.

"Because you're fishing?" I asked slowly. "And the point of fishing is usually to CATCH a fish."

He smiled, finally looking up at me. "You have some strong opinions on fishing for someone without much experience. Let me as you this. If I go out on a lake full of fish, cast my line, and wait for ten hours without a bite, then come home empty handed, and someone asks what I was doing all day, what should I tell them?"

"You were out fishing." I said automatically. I saw his point, but I didn't really know how to respond.

His smile grew. "So we have established then, that fish are not integral to the act of fishing."

"Yeah, I get it. But why would you bother then?" I sighed. "Like you're just sitting out here casting your line into the water and you aren't hoping to catch anything?"

He chuckled. "Now when exactly did I say that I wasn't hoping to catch anything? I cast my line and set my bait, and I seem to have gotten a bite exactly as I expected. As I said, one who fishes does not necessarily seek to catch fish."

I frowned at him. "You're implying you were fishing for ME? I'll be honest, that doesn't exactly fill me with hope for your good intentions. I have to warn you, trying to kill me would be a big mistake. I know I probably seem like I'm alone, but I almost never am, and I can tell that you're definitely too strong to be picking a fight with me."

"Oh." He said with interest. "And what gives you that idea? Do I feel like some powerhouse?"

I shook my head. "No, you don't feel like anything. You feel like a regular human being just sitting her without a single point of Impact. Which you definitely are NOT, or else you would be dead just from sitting here."

He sighed. "Yes, that's a problem. Apologies, but being in my undiminished presence can be problematic for lesser Ascendants. I'm surprised you bothered with the threat though, I assume you already guessed who I am. If you have, you must realize Ezekial Cavendish can't do anything to stop me should I decide to do you harm."

"I was feeling out your reaction." I admitted. "You seemed more amused than afraid. The combination of factors confirmed it. You know there were easier ways to do this, right?"

Snorting, he waved a hand dismissively. "Pish posh. It's a grandfather's sacred right to go fishing with his grandson. Did you know, I once caught a fish this big?" He held up a single hand, winking at me as tried to strangle a laugh.

"Funny." I said after the snickering passed. "But it doesn't answer my question. Why not just come see us at mom's place? Why go through all the trouble to get me alone. Also HOW did you do that? Your power is purification right?"

That got another laugh, this one long and low. "My power is a great many things, Shane. But does not lie in such a direction. I used this fishing pole." He patted the item, and I let my eyes focus on it. "It was a gift from my senior brother. Your Path bears some similarities to his in some senses. Casting our karmic thread out with a bit of bait helped bring you to me."

"Wait…you're the reason I came out at all?" I asked suspiciously. "Or did you just notice my walk and snag me when I was alone." I had already inferred that he was the one who led me to the dealer, though why he didn't just tell me what was going on (assuming he knew) I had no idea.

To my surprise, he hopped to his feet, stowing away the fishing rod and dusting himself off. "Well. It's getting late. I prefer to call it for the day after getting a bite." I felt a bit of panic. This was my grandfather, the one I'd been dying to meet since I'd heard about him, and he was just going to leave? He hadn't even really SAID anything to me.

"You're not going to tell me anything about what's going on are you." I said resignedly. "You're just going to drop a cryptic hint and then vanish. Has anyone ever told you older Ascendants how annoying that is?"

His smile this time was beatific. "I'm sure I have no clue what you might be talking about. I just came here to do some fishing. Fishing is such an underrated activity, I think. Staring into the depths of the water, losing yourself in the serenity beneath the waves. It's easy to forget how much we miss when we're paying too much attention. Even when those things are right under our noses."

With another wink, he was suddenly gone, and Zeke appeared in his place, spinning wildly. My uncle looked agitated and confused, and I had to assure him of my safety as we headed back to the inn. I had a lot to think about, and a cryptic annoying riddle to puzzle out. Before we left, I used my Eye of Revelation on the pond, but found nothing. Whatever he'd been talking about, I was missing something. I just hoped I figured out what that was before it was too late.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The first thing I did when I got back to the inn was wake up Callie. She was less than thrilled, but once I explained what happened, she agreed it was for the best. I'd filled Zeke in on the way back so he didn't see a need to interfere. Still, with the extra info, he decided to approach Harrison and request help from the WCP. This seemed like that kind of matter.

One thing Callie and I couldn't decide on was how much my grandfather actually knew. He'd led me to a dealer trading in Hallow, but how much of that was knowledge and how much was the fishing rod letting him muck with karma? The Judgement Pope was renowned for the complexity of and sometimes the nonsensical nature of his power. Could that be what brought me to the dealer?

I had no answers, and the next morning, when I called to ask, mom told me grandpa wasn't the kind of person you could request a meeting with. He'd meet you or he wouldn't, and on his own timetable.

On the upside, while our Church resources might be coming up empty, the WCP DID manage to come through, and Zeke met us downstairs for breakfast with a new associate we'd never met.

We entered the huge dining area to find my uncle at a back table, sipping coffee, and next to him sat a young man a bit older than us (physically). He had long brown hair under a tricorn hat, with two thin braids framing his face on either side, knotted with silver beads. A red bandanna was tied over his mouth, and his eyes were a glowing aquamarine that contrasted with his tanned skin and dark eyebrows.

"Shane." Said my uncle with a smile as he cut into some eggs. "Glad you're finally up. I got in touch with Harrison, and after filling him in, he agreed the situation warrants a stronger response. Since we were the ones who found this latest connection, he sent over his best tracker to help pick up the trail." He jerked a thumb at the hat wearing man in the thick dark coat. "This is Pretseltsen Birchis. Pret is a particularly talented tracked. They call him The Houndmaster."

Bethy, who was just entering the room from the other side, froze and turned slowly to stare at the man with shining eyes. With a squeal of. "PUPPIES!" She blurred across the room to jerk to a stop leaning right into the stoic man's face. "You like puppies too? I have the cutest puppy, I named him luggage. I'll let you meet him if I could meet yours."

Pret raised an eyebrow. "I suppose I might be willing to bring out my hounds if you'd like." He snapped his fingers, and a there was a disturbance in the air. Three different substances began to billow from the ground. Fog, smoke, and sand swirling together to make a trio of large threatening mastiffs. Their eyes glowed red as they stared at Bethy intently, not moving or even breathing as their eyes tracked her. "Brutus, Colchis, and Darude." He said, pointing to them in turn.

Bethy clapped her hands gleefully. Her eyes flashed red for a second and there was a shift in the air as she opened her Domain for a fraction of a second, allowing the hulking dark form of Luggage to slink out, his own red eyes glowing like banked coals. Of course, where the mastiffs were mastiff sized, Luggage loomed over them at the size of a small pony, the hellhound staring down the three constructs.

Pret whistled. "Is that a Hellhound? Where did you get one of those? I thought all the planes connected to those were gone. The gods closed off all but-"

"Watch it." Snapped Zeke sharply. "That's not something they need to know about." His voice sounded…afraid. He was looking around subtly, trying not to noticeably scan the area but definitely checking for something. Whatever it was he didn't find it. "Anyway, put your dog up Bethy, we need to talk about today's operation."

The Vampire pouted, seemingly unaware of what was just almost said. I filed it away because it made me suspicious of a few other things I'd seen and heard, but I quickly zeroed in on the last part of what he said. "Wait…operation? What kind of operation? He's here to help us figure out where the Hallow is being kept, right?"

"Not exactly." He said with a grimace. "You know the Palace. No one does anything for free. Pret's services are on loan, but he's being paid in product." At my shock, he held up a hand. "I know, the stuff is probably dangerous. They're not stupid. It'll be studied. But if there's a way to increase the speed of Skill evolution it's something worth looking into. I'm sure you know what I mean."

I did. One of the biggest issues with wishing for Skills was that at higher levels it wasn't feasible. Past Intermediate, Skills were customized to the person evolving them. As I learned for about Skill creation I realized this was less about details and execution and more about stat construction.

Creation of a Skill was hypothetically the foundation of a Solid Path. Like Zeke had said, more perfected Skills would pay dividends later (I assumed when making a Chronicle) but even non Path Skills were easier to use and strained the soul less when they were customized more completely to the user.

All this was to say that you couldn't really wish for a Skill past Intermediate and have it work right, because the customization involved how the Skill leveraged the soul, which was different from person to person. It could be done, but it wasn't a good idea, because it was bound to fuck with you later.

I'd already noticed this before now, and it was one of the reasons my friends didn't just wish for all Expert level Skills. However, wishing for Skills at or below Intermediate was possible, it was just an unnecessary strain on the wisher's time. A million Minor Skills were worth less than a Single Expert. People tended to focus on polishing their main go to Skills instead of expanding to a wider power base for that reason.

Because of all that, a substance that could increase the speed of Skill growth would be exponentially more valuable to the WCP than anyone else. Wish for a bunch of Beginner or Intermediate Skills and then dump the recipient full of Hallow (or whatever non evil version of it they tried to synthesize) and watch their Skills fill out at lightning speed.

It was brilliant, and it was absolutely not something they would let us ruin. Unless one of the other forces got involved, no one was going to stop the WCP from taking that Hallow.

Which…I found I didn't care about. Sure, it wasn't nice, but at least it would be off the streets and presumably away from where it could do the most damage. I wasn't sure how it connected to the cults and what they had planned for the conclave but I knew damned well that it did. I'd do pretty much anything to protect my people.

"Fine." I said eventually. "I'll bring him to where I met the dealer, and he can help us find whatever their distribution center is. Will he be able to help us raid it?"

Pret chuckled. "Oh most assuredly." Said the D-ranker. This isn't a matter of candidacy. This is a matter of payment for services rendered. It's a win win situation. My master is overjoyed Janus decided to approach us with this opportunity."

Internally, I grimaced. Maybe it was growing up in the Conglomerate or maybe it was dealing with my dad when I was younger, but that kind of ruthless self serving pragmatism left a bad taste in my mouth. Pret was making it clear he didn't care what happened to any of the people on Tricorn, and was only doing this for the payday.

It tracked with what Zeke had mentioned about Harrison, who was known to be ambitious. I wondered if Aiden was like that too, or if he was just too busy to bother keeping a lid on it during all this.

When we agreed to work with him, everyone sort of refocused on breakfast and the occasional question. The others all came down and we started eating, but I was too lost in thought to pay much attention to my food. Now that we'd gotten the reasoning for today's raid out of the way, I was thinking back to what Pret had said.

He'd been about to mention the gods, and he'd said something about other planes. Did he mean the Hellhound came from the same place as the gods went when they Ascended? If that was even real. And if not, did the planes have anything to do with why the six killed all the other gods?

After hearing about Chronicles I thought I was coming close to seeing the whole picture with cultivation, but it seemed like I was only scratching the surface. Hell, I was pretty sure some of what I knew was wrong.

Zeke being able to Rank up to A-rank on a C-ranked conflicted with what I'd been told back on Callus about planets ranking up…or did it? I tried to remember what was said exactly, about whether not being able to rank up to higher was consistent to planet rank. I wasn't sure. Maybe because the planet was Pseudo D-rank?

D-rank was a watershed, and entire new state of being. A planet below that might not be able to handle someone reaching Master. Had I just assumed you needed to rank up on a planet the same rank as you without ever questioning the logic?

The more I learned, the more I realized all the gaps and flawed assumptions in my knowledge of the way the world worked, the more I understood that I didn't understand.

Part of me was excited about that, was enthralled with the idea of expanding my worldview and seeing more of what the universe had to offer. Part of me though…part of me was afraid. There was so much to know and learn, so much I needed to understand, and it just made the chasm between me and the real powers of this world seem to yawn even wider.

And then…I stopped. This. This was the whole reason Zeke didn't tell me most of this shit. THe reason for the geas. Questioning myself, letting my fear overrule my good judgement. Panic and uncertainty.

A hand took mine and squeezed, and I turned to see Callie smiling at me calmly. I felt a wave of reassurance over the bond, and my heart warmed. Callie knew she would be ok, because she had me, and I would be ok because I had her. I wasn't alone, wasn't helpless. I was learning and growing every day, and so was she.

