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

[Malcolm Tent]

The Voidwalker's Guild was surprisingly jovial for a building tucked into a back alley corner of a city steeped in murder victim blood. As soon as we stepped inside, a few people took a look around, spotted Dayna, and cheered a greeting. The taciturn elf smiled slightly, nodding to them as we entered, and headed for the back of the hall where a big bearded man stood in front of a counter that seemed to double as a reception desk and bar.

He noticed her coming and shot her a grin, his deep set eyes and high cheekbones making him seem like a naturally friendly person even before he smiled. "Dayna-girl!" he crowed happily. "How's my favorite little stick flinger? You make the decision to upgrade to a real weapon yet?"

"That depends, Ian," she said sardonically. "Have you figured out a way to use melee weapons without parking your oversized ass RIGHT next to your enemy and flailing around in arm's reach for a few minutes?"

He grinned at her in a way that told me this was a familiar bit of banter, before turning to raise an eyebrow at me. "And who is your large intimidating friend? That's a nice suit of armor, lad, though your mask is a bit unsettling, all blank and wooden like that. Face is your advertisement to the world, boyo, man can't see that how's he supposed to trust you?"

"Says the man whose entire lower jaw is hidden inside of a bush," snorted Dayne. "This is…Sol. He's a friend of mine." I perked up at the terminology and saw her wilt as she realized what she'd said, but it was too late for her to take it back. I'd known I'd win her over.

He barked out a laugh. "Fair enough, lass. Fair enough. Now, what are you looking for here today? Hoping to take on a job? We've got a nice little stockpile in the back I've been keepin' warm for you. I know you love the exploration gigs, and you're one of our most thorough mapmakers."

She cleared her throat in embarrassment. "Yes, well, I do enjoy the chance to work on my shading, but sadly I'm already on a job. I came to check the routes and get the most recent news. I'd also hoped to check if you'd seen Anabelle lately."

"Fraid not," said the big man with a shrug. "With the realspace war heating up, us backline folks don't see near as much action. Most of the godbloods are cycling out to the warfront or hanging back in their bunkers for safety. Annie-belle and the rest of your little rag tag band been taking jobs in the edgeroads."

Anticipating my confusion, Dayna elaborated. "Plenty of Roads border realspace like we saw before, with the shallowing. The edgeroads are known weakspots like that, and the ones nearest the war front have been known to see accidental punch through."

Ian laughed at that. "Yeah, it's a bit like diving for trash at a junkyard. Never know what, if anything, is gonna come through. But it can be lucrative as hell if you get lucky. Anyone as can punch through the veil is going to be high B-rank at least. Or have a VERY effective attack ability. Anything they drop is most likely premium gear. And that's not even counting things like spare body parts or souls. Scavenging the edge roads while your people fight the realspacers is like playing the lottery." His smile, everpresent until now, dropped. "Course, we ain't the only ones noticed, either. The Void spawn swarm those edges themselves, and scavs need to be careful not to get sucked into a fight with a horde they can't handle."

Dayna looked troubled. "Can I leave a message for Anabelle here?" she asked slowly. "I don't like to hover, but she should know about some of the recent developments in realspace. In fact, I was hoping we might be able to trade some information for the routes we need? I can use my tab if needed, but this seemed cleaner."

His eyes brightened, narrowing in interest. "Information, you say? Since when do you have connections in realspace?" She just stared back at him mutely and he shuckled, putting both hands up defensively. "Alright, no need to pout, little one. Tell me what you know."

She glanced at me questioningly, and I nodded, trusting her to know what to tell him. "The realspacer gods have been skirmishing with our side," she said diplomatically. "But the vanished ones are split. Hatescream and Stralthrem staged an attack on the Wish god but got repelled. One of the Void Children reached divinity, but she's reticent to engage because the avatar of a lost god has appeared that directly counters the Void."

"The lost ones are always a mixed bag," he hummed. "What do you know about this avatar, are they one of ours?"

"No, she connected indirectly," she said with a headshake. "That lost one's fragment remains drifting, as far as I know. Based on how much antipathy the Void Children seem to feel toward him, I suspect it's buried DEEP."

My eyes widened. She was insinuating that Atlas had a Hanging Land. Which now that I thought about it, made perfect sense. Considering the requirements for resurrection for the vanished gods themselves, I suspected finding that would be one possible way for Callie to help resurrect her dad. I made a note to contact her later and bring it up. If we could mount an expedition into the Void and locate Atlas's world fragment (apparently that was the local term), we'd have a potential method to counter the Void God directly.

Of course, any expedition would require a foothold, which meant we needed to contact and win over as many of the vanished gods as we could and put their side of the war to rest as fast as possible. Our mission continued.

Ian, meanwhile, looked incredibly intrigued. "Well now," he said musingly. "What a complex and fascinating report." He reached under the counter, pulling out an envelope. "Platinum route report," he said decisively. "Covers everything local up to twenty four hours guaranteed accurate."

Dayna's jaw dropped open in disbelief. "That's…platinum? I can't afford a platinum route report. Those have faction specific intel and almost realtime engagement maps to avoid incidents. That's premium product."

"You can afford whatever I say you can afford," he laughed. "And I say your intel was worth at least this much. I'm not sure where you got it, but from what I can tell, it's a hundred percent accurate, at least to your knowledge." He held up his hand, palm out, to reveal a clunky black metal bracelet set with a bright orange faceted stone.

Apparently that stone was some kind of truth device because Dayna's face brightened with understanding. Still she gave him a grateful smile. "Thank you," she said sincerely.

"Bah," he snorted. "If I can't be biased toward my favorites what's the point of being a guildmaster." His face smoothed over, eyes shadowing in trepidation. "But in all seriousness…be careful out there, Dayna-girl. When the cats are away, the mice will play, and even down here in the depths of the Void, the echoes of the war can be felt."

She nodded again, and we turned to leave. I frowned at her in confusion. "We're going already? I figured we would stop for a meal or something."

"We're being followed," she said quietly as we stepped out of the guild hall. "That last bit about cats was a code phrase. Ian was telling me he'd clocked someone setting an ambush. He has methods of knowing what is happening in his territory."

I frowned, then jerked my head to one side. "Follow me. I've got an idea."

She didn't even hesitate, following me into an alley with Brad and Dan in tow. We all walked in one end, and a short, plain looking man with grey eyes and black hair walked out the other side.

Astaroth had been designed for times like this, and I relaxed slightly as I watched the simulacrum of a man I'd seen in passing on the way to the guild hall stroll casually in front of me as I skulked in the recesses of space.

Dayna and the demons were stashed safely in my Domain, so where there had been four people, now there was only one, and he was no one special. I walked casually through the streets, my eyes peeled and searching for any evidence of the ambush she'd mentioned.

Sure enough, I spotted a few shady looking men taking up positions on the sides of the road and in recessed alleys, watching the road that lead from the guild

I let my legs carry me slowly and carefully towards the palace of doors, and then tapped into Piece of Mind, giving control of the simulacrum to a parallel as I slipped into my Domain mentally. Being an equivalent to my library soulspace, I could enter Gehenna without projecting the Domain itself, though I rarely did so.

When I arrived, I found my friends waiting for me. "You were right," I told Dayna. "We were being tracked. They were waiting for us down the street. How did they find us? They must have had someone waiting for me. I'm sorry, I should have been using Astaroth from day one. I just figured we wouldn't be too noticeable this far out. Between the armor and the mask, descriptions of me should be pretty general. I got cocky."

She shook her head. "No way of knowing. Don't forget that I have enemies as well. This is Verdyn's territory, or at least nearby. Chances are good using my tab tipped someone off and they were moving to grab me while I was vulnerable."

I chuckled lightly at that. "Look at us, making friends and influencing people, huh? I'll get us back into the palace and then out of the city. Did you check out the route report yet?"

"I did," she nodded. "Unfortunately the route I had planned to take back has been claimed by a particularly nasty group of Road bandits. We'll need to divert. There's an alternate safe route through the Dreamdark Forest fragment. Well…mostly safe. If we avoid going too deep. Most of the worst things in that fragment live deep in the woods. The rest of the predators there have been eaten by the big ones, and those tend to nap most of the year."

She hesitated. I noticed and sighed. "Alright, what is it?"

"If they were after me, they'll know where we're going," she pointed out. "Which means they'll know the approximate route we're going to use."

"You think if they can't ambush us here they'll set up another in this forest fragment?" I asked slowly. "What if we don't go through there, then? You said that's the safest route. Are there any LESS safe ones that are still manageable?"

She paused, her eyes going wide. "I mean…Bonesorrow Canyon maybe? It's incredibly dangerous for most people. It's been a forbidden zone on the local Roads for years. But the undead there have weak Perception. If we moved slow, your stealth field might be able to hide us."

"Bonesorrow Canyon?" I asked hesitantly. "What kind of place is that?"

"It's a fragment that belonged to an ancient undead bug deity called the Desolation Digger," she said with a grimace. "The god was a swarm type entity, and when its bugs latched on they would burrow into the heads of their victims and parasitize them into undead thralls. After it was destroyed, the thralls lost all connection to anything around them and the Canyon turned into a shambling wasteland. Almost no one goes there."

I grimaced at the disgusting imagery, but if that was where we needed to go, that was where I'd head. "Alright," I said with a sigh. "I take it there's a door that leads to somewhere near this place?" At her confirmation, I slipped back out to pilot my simulacrum directly and leave them to prepare for this trip. To an evil undead bug world. Why couldn't I ever be forced into going to a waterpark or on a cruise? Having a destiny sucked sometimes.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Emerging from the door back onto the Void Road, I felt a weight slough off my shoulders. I released Dayna to help with directions, and Archie to scout, but left the demons inside. To make sure we weren't spotted though, I incarnated Murmur, allowing my stealth demon to dwell within my body and infuse me with his skill and technique in hiding.

Once I had the others hidden, I stepped out of Astaroth, letting a parallel deal with Murmur's presence in my head and just enjoyed the walk. It was almost relaxing, being back on the Void Road after the Blood Widow City, where everyone was so densely packed.

It didn't take us long to arrive at the entrance to the Bonesorrow Canyon, but once we did, I couldn't help but question Dayna on how we were supposed to get in. "If this place is some forbidden zone why is there still a door? Assuming there IS a door. Like how are we supposed to get inside?"

"Remember how I told you earlier that fragments sometimes impact the Void Roads, causing new worlds to pop up out of nowhere?" she asked. "Well, when that happens, the impact causes the two phases of reality to overlap. It's similar to the process in geology of mountains forming. When two tectonic plates strike each other, one is pushed up over the top of the other, creating a spire of stone that we call a mountain. Well, then a fragment collides with a Road, a spur of space punched through the space inside, creating a Void Corridor. It's kind of like air lock leading into a realm."

I grimaced. "And I'm guessing these things don't CLOSE? Hence the reason this place hasn't been blocked off."

Nodding, she stepped forward, drawing an arrow. She started poking around in the air, searching for something, and once she found it, she twisted sharply and the space began to blur. "They don't," she agreed. "But they DO settle. It's been quite some time since anyone entered this one. We need to be careful going in. If we disturb the space too much it'll be obvious that someone entered."

Carefully, slowly, and ever so delicately, she dragged the arrow down through the air, creating a small slit in the fabric of space in front of us. It looked deeply unsettling and VERY cool, but that wasn't important right now.

Once she was at the ground, she gingerly reached up and, like plucking a hard string, grasped the edge of the tear with her thumb and middle finger and pulled it slowly aside. "Archie," I told my partner. "You're up, and stay high when you're in there. Remember the place is full of bug zombies."

He trilled, then swept inside. I waited a full five minutes, then he swept back through to land on my arm, reporting what he'd found. "Alright, we're clear," I told her. "Slip in there, I'll follow you through."

She raised an eyebrow in confusion, but shrugged, putting away her arrow and smoothly rolling through the tear. The slice began to fall shut, and the last thing I saw before it did was a quick glimpse of Dayna turning back to look at me…which was enough for me to trigger Double Trouble and appear directly behind her.

"Watcha lookin' at?' I asked casually, enjoying her terrified squeak far more than I should have, at least until I had to dodge the arrow she tried to shove into my eye socket. "Whoa!" I yelped, hands going up. "It's me! Calm down, damn."

She stopped, glaring up at me. "Are you insane? I could have killed you."

"I feel like sanity might be on the side of the guy who does NOT assume that the reaction to jump scared would be attempted murder," I retorted grumpily. I could see why that might have been a bad idea in hindsight.

So could she, apparently, because she snorted derisively. "And I think it's with the woman who reacted violently to a potential attack while stranded in a forbidden undead hellscape."

"Admittedly not my best plan," I allowed. "Anyway, what are we doing here? I assume we need to go somewhere to get to the exit. Is there another Void Corridor somewhere, or will I need to use the Adherent Fire to get us out?"

She shook her head. "There's an exit, I just have to find it. The Platinum Route Report has everything we need, including the last known map for this fragment. The problem is that the map in question is two thousand years old. I'm going to need a little help from your feathered friend for this next part. We'll have to map the route and compare it to the current force distribution of the corpses."

I nodded. "Archie," I called out for my companion. "Dayna needs some help, bud. Come here."

He flew over, landing on my arm, and I put a hand on him, closing my eyes. I reached for the connection I had to him through our shared flames, slipping a parallel in through the fire and the bloodline bond that had partly formed through the process of the Nine Phoenix Reincarnation Art when I condensed my first drop of blood.

Once the parallel was in, he triggered Murmur, coating my buddy in a sphere of occlusion that protected him from view. I let him swoop over to join up with Dayne and then walked a short distance to sit heavily on a stone outcropping.

Bonesorrow Canyon, as one might expect from the name, was…well, sorrowful. The whole place was a blasted plateau of bone white dust and endless nothingness and death for as far as the eye could see. Luckily, I wasn't trying to see it. I was just sitting down to close my eyes so I could reach for a very specific demon. Angelic Bond.

Angelic Bond was unique among all my demons because it represented my connection to my wife. Back when I'd been injured in the trial, Angelic Bond had been able to ferry demons through our connection and into Callie's soul space. Since it could do that for THEM, I was fairly sure it could do the same for me.

Sure enough, it only took a moment to connect, and when I opened my eyes, I was sitting in the pews in Callie's church, watching my wife swing her blade in a series of deadly, flowing movements at the altar.

It was lovely, really. The swish of her skits, the rippling of muscle, the way her hair flowed. She was practicing in here presumably because Gossamer was a big attention grabber and inside her soul was the best place to keep it concealed, but it felt like she'd known I was coming. Like she was waiting to show me how much stronger she was getting. I watched in awe, my heart boiling over with adoration and awe that this amazing woman was in my life.

She stopped, sighing without looking up. "Shane, darling, light of my life. I love you, want to spend the rest of my life with you, and adore how close we are. But it is NOT conducive to the learning process when you just pop into my soul to watch me practice and beam feelings of overwhelming affection at me."

I froze. "Ah…right," I said awkwardly. "I was…helping you with resistance training?"

There was a flash of wings, and she was sitting next to me, curled up at my side. "Think you're irresistible, do ya?"

"Well you're not with me for my abundance of caution and common sense," I pointed out with a smirk as I removed my mask. Hi, love." I leaned down to kiss her, reveling in the feel of having her with me again. That went on for probably longer than was productive, and I eventually pulled back, panting. "Well, I think it's clear SOMEONE missed their spouse."

She raised an eyebrow at me. "Is it?"

"Yup, it was me," I admitted. "I've been going out of my mind missing you. Also worrying. Did you leave yet?"

"Davina has been getting things in order," she snickered. "Turns out Aiden did almost nothing to prepare for his exit, so she's taking the time to teach me how to be the wife of a wayward Wishmaster. So you better watch your ass bud, no slacking off or I'll have to use my badass Wishmistress mindgames on you."

I burst out laughing. "Oh gods, please tell me they're actually calling you that."

"Well, some of them," she admitted. "Some of them were calling me 'the wife', but they stopped that after Bethy ate one of them." I blinked at her in shocked horror. "Only a little bit," she assured me. "He's alive. Physically."

I put up both hands. "I don't want to know, it's not my problem," I said firmly. "Bethy can do whatever she wants until I get back. If she does something too out there consult the cabinet. They'll keep her in line." I ignored the fact that I still hadn't managed that myself and moved on. "So, I wanted to fill you in on what's happening. Because it's been a wild ride so far." I briefed her on our trip, the shallowing, Brad, the arrowhead, the Blood Widow City, the ambush I'd avoided, and our current location en route to the lodge.

