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

[Malcolm Tent]

We had arrived. The Vault was right across the hall, and now we just needed to get into it. I'd carefully selected the team I'd brought for this, specifically because of their unique abilities and the details of the vault. First up, obviously, was Abel. I glanced at my mentor. "I need you to create a slipstream of spatial lubrication across this hall, then under the door blocking off the other side."


He nodded, humming contemplatively. "I'm assuming you want Bethy to carry us through in her Domain?"


"As mist, preferably," I agreed. I turned to the others. "Once we're in, Sable is going to take over." I glanced at her intently. "The first room of the Vault is a garden. It looks peaceful but it's covered in special formations designed to detect living beings. Because of the way it's set up though, plants are excluded. We need your root golems to get us across."


The rest of the plan would need to be explained on the fly. There were observations I needed to make in person, and I couldn't predict the outcome. Some of the defenses were randomized, and while I knew what had been a threat when I checked the Vault the first time, my staff could only simulate, not actually predict the future. While prediction WAS something I could achieve in limited circumstances, doing it hours ahead of time with so many variables was impossible for me.


Stepping closer to Bethy, we all let her pull us into her Domain. There was a brief flicker across the red moon, and she let us back out. Abel's spatial lubrication combined with Bethy's mist form let us smoothly bypass most of the external defenses. I'd had to double check a few things on arrival just to be sure, but that part of the plan had gone off without a hitch.


Inside the Vault, we emerged into a surprisingly peaceful garden. We were standing at one end, on a stone platform set into the ground, and a path of cobblestones extended through the place from the platform.


The path was a trap. It didn't actually prevent the formations from detecting you, and there were actually several dangerous trap enchantments laid out on the stones. The detection formations could identify members of the city lord's bloodline, or could be bypassed with a special token, neither of which we had. But that was why I'd brought Sable.


The red haired witch stepped forward confidently, reaching into a pouch, and withdrew a handful of seeds. Nicking her finger, she spread some blood on them and then tossed them casually off the platform and into the grass of the garden.


While the garden only detected living beings and not plants, there were other defenses in play. More active defenses that were a threat to the root golems. Our best bet here was quantity, sending a bunch of them through so that one or two might make it to the other side. Sure enough, the little root people took off for the other side of the room, and as they ran, they started getting picked off.


The garden was gorgeous. A huge, lush expanse of thick plantlife containing hundreds of flowers, trees, and various other interesting flora. I could even see what looked like animals made of plants, moss deer and moose with tree antlers. As the root people ran out among the plants, a large portion of them reacted.


Flowers grew teeth and devoured root people whole, tendrils from beneath the ground dragged them under kicking and screaming, and in some cases, floating spores or fluff landed on them gently, burrowing into the creatures and tearing them apart in explosions of blooming flowers or mushrooms. The whole thing was a horror show, and it made me glad I hadn't decided to brute force it. This was what happened when you DIDN'T trip the defenses. Imagining an actual coordinated response made my blood run cold.


After a bit of trial and error, we realized that there WAS a path through the garden, it just wasn't the stone one in the middle. I also suspected that the recognition formations did more than attack if triggered, I was pretty sure they suppressed the passive defenses too. Still, we managed to get one of them through, and once it got to the other side, I used Double Trouble to appear behind it, bypassing the entire room.


Once I was through, I turned to the large expanse of unwarded earth on the other side, then triggered Agares, and began shaping a long bridge to cover the room.


This was the biggest gap in the security setup. There were formations in place that required that any passersby walk across the ground. They jammed air passage to prevent anyone from just flying over. I'd bypassed them entirely with teleportation, but that was an uncommon ability to have, and the Vault itself was blocked off from teleportation coming in, so it was considered a low priority to defend against.


By using the unaltered ground on the other side of the formations, I could create a path that conformed to the defenses without actually subjecting my people to them. Within a few minutes, the bridge had formed, and my friends strolled casually across it to join me on the other side of the garden.


I grinned at Sable. "Nice one. That took more root puppets than expected. You feeling ok? You had to bleed a couple times for that."


She shrugged. "I'm a witch, and I use blood in a lot of work. I'm used to it." She shot Bethy a considering glance. "I am feeling a little faint though, Bethy, does that big castle have more than just that one bedroom?"


"Of course," the Vampire said perkily. "And all the beds are super soft. I found them on this really weird planet. They have mattress trees there. Also couch bushes, but those eat people. Poor Tracy is still afraid of paisley. Though to be fair, who wouldn't be, it's hideous."


It took me a second to remember that Tracy was one of her thralls. I hadn't seen them in ages, since they couldn't really keep up with our pace. Regardless, it was clear Sable wanted to take a nap, and Bethy seemed happy to oblige. Once she'd taken the witch into her Domain, we turned to the doorway to the next room.