I focused back on what Zeke had said to me all those months ago on the Necromedes. Don't worry about it. It had taken me all this time to really grasp what he meant. If I spent every second worrying about terrifying ineffable enemies waiting in the darkness to rip out my soul I'd never sleep again.

Ascendants needed to roll with the punches, to let what would come do so in its own time. I flooded Callie with the certainty, and I felt her hand tighten around mine as she understood the same thing. I knew she was too much of a perfectionist to take it to heart like I had, but she would try, and I would help her.

Finally, everyone finished breakfast and we all suited up. I felt right with my mask on. I'd worn it last night, but being out among my people in costume again made me feel whole. Once we were all ready I led us to the spot where I'd seen Danny the shadow guy selling Hallow, and Pret's dogs picked up the scent. With that we were off to find their distribution site.

 

[Bezarius]

Fog, smoke, and sand swirling together to make a trio of large threatening mastiffs. Their eyes glowed red as they stared at Bethy intently, not moving or even breathing as their eyes tracked her. "Brutus, Colchis, and Darude

Click to shrink...

You did not just named a Sand Mastiff Darude.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"This is the place?" I asked Pret as we stopped outside a large building. I looked around, and I couldn't see any sign of this place being particularly important. No groups of people, no defenses. If I had set up a distribution center for a giant intergalactic drug trade I'd have left guards or something.

Pret nodded easily. "The pups say yes." He said laconically, patting the smoke grey mastiff. "We need a sitrep. Any of you have a scouting Skill?"

"Leave it to me." Said Callie confidently, kneeling down to press her hand to the ground. When she touched her shadow, she sank into it, fully vanishing into the darkness. She normally only barely entered the dark, but she'd been doing some training, and she'd found that the more of her she submerged the wider her radius.

I paid close attention to her. While she was theoretically safe in the dark, there were tons of strange and seemingly off the wall abilities, and I wouldn't put it past someone to be able to hurt her. Using the bond, I could tap into her power, albeit with some difficulty, and I could use that to pull her out if needed.

It took a few minutes for her to emerge, and she was panting and looking a little sick. "Are you alright?" I asked her worriedly as I helped her over to sit against the side of a building.

"Perception focused D-ranker." She said with a shudder. "Almost caught me. Even in the shadows he nearly sensed me, luckily between Stealth and my Path of the Abyss I was able to avoid the detection. We have a huge problem. There are five different D-rankers in there, and a dozen or so E-rankers."

I grimaced. "What about the crates. Is this where they're distributing the Hallow?"

"Pretty sure. They have a bunch of people cutting those crates of ash and separating them into little baggies. But…something is wrong with them. At least some of them. One of them went crazy when he dropped something in the ash and it puffed up in his face. The nearest E-ranker stabbed him and he…Shane he burned alive. He didn't even seem upset, he was laughing and screaming about a sacrifice."

Sighing, I pinched the bridge of my nose. "That's the opposite of reassuring. Well, we have the right place at least." I turned to Pret. "When is Callen getting here? And hopefully some other backup. We can handle the E-rankers easily enough I'm sure, but I'm not bringing my people up against five D-rankers without a proper counter."

The Houndmaster chuckled. "I can handle four of them. Your swordmaster is on his way. I reached out when we stopped."

I nodded, turning to the others. "Stay away from the ash. If it kills people we don't want anything to do with it. Pret can round it up and take it, just draw any of them you can away from whatever assembly line they're using before the fight."

Abel grinned, cracking his neck. "I bet I can kill more of them than anyone else." He said tauntingly. "Anyone willing to bet on it."

"You're on Alice." Said Bethy with a grin. "You don't stand a chance."

His eyes narrowed. "No animal companions. That's cheating. You can attack five times as many people as I can."

"What?" She protested. "That's not fair. My familiars are part of my power. If you're allowed to use your gloves I should be allowed to use my kitties." She turned to pout at me. "Shane, tell Apple he's being unreasonable."

"You don't get to call me unreasonable when you've gotten my name wrong in three different ways since this conversation started." He snapped. "I'm just making things fair."

She snickered at him. "Oh I'm sorry. I didn't realize we were aiming for 'fair'. I thought I was talking to an actual fighter. My mistake. I'd love to have a fair competition with you!" She clapped her hands earnestly. "Maybe I can try on some of my pretty new dresses. Do you need any extra advantages? I could try fighting them with one hand if that would help?"

Abel looked outraged. "That's not…stop that! I'm not asking for pity! You know what, fine! Use your animals. Use all the animals! Summon a planet of woodland critters and unleash them on the unsuspecting denizens of the warehouse, I'll beat you no matter how much help you have!"

I stepped up next to Mel, lowering my voice as I tried to suppress my cackle. "He knows she's just straight up handling him right now, right?"

"He does." She said in amusement. "He just doesn't actually have a choice but to be handled."

I glanced at Bethy with a newfound respect. She was so much craftier than she let on. This was why she scared me so damned much. "You think he has a chance at winning?"

"Not even slightly." She giggled. "And he knows it. But he doesn't actually care that much. His pride isn't wrapped up in winning or losing, even if she did poke it with that little speech. He's doing it because it's a chance to pit himself against the best and try to improve. He's like that sometimes."

That sounded more like Abel. I knew he liked to indulge Bethy's games because it boosted morale. I wondered how much of that little exchange was him humoring her.

Within about ten minutes, there was a rush of wind and a figure appeared. "Callen." I nodded to the swordsman. "Surprised it took you so long. You're D-rank now right?" That would mean basically no suppression at this level.

He shrugged. "I was on the other side of the district. Why am I not surprised this is Imperial Territory? Anyway, we're going in? What's their roster looking like?"

We explained the layout and the enemy inside, and he nodded. "I can take two, most likely. Depends how deep into D-rank they are. I've been growing like crazy because of all the renown from my little stunt when I broke through."

I had assumed. Considering the overflow renown Benny was getting, the sheer attention Callen must have received for the feat must have been pushing him up almost as fast as Callie, if not faster.

That was something I'd noticed about renown. Because of the exponential weighting toward higher rankers (renown from an A-ranker was worth more than a thousand B-rankers, though that was more of an estimate than a hard number) the higher rank you were the more renown you tended to accrue.

The spread of stories tended to be wider for people with higher ranks because of the way most cities were structured, like back in Callus where everyone was isolated from all but the most powerful people in the faction, but also higher ranked people cared less about impressive feats from lower ranking Ascendants.

Your average A-ranker was much less impressed by an E-ranker killing a D-ranker than another E-ranker was. When you'd gotten that high up the ladder, you'd been through some insane shit of your own, by necessity.

Being D-rank meant more people would be talking about Callen than Benny, or honestly even Callie. She HAD killed a god, but it was more of a fluke than anything. She wasn't even a Master yet, so she hadn't proven herself that interesting. When we hit D-rank, chances were good our stories would start to carry further, assuming we stayed interesting.

I shook off the introspection. Learning more about the world we lived in was great, but there were more important things to do.

I held up a hand. "Before we go in, we're going to make a plan. Callie gave us the layout and how many people are in there, so we can strategize accordingly." I knelt down, imbuing my finger with Belial and reaching down to slowly trace out a map in the road.

Between my Focus, Perception, and even my Might, I was able to draw extremely well these days, and the corrosion of Belial was plenty to eat through the stone of the road. I had a decent map traced out within a minute, and Callie mentally helped me fill out the positions of all the enemies and their ranks.

"Pret, you'll take these three." I gesture at the two of them clustered together and one by the back corner. "This one is the Perception specialist, so make sure to keep him occupied, and your hounds mean you can cover a wider range. Callen, these two are guarding the door together. You should be able to pull them pretty easily."

He nodded slowly. "I might be able to kill one or both of them in a single hit if I can approach the building without being noticed."

I nodded to Callie, who sent me a pulse of assurance through the bond. Then I turned to the others. "Bethy, you're a Vampire and don't breathe, I want you to hit the ones closest to the ash just in case. Probably unnecessary, but discretion is the better part of valor. Draw them out to here if you can." I marked a spot on the map.

"Sir, yes sir!" She said, saluting crisply. Then she giggled. "I learned that in the arm."

"You did it backwards." I informed her blandly. "But I'm glad you're so confident. Gabe and Abel, I want you here and here. I'm going to drop them into a Pit of Despair, then harder in. You'll be waiting to take them out. Callie, I want you waking pot shots at any of the stragglers from the dark, stay in shadow so you don't inhale anything. Chelsea, you'll be on standby in case anyone DOES get dosed, your purification will be our ace in the hole."

Mal cleared her throat. "And what will I be doing?"

"You'll be with Chelsea, keeping her safe and not killing us all in a terrible dust explosion." I shrugged. "Sorry, I don't KNOW that the ashes are combustible, but I don't know they aren't, and throwing around torrents of flame, purification flame aside, in a room full of magic dust that sets people on fire, seems like a poor life choice."

She paused, then slumped a bit. "I…have no response to that. When you phrase it that way it makes sense. But you owe me some front line time soon. I've been getting sidelined, and I want to show off some of my new tricks after getting to E-rank."

With a laugh, I agreed, and we all moved to get into position. I stepped off the air with Ripple Running until I landed on the roof. Strolling over to the spot above the place I'd indicated to the others, I pressed my hand to the ceiling while pulling on Callie's stealth.

Pit of Despair and Dust construction created an opening (and a hand little hood over top of it so the light didn't stream in and give me away) and I peered down into the warehouse. From this angle, I could see down the length of the building to where Callen was going to spring his attack.

Reaching out mentally to Callie, I had her notify the others through the shadows. With a shocking boom of displaced air, a massive sword construct split the front wall of the building, heading right for the two D-rankers.

One lost an arm at the shoulder retreating, and the other raised a shield and tanked the blow, flying off his feet and through the wall. Callen appeared behind the one armed guy and stomp kicked him in the base of the spine, sending him sailing after his friend before her blitzed after them.

Through the gaping hole in the wall, Bethy and Luggage blurred towards the table where a bunch of people were sorting out the ash, and I grinned hungrily as the baying of hounds sounded through the warehouse.

Pret's dogs were on top of the three other D-rankers, Pret alongside them in an instant, and I readied myself for combat. It was time for us to do what we did best. Sometimes it felt good to just cut loose.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

State of Grace made me graceful as I slipped through the hole I'd made in the ceiling. Stealth made me silent. The second I got through, I closed the hole back up. I landed on a platform made from Ripple Running, which was still active from my ascent to the roof, and casually reached up to grab an outlying piece of metal to hang from.

A slight effort of will saw me swallowed in darkness, cloaked by Callie's power as well as her stealth, as I waited for things to play out. I wanted to drop down and wade into the fight, but I knew it was more important to stick with the plan, so I sat, and waited.

Bethy hit the E-rankers head on, luggage jumping on two of them as she whirled around them. She was clearly having fun, pirouetting around them like she was at a dance, skirt whirling as her glittering nails licked out and drew long furrows on skin.

This was the first time I'd seen Bethy fighting seriously since she'd gotten any real control of her bloodlust, and it was wonderful to see how free and excited she seemed.

She blurred away, the E-rankers trailing behind her. They all looked gaunt and kind of hungry, but most of all they looked predatory. Whatever Skills they developed with the Hallow, I was pretty sure they were dangerous.

They were right on her tail as they entered the specific area where we'd agreed to spring the trap, and as I triggered Pit of Despair I Saw Bethy SKIP across the nearly frictionless dust as they all fell in. I immediately hardened the stone floor again by withdrawing my Skill, trapping them all inside.

Dropping smoothly from the dark, I let State of Grace carry me down at a gentle float. As I descended, there was a loud crack as a hand punched up from the stone. Grimacing, I noticed the play of red sparks along the fingers, and my Eye of Revelation showed me a slowly building energy from that hand. "Move!" I bellowed to my friends as I hit the ground and threw myself on top of the hand, activating Mornax.