She stared at me in horror. "It's been ONE DAY!" she all but screamed at me. "How did so many things happen to you? What the HELL Shane?"

I shrugged. "I live an exciting life. It's fine. We're all safe and sound."

She pinched the bridge of her nose. "I swear to the gods, you were created by the universe to drive me into an early grave through shock and terror. I love you more than life itself, but you have, as I heard some of the local kids saying 'no chill'. Just…don't die? I know asking you to be careful would be like asking a sword not to cut, but if you could put a concerted effort into not doing anything hilariously dangerous for at least twenty four hours, I would consider it a personal favor."

"Well I'm about to trek through a sand blasted wasteland full of corpses possessed by paracit god bugs. So…that seems like it might not be in the cards," I said sheepishly.

She glared at me. "Yes obviously, I mean AFTER that. At least wait until I'm on the front lines and can distract myself with imminent death." I just looked at her, face calm, eyebrow raised. She sighed, leaning forward to bury her face in my chest. "Why did I have to marry an idiot with deathwish?" she grumped.

"I've been told it's because I'm cute and lovable," I told her solemnly. "But I've always suspected you just like my ability to get things down for you off high shelves."

"Nobody likes a smartass," she pouted. She paused for a moment, staring off into the church at where Gossamer hung suspended on the altar. "I love you," she said, not looking at me. "Always. So much it hurts. Please be safe? If you can? I know that's a ridiculous thing to ask, but."

I reached down and took her hand in mine. Her eyes snapped to my own, and I stared into those bottomless blue black pools. "You are the best part of my life," I told her bluntly. "You are the reason I get out of bed. The reason I fall asleep. The reason my heart beats in my chest. If you need me to promise to come home to you I will.

"And I don't care if it's impossible for me to know." I said emphatically. "Ascendants do the impossible every day. We change the world with belief. With faith. And there's not a thing in this universe I have more faith in than us. So yes. I promise. I'll be ok. I'll come home to you. And I expect the same promise from you. Because there's nothing we can't do for each other."

She stared at me, eyes wide, breathing ragged, and then she threw herself into my arms and kissed me like I'd never been kissed before. And then there was no more words. Just us. Together. And everything was alright again.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I emerged from my mental conference with my wife refreshed and ready to take on the world. Which might have been a poor choice of words, because as I opened my eyes and looked at the surrounding wasteland, I noticed a distinctive uptick in the number of figures. As in thousands of them.

Turning to Dayna, I raised an eyebrow. "Ok…what the hell happened?"

She growled in irritation. "What HAPPENED is your damn bird spotted a small lizard and decided it needed a snack!"

"First of all," I said calmly. "Archie is a HE not an it. Second of all what do you mean he saw a small lizard? I thought this was some kind of death world? Why are there small animals running around here?"

"They're called corpsechewers," she explained with a sigh. "I'm sure you can puzzle out what they eat."

I grimaced. "Ah, that explains how they're still around. Surprised the bugs haven't killed them off. Also how many dead people are in this fragment that it's been a no man's land for decades and they haven't even made a dent?"

"A great many," she said bluntly. "Unfortunately, your bird's snatching of the corpsechewer roused some of the nearby corpses. They didn't see him, but one of them noticed the vanishing lizard. The thralls aren't really sentient, but they have a certain instinctive animal cunning that lets them function at a reasonably high level. It's going to make traveling through here…complicated."

"Just get me a route," I told her. "I'll take care of the rest. Murmur can get us through, assuming there aren't a bunch of A or S-rank corpses lying around here?"

She shook her head. "Thankfully not nearby. The stronger ones tend to lunk near the corpse of the god's main body. It's in the center of the fragment. Normally there wouldn't BE a corpse in a fragment like this, given the nature of gods, but this one was swarm type."

Which actually brought up the question of how this whole world thing worked? Gods were one with their worlds, but I knew the vanished gods had died without their worlds fracturing. These worlds were fragments though. How had the vanished ones managed to keep their worlds together after death.

After thinking about it for a minute though, I suspected I had the answer. Objects of power. Fragments of an object could create a shallowing, so maybe a whole object could anchor a world. Or maybe more than one. It was just a guess, but I had a feeling I was right.

Which meant that the vanished gods all had objects of power squirreled away in their worlds. Complete objects of power they could use for other things if needed. Things like war.

I shot a mental message to Callie over the bond, since she was still in the WCP. She could get the word to Aiden who would have some way to tell the old man. He probably already knew, but it didn't hurt to make sure my family was prepared in case the worst happened.

Dayna, meanwhile, looked skeptical. "This was your idea," I reminded her. "Poor Perception, remember?"

"I know," she sighed. "I'm just having second thoughts. And then third thoughts. And I'm currently thinking a fourth time. This is reckless and potentially dangerous. I wouldn't have proposed it if we had any other option."

"But we don't," I shrugged. "So we have to make do. Do you have a route?"

She hesitated for a moment but eventually nodded. "Yes," she finally said. "I found a small path through a nearby rock formation. It's on the map, though part of it was blocked off by a rock fall. I had to map an alternate path to go around the blockage. Archie got me the last of the information I needed before his ill advised snack attempt."

"Alright, then let's go." I stood, calling up my staff and channeling my power into Murmur, pushing him up to B-rank as I incarnated the demon. The stealth pseudo Domain poured out of me, covering myself and Dayna as I called for Archie. He flew back to me with a trill, landing on my arm. "I'm going to keep you out in case we need spot checks for recon, ok?" I asked my companion.

He trilled his agreement, and I turned to Dayna. "You're up. We need to move slow. The longer we stay in place the more protected we are. More importantly, the radius of the field is about a hundred feet at the moment, so the overlap means if we move slowly and wait a bit at the edge of the area we can ensure that each individual step we take is heavily concealed."

"Come with me," she said, turning towards the edge of the rocky platform we were standing on. I followed behind her as she led me to a small cliff, hopping effortlessly down a series of descending rocks to land in a sandy crevasse. Once I arrived behind her, she held up a hand. Then we waited.

With my hundred foot coverage for Murmur (I'd condensed the pseudo Domain to increase effectiveness), the field was currently covering at least three different corpses. They weren't sensing us, but we also weren't exactly in their faces. So we waited.

Five minutes, just to be sure, and then we stepped out from the rocks and began to make our way slowly across the open space. We moved carefully, minimizing the noise and disturbance. The less trace we left the less I had to erase with Murmur. It was agonizingly slow, incredibly frustrating, and deeply unnerving. Coming within ten feet of the corpses, I could literally see the green glow of the insectoid passenger flickering in the back of their pupils. They felt…strong. And brutal. Hungry for something, anything, to kill. They were C-rank, but something told me they wouldn't be an easy fight, and I was damned sure I wouldn't get just one of them on my ass if I screwed up.

I'd be swarmed, and no matter how many tricks I had, it wouldn't be enough against these kinds of numbers. Seventy two demons might be a lot against a single B-ranker, but against an army of creepy hive mind demon corpses I was doubting my Domain was going to do much good.

We made it past the first round of corpses pretty quickly, and I was relieved to be through the gauntlet. Until we turned the corner and I saw the NEXT step in it.

Two hundred shambling undead, all dressed in various suits of cracked and rusting armor, ragged clothing, or ruined jewelry. It honestly looked like this dead god had rolled its army in a low quality flea market.

Of course, I could tell from the Impact that some of the gear was legitimately powerful, and I knew the degraded state was just time wearing it away. I wondered exactly how long some of these bodies had BEEN here for C and B-ranker armor and accessories to be coming apart like this. We waited at the edge of the pack for a few minutes, doing our best to remain still as Murmur deduced and perfected its concealment further.

Finally, we stepped forward, slowly stretching and climbing between the dense army of dead Ascendants, trying to avoid physical contact, which only served to make it harder to hide ourselves.

We'd made it about halfway across the crowded space when Dayna froze, eyes locked on the sky. I carefully tuned to look, and spotted a figure off in the distance. They were standing on a plateau, face covered with a heavy cloak and hood, and holding…a bow. My eyes widened. "Dayna," I said as quietly as possible, freezing in place to avoid alerting the zombies. "Please tell me that person can't see us right now."

"I really wish I could do that," she whispered tensely. "But I don't think it would be the truth. I suspect that person has some sort of observation based ability. I believe they're at B-rank as well. We need to move. Now. Before-"

My Danger Sense went INSANE. I cursed, reaching into my Domain and calling out Mornax, pushing the demon to tier 8 with my staff as I did. He materialized in front of us JUST in time to tank the arrow from the archer, and I sighed in relief. Apparently the shooter wasn't too powerful, so no one was hurt. It would take a lot for someone at the same rank to damage Mornax.

My relief lasted EXACTLY three seconds…and then faded into a creeping buzz of absolute horror as I looked around me. The arrow hadn't hurt Mornax at all. But it had hit him. Loudly. And with a bright flash of light. None of which I'd had time to compensate for with Murmur. The zombies all froze, heads turning slowly toward the source of the sound. They couldn't see us yet, but they were looking the right direction.

I dropped the stealth, banishing Murmur as I pulled Dayna, Mornax, and Archie into my Domain. Sammael rolled over me, pushing my strength up to the next level as I bent my knees and exploded off the ground, beating my wings to get as much air as possible. In the distance, the archer drew again, unleashing another shot.

The arrow missed, blurring past me as I vanished in a burst of black flame Mephisto's Waltz descended, incarnated into my body to give me the absolute peak speed possible. With so much sky to work with avoiding the arrows with the warning I had was doable, though not easy. I was getting pissed. Below me, the zombies began to bay and howl. To my annoyance, several of them lifted off the ground, carried by wings.

I was mostly just grateful the bugs were too stupid to know how to fly the normal way, because there was no suppression here. Still, I had bigger problems. A version of my manifested inside my Domain. "Dayna, where do I GO?" I snapped. "I need to move and I don't have a heading."

"West!" she said quickly. "Theres a small cave west of our current location, it's under a pair of crossed outcroppings that look like collapsed pillars. The Void Corridor is inside."

I nodded then shifted back to my main perspective. My wings beat the air so hard they cracked like whips and I exploded in a blaze of black flame as I pushed my waltz to its utmost limits. The archer calmly continued to draw and fire.

One of the arrows was a bit more well placed than the rest, and I reappeared in front of it, the tip plunging into the gap in my shoulder and slamming into my ball and socket joint like a wrecking ball. I was knocked off course, which actually saved my ass because it knocked me out of the way of two MORE arrows, and I pushed myself a bit further.

Mephisto's Waltz was only tier 6, but I had Sammael incarnated at the same time, and the synergy (and my wings) were keeping me ahead of the enemy for the moment. I had no clue how long that would last though, I needed to get the hell out of here.

Blasting through the space in a constant cascading stutter of black flames, I barrelled forward, searching desperately as I tried to remove the arrow. It tore and ripped at my joint, designed with some kind of barbs to hook and tear on their way out and maximize damage. I couldn't afford that right now so I just left it in.

I touched down outside the pillars Dayna had mentioned, turning to see the horde of zombies tearing after me, some by land and some by air. I ignored that, diving aside as an arrow smashed into the rock ahead of me, tearing it apart. I was lucky this archer seemed to be more sniper than bruiser, because a real powerhouse would have probably killed me with that shoulder hit.

Diving inside the cave, I stumbled forward, calling Dayna out as I turned to watch for intruders. We'd moved just fast enough, and she managed to slit open the exit with that weird spatial arrow she'd used to get us in. The last thing I saw as we escaped was a horde of zombies pouring into the cave. Definitely not going back there again anytime soon.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"Ow!" I snarled as I tried not to stiffed too much. "Get this OUT of me!" The arrow in my shoulder was STUCK, and I couldn't use any forms or anything to get it out because the arrow itself was B-rank. It hadn't been too solid of a hit, and I was sturdy, but it was in now, and I couldn't get it out without doing way more damage because of the barbs.

Dayna looked shockingly unsettled by the injury, her eyes darting around looking for any solution. Finally she stopped, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes. After she opened them, she seemed to have calmed down. "Stop moving," she said sharply. I did, freezing in place as I watched her warily.

"This is a houndstooth arrow," she explained, removing a long, thin dagger from her spatial ring. "They're designed to hurt more coming out than going in, but more than that, they're designed to BREAK inside the wound. We need to remove it carefully, because otherwise the barbs will snap off. Normally that would be fine, your system would just flush them, but houndsteeth are proprietary arrows designed by the Tormenter, one of Lord Verdyn's S-rank followers. The barbs melt and metabolize into your bloodstream after they snap off. They're a VERY potent poison."

I grunted, forcing myself to sit still as she began slowly cutting into my flesh to free the arrow. "Why design it to only poison when it gets removed?"

"Because if it doesn't get removed then it did its job," she said simply. "And there's no point tainting the meat. The Tormenter is incredibly practical, despite his name. They call him that because his experimental arrows cause absurd amounts of pain unintentionally, not because of any notable sadism."

"Oh yeah," I gritted out as she cut the arrow from my shoulder joint. "I'm sure he's a swell guy. Probably great at parties. Unrelated, who the fuck WAS that and why did they just try to kill us?"

She grimaced. "I assume some kind of bounty," she shrugged. "This particular attack seemed aimed at you. The question is to what degree are we compromised? How much do they know about our progress and who knows what?"

"Yeah, how DID they know?" I asked sourly. "They shouldn't have been able to find us. We didn't even really tell anyone we were coming."

"I assume the Voidwalker Guild was being watched," she sighed. "I didn't see any members of the Lodge, but that doesn't mean anything. There are a great many people there, and many of them operate masked or using pseudonyms. If a hunter was nearby and spotted me, they could have predicted our course from experience."

That didn't bode well. "So they're some kind of master hunter?"

"The opposite," she assured me. "Our survival makes that clear. That was a B-ranked hunter, but certainly not a particularly talented one. At least not martially. They've clearly focused extensively into Perception and tracking. It's why their arrows were so weak, and why they were forced to use specialized projectiles to ensure a kill."

"Fight smarter not harder," I grimaced. "Get good at landing shots and finding people and make up for the lacking punch with equipment. Effective."

She nodded. "Were I not here, you'd have removed that arrow and fallen into a coma, if not died outright. On the bright side, it is unlikely he will be able to follow us out. That cave was being swarmed, and there's no way for him to effectively bypass such a horde to get to us. He'll need to double back to another exit and go around, and I'm sure he's well aware he won't catch up."

"I'm more concerned with how he managed to spot us through Murmur," I said worriedly. "That's the first time someone has pierced it directly like that, at least someone close to my level."

"I don't think he did," she said slowly. "I think he might have been mapping your location based on the gaps in the horde. He might have caught a shimmer or some small clue you hadn't had a chance to erase yet, but I don't think he could actually SEE through your stealth. I think he just estimated where we would end up and how fast based on when we left. An expert tracker can do some fairly impressive things with minimal information."

That actually DID make sense, and it made me feel a little better. I didn't feel safe knowing my nearly impenetrable stealth had been pierced (literally) but once the first shot fell, my need to evade would have made any subsequent concealment MUCH less effective, especially if he was looking. I screamed in surprise and pain as she suddenly twisted and jerked the arrow, sliding the barbed head from my flesh quickly but painfully.

"Ow!" I repeated again. "Damn it!" I triggered Zagan, flooding the wound with life fire. I felt my phoenix blood drop begin to fluctuate inside me, pushing my natural regeneration and aiding the influx of life fire. Sadly, even that wasn't going to be enough to get this done fast. We set off walking as I healed, wanting to get away from the place as soon as possible in case the hunter somehow DID find a way through.

"So, tell me about this Lodge," I said through gritted teeth as I walked. Something had been wrong with that arrow. I didn't FEEL pain like this. I suspected it had been at least topically poisoned with some kind of pain enhancer. Luckily Zagan was a purification form, so it would take care of the problem as it healed me. It still didn't feel good though.

Dayne was watching the nearby Roads with caution as we walked, her red eyes scanning the…well there wasn't a horizon in the Void. But the distance. "The Lodge is Lord Verdyn's god world. It's…expansive. The building is endless and complex, spanning the space that would be occupied by an entire star system. It's ALSO connected to a great many locations in the Void, allowing for frequent travel and hunts."

So, similar to the Wishworld in a way. My ancestor used his world's dispersal to create trade routes. This sounded different, but maybe it was more like the terminal, where you could only leave through the exits instead of being two way.