"Alright Chels, you're up," I told my sister. "This is a special door that can only be opened by bloodline descendants of the city lord, OR by people with the token to get in here. It works on energy signature. This is good for us, because the energy signature we need is stored in the formations in this garden. The formation has to be able to recognize the proper signature to allow family members to pass."


My sister grinned. "Ooooh, I get it. You want me to use my diagram to share the power from the formations with the door lock."


She raised her hand, and a symbol appeared. Not the full yin yang diagram, but a segment of it. The dark section with the single white dot, looking like a comma. She extended her hand toward the garden, and the comme flew out and landed on the grass, luckily not setting off and alarms. Then she raised her other hand, manifesting a white comma with a black spot, and pressed it to the door.


The two segments glowed, and then the door glowed, and then there was a click and it swung open seamlessly. My sister grinned at us smugly. "See, when I work, there aren't any big loud crashes or ruined landscapes. I achieve everything with perfect balance and harmony. Violence is never the answer."


"Isn't one of your powers conceptual destruction?" Abel asked her mildly.


Chelsea smiled sweetly at him. "Isn't one of your powers shutting up before I hurt you? It would be a shame if, the next time we use the diagram, your powers conveniently fail when you're about to punch something scary."


"Have you learned nothing from Benny?" I asked him with a laugh. "Never piss off the support."


We stepped over the Vault threshold. This was the last room. "Alright, Dayna, you're up." I pointed up at the flying boxes randomly floating through the air. They seemed to be passing through some weird exchanging orbit that altered constantly. This had been part of why I'd needed to wait until now to reveal the plan. I had to use Dantalion to identify the right box. "Can you hit one of those boxes without actually damaging it?"


The archer frowned. "I…think so?" she said hesitantly. "I'd need to know which box, and I might need a minute to set up my shot. If we need contact without damage I need to hit it at the top of an arc. I'll need to make sure all the force is spent and that it hits in that moment before gravity starts reasserting control."


"Good, Chelsea, I want you to link that same power signature to her arrow," I instructed my sister. "Just give me a minute to find the right box." Callie glared at me, clearing her throat, and I rolled my eyes. "Alright, fine, do a few boxes while I look so you can practice."


Cheering happily, my wife dragged my sister and our archer off to set up. The interior of the main Vault chamber was BIG, but most of it was empty space. The floor made up a relatively small proportion of the room's area, but even that was about a square mile. CLosing my eyes, I took a deep breath. This was going to be deeply uncomfortable. I needed to use Callie's shadows to boost Dantalion again. Luckily, most of this room was empty space, and the Vault itself was an isolator of power, so the range would be MUCH smaller this time.


Reaching into the bond, I retraced the steps we'd taken before. I knew how to access her shadows without her help now, having done it with her once, and kneeling down to touch the dark was simple.


My mind expanded, and I grimaced as information flooded my brain. Luckily, it was MUCH less of it than last time, so I was able to handle it with just a few parallels to help manage the info dump.


I scanned the boxes, identifying which ones were the oldest. I figured starting there made the most sense, since the key was ancient and probably wasn't taken out that often. Once I found the oldest of them, I sifted through the information until I finally found the right box. "That one!" I called to the others as I reached up to point at a box.


I let Dantalion drop, turning to see Callie and Chelsea digging through a trio of metal boxes that had clearly been retrieved from the orbit above us. They were waiting for me though, and when I called out, they turned to see where I was pointing. Without much delay, Chelsea imbued Dayna with the right energy, and the archer drew and fired. The arrow arched gracefully through the air, reaching the apex of its arc and hanging suspended, the tip just barely brushing the box in question.


Despite all the impressive things I saw on the regular, watching the elven archer fire the shot so perfectly that the arrow essentially tapped the box in zero gravity, I was blown away. The delicacy and control needed for that were staggering. Whisper might shoot a little harder, but Dayna was obviously our strongest archer in terms of technique.


Once it was touched, the box smoothly drifted down and dropped onto the ground in front of Dayna, popping open as it landed to reveal the object inside.


Strolling forward, I leaned down to grab the key from its purple velvet cushion. The object was black metal with strange protrusions and sharp angles all over it. I didn't question it, this was the right item, I could tell from its history. I stashed it in my ring, then turned to the others, cracking my neck. "Good job everyone. Now that we have the key, gather up all the extra loot. This next part is going to be a little wild."

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Our total assets from this were substantial. Two hundred and seven C-rank chits, a series of random treasures we needed Zeke to identify (or I guess I could spend a day with them in Dantalion) and the key we'd come for. Once we packed everything up, I got to work setting up for my big plan.