There was a massive explosion, and I felt myself flying through the air before I hit the wall with a sickening thud, several of my bones cracking on impact.

Mornax was nearly unbreakable to an E-ranker, but it required contact with the ground to work. Once I got blown clear it ended, and I had been pretty much impervious to damage in my stone form so all that explosive power became propulsion that slammed my fleshy mortal self into the rock side of the building. As I slid down the wall, I groaned, wishing I'd saved some heal bursts instead of using them for…I blinked.

Triggered Zagan, I flooded my own body with the green flames of life, groaning as the damage began to knit back together. It wasn't an instant heal, even with all the boosts, but it DID purify my body of pain, which was useful as hell. I'd heal in time, faster now, but this little reprieve was more than worth the form I'd taken.

I glanced through the smoke to see Abel and Gabe smash into the now freed and damaged E-rankers, the one who exploded had blasted them free, though I saw at least one or two corpses from the blast.

One of them stumbled toward me gleefully, and I started to stand to meet him, but the darkness beneath him deepened and Callie emerged. Blurring upward, her daggers moved, severing his achilles tendons, plunging right into his kidneys, then staying behind as she manifested a new pair, slit his throat, and then jammed the shadow constructs into his eyes, all in one smooth continuous motion.

I blinked at her in shock as she viciously kicked him away and rushed to my side. "Are you ok?" She said frantically. "The sound you made when you hit that wall…"

Smiling, I held up a finger, then flicked my staff out into the path of a passing E-ranker and dumping all my injuries into him. I technically had about two dozen fractures and breaks, but I considered them all one big skeletal injury, so a bit of bullying was enough to shove them onto the man, who collapsed to the ground screaming.

"I'm fine." I said, popping to my feet energetically. "And Abel and Gabe didn't lose any limbs from that blast. Which seemed…stronger than it should have been."

She grimaced. "Pretty sure it was a Master rank Skill. Those ashes are no joke. Lucky they're just E-rankers. Your Impact was enough to make up the difference." She shook off her distress. "Sorry, I was just…upset when I saw you fall like that."

"Clearly." I said in amusement, gesturing to the ravaged corpse of the guy who had been on his way to kill me. "You were definitely thorough. Now let's get back in it. We have to help the others."

These guys were…way tougher than they should be. It felt like fighting a dozen lesser version of Abel. Not QUITE as bad, but they were all clearly far too advanced in their Skills, or at least one of them. Gabe was smashing them down, but he was having to focus on one at a time, and Bethy was dancing between two rabid looking partially transformed fighters who looked like animal hybrids.

Luggage had locked onto one and was bearing him down, and Abel was engaged with three at a once, surprisingly gleeful as they managed to take chunks out of him. One was using some kind of straight razor as a weapon, one's hands glowed with a vibrating yellow energy, and one flickered in place like some kind of uncontrolled teleporter.

Which was ten total including the ones Callie and I had already dealt with, leaving us one each. I left the broken bone guy on the floor as I blurred toward the last one, staff licking out to tap Abel, Gabe, and Bethy to supercharge them with my life giving green flames. I avoided Callie because I didn't want to accidentally interfere with her shadows.

I considered the last two, attacking the bigger and more malevolent looking one. My feet slammed down, stacking Mornax and Mephistopheles, maximum offense and defense. The big guy in front of me snarled and lashed out with a massive hammer, the hunk of metal slamming into me and…pushing me back.

Snarling, I ignored the pain in the arm I'd used to interrupt the attack, spinning up my staff as I triggered Flurry of Blows, launching one high and one low burst of black flame.

This guy was stronger than he should be. High E-rank Might, and a Master ranked hammer Skill. Even Mornax was having trouble tanking these hits. I grinned widely. Perfect. It had been ages since I'd had a real knock down brawl. I could feel Callie was fine, which meant there was no reason to worry about anyone.

The big guy roared, hammed smashing down on me. My staff planted, the butt of the weapon braced on the ground as the blow came down on the other side. The explosive force bled into the ground, cracking the stone.

I channeled the black flame into the now underground section of the staff, and the explosive power drove it up and out. Swinging the bottom up, I smashed the ascending staff into the jaw of the other fighter, then stepped forward and smashed my fist into his diaphragm.

Mephistopheles made me an avatar of destruction, the black flame a part of me, and the explosive burst of fire from that punch sent the big man stumbling back in confusion. I whirled my staff, smashing him in the legs with a series of rapid explosive blows, stumbling back as his hammer smashed into the side of my head, sending me reeling.

My crown and mask soaked most of the blow, especially with Mornax active, but my bell was rung pretty good, and I wheeled back on the defensive for minute or two as he rained down hammer blows with an outraged roar.

Despite the pain, my face was split with a manic grin. I was doing it. I was going toe to toe with a high E-ranker specced into Might, using a powerful weapon and taking some enhancement bullshit, and I was holding on. I forced myself to calm down, watching and waiting as he descended, until I noted a slight shift in his footwork.

My overlay was active, and I knew exactly how to take advantage of the gap. Spitting a Steam Arrow enhanced with black fire, I forced the shocked hammer wielder to scream and retreat. As he covered his face instinctively, I smashed my staff into the instep of his foot, detonating an explosive burst of black flame.

I felt several bones give as he howled in agony, and I spun off my back foot, whirling my whole body as I swung my staff like a bat, slamming the heavy length of wood, into his skull even as I dumped my own headache and tender head into him from where he hit me. He went stumbling, collapsing to the ground on all fours.

Walking over to him, I lifted a foot off the ground, straining to keep Mornax active since one was still planted, and SLAMMED my heel into his lower spine with an explosion of black fire. My density shifted stone body combined with the blast snapped his spine and sent his body slamming into the ground hard enough to partially embed him in the stone.

Turning to check, I realized everyone else was done, and I let my forms drop with a sigh of relief. A quick switch to Zagan flooded my body with healing again, and I sighed in relief as the pain faded.

I'd taken a bunch of hits with that hammer, and that guy had been STRONG. Feeling those start to repair was nice. I turned to see Callie sitting over her own sparring partner, who wasn't dead, surprisingly. I guess attacking her personally was less of a cardinal sin in her eyes than attacking me.

"How many of them are alive?" I asked as I glanced around. "I wanted to question them."

Abel chuckled and I turned to see him sitting on one of his. "Mine aren't dead. Tough bastards. It occurred to me some answers wouldn't go amiss. Plus I realized that Bethy wouldn't be getting credit for the ones she kited, and that didn't seem fair."

Chelsea and Mel had entered through the opening Callen had made and were looking over the destruction with an impressed look. "Damn." Said Mel. "You didn't hold back there, huh?"

I shrugged. "These aren't brainwashed puppets or anything. Just assholes who tried to kill us. I was going to try to purify them of the Hallow, but it doesn't seem like it works that way. It's already part of them, and all it does is make them stronger." I poked hammer guy, just to check, and shook my head. "For now."

I'd gotten a weirdly solid idea of what was up with them during the fight. It made me wonder if I should have included scan heal in Zagan so I could have an even clearer picture, but Eye of Revelation seemed to be doing the job.

Pret appeared next to us, and from his eyes I was pretty sure he was smiling. "Well now. That was certainly an effective raid. I'll have to keep an eye on you Shane. Not many candidates can set up such a seamless assault. That's a skill that'll come in handy. Feel free to keep the rabble, they weren't part of our deal."

I recognized an olive branch when I saw one, I nodded gratefully as we started moving to tie up the E-rankers. We'd deliver them to my mom and let her question them, hopefully she could help us make sense of what was going on. The more I learned, the less sure I was of what was happening, and that was starting to worry me.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The next week flew by. As usual, I made sure to grind out my wishes with the help of whoever I had handy. I'd have liked to help my friends, but honestly I was starting to worry about falling behind. I got four hundred ninety points from the wishes, and a trickle in from my renown of two hundred and ten, for a grand total of seven hundred points (four hundred in Focus and three hundred in Perception).

Despite that, none of it seemed like enough. I felt…small. Slow. For my won rank I knew objectively I was pretty strong, but it didn't feel like enough. So, I went to go see someone who I thought might be able to actually help. I went to see my mom.

Of course, I was allowed entry without any trouble. People may not know about our relationship, but my mom had given standing orders that I was allowed to visit whenever I wanted, and had told me as much when she did it. I knew she wanted to encourage me to come see her when I had the time.

I found her sitting by the lake in her embassy, peacefully enjoying the fake sunshine and sipping a glass of iced tea. When she saw me, her face lit up. "Shane!" She said happily as she rushed to stand and hug me. "I'm so glad you came to visit. It's always nice to see you and your friends but we never seem to have any quality time."

My stomach twisted, and I felt a flash of guilt at that. I'd come here to ask her for information on cultivation, I hadn't even considered visiting her. I hadn't been spending much time with my mom since we'd reunited, and while intellectually I knew that was perfectly fine and that I had other things to do, emotionally it felt wrong.

There were a lot of weird feelings mixed in there. Guilt, resentment, anger. But I still wished I had the time to just come over to visit. It was clear she'd been trying so hard to be there for me however I needed her to be, and it just felt wrong not to reciprocate.

Curiously, she seemed to notice my discomfort and chuckled, ruffling my hair. "Here for some training tips then? It's fine." Her smile wilted, eyes flashing with pain. "I owe you at least that much. What can I help you with?" She gestured to the seat opposite her and pulled an empty glass from a spatial ring. "Would you like some tea?"

Her being supportive of me not being around honestly made it that much worse, but I powered through it because I knew that the reason I was here was important. I'd have to deal with trying to build a relationship with her later, but for the moment I needed her advice as one of the few A-rankers I had access to not bound by the rules of the contest or my dad's obnoxious geas.

Sitting, I shook my head. "No thanks. And yeah, I had some stuff I needed to talk about. Some cultivation, some just…stuff I'm feeling." I felt oddly vulnerable as I asked. "Is that ok?"

Her smile came back, bursting through the cloud of sadness with the megawatt intensity of a supernova. "Of course it is! I'm happy to listen. Maybe I can be of some help. I've been through a thing or two in my time."

"It's just…" I trailed off. "Hallow. Specifically, the people who take it. I was confident in myself, and I think I've done pretty well for an E-ranker at my level. My extra Impact makes everything I do a bit heavier hitting, my versatility and adaptability are both pretty damned good. All my power gives me a fighting chance even against E-rankers with twice my stats."

She sighed. "But it's not enough." She finished.

"It's not." I agreed. "They were fielding Master Candidates. People like Abel. Maybe not quite as dangerous, but they can MASS produce them. Those Master level Skills were somewhat offsetting my Impact. I need more."

The power I'd seen from those fighters had terrified me, because it had been pushed in a direction I couldn't follow. I had no Skills I could push to master. My most used was DS Mastery, but while adding it as my Solid Path had been beneficial in so many ways by allowing me to ensure it ranked up and letting me create my staff forms, it precluded me pushing it past Expert. I had no other Skills I could polish.

"It's one of the limits you'll face as a candidate." She shrugged. "I know it isn't ideal, and you defy the norm in many ways, but there's only so much stronger you can reasonably get. That's why you have a team. To cover your weaknesses as you cover theirs. You've simply gotten too wrapped up in being able to counter any threat and react to any situation. It's ok to need help, Shane."

I groaned aloud. "I know that, but this isn't about needing help, this is about being able to pull my own weight. Everyone is getting more powerful. Abel is a monster, Callie killed a god, Benny has his new stat boosters, Bethy is Bethy, Chelsea has two insane powers that explode in a cascade of death if they combine, and I've never even seen her USE Enshrining Darkness. I'm falling behind."

"I know it probably seems like that." She said sympathetically. "Though I would disagree. But I can understand the frustration of being surrounded by amazing, terrifying people. Believe it or not, I've been there before."

I grimaced. "Then what do I DO?" I growled in frustration. "How am I supposed to keep up with a bunch of crazy cultists that can manufacture monsters?" I considered all my options, ways I could get stronger or obtain power, and I finally hit on one I hadn't considered before. "Hey…what about a Domain?" I asked with excitement. "Bethy has one, so I'm pretty sure you can have a Job and a Domain, which means Heroic Cultivation should be compatible too."