I frowned. "So…what are the chances that there will be more people trying to take bounties on us there? How should we get in to meet Verdyn?"

"We shouldn't," she clarified immediately. "Under no circumstances should we seek an audience right now. Lord Verdyn is a hunter, he doesn't negotiate with prey. We're visiting the Lodge to find the fastest path to Mourne Kayze. Once you get in touch with the Lady and have swayed her, she can help convince Lord Verdyn."

"Yeah, what's up with that?" I asked curiously. "They're kind of in lockstep, aren't they? How are they connected?"

She blinked in surprise. "Strakkenthar," she said simply. When I just stared at her, she sighed. "The Lady's father. He was Lord Verdyn's mentor. He taught the Lord everything he knew, and Lord Verdyn was actually one of the Lady's bodyguards growing up."

"Wait…what?" I said in disbelief. "Wasn't Strakkenthar kind of…a huge dick?"

"He was, as my mistress would say, 'a whole ocean of dicks'," she agreed. "He was also a paranoid and distrustful lunatic. Paradoxically, this resulted in an above average standard of treatment for his subordinates and disciples. He rarely gave anyone a reason to betray him. Though on the occasions where he did, he summarily executed them before they got the chance."

I snorted. "Gee, what a humanitarian."

"As I said, he was a very unpleasant being by all accounts," she clarified. "But Lord Verdyn has some level of fondness for his mentor, and by extension, his mentor's daughter. They are not, as you said 'in lockstep', but he tends to weigh her needs when making decisions, if it is not inconvenient for him to do so."

I nodded at that. "And he's not going to notice us entering?" I clarified. "I mean, it IS his world. Won't he be…aware?"

"The number of sentient beings that enter and leave the Lodge on a daily basis make such scrutiny needlessly frustrating," she assured me. "If he had reason to search for us, he would discover us near instantly, but there is no reason for him to do that. Not unless the hunter we avoided gets back first and starts talking to people. Which is why we need to hurry."

I grimaced, then picked up the pace. The Road was wide and empty, the edges showing the same trees we'd been seeing since we entered this territory. Unlike the earlier trees though, the closer we got, the darker these became. Branches became sharper and more menacing, leaves became shadowy and insubstantial. More than that, the actual glow from the Road itself was getting…not dimmer, but…less bright? It was hard to describe. It was still lit but the light itself was almost more like darkness, and with a strange misty quality. It was honestly deeply unsettling.

We sped up, partly because of the need to get there fast, and partly because I was starting to feel something strange. The closer we got, the more I felt a prickle on the back of my neck. Nothing physical, mind, but a sensation of being watched. Stalked. Hunted.

That was it. I felt like I was being hunted. The closer we got to the Lodge the more I felt like prey. I turned to glance at Dayna, but she seemed fine. She was speeding up because I was, and when I brought it up, she raised an eyebrow. "Hm? Ah, that? That's just the terror. The primal aura of the hunt permeates the interior of the Lodge, and it leaks out every time someone leaves. You could think of it like the aura of the god in question."

"The old man's aura doesn't leak out of the Wishworld, though," I pointed out. "What's the difference?"

She shrugged. "I have no idea. I'm used to this, so I hardly feel it anymore. I did think it was odd that there was no pressure from the Wishworld. I suppose you ancestor is simply more economical. Maybe he puts it to use like shipmakers do with the Impact of high rank ships. Regardless, this isn't the same as being subjected to the concentrated pressure of a god, as I'm sure you can tell. It's just runoff. You'll get used to it soon enough."

I nodded as we pushed through, still walking a little faster than normal, but once I'd realized WHY I was hurrying I had downshifted a bit. We still needed to get there soon, but I didn't want to come across like I was afraid (even if I kind of was). When you run from predators, they chase you.

"So what are we doing once we get in?" I asked as the air became gloomier and more shadowed. "Where are we going?"

"We're going to see a friend," she said simply. "The Lady's Domain is connected to Lord Verdyn's, but the entrance is in a remote and difficult to access location. We need someone to help us reach it. I know someone who can lend us that aid, for a price."

A price I assumed I could pay in scrolls. They were excellent currency for this kind of transaction. We stopped, and I turned to glance at Dayna, who had withdrawn that same arrow she'd used to open the paths before. Slowly, methodically, she pressed it to the air and drew it back, separating a thin membrane of reality ever so carefully.

As soon as it was open, an explosion of pressure poured out, slamming into us like a physical blow. Reaching up with two fingers, Dayna tugged on the parted veil of air, pulling it back to reveal a large wooden hallway made of rough hewn logs. "Welcome," she said solemnly. "To The Lodge." Oddly, I didn't really FEEL that welcome.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The inside of the Lodge was surprisingly warm. Not stifling or anything, but just…toasty. Like there was a roaring fire going just around the corner. And the whole place smelled of pine and woodsmoke. It was oddly homey.

Dayna, to my immense shock, was almost SMILING. She took a long, deep breath. "I'd almost forgotten the smell."

"It is nice," I said enthusiastically. "You grew up here?"

She nodded. "In the west wing. Most of the orphanages are there. It was…interesting. We're actually heading there now."

"The person you're taking us to see is in an orphanage?" I asked in confusion.

Chuckling, she nodded. "Her name is Belinda, but most of us called her Mama Bel. She's one of the most beloved people in the west wing. About a tenth of the orphans in the Lodge were raised by Mama Bel. Plenty of us went on to achieve quite a bit, and we all remember her and do our best to help out where we can. Not just here either, each other. You can always count on another of Mama's kids if you're in need."

Her tone was soft and surprisingly warm. "Like your friend Annabelle?" I asked, fishing for more information on my new friend. "The one you mentioned back at the guild?"

"Annabelle Candlebrook," she said with a nod. "We were very close when we were young. There was a group of us in the orphanage who stuck together. Anabelle was adopted pretty young, but she always kept in touch. Even if you get placed, you're always one of Mama's kids. We don't forget."

I frowned at her worriedly. "Did we…did we take you away from a whole life here? I mean, I know Bethy can be a bit much, but if she knew-"

"No," she said bluntly. "There were parts of my life that weren't terrible, but they were far outweighed by the ones that were. My friends understood. My lady let me contact them. We used one of your cousin's scrolls. Still, it will be nice to see Mama Bel. It has been quite a while since we spoke."

I looked around the hallway. Rough hewn logs with the bark still on were stacked so high they vanished into darkness above, the gaps between them filled with what looked and smelled like pine resin, and the bases decorated with complex and intricate carved baseboards. The floors were a rich, dark hardwood, polished to a mirror sheen from what looked like years of constant traffic. The patina was luxurious and smoky, the kind of wear that told you the wood was finished by a master carpenter who knew how to make things that lasted.

"So, how do we FIND this west wing," I said slowly, looking around. "Because this all looks…kind of exactly the same to me, not gonna lie."

She pointed down at the edge of the wall. "The baseboards. The shapes and patterns are coded instructions for where you are where to go. They're specially designed to indicate direction and utility for different areas. You just need to know how to read them."

"That's kind of brilliant," I admitted. "Locals can navigate perfectly from anywhere they find themselves and no one who isn't supposed to be here will have any idea where they are."

"It has its charms," she admitted, setting off in a seemingly random direction. "This place is…complicated. But not all bad. I suppose nowhere is, really. But I've had a much better life since I entered my lady's service. While there are a few people here I care about, to most I'm either a curiosity or an abomination."

I shot her a sympathetic look, which thanks to my mask she couldn't see, and decided that was probably for the best because she didn't strike me as the type to enjoy being pitied. We walked for about twenty minutes in silence, heading deeper into the nearly identical maze of hallways. I tried to memorize and decipher the baseboards, but despite my high Focus (relatively), I wasn't able to figure out anything (assuming we weren't actually approaching the lair of a toothpaste goblin, which was what I deciphered with Dantalion based on a few minutes of scans).

Before long though, we arrived at a large wooden archway. Passing through, we emerged into an even larger chamber, but this one was…well, a world. A tiny world, admittedly. But despite the towering wooden walls, due to the illusion of a sky, sun, and clouds, combined with the sheer size of the area, it really felt like we were just outside now.

"Welcome to the West Wing," Dayna said solemnly. "Well, one of the districts. This is where Mama Bel's orphanage is. Follow me."

She gestured me down a long street made of hard packed dirt, and I followed soundlessly. After a few feet though, I had to ask. "So, why exactly does the woman who ran your orphanage know the entrance to the path we need to take to access Mourne Kayze? Was she a formed worshipper of the Lady? An elite child of Verdyn?"

"Not at all," she said with a chuckle. "Mama Bel has always been of middling talent in cultivation. She's B-rank by virtue of her overwhelming popularity, but she's never been much good in a fight. She also isn't from the Lady's church. Rather, her information sources are ones she cultivated doing what she loves. Which is to say, raising children. Her kids adore her, and we all come to visit when we can. Mama hears all the latest gossip, even about secret topics."

That was honestly kind of wholesome. Knowing this woman had basically become an information broken through kindness was kind of inspiring. I'd spent most of my time recently with members of my family, and the WCP, for all its virtues, was far from kind. If anything, this place had seemed ever worse to me, but I suppose it just went to show that you can find decent people anywhere.

As we continued down the street, I found myself being sucked in by how downright idyllic this place was. Small, cozy looking homes with gabled rooves, picket fences, and neat little paths of cobblestones leading to the doors. I glanced at Dayne in confusion. "Ok, what's with the architecture? These places don't look very…Lodgelike."

"Mama's influence," she chuckled. "This used to be a much rougher area, but over the years, Mama's kids have bought up the houses nearby. They were raised in Mama's house, and they're used to the aesthetic, and so that's how they style their own homes. Not all of us can afford it, of course, and there's a limited amount of space, but it's a nice place to live from what I hear, and we're all welcome at the neighborhood picnics Mama throws every week."

We walked down the shiny, cheerful street, stopping when we arrived at an old but well cared for house. It was two stories, made of sturdy, worn wood that had been freshly painted, and a neatly weeded garden on either side of the well trod path.

Dayne looked hesitant to approach the worn out door, but after a few moments to pluck up her courage, she walked across the yard and knocked firmly.

There was a short pause, and then the door opened, and a waifish looking teenage boy with dark circles around his eyes and limp black hair stared out at us in suspicion. "Yeah?" He said hostilely. "What do you want?"

His glare was interrupted by widening eyes and a yelp of pain as a small hand reached around and grabbed him firmly by the ear, dragging him out of the way. "Daniel," snapped the small red haired girl who had done the grabbing. "What did Mama say about answering the door with attitude?"

"Ow!" he said emphatically, rubbing his ear. When she didn't comment, his shoulders slumped. "Sorry Holly," he muttered.

She rolled her eyes. "It's lunchtime, go set the table, then get the others in from the yard. Don't forget to wash your hands this time, I WILL make you get up and do it during lunch. Sorry about him, can I help you?"

"I'm here to see Mama," Dayna said quietly. "Can you tell her that D-"

"Dayna!" Screamed a relieved voice from behind the redheaded girl. The tall, dark haired woman with silver streaks in her hair dodged around Holly and swept the elf girl up into her arms, squeezing fiercely. "Little girl, what in Lord Verdyn's name is wrong with you? Disappearing like that and I had to hear you were still alive from Anabelle." She buried her face in Dayna's hair, clearly relieved beyond words to see the girl again.

Dayna looked almost afraid to answer. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I just-"

The woman pushed her back to arms length, rolling her expressive blue eyes. "I don't care that you got a new job, stupid girl, I care that you didn't call to TELL me about it. I was worried sick when you vanished from that absurd trial. I told you it was a terrible idea, but no, no one ever listens to Mama." Her eyes wandered to me. "Oh, hello. Welcome to my home, large armored man with an ominous mask."

"It's not ominous," I protested. "My uncle made me this. And it's my original. I had a way worse one." I turned to look at myself in the mirror hanging beside the door, above a small wooden table covered in photos of various smiling children. "Do I look ominous?"

"The armor doesn't help, dear," she said with a wry smile. "Might I get your name, before we continue with the image consultation?"

I cleared my throat. "Ah, sorry. I'm Solomon. Nice to meet you. I'm a friend of Dayna's."

"Well the, nice to meet you Solomon," she beamed. "Any friend of Dayna's is welcome here. I'm afraid our girl doesn't trust easily, and she's an excellent judge of character. If she likes you enough not to correct you when you make a claim like that you must be a quality kind of person, and I always have room for more of those. Come on in." She stepped back, gesturing us into the house.

I stepped inside, as did Dayna, and we closed the door behind us, clearing off our feet. "Mama, we were hoping to talk to you privately?" Dayna said politely. "It's about Lodge business."

The energetic woman nodded brusquely. "Of course, I might have guessed," she shot me a conspiratorial wink. "These kids never visit their Mama just to say hi, always need something, bless their hearts." Dayna looked like she wanted to be swallowed up by the floor, but Mama Bel continued. "Holly, dear, go help your brother with lunch. And set two more plates. Dayna and her friend will stay for sandwiches."

There was no request there, and I wasn't about to argue. I could smell what I was pretty sure was slow cooking roast beef in gravy, and it was making my mouth water. "Thank you," Dayna said softly. "I don't mean to be a bother."

"You aren't," the woman said sternly. "Not ever, and you damn well know it. Lift your chin, girl, you're going to get a crick in your neck looking at the floor like that. Then come into the living room and tell me about your problem." She glanced at me. "Do you have a way of making sure we aren't overheard, Mr. Solomon the mysterious masked man?"

"I do," I nodded. "It'll be an area effect, if that's ok?" She nodded, and I followed them into the living room, taking a seat next to Dayna on the overstuffed green couch. I triggered Murmur, covering us all in a blanket of silence, and then nodded to Mama Bel.

She looked around, interested but not overly concerned. "Well done. Now, Dayna, why don't you tell Mama what brings you home?" Dayna stared at her, eyes swimming with conflict and confusion, and then she opened her mouth and began to speak. I didn't stop her, I trusted her to know what to share, all I could do was wait for her to finish explaining, and then…well, I supposed we would see.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

After hearing the whole story, Mama Bel looked wary. "Baby girl, you went and got yourself mixed up in some complicated things," she said worriedly. "The affairs of gods aren't something to play with. They have a way of sweeping you up into their wake without even meaning to. Divine proximity comes with a sort of momentum. The closer to them you are the more turbulent the waters."

That…explained a LOT about my life, actually. Ever since I had become and Ascendant, things tended to wrong or right in BIG ways. I'd always assumed it had something to do with my lineage, but hearing it confirmed like that was…well I wasn't sure how I felt about it.

Dayna, to her credit, didn't even blink. "Mama, I know it probably seems like that, but I don't think this is a fight we can avoid. I know we're nominally on the same side as the Void, and want the same thing, but I don't believe they'll really let us go so easily when this war is over. The people I care about, people like you and Annie, and even my new friends, they won't be safe as long as this is all going on. If we can get Solomon to the Lady…"

"He'll what?" Mama Bel asked gently. "He seems like a very nice boy, and I'm sure he's talented for his rank, but what exactly do you think a C-ranker is going to say to a god that's going to sway them? Who is he that his words might influence the divine?"

Which was a fair question. I'd been right to trust Dayna, because she hadn't informed Mama Bel of anything about me besides my name. I was pretty sure the Lodge was too deep in the Void to have gotten news of my coronation yet, not to mention they were at WAR with us, so I doubted people were in a sharing mood. Verdyn would probably know who I was, but it wasn't a surprise that Mama Bel didn't, even if she WAS a local information source.

Sighing, I reached up and gripped my mask. Trust. I trusted Dayna, Dayna trusted Mama Bel, and we needed Mama Bel to trust me if she was going to help us. This was secret information vital to the safety of her faction. Sure, we weren't planning to do HARM, but it was still classified info she might get into trouble for leaking.

"My name," I said as I removed the mask. "Is Shane Wyndham. My father's name is Elijah, my Grandfather's Malachai. I am the current and newly selected Wishmaster of the Wish Curse Palace. I am here in my capacity as Wishmaster to attempt to broken a peace accord between the Lady of Lamentation, Felicity, and my Ancestor, Alistair Wyndham, the original Wishmaster. I hope that your lord might be a part of that peace, and that you might help me make that happen."

She stared at me, her face a mix of shock and disbelief, but as her glance fell to Dayna, who nodded, she just blinked in shock. "I think I need to sit down."

"You are sitting down, Mama," Dayna said helpfully.

"Oh," Mama Bel said faintly. Then she stood up and sat back down immediately. "That's better," she said in a dazed voice.