When entering, I had been worried about leaving. Once anyone entered the vault, they were going to realize something was wrong, and when they did, they'd lock the place down and search top to bottom. This was naturally not a dealbreaker, we had our ways to retreat, and worst case, we could use wishes to get out, I still had some on hand just in case, and any of our people could wish for our exit. Hell I could use one of Nat's scrolls.


However, the earlier meeting with Wendell had provided me with an opportunity. Reaching into my ring, I pulled out the shard of glass with his blood on it.


I had a lot of abilities. Big, small, consequential and pointless. My mistwalking power hadn't been valuable in quite a while, for instance. I even had powers I'd never used before, and the one that was going to help me out of this particular jam was one of those. Namely, Blood Curse.


I'd gotten Blood Curse one or two rank ups ago, and while I had included it in one of my forms, I'd never had occasion to actually use the power itself. It let me use blood as a connection to attack people from a long distance, and was, to my knowledge, MOSTLY untraceable. Kneeling down, I began the process of the Blood Curse.


While Blood Curse was useful and powerful, it had a lot of conditions. It was meant to be a long range assassination technique, not a battle skill. To make that work, the most important thing was setup. Blood Curse itself was less of a skill and more of a ritual. My form could use it without prep because there was no distance between me and myself, essentially allowing me to skip that step because I was using it in EXTREME proximity.


Cutting myself, I slowly traced a series of patterns on the flood of the vault, then glanced over to Bethy and my sister. "Alright, so the plan is simple. We use blood curse to take out Wendell. He's a huge creep who is using Void taint to mind control people, so he's not exactly a loss, but more importantly, he's high profile and currently out with a LOT of important members of the fortress's younger generation."


Once Wendell died, everyone would freak out. The whole fortress would surge over to where the party was ongoing to investigate and check on the others, and we could walk right out the back door.


Bethy grinned viciously. "Good, I didn't like that guy at all. What do you want me to do?"


"I figured we'd use Chelsea's diagram to infuse your Domain into the Blood Curse, and then once it was connected, you could like…eat him." I trailed off at that last bit. "Was going to think of a nicer way to say that, but I guess it is what it is. You cool with a snack?"


I knew Bethy's Domain could consume, just like Lark's. I'd seen them use it like that. Plus it was blood based, which meant the curse should carry it flawlessly.


Bethy grinned, exposing her razor sharp fangs. "I have been feeling a bit peckish." I nodded to my sister, who close her eyes, and her diagram manifested above her. I felt the power of the Blood Curse sort of…well, for lack a better word bleed, into another powerful force, and Bethy's Domain flowed into the circle of sigils I'd drawn. When it had merged in, there was a low boom as the air inside was displaced and the blood making up the symbol caught fire, crimson flames licking the air.


Inside the circle, a small figure appeared, it went stiff and then started writhing, and the flames seemed to siphon red from the figure, the writhing becoming more and more extreme until it completely dissolved.


I felt the curse SNAP as the figure vanished, and assumed that meant Wendell was dead. The blood red flames exploded outward, funneling towards Bethy and pouring down her throat. She stumbled back, unable to stand as the excess points poured into her. Bethy's ability to consume stats wasn't WEAK, but she didn't do it the same way that Lark could. She actually bit people.


I turned to Sable to check if things were ok. As a legitimate witch and a group member who'd been here the whole time, she might be able to shed some light on the details. "Do you know what's going on with her? I was kind of counting on her help on the exit. I have contingencies, but is she going to be…ok?"


Sable grimaced. "Something about the synergy between the admittedly witchcraft adjacent blood curse and her Domain seems to have created a MASSIVELY improved consumption speed. Witchcraft is all about affecting the large with the small, using symbolism to create large scale changes with tiny catalysts. Considering how powerful her catalyst was…" She glanced at Bethy worriedly. "She might be out of it for a while."


My vampire friend looked all but comatose as her eyes flickered between bright red and deep crimson, stuttering like she was processing something. Abel caught her, looking concerned, and I had him hand her off to Dayna as I prepared for our exit.


We made our way through the garden on the bridge easily enough, and once we reached the other side, I covered us all in Murmur as we pushed through the door.


We were greeted by utter chaos. People running through the halls, screaming and shouting. Someone stopped as they ran by, glanced at the Vault, and ran over to slam their hand down on a carved lion's head on one of the pillars.


There was a deep grinding sound, and the floor lurched as the Vault began to presumably descend into the basement. I shrugged. Bit late now. Hell, that might actually help, since it would prevent them from discovering the thefts until the figured out who had killed Wendell. The only issue was…it was probably pretty obvious.