She gave me a considering look. "You could make a Domain." She admitted. "But you shouldn't."

That was vague enough that I assumed there was more, but as I waited for her to elaborate, she didn't. I raised an eyebrow, deciding to press. "Why not?" I asked cautiously. "Bethy has one and it works great."

"Bethany's racial trait, mutation though it might be, aligns her quite strongly with her father." She explained. "Morgan Lark is not a typical being. Her Domain is based on his story, and that makes it unique in some ways." At my blank look, she sighed. "Have you ever considered what a Domain is?"

I just shrugged. "It's an area of effect based on a story. Like a sphere of influence kind of. I've seen Bethy use hers a bunch and it's really effective."

"It's a shortcut." Said my mother bluntly. "Bethany's is more powerful than it should be for multiple reasons. A domain is a territory you open to bring a story to life. Consider what that means when weighed against what you know of how people progress in cultivation."

Thinking about it…I could see where the seemingly disparate Domain element could fit into the way cultivation worked. If you made a Domain using someone elses story, you could borrow that power. But if mom said I shouldn't do it…I considered what I knew about Chronicles. I didn't have all the information about what happened after that, but I could come to an obvious conclusion.

"It's skipping a step." I finally said. "Domains get stronger if they're based on your story?" I hazarded a guess.

She waggled a hand. "Domains get stronger a few ways. But deep relationships with the story and fewer people using it add weight to that power. That's why Bethany's is so effective for her level. Morgan Lark guards his story jealously, sharing it with very few."

"Is that why he did it?" I asked cautiously. "Wiped out all the other Vampires? I know he hunted them all down, everyone except his own family."

"Among other things." She said with a nod. "Morgan's power is…intimidating. You have to understand something important. Morgan successfully fought against, and bested, The Unity. He fought a GOD. Not a weakened god starving for years, but a true deity in the fullness of his power." At my lack of response she smiled lightly. "Keep in mind, Shane, that one reaches godhood at a thousand Impact. Remember what happens at a hundred Impact?"

I blinked in shock. "Wait…he fought up a rank against someone past a watershed?" My tone was a mixture of horror and awe. "So…basically beating a D-ranker at E-rank?"

"Much harder." She said with a laugh. "Godhood is a much bigger jump in life state. His ability to do so involves some secrets related to his ability to consume stats. It's complicated, but suffice to say, Morgan Lark is the most powerful S-ranker alive, and it is NOT close. Most people don't even believe the story about him fighting The Unity, but I happen to know it's true. That and that alone allows him to share his Domain with his daughter and allow her to flourish."

It had always been academic, hearing about Bethy's dad. Hearing how fucking monstrous he was. Like someone telling you about a really nice restaurant in another city you'll never go to. This though, gave me context. Gave me a measuring stick to use to compare myself to him.

And I didn't measure up. Which made things WORSE. "If I can't improve my soul, and I can't make a Domain, what am I supposed to do?" I growled in desperation. "I'm getting MARRIED mom. I'm going to have a wife soon. Maybe kids someday not too long after that. I can't just keep being a puppet. The Conclave starts tomorrow, how many more powerful people will see me and notice how weak I am?"

It wasn't even just that. I was losing momentum. Slow and steady felt fine before, but seeing what was coming…I needed to go faster, to make a bigger splash. It would snowball, help me advance quicker.

Staring at me, I saw my mother's face twist in heartbroken empathy. Reaching over, she stood and pulled me into a hug. "My poor boy." She murmured. "What did we do to you? How much did we take away by bringing you into this shattered family." I could hear the rawness and agony in her voice as she struggled not to cry, and it broke MY heart to be the cause of that.

"It's not…" I pulled away, frantically trying to comfort her. "I don't resent you. I love my life. You didn't cause this war. Didn't cause the danger. You've done everything you can to help me, to prepare me for this, ever since we met."

Closing her eyes, she took a long, ragged breath. When she opened them the blue of her irises was colder somehow. Deadlier. "Not everything." She said bluntly. "I know about your forms. I can't do much for most of them, but your Mephistopheles is close enough to the way I wield my flames in combat that I can help you refine it."

Stepping back, she smoothed her hands over the place my cape attached at the shoulders. She stared into my blank mask for a moment, then nodded, face firming. "Yes. The conclave is tomorrow, and outside of testifying and meeting with other up and comers, you'll train with me. By the time I finish with you, it won't matter how many fake Master Candidates they send." Somewhere, deep down inside, I felt a spark begin to burn, one I hadn't felt since a year ago when I was starting my training with Abel. I couldn't wait to see what she had to teach.

 

[Lone-sith]

I love it

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The rest of that day went by in a blur. I had so much to think about, so much to do. Training with my mom was an intimidating thought. A powerful A-ranker with two abilities, one of which was similar to some of my own powers. It would be interesting to see exactly how far I could go with Mephistopheles.

Hopefully I managed to apply the lessons to my other forms. Zagan wasn't combat based, so I couldn't really see how that one would work, but the others…well I'd have to see.

The next morning dawned with me still distracted. I got up, but on my armor, headed for the door…and tripped. I went sprawling forward as I came out my door, slamming into the wall and leaving a bunch of dents as I came back to my feet and spun around to glare at Benny, who was leaning against the wall with his foot sticking out across my doorway at shin height.

"What the fuck?" I snapped, glaring at him. I wasn't hurt of course, I had State of Grace going almost constantly, plus sixty five Impact. Still, it was the principle of the thing. "Were you waiting outside my door just to trip me?"

He rolled his eyes. "Obviously. Now, mind telling me why it worked?" I opened my mouth to lash out at him…and paused. He was right. That shouldn't have worked.

Benny was weaker than I was, had no Path, yet he'd been able to tip me over without me noticing. He held out a hand and helped me up. "You need to calm down." He said bluntly. "I know you well enough to see when you're in your own head. Callie lets you figure things out on your own, which is fine usually, but sometimes you need someone to throw off your stride."

"That's easy to just say." I snapped. "This is a big deal. This isn't JUST an interrogation. We're presenting ourself to the factions. This will set a tone."

He cocked his head. "You really think it's that big of a deal? That this will mean that much?"

"It definitely will." Came the voice of my sister from behind us. Neither of us was surprised, we heard someone coming ever if we didn't notice who, but we turned to find Chelsea smiling at us wanly. She stepped forward, adjusting my cape absently and then brushing a bit of wall dust off my chest.

Benny didn't argue, just sat thoughtfully for a bit before asking. "What exactly are we walking into?"

"Today?" She said calmly. "Not much. The Conclave won't start with a hearing or a meeting. It'll start with a banquet. Introductions of everyone present are a must. It might seem petty, but it's a fact of Ascendant culture. Appearances are everything, so they'll make sure to be as ostentatious as possible in the ways they can."

I could see that, it would be pretty on brand. It also gave the wolves at the gate a target, which was a bad thing. Then again, I could easily see how that would paint a target on us, so chances were good the enemy would assume something like that would be heavily guarded.

"What kind of schedule are we looking at for the whole thing?" I asked cautiously. "If appearance is going to play a role…" I trailed off, knowing she would get my point.

She chuckled. "The Conclave will last a week. The first night will be a banquet. Then there will be three days of games. They're supposedly a chance to encourage cooperation, but mostly they're a way for the younger generations of different factions to demonstrate strength. Their success will help build momentum going into negotiations."

"Really?" I asked in surprise. This had to be what my mom meant about me needing training. It ALSO meant that my friends and I would be fighting on different sides. Not all of us, but Gabe, Bethy, and Chelsea all represented other factions. "How does some kids fighting mean anything though?"

"Like I said." She shrugged. "Everything is based on image. A full on competition between the S-rankers would not only be way too destructive, it would be beyond the scope that most people would even be able to comprehend. When we fight it's visible. There'll be brackets for E, D, and C-rankers. Nothing higher than that."

That was interesting, though I didn't even think we knew any current C-rankers. Still, we'd be expected to represent our factions I assumed. "Why didn't they tell us?" I asked numbly. "We could have prepared."

"So you didn't prepare." She said with a laugh. "They have some training in mind, I'm sure, but it'll start after everyone is introduced at the banquet. Don't ask me why. The C-rank games will be the first day, so we'll have time to train." That was a relief at least. I wanted to maybe watch the D-rank games so we could cheer on Callen, plus seeing a bunch of Masters fight sounded cool, but the first day we could skip.

For a minute I wondered how much of my heart to heart had influenced mom to train me and how much had been this. Then I realized I was going to be competing for Harrison and the WCP and she was going to literally be training her competition, and my heart warmed a bit.

We all met up downstairs in the front room of the inn, getting breakfast and then getting ready to head over to mom's place. I wasn't sure what we would do all day before we actually attended the banquet, but I didn't mind the distraction. I wondered if it was considered cheating to give out some wishes to help everyone's chances.

Once we finished, we left for the Church District, taking the bus, and as we sat there, chatting about the games, I realized another reason they might be doing this. On the eve of war, having something positive and fun to focus on might help people keep calm. This was going to be a big deal for years to come, and a bunch of really stressed people making those decisions would only make it harder. Affecting the tone of the Conclave in a positive way was probably very smart. Especially with so many Ascendants who would probably be influenced by the renown gathered here. A good start to the recursion could be nothing but good.

While we rode, I withdrew from the conversation, reaching into my ring and pulling out a book I hadn't spent nearly enough time reading. Basics of Skill Design. Opening the old book, I started again on page one.

The text was…dense. I noticed that every time. Not just packed in tight, but heavy. Like the book itself had Impact, even if not enough to qualify as an enchanted item. The longer I read, the more I lost myself in it. The first page was a foreward, and philosophical musing on the nature of Skills, and despite it not containing any technical information, it was incredibly useful.

The author mused on Skills, on what they really were, and why they existed, and why so many of us chose to create new ones rather than to make do. He posited that Skills weren't really some mythical complicated system at their core. They were a wish.

A skill was just a dream that someone made reality, using the dreams of others. A heartfelt plea to the universe to accomplish a goal. And all the Skills we made, or found, were just mechanisms to grant the people who had them their hearts desire. I stopped, staring down at the volume quietly as I considered who had written it.

The person in this book made no mention of the Wish power, not of the WCP. He spoke as if those things didn't exist. His name was Wyndham, and his unique stance on Skills…was this my great-great however many times great grandfather? Was Alistair Wyndham the original Wishmaster?

It made sense, honestly, not just because of how old Arble was, but because I'd heard the name Alistair Wyndham before. One of my relatives in the Moonsong Glade had it. If you were going to name your kid after a family member, why not the biggest baddest family member of all. How many Alistair Wyndhams were there in the family? Ten? Twenty? I was glad I'd only met the one. That seemed like it would be confusing.

Shaking that thought off, I went back to the book. The more I learned, the more subtle meaning I managed to dig out of each word. This book was written by someone who knew what they were doing. Layers and layers of meaning hidden in each and every word.

Some books are too technical to be read by beginners, but some books are written by people who understand how things start. Set a foundation, introduce the mechanisms and the premise, but do it in such a way that while a layman might only get a few scraps of information, a reread will produce more knowledge.

It only took me about fifteen minutes of reading to understand exactly what made the Wishmaster different than anyone else. To find the reason he became a god. He KNEW Skills.

The Emperor and Fairy Queen were great leaders, as was the Unity, as were, in their own way, were Black Sorrow and the Red Revenant. They were all charismatic people who gathered the worship of large groups on their way up.

Not the Wishmaster. Not really. He stayed out of the limelight, even as his power drew him to be a focus. He was unique among all the gods because he reached that height in spite of the attention of others not because of it. Though this was pre-wish power (I was almost sure) Alistair Wyndham casually mentioned reaching Master level in no less than seventy Skills within the first chapter.