That had been a calculated risk. Honestly a potentially very stupid one, but in the moment…it felt right. I LIKED this place, this woman, and I could feel in my BONES that she wouldn't turn on me. That she was a good and decent person who would help me because it was the right thing to do. Azazel, my Fate sense, even my own instincts, everything in me SCREAMED that this was what I needed to do.

In fact, I suspected Azazel had been influencing me since arrival, because I could have been using Astaroth up to now. I'd given it a passing thought, deciding that it wouldn't make any difference if Verdyn looked at me and if he didn't it wouldn't matter, but thinking back…this had been coming. Arriving here with my real face, even behind a mask, had set the tone, and this was the tone I would NEED to get Mama Bel's help.

She was quiet for a moment, obviously thinking, and we just sat and waited. I didn't consider what I was asking her to do a betrayal, but SHE might, and I could understand if she did. It was a big ask, and it wouldn't be fair to rush her into it.

"Why you?" she finally asked. "Why are you willing to come here, being who you are? Why take the risk? You have to know how foolish that is."

The same part of me that told me I could trust her was telling me to be honest, so I was. "Because I want to change things," I said bluntly. "For my family, for the five factions, and even for you. This war is stupid and pointless, and it only benefits monsters like Hatescream and the Void Children. Our people are dying, MY people, for nothing, and I hate it.

"And because if I do this, a thing only I can do because I know the Lady, I might be able to show my family they CAN change. That there's a better way." I sighed, continuing because I needed to be up front that I wasn't just doing this because I was some kind of saint. "And maybe they'll listen to me about other things and I can truly start making life better for those I care about."

She stared at me, hard, and then glanced back at Dayna. "You know, I kind of get it. He's a good boy. You could have picked a much worse friend to stand behind. Fine. I can help you get into Mourne Kayze. I do have access, or at least know where to go to get it." Her face hardened. "But it won't be easy. Don't assume I'm just drawing you a map to a door. The road between the Lodge and Mourne Kayze is a hidden route meant for emergency reinforcement and retreat for the lord's followers. It's deeply concealed and heavily guarded."

I frowned at that, but nodded anyway. "Thank you. Seriously. It means a lot. I'll do my best to make sure things get better for everyone."

"This war has been consuming too much of our foundation," she said quietly. "How many of my kids are out there now? How many of them aren't ever coming home? I can't say, and I almost don't want to know. But anything that can make it stop sounds like a good thing to me."

I thought about Dayna's friend Anabelle, lurking at the edge of the Void near the war front to scavenge possible treasure with her friends, and of my own wife on the other side of that border. It almost made me smile, because Callie would LOVE the idea of scavenging loot from beyond the Void. Maybe I should mention the possibility to her. We could make it a date night. "So, this path, you said it's hidden?"

"In the forest," she said with a nod. I knew the one she meant. The killing glade, the forest where Lodge members underwent their D-rank trial. They were sent on scavenger hunts to find items to earn their credentials as a hunter. "Not just in it either. DEEP inside." I knew that the traps in the killing glade got more complicate and difficult the deeper you went, and more importantly, they got DENSER. The glade had expanded from a central point, and over the years that center area had become much more heavily laden with dangerous traps.

I'd learned all about the glad when we'd been in the shallowing where we found the arrowhead. That place had been a strange, amalgamated version of the Lodge and Stralthrem's Domain, the mixing caused by the blood left on the arrowhead after Verdyn had used it to shoot the god of Dread Fabrication at some point.

Of course, the REAL glad was at least a hundred times larger and more dangerous, and it lacked the weird mechanical infection that had been caused by the taint of the other deity, so our experience there wasn't going to do much to prepare us.

"Do you have any possible routes we could take?" Dayna asked worriedly. "You know as well as I do that the glade requires months of planning and strategy. The hunts we undertake there have time limits as long as years or decades, and going deep would require even more. Plus you said it's guarded, how could there be guards in the glade? Everything in there is long dead."

Mama Bel nodded. "There is a route. I can draw you a map. But to even access it you need to reach the third ring, and I'm sure you know what that means."

"A guide," sighed Dayna. "We need a guide." At my confused look, she explained. "When someone undergoes the killing glade trial, they usually set off some traps. If you set off enough of them, you can sell the information, and the people who buy it put together maps that can be used to skip to deeper areas. High rankers don't get any value from exploring the edges, so they pay a small fee and follow a preestablished route to get to a point more in tune with their skills. It saves time."

"Among other things," Mama Bel chuckled. "The glade is also often used as storage and a hiding place. Certain factions keep items in protected locations, and often use the guides to reach them. Because new traps are being laid down constantly, it's a full time job keeping track of the glade. Your brother Marius is a particularly effective guide."

Dayna grimaced. "Oh, him." I raised an eyebrow at her, wondering what the problem was with him, and she sighed. "He's nice enough, but he's very…loud."

"That he is," Mama Bel said fondly. "But he takes care of his siblings. Of all my kids, he's the most likely to help because I asked, or even because you did. You all look out for each other, but Marius will do anything for family." She leaned over, tugging open a drawer on an end table, and pulled out a piece of paper. She wrote out a quick note, folded it, then handed it to Dayna. "Here, give him this, it should expedite things."

We nodded, standing up, and she stood with us. Dayna smiled warmly at the older woman. "Thank you, Mama. For everything."

"Why are you thanking me," Mama Bel said in amusement. "I haven't given you the map yet. And have you forgotten you're staying for lunch? No need to act as if its time to leave, girl." She grabbed my friend's hand, dragging her out of the range of Murmur. "Now, come along, I need to introduce you to all your new brothers and sisters. They have so much to learn from you." She glanced over her shoulder at me as I put my mask back on. "And you come with us, you can carry the sandwiches."

I laughed at that, but did as I was told. I didn't mind doing some manual labor, and I really wanted to try the gravy and beef sandwiches I'd been smelling.

When we got to the kitchen, most of the kids were excited to see us, Daniel and Holly both nodded, the former a bit more sullenly, and they crowded around Dayna, chattering excitedly as Mama Bel introduced her.

I just sat back and watched, leaning against the wall with a smile. It was…nice. Beautiful, really. The warmth and acceptance and familial love. I hoped that someday, the WCP could be like this, or at least parts of it. In these kids, I could see the exact kind of future I wanted to build. I sent a mental snapshot of it across the bond, emotions and all, and received affection and joy back, and I smiled. This was the kind of life I wanted to live. Now I just had to make that wish a reality. Guess I was finally doing the title justice.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"I really appreciate everything you've done for us, Mama," I said sheepishly. "But you really don't need to pack us lunch. You should keep it for the kids, they definitely need it more than we do. We HAVE food." I was trying to refuse the large container of gravy soaked beef that she wanted to foist off on us, but the orphanage matron was having none of it.

"You think I can't feed my kids?" she asked archly. "That I'm so foolish I'd give away food my babies need to eat?"

My eyes widened, and I stepped back, putting my hands up defensively. "No, of course not, I was just a little worried. Of course we would love to take the food with us. The sandwiches were amazing." Which was true. Thinly sliced roast beef simmered in gravy with red peppers, ladled liberally over fresh baked bread and topped with smooth, creamy cheese. I'd eaten a dozen of them.

She passed over a bag containing some fresh bread and cheese, and I smiled wryly as I put it all away in my ring. Mama Bel turned to Dayna and put a finger in her face. "And you'd better call home to check in once in a while, little girl. Don't think having a big fancy Vampire patron makes you too good to call your Mama now, you hear?"

"I won't Mama," the elf girl said obediently, hugging the other woman fiercely. "Thank you," she said emphatically.

The older woman pulled back and waved her off with a smile. "It's a mother's job. Be safe, kids."

Following her instructions, we set off for Marius's place, leaving behind a bunch of happy, waving children. Dayna tried and failed to act unruffled by all her little brothers and sisters wishing her good luck, but I saw a slight blush on her face, and couldn't held nudging her side teasingly. "Someone is popular, huh?"

She glared at me. "We will never speak of this again."

I just laughed. "I got it, no one needs to know you're a big softy. Your secret is safe with me." I mimed zipping my lips and throwing away the key. My amusement faded. "But really…thanks. For bringing me here when it clearly means so much to you, for vouching for me, and for introducing me as a friend. It means a lot."

"I find that you are much like a fungus," she said blandly. "Despite my best efforts, you're growing on me. A bit."

"That was the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me," I deadpanned.

She ignored me, and I laughed, chattering to her as we walked, Murmur covering us just in case we needed anonymity. I didn't really have a form I could use for Astaroth right now, and I needed Dayna out here with me to act as an introduction to Marius, so stealth was better than disguise in these circumstances.

We walked down several streets, around a few corners, and finally came to an unusual building. Specifically, it was a treehouse. Or rather, a treeoffice. Not a building built ON a tree, mind, the whole place was a hollowed out tree trunk, complete with door and windows. Above the door, there were words carved right into the woods. "Explorer's Den".

I dropped Murmur, as we'd discussed, and Dayna stepped forward to knock softly on the door. Nothing. She knocked again. Still no response. A third knock "STOP KNOCKING AND COME INSIDE ALREADY IT'S A PUBLIC ENTRYWAY!"

We both jumped at the booming voice and pushed the door open, finding a large bearded man with dark skin and long hair sitting at a desk. He was writing in a huge leatherbound book, and he had a pipe between his teeth, multicolored bubbles emanating from the bowl and popping into wisps of colorful smoke as they emerged. He didn't bother to look up. "What the hell do you want?" growled the large man. "Can't you see I'm busy?"

"Ah, I'm sorry to bother you," Dayna said with uncharacteristic meekness. "We were hoping to hire you as a guide."

"Well obviously," he spat, finally glancing up. "This is GUIDE post. What kind of nonsense is…" he paused, his eyes narrowing. "You look familiar. Do I know you?" He glanced at me but dismissed me immediately. "Just her, not you."

She cleared her throat. "My name is Dayna, and I'm-"

"One of Mama's kids!" He burst out with a wide smile, dropping his pipe. He caught it seamlessly, stuffing it back between his teeth but maintaining the grin. "I remember you! Well why the hell didn't you just say so? I've always got time for family! Come on in, little sister, tell me what you need."
We approached the desk, and Dayna passed him the note from Mama to him carefully. He opened the paper, then snapped his fingers and the page turned to ash, going up in a burst of flame. "Well," he said cryptically, leaning back to steeple his fingers. "That's a different matter. Says you want a guide to take you to the deeper wood?"

"We are," Dayna told him solemnly. "It's a matter of life and death."

"Well even if it hadn't been before, it would be once you got there," he snorted. The man was a B-ranker, and a strong one from what I could tell. Maybe close to A. His sheer presence reminded me of Zeke back in the day before his breakthrough, and he wasn't holding it back. I wasn't the same guy I'd been back then though. I was much more experienced now, and I didn't flinch at the onslaught.

He stared for a moment, obviously expecting us to back down, but when we didn't he just sighed. "I'll level with you, little sister. If you had come in here and asked me for this, I'd have said no. For your own good, mind. Deeper wood is no place for kids. And you ARE kids," he interjected, seeing her about to argue. "Mama's kid. And that means as a big brother I've got a duty to look out for you."

He stared at his fingers, blackened from the soot of the combusting paper. "But…I've got a duty as a son, too. Mama thinks this is a good idea, gods only know why, and I don't question Mama. She's earned that from me. So I'll take you. As far as you need me to go. But if I do this, there needs to be some ground rules."

Dayna nodded. "That sounds reasonable. What kind of ground rules?"

Marius's face was solemn and sincere. "The usual stuff. Stick close to me, do as I say, wear this shirt." He held up a large yellow circus tent-like shirt that proclaimed in bright red letters "I have the bestest big brother ever!"

My companion, who had been agreeing seriously and without reservation, froze, staring at the hideous garment. She turned her glare on Marius, who blinked back innocently. "No."

"Come ooooon," he whined. "It's just a shirt! I won't even make you take that many pictures in it. I just need one for my wall!" He pointed behind us, and we turned to find that on either side of the door, a huge wall of photographs in frames showed Marius grinning and giving a thumbs up, his arm around various people of different ages, all wearing different colored versions of that same garish shirt.

I winced. "I get what you meant by loud now," I told Dayna sympathetically. "I misunderstood. My bad."

"I'm not LOUD!" bellowed Marius in a voice of such volume the picture frames rattled. "I'm enthusiastic! Family is everything to me! Is it so wrong I want to show off my cute little brothers and sisters to all my clients? I'm just so PROUD of all of them!"

His joyful excitement was practically palpable, and I found myself liking him despite how unequivocally strange he was. He reminded me of my Uncle Sam, albeit much weirder.

"I mean…" I said slowly. "It's not THAT embarrassing." Dayna turned to glare at me, and I held up both hands. "I think it's sweet! It's a family photo! Sure the color is a bit…unorhtodox. But it could be so much worse. I think yellow and red is striking."

"I'm gonna be striking in a minute," she growled, pulling back a fist threateningly. "Why don't YOU wear this yellow tarp?"

I shrugged. "Well I don't think that would mean much. I'm not one of his precious siblings. If anything it would be an insult to the garment itself. Such finery isn't meant for the likes of me. I think only you can bring out the shirt's true magnificence."

She looked about reading to hurl herself at me like a jungle cat, but Marius laughed delightedly. "I like your friend, little sister! He's wise beyond his years! It's just a quick snapshot! Then we can go! And I'll get you to the entrance to your path on pain of death. Nothing will stop me from seeing you safely to your goal!"

I glanced surreptitiously at my elf friend, waiting, and finally, she sighed, then pulled on the shirt over her armor. Marius squealed with joy, practically vanishing an appearing beside her, throwing an arm around her shoulder. "Everyone say FAMILY!" No one did, but he took the picture anyway, then zipped off through a side door as Dayna removed the large shirt, looking for all the world like a cat someone had dunked in a bathtub.
She turned her glare on me. "I expect to be compensated," she seethed.

"I'm sure," I laughed. "But come on, it's not like you aren't used to it, hanging around with Bethy all the time. She's the most awkwardly enthusiastic person that I know."

"Yes," she said patiently. "But that's aimed at all of YOU. When it happens to you it's funny. When it happens to me it's deeply unfortunate. Regardless, I demand compensation. I don't know what KIND, but I'll think of something."

I just laughed, because I could tell from the Scent of Truth that while she was annoyed she wasn't actually mad. She was just messing with me, and if that wasn't what friends did I had no idea what was. It didn't take long for Marius to come jogging back, triumphantly holding up…a photo in a frame? "Do you develop those on the premises?" I asked in disbelief.

"Of course," he scoffed. "Like I would trust some random person with my precious family memories. All of my photos are developed with love and care." He held out the frame like he was presenting a divine talisman. "Behold! My littlest sister!"

I blinked. "Wait…littlest?" I turned to glance back at the wall. "But there's a bunch of younger kids at Mama's house."

"Well sure," he shrugged. "But none of them have visited yet. Dayna is the baby of the family as far as my wall goes. So she gets a place of honor RIGHT above the door." He reached up and plucked another picture from that spot. "Used to be Tommy, but he's got this weird thing about limericks and it's annoying. Glad to see him go, honestly. He can go to the corner with Amber and Bobby."

Dayna grimaced. "I'm surprised you even put Bobby up there."

Marius shrugged. "You can pick your nose, but you can't pick your family. That's what Mama always says, remember?"

She nodded grudgingly, and I got the impression there was a shared sense of annoyance at Bobby, whoever he was. "Now that you got your picture, can we GO?" Dayna asked after he finished hanging it. "We're kind of on a deadline."

We weren't EXACTLY, but we were in a hurry, which was close enough. Marius seemed to pick up on the impatience, because he chuckled, walking over to a coatrack and lifting a huge coat with a wraparound mantle. He slipped it on, then fastened several straps as he buttoned it up. "Alright then kiddies, come along. Time for a field trip." I did not consider it a good sign that my Danger Sense started going off when he said that. Not a good sign at all.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The killing glade looked somewhat similar to the knockoff version we'd seen in the shallowing, but also nothing like it at all. If I had to compare the sensation, if would be something like looking at a projection of a place through a scan box. It was sort of…condensed into an approximation, but it was also qualitatively different in some indescribable ways.

"Welcome, kids," Marius said grandly. "To the killing glade."

Dayna sighed. "I've been here before. I'm FROM here, remember?" She looked around, checking to see if there was anyone nearby. "Although I haven't been to this specific spot. Where exactly are we?"