Vampirism was RARE, and there weren't a lot of beings that could kill a person in that fashion. We'd have to be careful not to let Bethy's existence get out while we were in Yettin, which meant binding contracts with any allies. Her strength was one of my trump cards, and was a big motivator, so I couldn't exactly keep it secret, we'd have to compartmentalize the information as best we could.


Heading for the access to our passage, I watched the locals run around like headless chickens, babbling and screaming. It didn't seem like most of them even cared who was dead, they just heard someone had been killed in a weird way and immediately decided they were "under attack".


"They KILLED Wendell!" I heard someone wail from down the hallway. "They're after our WINE!"


"Shut up Kyle," bellowed someone else. "Someone is dead, worry about wine another time, stop freaking out about fucking alcohol. FREAK OUT ABOUT THE FACT THAT WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" Everyone screamed, and the hubbub picked up. I pushed into the passage, covering us with Murmur so no one saw the entrance, then pushed it closed.


Turning to the others, I rolled my eyes. "Fucking babies. One person gets killed and the world is ending."


"Umm… Shane…" Callie said worriedly, withdrawing her fingers from the shadows. "You might want to see this. Actually, no, you probably shouldn't. Suffice to say I understand the panic. Wendell is basically a skeleton at this point. Note for the future, we should NOT combine those two abilities again."


Sable hummed consideringly. "I'm not sure about that. Thinking it over, witchcraft is mostly symbolic. It's worth mentioning that Wendell's power was wine based. Given Bethy's nature, it's possible that played a role in the increased consumption. Symbolically she was drinking the wine he tried to offer her earlier. Ritual is a big part of things like this."


I winced. "Right, so we need to do some testing with Blood Curse, especially when using it in combination with something like Bethy's Domain or Chelsea's diagram. It's fine, we were planning to kill him anyway, he was a scumbag. We just maybe went a bit overboard."


Putting that out of my mind, I led the others back down through the tunnels. We had to be very careful in the warded hallway, but we got through, making it back down to the basement access hatch without too much trouble. The distraction, despite a bit of over the top drama, had worked perfectly. By the time we arrived in the basement, Bethy was waking up, and we set her on a table to come to before we activated the lift.


She yawned blearily as she sat up, rubbing her eyes. "Oh wow guys, I just had the strangest dream. You were there, and you," she pointed at us all in succession. Then she continued cheerfully "we were in a castle made of candy canes with chocolate spider legs that was trying to shoot down the moon." She giggled. "Man, I always have the weirdest dreams after I eat bad guys. So, is it time to go?"


I sighed. "Yeah, looks like we're taking the lift." I grimaced up at the wooden platform. "I don't LOVE the idea of being lowered into a seemingly bottomless abyss that tries to eat people. But it's better than nothing. Let's load up."


Everyone hopped up on the platform, which thankfully didn't shift or groan ominously. High rank Ascendant materials were pretty damned sturdy. Mere age wasn't enough to wear out this rope. Not that I trusted that. I used Dantalion to thoroughly inspect both the rope and platform, and once that was done, I had Sable send a root clone over to the pulley system in the corner.


The lever was on a kind of winch, so you would pump the handle back and forth and it would ratchet you down. Even if you let go of the handle, the platform wouldn't fall, it would just sit there stably.


As it began to ratchet, another puppet kicked open the door, and within seconds, we were slipping past the floor of the basement, past the stone of the floating island, and slowly descending into the chasm below. It took what seemed like forever to reach the web bridge, and when we did, we dismounted quickly, careful to remain stable while getting the fuck off that thing as fast as possible.


With a quick thought from Sable, the platform rose back up into the island and the trapped door slammed back into place, blending seamlessly with the rock above us. Grinning, we took off into the cave system ahead.


I was absolutely thrilled to be out of there, and we made it through the caves pretty easily, emerging back out onto the hillside, only to be met by one of Devlan's people who helped hurry us through the check points. They even paid for us to take the nice path up, and we stopped for souvenirs and food on Devlan's coin.


When we finally reached the club, the smarmy butler wasn't even glaring at us as we made our way in to see his boss. I dropped the key onto his desk with a thump. Before he could react, I started grilling him about Wendell, seeing what he knew and what he could find out. He seemed nonplussed, but he answered hesitantly when he knew what to say, and promised to look into the rest of it.


Finally, he offered us free rooms in the club, and put us up for the night. We were all exhausted, so we agreed to head to bed and discuss our expansion when we woke up the next day. Aside from finding more allies though, we had some searching to do for the source of that Void taint. It was going to be a busy day.

 

[Bezarius]

That's what he get for messing with Best Girl.