They weren't dropped in as a matter of arrogance, simply to illustrate different points, and to show the way different stats could interact to produce different effects. The diagrams were oddly complicated, but familiar, because they were the patterns and Skill constructs I saw when I was making Skills myself.

Except…they weren't. It was like a child making small buildings out of blocks, then walking into a toy store and seeing a hundred foot scale model of a futuristic city made of those same blocks. My fumbling Skill designs, even my best, were nothing but crude scrawling messes next to even the simplest of the constructs he was drawing out.

It was staggering, how much I could learn from them, despite how incredibly small each diagram was, and how complex. There were, for instance, certain patterns and substructures that different stats took to better than others.

Vitality liked curves, Might was inclined to straight lines, Focus should include circular patterns, and as such, worked exceptionally well with Vitality, but poorly with Might unless you included a construct of Perception, which used waves. Unless of course you stacked in some diagonals from Fantasy.

It was dizzying, really, the amount of caveats and sub rules included in the manual, and I was only in the first chapter, only barely managing to scratch the surface. I had so much to learn, to apply to my own Skills. I thought I'd been doing ok, but that was because of the strength of my soul and the relative simplicity of the Skills I was making.

I lost myself in the book, trying to commit everything to memory, but the sheer density of information meant even my Focus wasn't enough for a single read through. I found myself going back to reread sections, understanding more the second time.

This book wasn't just going to take me weeks to finish, I'd have to reread it multiple times to get everything I could out of it, and at this rate it would be slower each time. By the time we arrived at my mom's place though, I was grinning from ear to ear. Training aside, this was something I could do to get better. I wasn't worried about the monsters the enemy could make anymore. When I finished learning everything this book had to teach, I would be a monster too.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The banquet was being held in a central location. Or rather, THE Central Location, since that was what the people of Tricorn called the building in the absolute middle of the three districts. It was a weird building. Specifically, it was more like three buildings smashed together into some weird chimeric vision. Despite being fairly standardized in the Church district, there was a lot of diversity in the architecture elsewhere, and it was somehow all reflected in that building.

"It looks like someone threw up an architecture catalog." Said Benny bluntly as well stared at the misshapen hall.

My mother chuckled. "Yes, it's certainly hideous. Ascendant architecture tends to be focused on going big. That doesn't always produce good results. This building is actually a perfect representation of Tricorn itself. A series of contradicting pieces smashed together in an unfortunate way, so at odds with each other they remain paralyzed in their worst form."

I shrugged. "Not a shock, this place is a mess. Anyway, how are we doing this? I know which entrance but not the actual procedure."

"Ah, right." She said with a chuckle. "We never mentioned. It's simple enough. You'll be entering with Ezekial, Chelsea with me. The others need no introduction, and honestly they're probably better off that way. We'll meet up inside, but you'll be introduced to the delegation from the WCP first."

Grimacing, I stepped forward to hug my mother and sister. "Alright, meet you in there. You be safe, alright? Something weird is going on, and I can't bring myself to believe stealing a few boxes of evil god dust derailed those plans." My mom chuckled, squeezing me back, and my sister seemed pretty unworried.

"They'll be fine." Said a familiar voice, and I spun to see a seemingly normal blonde haired, blue eyed guy about my age, looking rumpled and bored in a hooded white sweater and a pair of long dark shorts. I raised an eyebrow at my grandfather's outfit, and he shrugged. "I make it a habit not to dress up for formal occasions. If they're annoyed at how I present myself they'll stop asking me to go."

My mother rolled her eyes. "You realize mom is going to tear you a new asshole if she catches wind of this? It drives her crazy when you act all flippant about protocol."

"Well then they shouldn't have sent me." He said with a saccharine smile. "They should have sent Absolute or Daydream. I think Rainbow is the only one of us less formal than I am. But no, master had to try to be clever. Well, play stupid games, win stupid prizes."

I raised an eyebrow at my mother. "Wow, he's actually a lot like me."

"No." She said tiredly. "You're a lot like him. It's actually astonishing. You act much more like my father than yours. Maybe it's some kind of bloodline remnant, or maybe it's genetic. Who knows. In any case, with your grandfather around we should be fine. Though, obviously once you leave our presence don't mention the relation. MY friendship with Ezekial will be reason enough for us to interact in there."

Nodding, I gave her one last hug, then gave the old man a serious glare. "If anything happens to them, I don't care if you're the pope. I'll spend the next hundred years getting myself strong enough and then I'll kick your wrinkled old ass."

"Please." He snorted derisively. "Like I need you to tell how me how to take care of my own kid. No one will touch them while I'm around. I might be the youngest of the popes, but I'm also probably the third strongest after Moonlight and Rainbow. You have no clue what a demigod is capable of."

I don't think I'd actually known gramps was a demigod, but it made sense. "Well, Morgan Lark is going to be in there. So I'll be counting on you to fight it out with him if he has any bad intentions."

"Don't be rude." Spoke up Bethy with a pout. "Daddy is a perfect gentleman. He never has bad intentions. He only starts a problem if people are disrespectful to him. Or annoying. Or their voices are high pitched. He doesn't love the smell of fish. Melons, especially orange ones, tend to make him snappish, and he has an intense hatred of rattlesnakes." She paused. "That's all of it though. And most people know about those."

My grandfather snorted. "That melon thing is new. I'm pretty sure he adds quirks just to amuse himself. He's the only being I've ever seen weaponize recursion against himself purely for his own entertainment."

"He thinks it's funny." She giggled. "Plus his willpower is immense. He can just shut down any impulses he doesn't find useful at any time."

The old man sighed. "There are…inherent dangers. It's nothing you need to worry about kid. Watch out for my grandson will you? I like what I've seen of him so far, but he's kind of dense sometimes." He winked at Callie, who had been letting me have my goodbye. "You've got your work cut out for you. I wish you luck."

"She can handle him." My mother snickered. "She reminds me of mom. Speaking of which, we need to go, you know how pissed she'll be if she finds out you're late. She and grandpa will be watching."

He sighed and nodded, and I blinked as they left. Grandpa…The Red Revenant was going to be watching the opening banquet live? That was intimidating.

I knew the gods would have an eye out, but to know that he'd be actively spying starting right away was kind of scary. And that my grandmother was watching too? The monstrous talent born with a mirror soul? That was a lot to take in.

Zeke clapped a hand on my shoulder. "I get where your head is at kid." He said bluntly. "But don't even think about it. Nothing you can do about who looks down from above, so just put it out of your head and let's get going."

That was a fair point. The gods could do anything they wanted. Spending my time worried that some distant deity was watching everything I did sounded like a good way to live in a state of constant anxiety. Taking a deep breath, I smiled as Callie stepped up beside me and wound her arm around mine. "You good?" She asked quietly.

"Yeah, just thinking too much." I winked at her. "That's my curse you know. How slow and methodical I am when doing things."

She giggled, rolling her eyes at my obviously ironic statement. I tended to go with my gut most of the time. I didn't have any regrets about how I handled most things, but I knew myself well enough to know that introspection aside, I tended to run on instinct. I wondered how much of that was recursion, how much of it was my fatewalker Path, and how much was a combination of the two.

With everything sorted out, we walked around to the slightly medieval looking portion of the building that reflected the Empire. We'd be entering through this side, since the WCP didn't have their own presence on Tricorn.

When we reached the door, a pair of hulking men in dark suits of armor waved us through, and we were stopped at a large double door. The doors opened slowly, and a thin, regal looking guy with pointed ears showing he was an elf, took a deep breath and called. "Shane Wyndham, known as Solomon, son of Elijah Wyndham, ward of Janus, representative of the youngest generation of the Wish Curse Palace."

I glanced up to see that Zeke was wearing a mask and robe I hadn't seen him put on. He nodded to me, and we all followed him down the luxurious purple velvet to a small gathering where I recognized one person. Pret.

An older man, visibly in his later thirties, which meant he must be ANCIENT or had ranked up very slowly, locked cold green eyes on me. "Ah. Shane. I've heard so much about you. I appreciate you taking the time to meet with us this evening." He held out a hand, and I realized that like my grandpa (it was kind of hard not to think of him as Nick given how approachable he was) this guy had no apparent Impact.

Whatever they were doing to hide it worked a lot better than just clamping down on a soul like I did. I took his hand, shaking it firmly. "Happy to help. We all need to do our part with this war coming, right?"

"Quite so." He said with a smile that made me feel like he was humoring me. I remembered what Zeke had said, this guy was an ambitious dick who prioritized gains over everything. It was probably the reason Aidan sent him. He'd work the hardest to dig out the most benefits, and wishes were even more valuable during the lead up to a war. "So, I take it you'll be representing our E-rank contingent?"

I nodded. "I will. Who is going to be representing us in the other ranks?"

"Well, first of course is Mr. Birchus for D-rank." He said proudly. "Pretseltsen is my adopted son. He showed such immense talent as a child that I decided to take him in myself, and he hasn't disappointed me so far."

A tall, sallow man with sunken eyes and yellowing teeth grinned at me as he cut in. "And for C-rank my daughter will be our representative." He gestured to his side where I saw…well she was hard to describe. Silvery hair, pale, large dark eyes, and legitimately the most motionless person I'd ever seen.

"Craygan." Zeke sneered. "Aiden sent you to make sure his daddy doesn't sell us all for a steak dinner I take it?"

Harrison stiffened, but didn't say anything, which was weird. He was an S-ranker, so he shouldn't be scared of Zeke, which meant either he was scared of my dad (unlikely, he was also A-rank) or my paternal grandfather. He didn't seem like the type who would stay his tongue for any reason but fear.

Craygen, the pale guy, just chuckled. "I see you've finally joined us in A-rank. You certainly took your time."

"The more stable and concrete your chronicle, the faster you advance in A-rank. Means less Authoring to do." Zeke said serenely. "Don't worry Cray, I can still kick your ass. Your daughter is C-rank already though? I have to admit that's impressive."

The girl dipped her head, a movement that made me jump out of sheer surprise given her stillness up until that point. "It as an honor to hear your praise." She said in a voice flatter than a sheet of glass. "I am Felicity. I hope we can work well together." Her cold, emotionless voice made me shudder a little.

Zeke's eyes narrowed at the man. "I see you're as good a father as you are a human being. Overcooked that one a little, didn't you?"

"She still functions." Said Craygen with a shrug. "My training just smoothed out some of the rough edges. Didn't it darling?"

"Yes father." She responded mechanically. "I have reached my optimal state. I hope to bring our family honor in the games. Victory for House Wyndham." Despite her words being passionate and inspired, her voice remained flat and emotionless.

Zeke was glaring at the man like he wanted to rip him in half, and I was pretty sure I was missing something important. Sadly I didn't have time to consider it because the herald at one of the other sets of doors boomed out an announcement.

"Nicholas Anders, Radiant Pope of the Red Revenant Church, his daughter Sasha, the Star Queen, and granddaughter, Lady Chelsea Anders." It occurred to me that despite my sister and my grandfather using the Anders name, my mother didn't.

I might have heard it once and forgotten about it, but by and large she just went by her first name. Just one more thing about my family to keep me up at night. When the announcement ended I joined Zeke in moving away from my relatives. We needed to get a read on the other attendees before the games. Time to mingle.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Callie and the others headed over to meet up with my mom and Chelsea now that they were here, but I stayed back, wanting talk to Zeke about something important.

"Well that guy was a dick." I said as we wandered away from the group. "Who is he exactly?" I could see the tension in Zeke as we headed for a small alcove without any people in it. He seemed angrier than I'd seen him in a long time, excepting maybe during his fight with the Duke.

When I spoke, he stilled for an almost imperceptible moment and then the anger and tension melted away. "Craygen Norquill." He said in a suddenly relaxed and casual voice. I knew it wasn't real though. My uncle was on a Path of Masks, or something like it. Hiding his true feelings was hardly beyond him.

"Who is…" I trailed off leaving my thought hanging for him to finish.

He sighed, and I felt some of that anger come back. "A duplicitous little troll." He said bluntly. "He's loyal as hell to Aiden, which I suppose could be considered a redeeming quality, but otherwise he'd cut your hamstrings with a rusty box knife for a piece of candy he was planning to throw away. He's one of the most vindictive individuals I've ever met."