"First ring, B octant," he said immediately. "We're going to need to go a little serpentine to get to where you need to be. Straight line paths are rare, especially to the deeper wood."

"And there's people adding new traps on the regular, right?" I asked uneasily, looking around for evidence of that. Traps weren't an issue if I had Dan out doing his thing mapping a path, but we didn't have time for that. Staying here for that long risked that hunter coming back and Verdyn finding out through the grapevine that we were here. If the hunter god got even a whiff of a reason to check for us we'd be fucked. No amount of my stealth would prevent him from noticing us inside his own world if he decided to check.

Marius led us deeper into the forest, sidestepping seemingly empty spaces, hopping over bushes, and even vaulting off tree trunks. We followed his steps exactly, as instructed, and made it through the first ring octant within probably an hour.

Once we did though, things got a little more challenging. "The deeper we go, the more traps there are," Marius warned. "So you need to be extra careful. We can't avoid them now, we need to start setting them off. I'm going to give you the exact locations, but I want you to come up with your own countermeasures. Once we arrive at the entrance to your mapped path, I'm going to need to part ways with you, and I want to ensure you can both continue to protect yourselves."

I nodded, stepping forward and raising both hands. I did NOT summon my Domain, because there was no way Verdyn wouldn't notice that inside his own world, but I did summon Brad and Agares.

Brad looked excited to be out, looking around with interest, and his face lit up with recognition. "Is this…home?"

I shook my head. "No. It's a similar place though. We're trying to get past some traps, and I thought you might have some unique insight. You'll be working with Agares, I'm not sure if you know each other?"

Agares was a big, square jawed man with a beard and a shaved head. His rippling muscles were clearly honed with frequent use, and his stomach was padded with a layer of fat over what looked like extreme muscle. His forearms in particular were thick and dense, and he was examining the clearing we were standing in with clinical detachment. At my words, he glanced over at his new partner, nodding solemnly in greeting. A man of few words, Agares.

"So, the traps here are complicated," Brad said slowly. "I can sense them, in the ground. And the trees. And…I think there are a few of them literally built into the surrounding space." He pointed at a seemingly empty spot, glancing at Marius. "Is there something there?"

Dayna's brother hummed, squinting at thin air. "Huh, it's a Hide and Freak. Haven't seen one of those in a while. Good catch."

"A Hide and Freak?" I asked, somehow HEARING the capital letters. 'What does it do?"

Marius snapped his fingers, and a full unplucked turkey appeared in his hands. He tossed it at the spot in the air Brad had pointed to, and as it got close, the air warped and a…thing appeared. It was huge and humanoid, with an eyeless, stitched together face and wild seaweed like hair that drifted uncomfortable in the air as if underwater. It wore a series of mismatched clothes and its hands were tipped with literal butcher's knives, which it used to tear apart the turkey in moments before vanishing again.

"Well…" I said slowly. "I hate that. Just, everything about it. How do we kill it?"

"You can't," he said with a shrug. "At least not in a way that's worth the trouble. It's not really there. It's kind of like a puppet made from space. They're a huge pain to make, but they're even harder to destroy. There are houses in the Lodge that have had one of those for over a century at this point."

I saw where he was going with this. "Which means we need to go around it. No reason to get sucked into trying to break something we can just ignore." He nodded, and I glanced at Brad. "You got this?"

"Sure thing," he said, looking up from where he'd been whispering to Agares. "We've got a plan. This whole thing is about controlling the environment. If we're going around this, we might as well go around all of it. But since the traps are in bother the air and ground, we need to make sure we have the space. Which is where I come in."

He raised his hands like a concert pianist, beginning to conduct as he hummed to himself. As he did, pits began to form. Some were wide and deep, some just wide or just deep. Some were at an angle, and some went THROUGH trees, essentially deleting physical matter from surface level as they imposed a hole that wasn't there before.

Rather than just vanishing the dirt completely, however, I was surprised to see it appearing in midair above the ground. Moving in a sort of flowing dance, Agares reached out his large, callused hands and sort of caught it, pulling it towards him and beginning the process of condensing it all into a thick, dark stone.

The two of them continued like that, Brad cutting holes in the ground and Agares manipulating the dirt and condensing it into the powerful stone he was known for, then slowly layering it together into a dizzying array of complicated shapes and mechanisms as he began building a study bridge through the air, leading off into the distance. They kept going, gathering more and more, and after the bridge was far enough away, we all stepped up onto the construct, following along as they led the way into the forest.

The first thing I noticed up stepping on the bridge (aside from the fact that it corkscrewed through the air and swirled around past spots that seemed suspect, including the Hide and Freak) was how solidly it was built. Agares was simulated with a lifetime of experience in architecture and construction, and had clearly polished those skills to their absolute peak, being able to make excellent use of his natural gits.

The footing was solid, the stone was sturdy, and the comfort of the rock under my heels was surprising given it was…well, rock. What confused me though was HOW this was happening. In order for the staff to simulate Agares's life as a contractor, it would have needed to BE one.

It was a question I hadn't needed to ask much up to this point, because most of the demons were self referential. Learning to bring your skills to bear more effectively was a matter of repetition, but become a master architect wasn't something you could do through trial and error. The staff would have needed to supply the knowledge from somewh-

And then it hit me. Dantalion. My information gathering demon had scanned hundreds of buildings, indexing and internalizing their construction, history, and even aspects of their architects. The sheer amount of data he'd collected over the time since his creation was staggering, and it was clear that the staff was using that as a foundation for its derivation of different skills and lives.

Given the existence of Wisdom of Solomon I probably should have expected that, but seeing it in action was still amazing. I did have another concern, though. "Is this going to draw attention?" I ask worriedly, watching Brad snatch huge chunks of dirt and trees on repeat to be repurposed as stone for our current path.

Marius, who had ostensibly been leaving it to us, but had in reality been subtly guiding the two demons to help them avoid the worst of the traps, just waved me off. "It's fine. People dig out here all the time. This is a lot of earth for one person, but in the grand scheme of how much of the forest is being modified and reconstructed at this very moment, it's not even a rounding error."

Which was fair. I had been more worried about the nature of Brad's abilities, given his ability to cut a pit in the Void Roads, I wouldn't have been surprised if he was doing some conceptual bullshit that damaged the Domain.

Azazel was completely silent, though, and I was pretty sure he'd have noticed if I was making a huge mistake, so I decided to just sit back and enjoy the ride.

"We're making pretty good time," I said cheerfully as we continued our surprisingly leisurely walk through the sky. "Maybe we can take this thing all the way to the entrance to the passage. Would save us a lot of trouble."

"Unlikely," Marius denied. "Modification like this in general areas will go unnoticed, but a large scale operation like this in the vicinity of a strategic resource like an escape tunnel? There's no way the Lord won't pick up on it. Once you reach the map location, you'll need to take it slow. Same reason I can't go with you. Mama made a point to mention on the map you showed me that and sufficiently powerful faction member being in proximity will draw attention."

I grimaced, but nodded. "I know. We're honestly lucky no one takes C-rankers seriously." Most of the people at my rank had no Chronicle, and as I'd noted before, the effective difference between an Ascendant WITH a condensed Chronicle and without one was like night and day. B-rankers were under quite a bit more scrutiny, even inside of a god world.

Sadly, the peaceful progress couldn't last. All too soon the bridge touched down and we all hopped off, landing in the grass in an idyllic clearing. I glanced behind us, along the line of the whirling bridge, and grimaced. It was pretty, but leaving it would draw a ton of attention. I briefly considered destroying it and just leaving the shards or dust lying around, but then I had a better idea.

Putting a hand on it, I reached for the power that connected it to Agares, and through him, to me. With an effort of will, I pulled on the construct, and it began to slowly flow toward me. I might have been able to just yank it into my Domain wholesale if we were in a normal world, but given the possible scrutiny that would invite, I decided to do it the slow way, dissolving the bridge and pulling it toward me bits at a time.

It took about ten minutes, and by the time I was done there was a huge pile of heavy black dust inside my Domain, sitting outside the palace. I turned back to the others. "Alright, we should be good to go."

Marius whistled, impressed. "Not bad, kid. You'd make a hell of a contractor. Anyway, this is the place." He pointed to a small cave outcropping between two trees, spiraling down into the earth. "The map shows you're headed down there. This is where I leave you." He turned and opened his arms to Dayna, not insisting but just offering a hug. She sighed and stepped forward, wrapping her arms around him. "Take care, little sister. Be safe."

"Thank you," she whispered, squeezing him tightly. Then let go and cleared her throat. "I mean, yes. Your well wishes are appreciated. And returned. You should also be safe." With a loud laugh, he clapped her on the shoulder and turned to vanish into the forest, leaving us alone in front of the cave entrance, and the next step of our journey.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

We entered the cave without much fanfare, and despite the expected backlash or protections, I didn't face any real resistance. Still, we weren't there yet, and once we'd walked further into the cave, Dayna reached into a pocket and pulled out a small note. "Mama said not to open this outside," she explained. "Apparently whatever connection point this passage is built on isn't as closely surveilled. The handover between the Void and the divine domain is a blank spot where we're free to read this without notice."

She opened the note, handing it to me, and I scanned it carefully, then handed it back. "Alright, apparently there are trials at either end. The one on this side was set by the Lady, and the one on that side by Verdyn. In order to enter the passage you need to be deemed worthy in the eyes of the god on the other side."

Nodding, she scanned the note, then winced. "It says we're going to need to descend 'The Stairs of Suffering'."

"You just know that's not going to be any fun," I commented mildly. "But not we. Me. You'll be in the domain. And I've undergone the Lady's trials before. This one won't be any harder. It's just pain."

Dayna's face tightened. "That is…unwise. I feel that my presence may lighten your burden somewhat. There's no reason to-"

I held up a hand. "Look. I appreciate it. But we don't know that's how it works. We don't know anything about this test except that it's going to hurt. You're my friend, and I don't want you to suffer alongside me for nothing. So you're not going to descend the stairs with me, because that would be pointless and cruel."

Her jaw tightened. "This is absurd," she snapped. "I've proven myself, have I not? Shown I can be trusted?"

"It's not ABOUT trust," I said with a sigh. "I don't want to see you get hurt. That's not because I don't trust you, it's because I do. I'd do the same for Benny, or Jessie, or Abel, or even Bethy, despite her being so much stronger than me. This is what I do. It's why I'm here, and not someone else. The Lady chose me because suffering is my gift. From the very first step of my journey, undergoing pain and torment has been the norm for me."

And in a way, I was grateful. Because the burden I was facing now, being the Wishmaster, being responsible for the family, everything I'd been through had prepared me for this. I'd heard a quote once, one that resonated especially well lately. "Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains."

I wouldn't call myself a genius, exactly, but the core concept was spot on. Human beings were built on the back of suffering. Limits weren't hard boundaries, they were suggestions enforced by pain. When you reached them, you could push past them indefinitely if you were willing to hurt enough. More than Wishes, more than Doom Sovereign, more than my Fate or divine ancestors anything else I could name, that was what had allowed me to reach this step when so many others had failed. Not because I was special or impressive or unique. But because I had been FORGED. Beaten and reshaped. And I hadn't broken.

In some ways, the trials I'd undergone for the Lady had made all of this possible. And that was why she'd chosen me, in the end. Because I truly understood that suffering was the limitless nutrients that fueled the growth of a legend.

Dayna looked unhappy, but she didn't argue anymore as I took her into my Domain, and I walked through the cavern, heading down towards the spot I knew held the entrance to the stairs of suffering. As I walked, shadows gathered, and a familiar form appeared beside me, falling into step.

"Hey hon," I told my wife with a wry smile. "What brings you here?"

"I felt a bit of a disturbance in the bond," she chuckled. "You had some big revelation or other? You're a very dramatic person, Shane."

I snorted. "I'm an Ascendant, it comes with the territory. And I hate to break it to you Cal, but you aren't exactly subdued. Have to admit I'm curious why you stopped by though. I don't need any help for this."

"I know," she said sweetly. "But just because you don't need it doesn't mean you shouldn't have it." She slipped her hand into mine, intertwining our fingers. "I'll walk with you until you get there. You don't have to do this alone. I don't know exactly what you were thinking, but the flavor of your emotions was a little self sacrificing for me. We're partners, idiot. You don't have to handle anything by yourself."

That brought me up short. "Huh," I said quietly. "I guess I don't. I was kind of denying you credit for all this, wasn't I?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," she said cheerfully. "But probably, and if so, shame on you." She winked at me, and we laughed together, arriving at the top a huge black staircase. "Huh…" she said as she stared at it. "You just know that's not going to be any fun."

"That's what I said," I grinned. "But yeah, they went all in on the aesthetic. The Lady loves her symbolism."

The stairs were huge. They disappeared into the darkness like an endless gullet opening wide to swallow me whole. Stalactites hung from the ceiling like sharp teeth and a headsman's axe all rolled into one, the steps themselves were uneven and way too short, ensuring I'd need to take way more steps than I should have to, and the banisters along the sides were coated with razor sharp black thorns that ACTIVELY wept some kind of fluid (which I assumed wasn't a refreshing cola).

The overall impression was that someone had gone out of their way to make this set of stairs as uncomfortable as possible, both physically and visually. "Wish me luck," I told my wife with a chuckle.

She leaned up to peck me on the cheek of my mask. "You don't need it. Kick some ass."

She vanished, and I sighed, sad to see her go. Being able to manifest a shadow clone through the bond despite the changes in her powers was definitely interesting, but I assumed it was related to her shadow manipulation being part of her trait. It made sense, after all, her creation of Adherent Ascension was based on shadows, so she was clearly still capable of interfacing with them.

I turned back towards the steps. I felt oddly more serene about this. This grim determination from a minute ago was gone, and I felt lighter now. Callie was right, I'd been taking too much on my shoulders. My realization wasn't WRONG, but the idea that it was only my ability to accept pain that got me here was ludicrous.

Smiling at the memory of my wife's confident smile, I took a step.

Pain. Obviously. Waves of it rolling through me, tearing at every nerve, at my soul and heart and mind. I ignored it. This was nothing to me by now. Between the trials, my life, and even the awful scouring of the Apostate Fire tainted Liquid Lamentation, I'd been through so much worse.

Step by step, I advanced. The pain built, crackling and rising like steam from a pot, filling my perception to the brim. Ten steps, twenty, the pain was getting worse, but I ignored it.

In fact…I didn't even need to ignore it. I could USE it. I reached for the Life Nove flame, pouring it into my body to counteracting the pain devouring my senses. I'd started to take actual damage as I walked, each step tearing into me a bit more, but with the flood of green flame, the pain was…not countered, but matched. As I was broken down, I was rebuilt.

The more I poured in, the brighter and hotter the fire got. I triggered piece of mind, and then incarnated Nine Phoenix Reincarnation Art into my body, feeling my mind flood with his understanding and experience.

Pain was part of body tempering, I'd known that. The old man had told me as much, of course. But I hadn't known WHY because I had essentially bypassed the worst of it by picking such a compatible fire for my first template. Now though, I was using this pain as fuel, burning it almost like fuel. The suffering was a sacrifice, an offering to my potential, and as it stoked the flames of my change higher, my blood boiled in an unprecedented riot of overflowing power.

A drop. Then two. Then finally, a third drop condensed, the qualitative changes bursting over my body, altering me at a fundamental level as they amplified my regeneration and started the process of condensing my Vitality modifier.

I roared in triumph, my body and mind alive in a way I'd never felt before, and took another step…and it ended.

Blinking, I looked down, shocked to see that I was on solid ground. No more stairs. I had officially made it through the stairs of suffering. I admit, I was feeling a little conflicted. That kind of rapid progress was unlikely to pop up again soon. But it HAD given me a deeper understanding of the Nine Phoenix Reincarnation Art.

At the very least, I felt absurdly strong now. Different than before. Like I could do anything. I suspected it was a side effect of reaching the middle rank of the first template. I waved a hand, pulling Dayna from the Domain, and she blinked in surprise. "That was fast," she said slowly. "Are you…alright?"

"I'm fine," I chirped happily. "In fact, I feel fantastic. I think the Lady left this here not just as a trial, but as a reward. Her philosophy is all about understanding and growing through suffering, and I'm pretty sure she knew that any of her actual worshippers would benefit from undergoing this kind of test." Felicity was the kind of deity who rewarded her faithful for their effort. Torment might not be very pleasant, but it was always fair.

She looked unsure how to react, but eventually nodded. "That's for the best. At the other end of the passage there'll be a trial from Lord Verdyn. I'll handle that one."

"No argument here," I chuckled. "You're way better suited for that, and have a much better grasp on how dangerous it is. The trials are meant to be tests for those entering, so they're limited to the rank of whoever is undergoing them. Otherwise it wouldn't be a very good escape tunnel."

The defenses would do a lot to prevent any non worshippers from slipping through, however. In fact, I was pretty sure the passage was designed to only be possible with someone from both factions. Anyone who WASN'T a worshipper of Felicity who had tried to walk those steps would have been in terrible condition after they got through, and the chances of them passing the trial on the other side would be infinitesimal.

Even without having seen it yet, I was pretty sure the test on the other end was going to be heavily skewed to Verdyn's people.

Sure enough, upon reaching the other side, Dayna stepped forward and was forced to undergo a series of complex trials based on hunting and tracking, none of which I was confident I could have passed even WITH Dantalion's help. The knowledge required was oddly specific and scaled to an absurd degree, and involved concepts I hadn't even considered before applied in very exacting ways.

Finally though, she passed through, able to bring me along via a relatively clever mix of Double Trouble and Adherent Fire (further sapping the stockpile I had from Callie). When we emerged, we ended up in another cavern, and the trip up to the surface was long and winding. Eventually, we emerged from a large cave opening onto a red dust plateau. I looked up at the sky, recognition filling me at the familiar sight. "Welcome," I intoned. "To Mourne Kayze."

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The heavens were broken. I'd forgotten about that. The crimson expanse had been shattered, a colossal web of cracks across the vault of the sky. If I looked closely, ignoring the consuming darkness peeking through the cracks, I could vaguely make out the shape of a titanic palm pressing down on this world.

I wondered if that was what had killed the Lady, all those years ago. Was that palm the last thing she'd seen before she'd been shattered by whoever had ended her life, relegated to being merely one of an uncountable number of vanished gods?

More than that, I wondered why I hadn't noticed that before. Last time I'd been here I'd seen the cracks, but they'd been much bigger and hadn't looked like anything. I supposed I'd just been in a bad alignment to catch the big picture. Despite that, I could see the huge black glass palace off in the distance, looming over the red wasteland of Mourne Kayze. I was almost positive that was where the black glass throne lay waiting, occupied by the bandaged figure with the tarnished silver mask.

"That's where we're headed," I nodded towards the castle. "Looks like there's a huge city at the base of it. We can approach someone from one of the Lady's orders and try to get an audience."

I knew a few people from the Order of Mercy, and at least some of my contacts from my time on Rackham should be active here. "Halt!" Came a harsh voice as we stepped forward toward the edge of the plateau. I glanced down, realizing I had neither Astaroth nor Murmur active right now, and cursed to myself. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath turning to the source of the voice.

A man stood in midair, body covered with shards of broken black glass roughly shaped into armor. Blood wept actively from between the shards, rolling down the glass to drip out into the ether. The drops, rather than fall forever, simply struck invisible surfaces a few inches from the glass, exploding into wisps of steam that wrapped around the dark figure in a crimson vortex.

"Hi there friend, how can I help you?" I said in as cheerful a tone as I could manage.

Despite my calm demeanor, inside I was tense. This guy was strong, like easily B-rank, and I was almost positive this guy was a member of the Order of Abomination.

Felicity, the Lady of Lamentations, was the goddess of torment. This seemed like an objectively bad thing, but I'd learned during the trials that the Lady was actually one of the more merciful and benevolent of the vanished gods.

Her worshippers, however, came in many flavors. Some good, some not so good. Mostly, they belonged to one of three orders. The Order of Mercy believed that pain was a means of understanding. That since it was universal, it was a bridge to communication, and that only by experiencing someone else's pain could you truly know them.

The Order of Punishment believed pain was a tool to subvert others. They inflicted suffering to 'educate' and to change. Torture was a big thing for them, and the Order was generally considered to be mostly made up of assholes.

Finally, there was the most mysterious of the orders. The Order of Abomination. I'd only heard them mentioned once, but when I'd looked into them, everything I found had made me incredibly wary. The Order of Abomination were…well, monsters. They were technically an extreme splinter group that had broken off the Order of Mercy, but their beliefs were sort of a hybrid of the two factions. They believed pain was a tool for transformation, and that inflicting it on themselves ad nauseum could drive evolution.

The Order of Mercy espoused similar beliefs, admittedly, but to a much less radical degree, hence the schism. Sister Bernadette, my guide during the Lady's trials on Rackham, had mentioned them to me once, and I'd never heard anyone else talk about them aside from the few rumors I'd been able to dig up when I'd actively searched.

Unfortunately, THIS guy had Order of Abomination written all over him, and as a nominal Order of Mercy member, I had no idea how this was going to go.

Of course, the alternative was just to not had an Order to cite, in which case I was probably going to have to fight this asshole, and I REALLY didn't want to do that. So when he boomed "State your purpose and your origin!" I sighed internally.

"My name is Mephistopheles," I told him in a not exactly lie. "I'm a member of the Order of Mercy chosen during the selection of Rackham."

His eyes, a vibrant shade of red, narrowed inside the shadowy visor of his jagged glass armor. "Typical. Just like one of the Merciful to traipse about in a restricted area." His eyes cut to Dayna. "I assume this one is your partner. Learning to "understand" one another, are you? Leeches like you are blights on the Lady's magnificence. I don't have time for fools, remove yourselves, and should I spot you near this place again it'll be your heads."

I blinked at him in surprise. Apparently the Order of Mercy DID have a bad reputation with the Order of Abomination, but that had actually HELPED this situation? Seeing him glare harder, I cleared my throat. "Of course," I said with a quick nod. "Thank you for showing mercy, friend." I gestured for Dayna to follow me and we both took off, pushing off the plateau with Impact based flight rather than using my wings.

To my surprise, I deeply disliked the feeling. I hadn't flown much wingless, but it seemed…wrong. Once we were far enough away, I detoured us to one side behind a plateau and triggered Murmur, even taking the time to use my staff to bump it up a rank just in case. Once that was done, I let out a sigh of relief.

"Alright," I told Dayna. "I think we lost him. I'm a little worried about someone noticing you're one of Verdyn's, so I'm going to put you back in Gehenna, ok?"

She didn't look pleased, but didn't complain. "I understand, be careful"

With a quick flicker of thought, she was gone, back into Gehenna to wait with my court as I made my way through the world here. Of course, I wasn't going to risk getting discovered early, so I did the obvious thing. I triggered Astaroth, shifting into an in-between space as a perfect recreation of me as Mephistopheles manifested into existence.

Touching down, I let Murmur drop, switching to a walking pace as my D9-rank simulacrum wouldn't have been able to fly without wings, and using them would have brought too much attention. Then I set off in the direction of the massive castle under the broken sky.

I made decent time, but when I arrived at the city, it became clear that entry would be more complicated than I'd expected. I stopped among a crowd of people, staring in grim discomfort as we all waited for a procession of monsters to pass. Familiar monsters. With pitch black chitin and glowing blue eyes.

The Void was here. Not just the mantises either. Dogs, cats, bears, pigs. Void spawn of every conceivable shape and size danced along the street, parading down the cobbled red road like they were putting on a show. Further back, several void spawned bulls pulled a luxurious black cart, and on the back of it sat a cheerfully smiling girl.

Something about her just felt…familiar. Not like I knew her, but like we'd met somewhere I couldn't remember. I was still trying to piece it together when a familiar voice echoed in my head. "She's a vessel," my wife muttered. "And more than that, I think she might be Morwenna's vessel."

"Shit," I spat internally. "Is she actively courting the vanished ones now? I mean, I guess it's not a shock they'd approach the Lady, given it was my idea too, but…this is bad."

The ramifications of this were huge. Because if they were HERE, there were only a few possible reasons. First the most obvious but objectively least desirable: they'd been invited by the Lady. If that was the case, it was going to make my job exponentially more difficult, because it meant she was open to potentially siding with them in the war.

Secondly, there was the option that she'd been let in by someone in the Lady's inner circle. This was still bad, but manageable theoretically. If they had supporters, but were here for a meeting, chances were good nothing had been finalized. That meant there were probably factions resistant to working with the Void.

I was leaning toward the second, because if the Lady planned to work with them, there would be no reason to invite them at all. Her word was law, and she could just declare her support. This parade smacked of campaigning, which meant they still needed to convince her.

That said, I spotted several B-rankers and even an A-ranker among the parade, which was a problem for me. I had no guarantee of safe passage, which meant the Void worshippers were within their rights to kill me. Which they could almost definitely do if given a reason. Luckily I had Astaroth active, and was in my old form. This body was not only much weaker, but also wearing different armor and a different mask.

No one had noticed me either, because Astaroth was one of my most singularly potent forms. It only did one thing, but it did it so well even Zeke had trouble punching through it, and masks were his whole deal.

Of course, I hadn't ranked it up with the staff this time, but I was in a large crowd and as an ostensible E-ranker no one cared enough to look closely. Still, I had to be careful from this point on. I needed to contact some of my Order of Mercy friends and feel out the situation, not to mention get a message to the Lady to try to schedule an audience of my own.

This had just gone from a good will mission to a diplomatic race. I had to exploit my connections and advantages to get the Lady on side as soon as possible. Based on what Dayna had told me, if they got the Lady to ally with them, Verdyn would follow suit. With two more gods on their side, there was no possible way Morwenna would bother to hold back just because of Callie. The war would escalate, rapidly, and my family would be in even more danger.

Watching them proceed into the city, I waited and queued up with the random passersby, entering alongside the crowd of onlookers. Once I was inside, I found a secluded corner and summoned Dan. Making sure Murmur was active for a good hour before I dared to call him up. He bowed deeply, and I nodded. "I need you to find some people for me," I told him quietly. I called up pictures I'd drawn during the wait of sister Bernadette and Marmont the teleporter, the two most senior Order members I knew.

"Of course," he said solemnly, closing his eyes and extending his senses. Then it became a waiting game. Dantalion was decrypting every ounce of data hidden in the nearby street, looking for signs of my contacts. Nothing.

I repeated those steps several times before he FINALLY caught a direction, and then narrowing it down while jumping between alleys unnoticed was hellishly time consuming. Finally though, I ended up outside of a large, plain looking building. I checked the sign outside. "Our Lady of Perpetual Torment," I said dryly. "Yeah, that seems about right." I turned to Dan. "You're sure Bernadette is in there?" He nodded solemnly, and I sighed, sending him back into my Domain and dropping Murmur. I'd considered a few ways to do this, but Azazel and my Fate Sense were both telling me to just trust Bernadette, so that's what I was doing. Time to go see an old friend.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Knocking on the door, I waited carefully, looking around for any sign of being followed or watched. I was ALMOST certain Murmur had kept us safe on the way. But almost wasn't completely, and the last thing I wanted to do was put Bernadette in danger just because she wanted to help me. The nun was certifiably insane, but she was also a genuinely kind person, for certain values of kindness (she HAD poisoned me the first time we met, but she meant well).

After a brief pause, the door opened, revealing a tiny blonde girl a few years younger than me, with big blue eyes and a permanent look of innocent surprise. "Oh!" she said cheerfully. "Hello, how may I help you, sir?"

"I'm looking for Sister Bernadette," I said politely. "I heard she could be found here? If you could tell her Mephistopheles is here to see her I'd appreciate it."

She beamed excitedly. "Visitors! I'm sure she'll be delighted. I'll pass the message right away!"

Spinning, she slammed the door closed, letting it thump shut right in my face, and I blinked. I was prepared to wait, but the door flew back open and the same girl gave me a mortified look. "Oh! I'm sorry, that was terribly rude. Won't you come inside while I fetch her?" She stepped back. "My apologies for the abruptness."

Her tone was so genuinely horrified at her faux pas I felt the need to cut the tension. "It's fine. Just don't make it a…habit."

She stared at me for a full thirty seconds…and then burst into peals of laughter. "That's so FUNNY!" she giggled. "Because nuns wear habits! Like mind! You're a very funny person, sir." Despite the almost staggering levels of sarcasm I'd expect from someone making that observation about a bad pun. She was totally sincere.

"Well, from your reaction I'm assuming that's the first joke you've ever heard, so it might not be a high bar. But I definitely appreciate the compliment." I kept my tone light and teasing so she'd know I wasn't actually being a dick about it. "Might you introduce yourself?"

She blinked. "Oh! Of course, my apologies," she curtsied hastily. "I am Sister Chloe, initiate level nun in the Order of Mercy, and a member of this humble place of spiritual learning."

"Nice to meet you Sister," I said with a nod. "As mentioned, I'm Mephistopheles. A fellow Order member selected on the planet Rackham." I tried to remember something that might prove my credentials, and I stumbled upon a prayer Bernadette had used on our first meeting. "And so comes pain, and pain gives shade to the light, gives the eyes respite, and teaches us the contrast between suffering and delight."

She clapped happily. "Wonderful! How pious, how devout. To quote our Lady's 'Chapter of Elevation' from the Book of Lamentations so flawlessly. It's lovely to have such an enlightened soul visit our humble priory."

"Thank you," I said serenely. "Now, I was hoping to speak to Bernadette…"

"Of course!" she said excitedly. "Apologies, sir, my most emphatic apologies. I get so sidetracked sometimes. I'll go and find her for you! And after that I can get you something to eat. You look famished. Maybe a sandwich, or perhaps some of the stew in the kitchen." She turned to walk away, muttering to herself.

"Wait!" I called after her. She stopped, turning to give me a confused look. "This is a shot in the dark, but where exactly were you going just now?"

She blinked at me innocently. "Why, to the kitchens! I want to get you that stew as soon as possible, the bread we baked this morning is still in the kitchen, and I'm sure having something fresh to dip it in would make it so much more filling."

"That DOES sound nice," I said slowly. "But do you remember what you were going to do BEFORE going to find me stew?"

"Why, I was going to find Sister Bernade…" she trailed off. "Oh dear, I've done it again, haven't I. I got so distracted by something else I completely forgot my intended purpose. Foolish Chloe! I'm so sorry sir, I'll rush right over to the chapel and kneel for twelve hours on the stool of penitence."

I sighed, rubbing my temples. "But if you do that," I pointed out. "It will take you TWELVE HOURS to go find Bernadette."

Waving my hand, I called for my companion, and Archie appeared with a trill in a burst of green flame. He landed on my outstretched arm, and Chloe stared at him in childish delight. "What a magnificent bird, sir. He's lovely! I can take him to the kitchen with me to get some of the stew. I'm sure he would love a bit of fresh bread."

I glanced at Archie. "This is Chloe," I told him with a sigh. "She needs to go see my friend Bernadette, but she has problems with…"I trailed off. "Chloe, what's your Perception like compared to your Focus?"

"Almost quadruple," she chirped excitedly. "I've specialized in Perception to better experience the Lady's gifts!"

I stared at her. I knew the mental stats fed into each other, and that Focus allowed you to process Perception better. I had never met anyone who stacked Perception WITHOUT Focus that high. I wasn't sure how she'd even managed that without access to a steady supply of Wish scrolls. I turned to Archie. "Chloe needs to find my friend Bernadette, but she's easily distracted. Perhaps you can keep her on task until she can retrieve my friend."

He shot me a look that made it VERY clear that he was not amused by this assignment, then trilled and swept over to perch on her shoulder. "Well aren't YOU handsome," she cooed. "Who's a beautiful and majestic birdie. You are. Yes you are." She reached up to scratch him under the chin. Then she wandered off down the hall. Off in the distance, I could hear her say. "You're such a good boy. Let's go get you a snack before we do anything else." There was a screech and then I stopped listening, choosing to exercise my own totally ACCEPTABLE level of Focus. Archie could handle the task.

I waited for about twenty minutes before a familiar form hurried around the corner, a green flaming phoenix swooping after her. "Bernadette!" I called with a smile, waving at the older nun.

Bernadette looked the same as I'd last seen her, simple habit, wimple, and a grey cloth wrapped around her eyes, making her face only visible from the nose down. "Mephistopheles," she said with a pleased grin. "Oh how lovely, to think you would choose my priory of all places to begin a pilgrimage to our Lady's realm. How are you finding it?"

"I found it after about six hours," I admitted. "I did NOT have directions. It's certainly a nice place though. And the people are nice. If a bit…absent."

She groaned, burying her face in her hands. "I'm so sorry. Chloe is enthusiastic, but somewhat scattered. She belongs to a subset of the order we call 'the Witless'. They believe that the Lady's gifts are best experienced pure. Focus distracts and taints the experience, and so their main goal when accruing stats is to gather as much Perception as possible to the detriment of all other stats. It makes them…flighty."