"And his daughter?" I asked gently. "I could tell something bad happened to her. What did he do?"

Pausing, he seemed to take some time to think about how to phrase it. "You know how recursion pushed people constantly? How it takes a certain kind of person to be able to ignore that?" I nodded. "Well, that spiritual toughness is often assumed to be inherent. Something you can't train. That's incorrect. You CAN train it, you just shouldn't."

"What?" I said, confused. "But recursion is extremely dangerous. Callie told me that some people who reach high ranks become hollow shells of themselves, overwhelmed by their own recursion."

He waggled a hand. "It's happened, but it's very rare past D-rank. The nature of a Solid Path requires a sense of self. But putting that aside, you're ignoring what recursion IS, and why we have it. Come on, you have to be able to figure this out. What is recursion, like how would you define it?"

"It's the emotional seepage from stats." I shrugged. "Impact and stats are cyclical. You can't have too much Impact without a solid foundation of stats to hold it up, and you can't have too many stats without the Impact to hold it together. But the soul is only so big, the rest of your being has to be made up of something. That thing is stats, and the image of you from the renown they're made of bleeds into you and changes you."

That got a nod. "Close enough. But has it ever occurred to you why we don't have some way of preventing that bleedout? Someone at some point could have come up with a way to prevent it. Drain out the image, filter it, whatever. Hell, someone could have wished for that. Why didn't they?"
I shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe they didn't consider it. People aren't really designed to question things they think are unequivocal fact."

"Which is the whole point." He said grimly. "What people aren't designed to do. We NEED recursion. It insulates us from the alienness of our own changing nature. The whims of the legends that make us up help us change and grow into something more than human. As long as you have the grit to prevent yourself from being swept away, the process of recursion is vital to remaining sane as a high level Ascendant."

Grimacing, I looked back to where Felicity stood. "So the way you train that resistance to recursion is…"

"Basically?" He said with a wince. "By exposing someone to conflicting types of recursion at maximum volume for long periods of time. There are Skills that can mimic the effects of recursion, though they're usually less subtle."

My face went pale. "Is that as horrible as it sounds?"

"Imagine someone with much more power than you compelled you, with more strength than you could resist, to feel angry. They push your rage to the point where it should shatter your mind. But then they use the same type of power at the same scale to force you to feel at peace. Then they just leave you there. The conflicting drives essentially grind away the ability to react to that kind of stimuli through repeated torturous exposure."

"And he did that to his own daughter?" I asked in outrage. "That's fucking monstrous. How is someone like that Aiden's second in command? He's a monster."

Zeke sighed heavily, bringing me out a side door onto a balcony and gesturing for me to sit on a stone bench. "I think you've got a lot of mistaken ideas about the WCP, Shane. We're not good guys. Some of us are decent enough company, some of us are monsters. But we don't have much use for morality. You must have seen that?"

"I mean…" I trailed off. "I know Abel and Mel can be cutthroat, and you've got your brutal side. But I think you're all good people at heart."

He shrugged. "Maybe they are. I'm not." I opened my mouth to retort and he held up a hand with a laugh. "I'm not fishing for reassurance, Shane. I'm not a 'good' person. I don't even want to be one. The concepts of good and evil are nebulous and mostly meaningless to me. I consider myself loyal, and that's important to me, but I have no illusions about my moral compass."

"But that's…" I was stumped. I'd had some small inkling that my uncle didn't really care much about rules. But how do you respond to someone you care about informing you they're amoral.

"Normal." He said bluntly. "It's how most high ranking Ascendants are. You don't usually make it far in our world without certainty of action, and certainty of action doesn't pair well with morality. Good people are not often completely sure of their path. They question, they waver, they see things from other points of view."

I slumped back. "So Aiden is…what? Evil? The whole WCP is just a nest of vipers that only care about themselves? What is the point then? Why do I even want to be the Wishmaster?"

"Not evil." He corrected. "Just ruthless. Maybe to some they're the same. As for what the point is…I'm not honestly sure. Power for the sake of power is a tune I've danced to for most of my life. For myself, for my loved ones, I get stronger. To advance my goals."

Throwing my hands up, I growled. "But I'm not like that! I care about people. Not just my people, though obviously them to, but people as a whole. I want to help them, make things better."

"I know you do." He said with a fond chuckle. "In fact, I suspect that Eli wanted that for you. Sasha is…maybe the most empathetic Ascendant I've ever met. Eli loved that in her. Loved her kindness. It was so different from what he grew up with, from what he saw in everyone else. He tried to be like that for a while. For her. But he couldn't do it."

That wasn't something I could really wrap my head around. My dad was a cold bastard, I know he hadn't always been, that he'd been different once upon a time. Had that all been for my mom? Would I do that for Callie? If I was a monster, would I try to change for her?

But then…hadn't I? How many times had I been at the edge of doing something cruel or wrong or even just easy and stepped back because of her. Because of the example she set for me?

"I think that's why he did it, you know." He said with a sad little laugh. "Left you on Callus. Of all places. He wanted you to grow up to be like her. He couldn't be there because you were a candidate, but I think that actually suited him. You're so much better off as the person you are than you would have been with him, and he always knew it."

I wanted to argue. To lash out. To tell him that was a cop-out and that my dad was just too lazy and uncaring to try. But…I thought back to the Ruined Soul Temple. To the version of myself that I might have been if I'd been raised by my father. Maybe he was right.

Not that it mattered in the long run. I was still angry at him. But knowing what the WCP really was made a difference. Because I could see how that would have poisoned my dad just like he was afraid it would poison me. I knew he'd grown up the same way I had, away from the family, but the place you were left clearly had a big impact on who you became.

Zeke had already told me who he was, and the place my dad grew up had shaped them both. I'd seen the harsh side of the empire myself. All of it just made me so fucking ANGRY.

Because it just never stopped. People hurting people because people hurt them. Without even meaning to. I was just so fucking sick of it. Sick of thinking about how my parents broke me, and now how their parents broke them. Sick of the WCP and its callousness and the gods and their casual cruelty.

Sick of seeing people like Satala and Yvette suffer for the sins of implacable figures so high and distant they might as well be stars.

But most of all I was sick of me being too weak to do anything about it. I'd promised myself that I'd become the Wishmaster, to change this ridiculous way of raising children, but that wouldn't be enough. I needed more. Needed to go further. I wasn't just going to become the Wishmaster, I was going to become a fucking GOD.

I was going to make this world a better, kinder place, for Callie. For my own kids when I had them. For my mom who had to give up her child, for my dad who never saw me because he was afraid he'd poison me just by being in my life. For my sister, who grew up alone and isolated.

And most of all…for me. So I could look around and see a world I was proud of. Because what was being an Ascendant if it wasn't forcing the world to bend to your will. So many people had shown me that through action, and it was finally sinking in. And deep down, somewhere in my soul I could barely feel, I felt something click.

My Path shifted, just a bit. Not enough to change the Skill, but enough to refocus it on what I really needed. I had a feeling I wouldn't really understand the significance of that for a long while, but that was fine. I had plenty of time to figure it out.

We'd been sitting in silence for a while, since he'd mentioned my dad, and when I finally stood, Zeke seemed almost surprised. "We should go back inside." I said, my voice charged with surety and purpose. "I need to learn more about the other players in the games. You'll have to point them out."

That was my next move. I had my Path, and even if it had shifted a bit I still just needed to walk it. One step at a time, I had to move forward, had to find my way. Because I could see it now. My future. A god with my friends and family around me, safe and happy and free from all this nonsense. I knew exactly where I was headed, and I couldn't get there fast enough.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Stepping back into the building felt…different. Not the building itself, obviously, I'd been in there five minutes ago, but my own perception of it. I felt stronger, more confident. Which was nuts because I'd just essentially committed myself to taking over the universe. Or at least like…a seventh of it.

We found my mom and sister standing with my grandfather within seconds. As I approached, Callie stepped toward me and reached up to adjust my cloak on my shoulders, using the distraction as an excuse to ask me mentally. 'Are you alright? I felt something…strange. The bond shifted a little. You feel different now.'

'I am different now.' I responded cheerfully into her mind. 'But not in a bad way. I had a nice talk with Zeke, and it cleared some things up for me. About myself, and my family, and what I should be aiming for. Now, what exactly is going on here?' I gestured to the small gathering, who were currently huddled around Bethy as she chattered breathlessly to my grandfather.

"And daddy told him that if he didn't give my brother back, he was going to rip off his face and staple it to our front door." She said happily. "Which is silly because our front door is huge and that would be so ugly and unbalanced. Don't you think?"

The old man (though it was weird to think of him that when when he looked to be in his early twenties) nodded in consideration. "Most likely. Decorating with human body parts is more trouble than it's worth. It's disgusting and the upkeep is a nightmare. I remember the Black Sorrow Cult Arch-Bishops went through a phase where they would mount the tongues of their enemies on a necklace. The repairs took up hours every day."

"Daddy." Said my mother sweetly. "This is a banquet, perhaps speaking of disembodied tongue necklaces isn't proper dinner conversation." I don't think I'd ever heard her call him that, but it was clear from her tone that it was a term she only used when she was annoyed.

He snorted. "Bah. You and your mother are both the same. Never let me have any fun."

"No daddy." She said with an eye roll. "We just care about what's appropriate in social settings. Not all of us are Popes. But I'll be sure to tell mom that you have such a low opinion of her sense of humor. I'm sure she'll be thrilled."

His previously relaxed face went pale and tense. "Now I…well that is to say. Let's not be so hasty pumpkin. You wouldn't want to get your old man in trouble now would you? I came all this way to this dumpster continent to see my precious daughter and granddaughter, doesn't that buy me a bit of leeway." He turned to the man standing next to. "Andrew, help me out here."

Andrew turned to him in amusement and I was struck by how powerful he seemed, a hulking dark skinned man with a goatee wearing silver plate armor with gold accents. He had kind brown eyes and a wide bright smile. He shook his head with a chuckle. "Not my place, sir."

"Oh, Solomon!" My mother said cheerfully. It's good to see you. Thank you again for being such a good friend to my daughter. "This is Andrew Kraymore. He's a Saint of the Red Revenant Church. Military branch, not Clergy. Similar to how your friend Gabriel is a Crusader, or rather, a Guardian now as opposed to a Minister or Bishop, which is the equivalent in the clergy."

Andrew nodded to me cheerfully. "Well met, young man. I'm grateful for your support of the young mistress. And your friendship to young Gabriel. He's a promising talent for our Order. The Radiant Order might not be the oldest of the military branches of the Church, but we're among the most accomplished, and I foresee big things for him in our ranks."

Bethy squealed happily. "Oh Gabe did you hear! Your boss likes you! That's so exciting. Daddy says a good relationship with subordinates is key, because otherwise you'll be tempted to just eat them when they annoy you."

"Don't be silly." Said Andrew kindly. "It's been decades since I've eaten a subordinate. You have nothing to worry about." His voice was so earnest it took a second for it to be clear he was joking. Gabe's face went white with terror, until the older man's sincere face cracked and he started letting out guffaws of laughter.

The rest of us laughed along, amused at my friend's gullability. Bethy bumped his shoulder with hers. "I like him. I think you're in good hands."

"So." I interrupted, sad to see the good humor end but needing to focus. "Sir Kraymore, I hope that's the right form of address. You're the Pope's right hand for this event? Does that mean you'll be taking part in the debriefing?"

He nodded, the good humor melting from his face. "I will. It's going to be quite the conclave this time. We have much to discuss. Will you be participating in the games?"

"Of course." I said confidently. "I'm representing the E-rank of the Wish Curse Palace. Will Gabe be the one you're fielding for your own competitor or will Chelsea be the one to take the field." Fighting my sister sounded annoying, but with mom's training I hoped I could learn to somewhat counter her purifying flame.

Chelsea pulled herself up straighter. "Ill be the one entering, thank you very much. And don't think I'll go easy on you just because I like Callie so much. You're going down you big ape."