"You have an entire sub order of nuns who can't pay attention?" I asked in awe.

"Fortunately not," said with a chuckle. "The Witless are a fringe group. Chloe's mother is a god child, and a particularly powerful one. When Chloe decided to become a member of the Sisters of Sainted Suffering, the real name of the splinter group, her mother supported her desires fully. Most of the Witless don't manage to funnel QUITE so many stats into Perception. But enough about Chloe. What brings you to my priory?"

I hesitated. My instincts told me to trust her, but not to trust EVERYONE. I looked around. "Is there someplace we could talk in private? I have some things to share that I'm not comfortable discussing in the open."

"Of course," she beamed. "In fact, I have the PERFECT place!" She led me down a hallway and out into a large, open room with a vaulted ceiling. Then she brought me over to a small boxy wooden…closet? "These," she said proudly. "Are cleansing booths. Sometimes pain is private, but even the most private pain must be shared. In the cleansing booths, you might bare your soul to a chosen of the Lady, without fear of your burdens spreading too widely."

"Huh," I said with a chuckle. "That's surprisingly considerate. Didn't think privacy was a big thing for you guys."

She shrugged. "We're all at different points in our journey. Some cling to the antiquated stereotypes of pain being a private matter, and we respect their stance. The cleansing booths are enchanted by the Lady's most devoted servants, and eavesdropping is, of course, impossible. We can speak inside and you can rest assured your matters will remain confidential."

I nodded, then stepped through the door she gestured to, closing it behind me. After waiting a moment, I began speaking. "Ok, so…I don't remember if you were one of the people I told about this, but first up, my name isn't Mephistopheles. It's Shane. Shane Wyndham. I'm a descendant of the Wyndham family, and the current Wishmaster."

There was stunned silence, which I chose to take as an encouraging sign. "The reason I bring this up," I continued. "Is because I'm here on a diplomatic mission. I need to meet with the Lady, I'm hoping to arrange a truce between the Lady and the six, and hopefully to bring in Lord Verdyn as well through her. I know it's a lot to take in, but I need to meet with her, and I need your help?"

"MY help?" she sputtered. "How would I possibly help you with that? You're a diplomat. A FACTION leader. You can just walk up to the castle and request a meeting."

"I might be able to do that," I admitted. "Except I'm not the only diplomat. The Void sent someone too. My family and the Void are in an irreconcilable feud, and if they find out I'm here, I don't think they'll hesitate to try to kill me. Even if the Lady protected me, I have to leave eventually."

She sighed. "The Void is truly otherworldly. I don't believe that allying with them would be in our best interests. They feel little pain, and as such are too alien to communicate with properly. I hadn't heard they were courting the Lady for their war effort, but I am not surprised. Pain is a supreme weapon of war as well as a tool of enlightenment." She was silent for a moment. "I…I need to pray on this. If I choose to help, I still may not be able to get you an audience, but I have ideas on how to make the attempt."

I sighed in relief. "I understand," I assured her. "Thank you so much for even considering this Bernadette."

"Tis nothing," she laughed. "I have known your pain, Shane Wyndham. I understand you still, regardless of the truth of your name or origin. I just need to consider all the possible consequences before agreeing to anything. Were it just myself I would not hesitate, but with the rest of the priory involved…"

"Understandable," I repeated. "I don't blame you at all for thinking things through. I can wait. Provided you can put me up here for a while while you decide?" She agreed, and I grinned, cracking my neck. "Perfect. And while I wait, I don't suppose you could point me to your kitchen? I'd love to make you all a meal as thanks for your consideration." I couldn't help grin in anticipation as she gave me directions. It was time my cooking demon finally got to show what he was made of.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I hadn't really spoken to my Cooking demon much, since Gehenna was founded. I'd spent quite a bit of time in combat or running from one mess to the next, and even when I HAD cooked, it hadn't really been at the forefront of my mind. Now though, I was looking forward to seeing what my demon was capable of. It was simplicity itself to reach into Gehenna and tap Cooking for incarnation, allowing him to dwell within my body.

With most of my demons, incarnation gave me access to unique applications or techniques, or sharpened ones I already had. With Cooking, though, the simulated lifetime he'd undergone wasn't anything complicated like learning to refine power use or creating a technique.

For Cooking, the sole pursuit of his entire existence, his sole passion and goal, was truly only one solitary act. The one he was named for. Cooking…cooked. It was all he did. All he wanted to do. I had vague memories of a demonic court flashing by outside the kitchens where cooking honed his craft, but they were fuzzy and indistinct. Not because or any issues with the simulation that created him, but because Cooking himself didn't CARE about those things.

A thousand recipes, a million repetitions. As a tier seven demon, Cooking was a Grandmaster of his craft, but as I'd found with Inventing when I granted Benny the skill so long ago, ranks were a spectrum. Learning a skill was often about specialization, about picking a direction unique to you. No one could do everything.

But the higher you got in the ranks, the wider that pool of knowledge got. Like an inverted pyramid, the depth of what could be considered "complete" knowledge to a Minor skill user vs the same for a Grandmaster was a difference measured in orders of magnitude. In exponents.

Cooking wasn't THE cooking Grandmaster. That would be impossible at that level. No one knew everything about a Grandmaster ranked skill. But he WAS probably the most thoroughly studied and learned chef at that rank in the universe. He was a savant, and more importantly, an obsessive, and his memories flooded into me, driving me forward with an almost psychotic passion for food preparation.

The first thing I noticed about being in a kitchen when I was inhabited by Cooking (Cook for short because I liked to give my demons person sounding names), was that the way he viewed the world was just…different.

Ingredients stood out in a rainbow of colors, scents swirled together and apart in cascading riots of sensation that stitched complex illusions of delicious dishes across the backs of my eyelids. The whisper of sensation from fermentation, or heat, or a dozen other energy applications, drifted across my skin, and I could even taste the dishes I was envisioning on the air, like I was sampling possibilities yet to be.

The combination of all these inputs wove together, creating a cavalcade of flavor and Perception that played through the kitchen like a sonata of sensation, guiding me through all the recipes I could imagine like the steps to a dance I had memorized without realizing.

My hands flew as I pulled ingredients, pots, pans, and utensils from cupboards, some of them things I had no right to be locating so quickly. But the kitchen was Cook's domain, almost the same way Gehenna was mine, and with his unnatural skill, every cooking related task became child's play.

The exact moment to take something off a boil, the precise instant I needed to remove a dish from the oven, precisely when bread was finished proofing, or when I'd kneaded just enough for optimal gluten development, just by feel. I was so caught up in the actual ACT of cooking I didn't even realize I'd barely thought about what I was making. I'd been cooking for an hour or two by this point, and there was a large flock of children standing at the entrance of the kitchen, watching me work as Sister Chloe appeared to try to shepherd them away.

"Oh, hello," I said sheepishly. "The food is almost ready. We're having…" I looked down at the spread scattered across the counter. "Breakfast for dinner."

Waffles, pancakes, grits, eggs, country fried steak, bacon, sausage, hash browns, potato pancakes, croissants I'd apparently baked fresh, muffins, danishes, cinnamon rolls, biscuits and gravy, omelettes, and even a few quiches. I had gone all out on breakfast, and I was REALLY glad there were so many children, because I was positive even my absurd stomach couldn't hold this much food.

Come to think of it, I don't think I'd KNOWN there were kids here, though thinking about it for more than a second it made perfect sense. The Order of Mercy were exactly the kind of people who would take in orphans. Not for any nefarious reasons, but because being orphaned was a very real pain, and I couldn't imagine Bernadette not wanting to reach out to those kids to let them know they weren't hurting alone. I could tell from their excited smiles and chipper attitudes that they were well cared for, and that was really all I needed to know.

Chloe giggled as she looked over the spread. "It seems like you really love breakfast." She turned to the kids. "Children, how about we help Mr. Mephistopheles carry all the food out to the dining room. Salma, Declan, you two can set the table." Her face lit up. "Oh, we can eat on the good plates since we have guests. Where are those? Up in the attic? I think I left my gardening gloves in the attic, actually. I wonder how the petunias are doing?" She turned and wandered off towards what I assumed was the garden, muttering to herself about flowers.

The two kids she'd singled out chuckled, and the rest of them started grabbing food and carrying it out of the kitchen. Declan, the boy, a red haired kid who looked about twelve, grinned wryly at me. "Sorry about the Sister, sir. She can be a bit scattered, but she's a lovely person."

"I noticed," I grinned as I picked up a casserole dish of layered potatoes and bacon. "But yeah, she seems like a nice lady. Actually, I was going to go get a friend of mine to eat with us, she's waiting outside, can you go let Sister Bernadette know?" I wasn't willing to leave Dayna stuck in Gehenna while I enjoyed delicious food, and now that we were inside the priory I didn't think it would be an issue to let her out.

Declan nodded, darting into the dining room to deposit a basket of muffins before scampering off to find Bernadette. Meanwhile, I stepped into a side alcove and accessed Gehenna. Dayna appeared almost instantly, but the almost was interesting, because there had been a slight delay. I cocked my head. "You busy or something? I can send you back if you want?"

She blinked at me before shaking her head. "Not at all. I was simply speaking with Agares about some of his artistic musings. He's quite the expert designer, and he's given me many useful ideas about directions to take my tattooing."

I blinked, because that hadn't been something I was expecting. I wondered what they'd talked about, but I figured she'd tell me if she wanted me to know. "I was just about to tuck into dinner. I put together a huge feast for the kids here, and there's plenty to go around. Thought you might be hungry."

As I got to know Dayna, I was able to read her better and better. Before our trip, I'd have assumed she was being polite or didn't care, given how she shrugged as she said "I suppose it couldn't hurt." Now that I knew her better though, I could tell that she was actively excited to try the food, and the little glint in her eye told me I'd made the right call inviting her.

When we got back to the dining room, Bernadette was already there. She raised an eyebrow at Dayna, but was used to seeing me travel with friends so it didn't seem to be too big a surprise to her. If anything, the fact that Dayna was C-rank seemed to spark some momentary interest, but she moved on from that fast. She smiled at my elf friend. "Ah, a visitor! Mephistopheles mentioned you'd be joining us, though admittedly later than I'd have liked. He DID cook dinner though, so I suppose I can forgive him an unexpected guest. I'm Sister Bernadette, the prioress of this place, welcome to Our Lady of Perpetual Torment."

Dayna nodded solemnly. "Thank you for the warm welcome. I am Dayna, a friend of Mephistopheles."

Bernadette then proceeded to ring in dinner (after sending one of the kids to go find Chloe and bring her back from wherever she'd ended up). The rest of us began eating, and I had to admit even I was shocked at how good the food turned out. I hadn't had any particularly high tier ingredients to work with, but Cook had made the most of what I did have, and he seemed to know exactly how best to manifest the most exquisite application of every ingredient, and how to mix them together in a way that made them more than the sum of their parts to boot.

We all tore into the food like hungry ghosts, no one bothering to talk or use our mouths for anything but shoveling more food into. By the time it was over, the kids looked like they'd been hit with a plague, and Bernadette sent them all off to bed early with a laugh as they groaned and patted their stomachs, creaking out of the room like miniature old timers from overeating.

She leaned back with a satisfied sigh. "You DO have a gift for making food, Shane." She paused. "I assume your friend here knows your real name?"

"She does," I acknowledged with a laugh. "And thank you for not making a bigger deal of her presence. I didn't want to leave her out of dinner. I'm glad you enjoyed the food though, have you given any more thought to what we discussed?"

Humming, she nodded her head in thought. "I have. To tell you the truth, I had already made up my mind some time ago. I was waiting for dinner, however, to see how you interacted with the children. You can tell quite a bit about a person by seeing how they treat those weaker than themselves." I blinked in surprise, and she laughed. "I know. My demeanor here and when I'm out on assignment are a bit different. Responsibility will do that. I can be a bit more free spirited when I'm guiding new recruits."

Her grin told me she knew exactly how amusing that was for US, and didn't much care. I didn't begrudge her a little teasing, given how much fun I had tormenting my own apprentice. It was the circle of education, after all.

"Well," I said with a wry smile. "Don't keep me in suspense. Are you going to help?"

She snorted. "I'd have thought that much was obvious. Yes. I'll help. I can't get you an audience with the goddess, but I have certain contacts who might be able to help. I'll reach out and do my best to convince them."

I grinned, holding out my hand for her to shake. "Well, then I guess all that's left to say is welcome to the team Bernadette. We're either going to save the universe or die trying. But if I have anything to say about it, this war will end as soon as possible." I could feel the blaze of hope kindling in my gut. We might really pull this off.

As we settled in to try to plan our next steps, I couldn't help but look around the priory in awe. This just reinforced what I'd already been feeling. The vanished gods and their worlds were just as capable of caring and kindness as the six. These people were worth saving just like mine, and I was going to do my damnedest to make that happen. As for the Void…well, they'd better stay out of my way, because anyone that tried to stop me from ending this war was going to be removed with extreme enthusiasm. Nothing was going to get in my way.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"So, who are we supposed to talk to now?" I asked Bernadette as she, Dayna, and I sipped hot chocolate in the priory library. "You mentioned a contact who could help, right? Who might that be?" I didn't understand much about the arrangement of the Lady's forces, even at this point. I knew Bernadette was a nun and in the Order of Mercy, but I didn't know if she was part of a subfaction, or if the whole order was a religious organization.

Given the actual goddess involved, there was a decent chance, but I wasn't going to assume anything going into this. In order to give us the best chance at completing our mission, I had to be as flexible as possible.

"There's a…place," she said vaguely. "Where I used to go. I have a friend there. He's got quite a bit of influence in certain circles."

I raised an eyebrow. "So…he's a criminal?"

"What?" she asked in a high pitched voice. "That's crazy, why would you ask something like that?"

"Because whenever people are really vague about things like this they're always talking about something illegal," I said bluntly. "Which to be clear I absolutely DO NOT care about. This isn't my world, I have zero regard for the laws here. But I just wanted to be open about it because it seems like it would save us a lot of time not having to dance around the obvious."

She gave me a flat look. "It is considered good manners," she said haughtily. "To leave some things unspoken."

"I don't really have time for good manners," I said apologetically. "Like I'm not going to be a dick for no reason, but I'm trying to stop a war so politics kind of need to be kept to a minimum, at least needless ones." Dayna glared at me, and I cleared my throat. "But hey, thanks again for helping us out with this. Super grateful."

That got a sharp laugh from her. "I forgot how blunt you can be. You're lucky I prefer people who are up front." She sighed, standing up. "But fine, you're right. No time for niceties. Let's head out. I want to be back before the children wake up later." She looked us over with a pensive look. "Can't have you running around like that though, one moment."

She left, returning a minute later with a pair of large cloaks. "Here, put these on."

We did, and I blinked in surprise at the B-ranked cloaks. They didn't feel like they were really DOING anything, they were just…B-rank. I cocked my head at Bernadette. "These are interesting. What exactly are they?"

"Substitution smocks," she said with a chuckle. "There are many methods of disguise in the Void, but equally numerous methods of piercing concealment. There was kind of a Perception arms race for a few centuries a millennia back, until someone invented THESE. They're a unique answer to the problem of concealment. Anonymity through obviousness. The smocks are designed with a special enchantment that amplifies Impact and presence. Not for any useful purpose, but just to make it as loud and obvious as possible."

My eyes widened. "So anyone who looks at us will see the smock and not the person under it. If everyone wears these…"

"Yup," she said brightly. "They're standard issue. Everyone in the city with any real influence has one. They're only nominally B-rank, so they're not much of a strain even for D-rankers, and they don't really DO anything except be loud and obvious, so they're relatively cheap for such a powerful item. Go ahead and put them on."

We did, and I was surprised how little trouble I had using them. With a Domain, I didn't expect to be unable to bear the weight, especially since my staff was B-rank, but I'd figured I'd at least FEEL it. This felt like basically nothing though.

Once we had the cloaks on, Bernadette nodded with satisfaction and gestured for us to follow. "Stick close, this is a long trip, and the route is treacherous."

She turned and led us out of the priory. We followed close behind, which was good, because she hadn't been kidding about the route. Bernadette took off at a brisk walk, almost a jog, heading down the street and vanishing into an alley. We kept up because of her warning, but I was surprised by how skillfully she navigated the area.