I sniffled, wiping at my mask dramatically where eyes would be on my face. "Look Cal, she's learning to trash talk. She's so bad at it, but the fact that she's trying is enough to make me well up a bit. Hopefully she's better at whatever these games are than she is talking smack."

My sister pouted at me, and everyone around us laughed. We were cut off by the booming voice of the announcement, and we all turned to grimace at the entrants for obvious reasons. "Announcing the arrival of his excellence, the Deathwish Pope of the Black sorrow cult, as well as his granddaughter Vivian Blackwater, and his personal valet The Black Knight." Three figures stepped through the door, and every person in the room turned to look.

The Deathwish Pope was a tall imposing man in dark robes that tattered around the edges. His face was covered by what appeared to be an actual skull, sawed off at the face and with nothing below the jaw. Despite so many of his features being covered and not being able to feel an ounce of Impact off the man, I could feel his power from where I was standing. Nothing mystical or stat related, just a palpable force of personality.

The girl at his side was pale and regal, with shimmering dark hair cut off at her forehead in a sharp set of bangs, otherwise falling to her waist. She had dark blue lipstick on that set off her blue eyes and a black and blue flower in her hair that went with her black and blue ballgown, and her expression was predatory as she scanned the room.

Finally, the last member of their party was…a monster. A towering suit of black armor, over nine feet if I didn't miss my guess, and probably half that wide at the shoulders. His eyes burned a malevolent red through the slits in his helm, the only thing about him visible through the thick armor.

"Deathwish." Hissed my grandfather angrily. "Of course she would send him. Vindictive bitch."

I wanted to ask more about that, but my sister turned to me quickly as they entered. "They'll come over here first. This is important. Do NOT underestimate Vivian. She likes to play the holy maiden, and never has a bad word to say about anyone. She has zero temper, but she calculates everything you say to her like a tab, and she WILL pay back insults. She's a fucking psycho, even though she doesn't seem like it. Be careful."

Sure enough, the party of three and several hangers on that hadn't merited the introduction made their way over to us. The Deathwish Pope smiled under his skull mask at my grandfather. "Nicholas." He said cheerfully in a raspy voice. "So good to see you."

"Marcus." Said the old man flatly. "I wish I could say the same, but I try not to be an unbelievable hypocrite every time I open my mouth. Different strokes for different folks, you know?"

I felt a slight shift in the air, and for a second I was confused, until a hand reached out and settled on Marcus's shoulder. "Now let's not do anything rash, moron." Said Arble, smiling tightly at the robed figure. "Unveiling yourself like that would kill quite a few of our young ones here, and we aren't in a position to waste resources like that, are we?"

"Arble of Aramore." Said the Pope tightly. "Are you interfering in the business of the Black Sorrow Cult?"

Another man stepped out of the crowd behind Arble, baring his teeth at the dark robed figure. "No. I am. Why, you got a fucking problem with that?" The tall man with long dark hair and a closely trimmed goatee was wearing a dark suit with a red tie and a cloak fastened around his neck by a series of gold chains. I was briefly confused who it was, until I recognized the glowing red eyes and the sharpness of the smile. Bethy's father, Morgan Lark. The Vampire.

The Deathwish Pope froze, eyes locked on Lark, before breaking into a casual laugh. "Of course not. Only teasing an old friend. No need to get so serious. The independents certainly brought their best this time."

"Don't try to start a conversation with me like we're equals." Said Lark bluntly. "I'm done with you now. You can fuck off."

The robed figure stiffened, then decided it wasn't worth the trouble and spun, stalking off with all his followers in pursuit. My grandfather closed his eyes, exhaling with an almost ecstatic sigh. "That was nice. I'm glad I got to see that. Good to see you Morgan. Still fucking terrifying I see. I've been getting to know your charming progeny. She and my granddaughter have become fast friends."

The pale man sighed. "I know. I receive endless messages from her daily about all the friends she is making. She got her mothers enthusiasm."

"Good for her." Said Arble. "You're a morbid son of a bitch. Anyone heard from the other attendees yet? I know three of the parties have shown up, but I'm too old to be sitting around this fancy young people party. My bones ache, and I want to get back to my bookstore." His eyes fixed on me. "Speaking of which, how are you liking your purchase young man?"

"It's certainly been…illuminating." I said respectfully. "Having some trouble getting through it all, lots to unpack."

He snorted. "Alistair always did like craft his words carefully. Not that it limited the amount of them that he used, loved to hear himself talk, that one. But he was a big fan of embedding secondary meanings in everything he said for people to parse later."

"Honestly, that sounds kind of obnoxious." I admitted with a shrug. "Pretty glad I don't know anyone like that."

That surprised a laugh out of Arble. "I do like you, kid. I don't think many people make comments like that anymore, and more's the pity. That old bastard needs some humility in his life." He turned to Morgan. "See, I told you the kid has potential."

The Vampire shrugged. "He looks a bit like the old man. I mean, they all do, but him more than most. Anyway, I'm bored, I'm going to go pick at the snacks. Bethany?"

"Coming daddy!" She chirped, grabbing Gabe and Chelsea both and dragging them after her as she followed her father off to search for snacks. I just chuckled at the poleaxed looks on their faces. Better them than me.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Meeting the Vampire was amazing, and seeing old Arble again was great, and I had a lot of questions…but they all fled my brain as the herald announced the next entrant. Or rather, started to, because I missed the actual words as I turned and stared in awe at the next entrant to the banquet.

A colossal man in shining red with black accents, a long crimson cape flowing behind him, strong jaw and long dark hair as familiar to me as my own, since I'd spent most of my formative years seeing them on posters and comic books. I spun to tug on Callie's arm, eyes wide and shocked as I hissed. "Oh my gods! That's Captain Cataclysm!"

"What?" She snorted as she turned. "No it's…holy shit it is!" We both watched in thrilled amazement as one of the most well known heroes in the entire Conglomerate stepped into the room.

My sister raised an eyebrow. "Wait…who?"

We both spun to gape at her. "Captain Cataclysm?" I said in outrage. "The Crimson Comet? The Man of Forever? The single most famous hero in Conglomerate history barring the Unity himself? His battle against Doctor Darkdevil was only the greatest fight to ever be fought."

"Um, excuse me." Snapped Callie. "I think you meant that it was pathetically inferior to his fight against Eternia. They put out a SUN."

Benny rolled his eyes. "Oh gods, there's two of them. You can't possibly be as big a comic nerd as he is." He sighed in defeat. "Perfect for each other, I swear. But I'm surprised this hasn't come up before."

Callie blushed. "I…I don't like to talk about my collection. People make fun of me. Like Shane's collection of novelty Nightstrike mugs. It's lame."

"Those mugs are an INVESTMENT." I repeated. "There's nothing lame about making responsible fiscal choices to prepare for your future." Benny opened his mouth, clearly about to mock me mercilessly, but I just held up my hand. "Yeah, I know, I heard it as the words were coming out of my mouth. Shut up."

My sister giggled at my obvious lameness as she nodded to the rest of the party. "I admit I don't know much about the Unity's heavy hitters. Do you recognize any of the others?"

To my surprise, it was Benny who answered. "That's Sam Savage." He pointed to the shorter man I'd almost missed in Captain Cataclysm's shadow. "My dad used to watch his movies as a kid. He's a genius detective with amazing stealth powers. He's kind of gone out of fashion, because his coat and hat look is a bit dated, but he was really big back in the day."

"And the woman with them is Daystar." I finished, gesturing to the smiling blonde lady who didn't look much older than us. Her bright blue eyes shone with warmth and reassurance, and she practically glowed with kindness. Wait…no, I activated my Eye of Revelation and she was ACTUALLY glowing with kindness. That was weird.

Callie gasped. "Oh, my god it is! I was so distracted by the captain I almost missed her. I used to watch her cartoons as a little girl. I had a poster of her fight with Baron Behemoth up in my room for years when I was a kid."

Chelsea raised an eyebrow at us, and I just chuckled. "The mythos for heroes and villains is different than normal high rankers. Actually, I don't think I've seen many of those kinds of advertisements or media since becoming an Ascendant. But for mortals, especially younger ones, our media is stratified into two tiers. There's popular local heroes, and then there's 'the greats'."

"These are people we grew up watching on scan boxes and reading about in comic books." Callie agreed. "Like…heroes in our area were somewhat idolized, I even got some of that myself, but it's not the same thing at all. These were our idols."

Benny shrugged. "They're right. I never got super into the lore like these two apparently did, but like I said, my dad grew up on Sam Savage movies."

Which I now realized was the Conglomerate's purpose. I'd always known that besides the local stuff that seemed to be mostly stratified, the big names got a slice of the pie too. It was still amazing to see them here in person. I cleared my throat. "So Celine, you know anything about the people who got sent by the Fairieland? My mom said it was a Princess."

Celine nodded. "I've been contacting some of my family members trying to learn more about the delegation. Princess Levinia Darksparrow is the S-ranker in attendance. She's one of the Queen's favorite grandchildren. Her mother Valeria is one of the eldest princesses. Third in line for the throne, I believe."

"Aren't gods immortal?" I asked in confusion. "How would they even inherit?"

My mom cut in with a chuckle. "The Queen has been considering passing down the title. The WCP has shown how effective a tool it can be for the title to pass on. It's been a contentious debate for centuries actually, but support has been slowly swinging that way. In the meantime they treat distance from the throne as a social construct to determine political power."

"The heir, Prince Valyard, is the second most powerful person in the Fairieland." She said proudly. "I think he's even one of the top five strongest S-rankers."

My grandfather nodded. "Third." He said bluntly. "After Lark and Moonlight. Valyard is nothing to sneeze at. I've seen him fight. Almost surprised Layla didn't send him personally. But with the war coming she might have deployed him to a trouble spot to deal with issues. The Fairieland is isolated, which means there's a good chance they'll be getting it worse than most places."

It took me a second to realize that Layla must be the Queen's name. I'd never heard her referred to as anything but the Queen, just like I'd never heard anyone call the Emperor by name. It made sense that someone who trained under the Red Revenant like my grandpa would know her name though.

As if summoned, the herald called out another party. "Announcing her highness, Princess Levinia Darksparrow, and her knight, Edward Banesear, Duke of Ill Fortune. Accompanying them, their son, Baron Saylan Denroth."

We all turned to watch them come in, and I was pretty sure I spoke for everyone when I say I was blown away. Beauty is an integral part of the fae legend, especially for high court fae. I'd never considered exactly how much that would affect years of Ascendant children, but apparently, it was a lot.

All three of the people who entered were absurdly good looking. Symmetrical features, bright eyes, in incredible physical shape. I mean, Ascendants in general tended to get better looking over time as they were idealized, but these people were next level attractive.

My mom snorted. "Show offs." She said with a smirk. "Those are fae crafted clothes made to highlight their features." She said in explanation when we looked confused. "It's an extension of formation crafting, and it's something that only the fae are really vain enough to bother with. Don't get me wrong, they'll all very attractive, but they're thumbing the scales right now."

Bethy looked intrigued. "That's so cool. I wonder if I can learn how to do that? Maybe I could adapt it to some kind of stealth clothes. I'd just be like, whoosh." She waved both hands in front of herself. "Then disappear, and people would be like 'oh no, where's Bethy?' Wouldn't that be so cool?"

My mom laughed at her enthusiasm. "I'll talk to Levi, maybe she could give you lessons. Your dad doesn't have the best relationship with the fae, though devils usually take to him well enough."

"Daddy says fairies taste delicious, but devils are too spicy. He ate one of their princes once and it gave him heartburn" She said wisely.

My mom glanced at me. "I see now why you keep her around, she's fun."

"Reminds me of her mother." My grandfather said with a chuckle. At our surprised looks, he just raised an eyebrow. "What? I told you I knew Lark. I've met Delilah before. She's a lot of fun to spend time with, if somewhat more violent than most people prefer. She and Celia get along splendidly. Cece's family situation makes her comfortable with crazy violent people."
My mom snorted. "I'm telling her you said that for sure. Don't bother trying to convince me otherwise."

"Please." Laughed the old man. "Cece knows I think her family are violent lunatics, at least on her mother's side. That ship has sailed. In any case, I'm going to go talk to Levinia. I want to make some positive inroads with at least one of the factions before the games. Andrew will stick with you and Chelsea, but otherwise enjoy yourselves." He ruffled her hair, ignoring her scowl as she batted at his hands, and then strolled off.

My mom rolled her eyes fondly. "That old man can never sit still. Speaking of which, Shane, I was hoping to talk to you." Her eyes flicked to Zeke. "Mind masking our conversation for us?"

He nodded easily. Reaching into a pocket, he pulled out a ball of clay, and with a series of movements so deft I could barely track them, made a full sized mask. He carved in a few symbols, then flicked it up into the air, where it caught, freezing in space, and a sort of environmental disturbance wrapped around me and mom.

"I didn't know he could do that." I said in an impressed tone.

She shrugged. "It's not something that's useful outside of very specific circumstances. It's temporary, very small scale, and all it manages is Perception. If this place blew up we'd still take the hit. Good news is we're covered by his Path, so unless there's an S-ranker or a high A-ranker with a Path specifically geared towards Perception and spying, we should be fine.Also he can only do it when he has open mask slots. He broke a bunch in his fight with that Duke and hasn't replaced them yet."

"Fair. Still cool though." I chuckled. "So, what did you want to talk about?"

"Your training." She said bluntly. "I was serious about teaching you to apply your flames better. Your Mephistopheles form has a lot of potential. Hell, they all do, but I'm not geared to help with most of them. We were going to start today, but time got away from me. We can begin work after the banquet. You might have to go without a bit of sleep, but I'm sure that won't be a problem for you after your experiences on Stratholme."

I shuddered. "Yeah…I can handle that. Are you sure you're the best person to teach me though? Your purification flame isn't exactly the best suited for my combat style, is it?"

"Nope." She said cheerfully. "But my other ability will be pretty well suited to coaching that form. You remember I have two, right? My martial art ability, Stellar Flame Fist, has several forms that are suited to different uses of fire. I'm not the Rainbow Pope or anything, but I've got some versatility that will probably help with the training."

Her comment about the Rainbow Pope reminded me to look into him. I'd heard interesting things, including that he collected different types of fire in exchange for resources at a place called the Promethean Library. Seemed like it might be a neat place to visit.

In any case, I agreed to her help, and she gave me a warm smile. "Excellent. After the banquet, you can head to my building, bring Calliope if you like. I'm sure we could help her refine her technique as well if she's interested." Gesturing to Zeke, he let the mas turn to dust as the shroud around us rescinded, and then we spread out to mingle. It was going to be a long night.

 

[koya]

Didn't Chelsea and Gabe get dragged off by Bethany last chapter? Why is she still here?

Edit : ok, nevermind, I read more and saw Bethy was back, so I guess a bit of time has passed, I had assumed that this was immediately after the previous scene

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The rest of the banquet was uneventful. We were too small potatoes to get face time with any of the other representatives really. My grandpa greeted them, but since he wasn't admitting to BEING my grandpa right now, that didn't help me or my friends much, and even Chelsea didn't warrant an introduction to any of them except Princess Levinia.

No, the most interesting thing to happen was after the banquet when Callie and I headed to my mom's place with Chelsea. We were taken to a large reinforced training area, and Callie sat out the first lesson so I could get a feel for my training.

Mom had me change into a rough spun set of long sleeved, loose fitting clothes to train in, to match the outfit she was already dressed in. The training room had its own changing area, and when I came out, she was waiting in a sort of meditative pose. "Alright." She said. "First thing I need is to see what you can do up close. Trigger your Mephistopheles form."

I did so without question, my hair consumed in black flame and my body filling with strength. I whirled my staff in slow circles, getting ready to attack…but I hesitated.

My mother smiled warmly. "Shane. Honey. I love you, but you don't need to worry about hurting me. If you combined every attack you've ever made together into a single blow and directed it into my exposed eyeball, I wouldn't even tear up. It's sweet that you're concerned, but honestly it's almost absurd."

Callie burst out into giggles. "It's not that. He's just not sure he can bring himself to attack his mommy."

"That is a gross oversimplification!" I snapped. Then I trailed off. "And not how I would phrase it."

My mom chuckled at me. "It's sweet. But like I said honey, don't think of it as an attack. You're incapable of harming me. This is just training, and between my control of my power and your lack of threat, this is the safest activity you've ever been involved in. For both parties."

Intellectually I knew that. But this was my mom. Absent or not, she was one of my earliest memories, and attacking her just felt wrong. I shook that off though. She was right. She was so much stronger than me that worrying about harming her might as well be literal delusion. This wasn't an attack, it was just training. I trained with people I cared about all the time. Like Callie.

Shifting my stance, I positioned myself firmly, then thrust out with the staff, twisting and extending my upper body as the end of the weapon smashed into her face with an explosion of dark fire.

The flames cleared, and she was standing there unharmed, warm smile still in place, not a hair out of position. "Ok." She said with a chuckle. "Not bad, but I suspect you can do better than that. Come on, I want you to make a serious effort. I need to see where your limits are to bring you past them."
With that first strike out of the way, I felt more confident in the training. I blurred forward, thrusts and smashes hitting her from every angle. She didn't even bother to block, and my most powerful hits didn't phase her. Looking closely I was pretty sure she was actually shifting minutely with the impacts, and it took me a minute to figure out that she was trying to keep my staff from breaking, which was somewhat intimidating.

Still, I unleashed a series of my most devastating strikes, and only stopped when she held up a hand. "Not bad." She said calmly. "I can tell your skill is boosting your blows quite a bit, and it's Path empowered. I'd put that at…twenty thousand Might maybe? Which combined with your Impact is nothing to sneeze at in E-rank."

I could hear the but coming. "But…" I said leadingly. "What am I doing wrong?"

"Well, several things." She admitted. "Your staff form is brutish and simplistic, but I'm not a staff user and can't do much for that. But your application of power is too focused. Let me ask you a question, what is Might?"

I answered automatically. "A measure of the physical force an ability or Skill can bring to bear. The side effect improves your physical strength." She seemed to be waiting for me to continue, and I wracked my brain for more. "It lets you impart more force."

Her face lit up. "And what is force?" She asked. "Scientifically speaking. Your educational downloads had to have covered this."

"Force equals mass times acceleration." I quoted easily. "Callus wasn't THAT backwater."

She just chuckled. "Now, barring certain temporary abilities you can stockpile, you can't really change your mass. So how can you generate more force?"

"Acceleration." I shrugged. "I need to move faster. Maybe I could create a speed form, then I-" I froze. Because…I had a speed form. Or rather, I had a Might form. Mephistopheles was about pinpoint power output. I could unleash blasts of powerful force from my staff. I'd been using that to make attacks, but force could be applied in plenty of ways.

Stepping back, I wound up and took a running start, passing my mom completely, I planted my staff on the ground like a pole vaulter, pushing off and channeling a large blast of energy from the end touching the floor, hurling me up into the air.

As I came to the top of my arc, I considered my form. I could attack with my staff, but my body was the tool with Mephistopheles. That was how forms worked. Staff forms could contain more than staff blows. I activated Ripple Running, and when I landed let my knees bend, pushing off and channeling the burst of power through my feet this time.

I exploded off the skill platform (which admittedly shattered as I came off) and flashed down towards my mom.

Leaning forward, I sent myself into a whirling series of front flips to build up speed, bringing my staff up and around in the most devastating smash I could, unleashing a massive blast of black flame as smashed into her…or trying to.

When the dust cleared, she'd caught the blow easily and was holding my entire body in the air. She let me drop, chuckling. "Excellent. That was exactly where I wanted your head to go. Sorry I couldn't let that attack land. That much force would have shattered your weapon if it had hit me head on, and I know it's new."

"Fair enough." I laughed. "Any notes? The enhanced mobility is good, but I'm sure there's more I could be doing."

She grinned at me. "Of course. I'm going to be teaching you some of the moves of my Stellar Flame Fist. Once you learn them bare handed you can apply those principles to your staff art. Not just this form either. You'll be taking a big step in manipulating flame in general."

That did sound really cool, so I nodded, stashing my staff in my ring so I could focus on throwing hands.

"Now, the Stellar Flame Fist is made up of multiple techniques and stances, and I'm not teaching you all of them." She said solemnly. "It would take too long, and be counterproductive besides. In fact, I'm trying to avoid you learning the Skill, because it'll be far too complex for you to integrate into your existing Skillset. So I'm only teaching you three of the stances. The ones that I think will be most helpful."

I frowned. "But if I don't learn the Skill will I still be able to do the moves?"

"Of course." She said confidently. "The Stellar Flame Fist is a martial art dedicated to the manipulation of fire. My dad's purification flame, your black flame, it doesn't matter what you're using to shape it, the actual stances themselves work the same. Besides, earning this Skill wouldn't be so easy. I doubt we'd have time for you to pick it up, considering it's the Skill that earned me my title."

I watched as she took a firm stance. "First attack is one that I think will benefit you in terms of combat damage. Your flames are powerful, but you just pour more energy or multiply the destruction. You don't do anything with them shape wise. Can you call them and hold them in front of you?"

Holding out my hands, I pulled on Mephistopheles. It was surprisingly hard without the staff, my brain wanted to fight the energy. But I triggered Piece of Mind, and was able to focus one of my parallels on keeping up the image of staff training. "Yeah, I got it." I grunted.
"Perfect." She beamed. "Now, for this particular attack, the shape we use is simple. Just pack as much fire as you can as tightly as you can. I want you to imagine the flames are a star, and you're condensing it down until not a single drop of force could fit in there without detonating the sphere."

I nodded, focusing the flames down. I had to activate another parallel to hold it, because Mephistopheles was NOT designed for prolonged attacks. I felt the strain in my soul as one version of my kept a staff framework in mind, one of me condensed the fire, and one produced more flame.

My mother watched calmly, and when I finished, she smiled in approval. "Now, aiming that attack at me. I want you to punch it. Imagine your fist is providing that list little spark of force, setting off the explosion, but the force needs to travel through the sphere and burst out the other side, letting the power escape that way. This attack is called Cosmic Collapse."

I felt a surge of amusement through the bond from Callie, at the fact that my mother and I had a similar dramatic naming sense, but I ignored it.

Exhaling slowly, I left the bright sphere of power in the air as I hauled back and punched it, almost unthinkingly triggering Mercy Kill when I punched it to give it that little extra bit of kick as it detonated.

A massive explosion of black flame erupted from my fist, a wedge of dark flame consuming the area my mom was standing in with a cone shaped torrent of fire. Some part of me panicked a bit at the image, but I forced it down. My mom was fine, I couldn't hurt her. But that had been…holy shit that had been a BIG attack.

As it cleared, I found her grinning at me brightly. "Perfect!" She squealed happily. "Did you put a little extra sauce on that one? I was expecting it to be thirty five or forty thousand Might worth of force. That was closer to fifty."

"Uh, yeah." I said with a cough. "I used one of my finishers. Mercy Kill."

With a beaming smile, she clapped me on the shoulder. "Perfect. That was exactly what we wanted. We'll practice that until you can use it on command, then you can try to channel it through your staff. I picked that one because it should work even better with the staff than the fist because of the way the force ruptures the opposite side of the bubble."

"Yeah, I can see how it would." I said with a laugh. "But what about the other two, you said we'd be learning three." I was pumped, this training was way more fun than I'd been expecting. My mom was a much better teacher than Zeke or Abel.

Focusing back up, she nodded. "Good point. You can practice that after I teach you the next one. Since we talked about momentum and acceleration, the next one should be easy enough to learn." She cracked her neck, eyes blazing with excitement. "This next move is one of my versatile and has gotten me out of quite a few scrapes. It should be particularly compatible with your black flames. I call it…the Supernova Step."