At the end of the alley, she ducked under a low hanging outcropping, headed down a flight of stairs and down a second alley, then walked a hundred feet south before stopping at a storm drain. She reached down, grabbed the bars, and hauled up and out before twisting and pushing the drain back in. The whole facade collapsed inward, unfolding into a set of metal spiral stairs. She descended them quickly, not looking back, and we followed her down.

Once we reached the bottom, a quick kick retracted the steps and they snapped back up into a storm drain shape and reset themselves. Then she led us through the storm drain system, along winding paths marked with guttering candles and complicated painted symbols. Finally, we came to a door.

She knocked four times, then two, then waited and tapped out a series of seven beats. There was a long pause and the door opened a crack. She nodded to the eye that peered out. "I'm here to talk to Wesley."

The man grunted, shutting the door and then unfastening a chain before opening it back up and gesturing us in.

We stepped inside, and I was intrigued to find that we were standing in a pub. Or rather, something LIKE a pub. It was a sewer platform, surrounded by pools of semi stagnant water only interrupted by waterfalls of filthy liquid. The water was all lurid green, but if didn't smell like anything, which I assumed was some kind of enchantment.

The tables along the platform were old and worn, hammered together from driftwood by the looks of it, as was the large bar at the far end, with a weathered sign above it reading "The Prisoner's Chance".

As soon as we stepped inside, everything stopped. Literally. Not like people went quiet, not like they put down their drinks. They STOPPED. Froze on the spot like they were mice being watched by a hungry snake. Bernadette looked around at them coldly. "Where is he?" It took a moment, but a few of them pointed to the far end of the platform, nearest the bar. A small table with only a single occupant sitting at it, shuffling a deck of cards.

Bernadette sat down across from the man. "Hello Wes," she said softly. "It's been a while."

He continued to shuffle, not looking up. "Hello Bernie. Ninety years or so, since I last saw your face. Here for a favor, I take it?"

"I couldn't just be here because I missed you?" she asked sweetly. He just kept shuffling."Alright fine," she pouted. "Yes. I need a favor. But it's not just for me. It's important. Will you hear me out at least?"

He started laying out the cards. "I don't know," he said slowly. "Let's find out. Flip one."

Bernadette sighed. "Do we need to do this?" He just stared at her, face impassive. She reached for a card, but I caught her hand.

"No," I said suddenly. "That one," I nodded to the one all the way to the left of the row of five. She raised an eyebrow but shrugged, reaching to flip it over. The image on the card showed a young man, merrily prancing down a road, holding a flower in one hand a stick with a bindle on it over the other.

"The Fool," she said thoughtfully.

"Well now," said Wesley. "Isn't that INTERESTING? The Fool symbolizes new beginnings, and taking a leap of faith. A destiny approached with optimism and conviction for a better tomorrow. What a fortuitous selection." He snatched up the card, along with all the others, and began shuffling again. "The cards have spoken, I suppose. Say your piece, Bernie."

She looked around. "Could we get some privacy?" she asked quietly. "This is sensitive."

He smiled, then rifled through the deck. Picking out a card, he slapped it down on the table. "The World," he intoned with gravitas. There was a sort of…weight, and the image of a planet superimposed itself on the space around us, sealing the nearby area. He nodded. "We won't be overheard," he promised. "You may proceed."

She shot a look at me, clearly unsure how much to say. I decided to take over. "My name is Shane Wyndham," I told him bluntly. "I'm a diplomat representing the Wish Curse Palace. I'm here to propose a treaty that might end the war, but the Void beat us here. We need to get in to see the Lady without alerting them." I shared my name, but not my position. I doubted he knew who I was at this point, and even if he HAD heard my name, Shane wasn't exactly a unique thing to be called.

He blinked at me curiously. "Are you?" he asked with interest. Flipping through the deck, he dropped another card. "Justice," he said authoritatively. "Now, say that again." I repeated myself, and the image on the card, a woman with a blindfold, held up a pair of scales. The scales rocked back and forth for a moment, weighing a heart on one side and a feather on the other, but eventually the feather descended, leaving the heart up high.

"So you are," he said jovially. "Good intentions. Not the be all end all, but certainly they don't hurt."

He hummed, staring at me for a moment, then pulled out another card and set it down. "Wheel of Fortune," he announced grandly. On the card, the image of a wheel began to spin. It whirled faster and faster, spinning so quickly the picture blurred, until, eventually, it slowed down and then stopped. He studied the symbols on the wheel, which I couldn't make heads or tails of, and nodded inscrutably.

"Alright," he said finally. "The cards say it's a risk worth taking. I'll get you a meeting. It won't be immediate, though. Not if you want to avoid the emissary. I know about their visit, and the Lady is entertaining them personally. It'll be three more nights before I can find an opening to get you in to see her."

Bernadette sighed tiredly. "And let me guess, before that time comes, you have a quick errand you need us to run."

He grinned at her. "You DO still know me. Yes. But it's nothing nefarious. I had a slight disagreement with a member of a rival faction, and one of my cards just happened to wind up planted in his home. It destroyed it, in fact, but the lucky b- I mean poor unfortunate soul wasn't home for some reason. He found the card and squirreled it away to use as evidence in a case he's trying to build against me. For obvious reasons, I don't prefer that come to pass."

I sighed. Why did everyone I wanted something from ask me to STEAL something for them? Did I just have a thief face? Well, I wore a blank wooden mask, so maybe that WAS the problem. Either way, this wasn't too objectionable. The card was his, after all, even if he'd apparently used it to try to assassinate a guy. It hadn't worked anyway, so I wasn't feeling too conflicted about getting it back for him. I was sure he had other cards that could do the same thing anyway, they seemed versatile.

Bernadette snorted, seeing me nod my subtle agreement. "Fine, we'll get the card back for you, but you better hold up your end."

"Oh, Bernie," he said sadly. "I've never broken my vows to you. Not even once." I blinked at the phrasing, reading into it a not inconsiderable amount, but it got no response. Bernadette, apparently, had nothing to say to that.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I didn't know Sister Bernadette that well. She'd always struck me as a ditzy good natured devotee of the goddess, with a strong sense of responsibility I'd only recently started to see, and a good sense of humor. More recently added to my list of Bernadette's traits? An explosive temper.

"RAT BASTARD!" she roared, hurling a full sized metal dumpster across the alley with a snarl of rage. The receptacle smashed into the brick of the building wall, shaking free a could of dust as the ground shook beneath our feet. "This is just like him! This is why we're separated, you know? He always has to get his way, and if you don't agree with him, he'll dupe you into doing it anyway. Even his own brother wasn't immune to it. Poor Dexter."

I vaguely remembered her mentioning a brother in law back on Rackham, though not really in what context. I winced at the tired sadness in her voice. "Hey, I get it's not great, but this is a pretty standard request for people who want stuff from me. It's not so bad."

She pinched the bridge of her nose. "I'm sorry. He just…he STILL makes me crazy. Even after all these years. And then he has the AUDACITY to act like he did nothing wrong. 'I always keep my vows to you Bernie'" She sneered that last one in an abnormally low voice that I considered a terrible impersonation of Wesley (not that I was stupid enough to say that).

"So…do you know anything about this Maxis guy?" I asked slowly. "Because if we're robbing him-"

"Maxis Velsarian is the current Lord Commander of the Order of Abomination," she said tightly. "His lodge is located in the middle of Abomination Alley, which is a special district SPECIFICALLY for members of the order."

I blinked at her in horror. "Is that…is that even a task we can accomplish?" I'd met exactly one member of that Order, and he'd scared the shit out of me. Unless I just happened to run into their boss out in the wilderness, I was guessing Mazis was MUCH worse. Even I had limits, and this sounded like it might be beyond them."

"We can't," she confirmed. "At least, not in the traditional way. But we DO have options. He proposed this "test" because he knew that I had a connection to Maxis."

I raised an eyebrow at her. "Oh? You know him?"

"No," she said with a sigh. "But Chloe does. Exceptionally well, in fact. He's her father. She could get us in to see him."

I blinked at her. "Ok…but will she? That seems like a big ask."

"Bigger than you might think," she murmured. She turned, heading down the alley back towards the priory. "Chloe is…complicated. Part of the reason her mother indulged her desire to join the Witless is because she's a bit special. She has a unique soul physique called a Gemini Soul Body. Basically, she's two people in one body. Except it's more than just a split personality. The stat distribution of the two halves of her soul is WILDLY different. Deanna, her 'sister', is almost entirely specialized in Focus. She's prickly and sarcastic and fanatically protective of Chloe."

"That's certainly interesting," I said slowly. "But I don't understand-"

She sighed. "Chloe is her mother's little girl. They're very close. But Deanna is closer to their father. Unfortunately, she almost never comes out, and she hates everyone except her parents and sister. If we want to get in to see Maxis, we're not going to need Chloe's help. We're going to need Deanna's." Her tone was grim, and I could tell based on her expression that it wasn't going to be an easy thing to pull off.

We started going over the details, and came up with a rough plan. I'd sneak in with Deanna and split off to locate the card. Once I got it I'd either escape on my own, or if the security was too tight, join back up with her on the way out.

Of course, this was assuming we could get her help.

The issue was that because of her stat distribution (being almost entirely based in Focus), Deanna was EXCEPTIONALLY stubborn. Unlike Chloe, who was constantly distracted and wandering off, Deanna committed like a rabid animal when she got her jaws in something. She'd pursue the same task until it killed her without thinking twice.

Which meant that first impressions were CRUCIAL with her. I was going to get exactly one chance to sway her to our side. If I couldn't convince her in our first meeting, her involvement was basically guaranteed to be off the table.

So naturally, I asked Bernadette to tell me more about the twins and their lives, and I had to admit, it was a fascinating story. Chloe and Deanna's parents were basically mortal enemies. They weren't exactly violently competitive, but they were decidedly rivals. Despite Maxis being A-rank and Chloe's mother being S, they had maintained a regular antagonism for most of the girl's lives without it ever boiling over into unhealthy friction. For whatever values of that you could find in a family who worshipped a torture goddess.

The result of this was the girls being shuffled back and forth between the orders of mercy and abomination throughout their lives, which had had the side effect of their radically different stat builds.

Deanna spent more time with Maxis, who had built the Order of Abomination up from almost nothing and was considered a strategic and complex thinker. Chloe, meanwhile spent more time with their mother, who was notable for being incisive and nearly impossible to deceive, a reputation she had quickly glommed onto herself.

Bernadette had gotten all of this from Chloe herself, because the girl LOVED to talk and was easy to prompt given her tendency to get distracted mid conversation. She'd actually only MET Deanna once or twice, because the thoughtful sister preferred to let Chloe keep control most of the time.

Ultimately though, after listening to her speak for a while, I realized that I was massively overcomplicating things.

Becoming the Wishmaster had made me responsible for so much, I was trying to put my most faction leader-y foot forward at all times. But this wasn't a job for Solomon the Wishmaster. This was a job for Shane Wyndham, twin brother.

So I went to see Chloe, finding her in a chapel near the back of the priory lighting candles on a shrine. I stepped up next to her, not speaking at first, letting her finish her task. "Hiya," she said brightly, without looking up. "Can I help you with something?" Her tone was guileless, and listening to it, I was even more sure I was doing this the right way.

"Can I tell you a story?" I asked, sitting down on the ground next to her.

She beamed at me. "Sure, I'm always happy to listen to a friend." She looked around, and the look of pure joy on her face was dazzling. She LOVED it here. Truly loved it in the way you can only love something you really believe in.

"When I was born, I inherited a bloodline from my dad," I started, after deciding how to begin. "It was a strong one, and it obligated me to certain…responsibilities. My dad was from a big clan, and they were important, and from the moment I inherited their gift, my future was kind of decided for me in some ways."

She hummed. "That sounds like a lot to put on a kid."

I waved a hand. "I didn't know about it until later, though in some ways that made it a bit harder.The point is, while I inherited the gifts from my dad's family, my twin sister, Chelsea, did NOT."

Her expression stilled, eyes locking on the flames of a nearby candle like the fire could anchor her shaken mentality. "Chelsea inherited a bloodline ability from my mother's side of the family. In fact, she inherited TWO of them. One was a particularly noticeable power that we weren't supposed to have at all, and the existence of both sets of abilities in one set of twins made it clear that one of my parents was a blood relative to someone they were NOT supposed to be related to.

"In order to prevent people from taking notice, it was decided that we would be split up," I continued. "My mom took my sister to live with her family, galaxies away from me. My dad was supposed to raise me himself, but he's not very hands on. He left the job to my uncle Zeke, and I grew up the next best thing to an orphan, unaware I even HAD a twin sister."

She turned to look at me warily. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I've known my sister for all of two years, and I couldn't live without her," I said solemnly. "She's one of the most important people in the world to me. There's just a connection with a twin that it's impossible to describe to someone who hasn't experienced it. It's like trying to tell someone what it's like to have an arm.

That got a chuckle from the nun. "I get that," she said slowly. "Which I suspect you KNOW, or you wouldn't have told me this story. The question is what does all this have to do with me."

"I need your help," I told her sincerely. "Yours AND your sister's. To help MY twin. And my wife. And my parents. To help a whole lot of people who mean everything to me, and a lot more people I don't even know. And ultimately, I think, to help YOU.

"Telling you this is a risk," I said carefully. "But it's one I feel like I need to take. Because you deserve to know what exactly I'm asking. What the stakes are and what you're risking. I'm involved in something big and dangerous and I'm probably going to piss off some very scary people, and I'm asking you to at least nominally take part in that. It might not cause you any problems at all. But I don't feel right keeping the possibility from you."

This felt right. Azazel, my Fate Sense, my bond with my wife, all of them were telling me this was what I was supposed to do. Chloe was a kind person, and her sister cared about her family. They deserved the chance to make their decisions with full knowledge of the gravity of what I was asking.

So I told her. Not everything, but most of it. I told her who I was, why I was here, and what I wanted to do. I told her what I needed from her and her sister, and what it might cost, and who she might be upsetting.

At some point during the conversation, I looked up into unfamiliar hazel eyes set in a similar but different face surrounded by jet black hair, surprised at the change. Deanna (because who else would it be?) stared at me hard for a minute. I half expected her to mock me. To spit in my face and tell me I was an idiot.

Instead, she just stared into my eyes for a minute. Then two. And finally she sighed. "Fine," she said shortly, her smile tight. "Just once. I'll help you just this once. Because Chloe wants me to. And because you could have tried to manipulate her like most people. Tried to manipulate both of us. But you chose to just come out and ask. I don't know if that's stupid or genuinely decent. Hell, maybe it's both. But if you're really the leader of your whole faction, you're not any kind of faction leader I've ever heard of. I guess that's worth the benefit of the doubt."

I grinned back at her, even if she couldn't see it, and laughed aloud in delight. In my head, the silvery ringing laughter of my wife was accompanied by a swell of pride and affection, and a warmth in my heart that was just as much my own pride as hers. Deanna was right. I wasn't like any of the other Wishmasters. And if I had a say, I never would be.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Abomination Alley was surprisingly tidy. I had expected it to be dilapidated and gloomy, and while it WAS gloomy, it was clear the people here were fastidious about upkeep and maintaining their properties. The result was a sort of kitschy edge lord suburb aesthetic that didn't suit the god world at all, but succeeded in making the whole place look like a relatively nice place to live. "This isn't what I expected," I admitted to Deanna as we stood across from a tall, thin house with a gabled roof.

"Expectations are useless things," she said with a shrug. "Reality either fails to meet them, causing disappointment, or succeeds in meeting them, and the most you can muster is contentment."

"Anyone ever tell you that you're a gloomy person?" I asked her wryly.

She nodded. "Many people. Similarly, many people have informed me that I violently overreact to criticism. Of course, those people are mostly dead now, so I feel like their opinions carry far less weight."

I honestly couldn't tell if that was a joke or not, so I chose to ignore it. "Do you have a way to carry me inside past the security?"

"I have a Domain," she confirmed. "Or rather, my sister and I share a Domain. Entering it may be a slightly unnerving experience, for reasons that will become apparent. Are you ready to be stored?"

"I don't LOVE that description," I said slowly. "Will it matter that I have my own Domain?"

She shook her head. "As long as you don't project it inside mine, it should be perfectly fine. Are you ready to become cargo?"

"You're doing that on purpose," I accused. "But sure, go ahead."

I felt a sort of ripple, and within moments the world around me changed. I found myself…somewhere. It was a large, cartoonish hall. The building was situated at a strange angle, seeming to almost wave as it ascended. Black and while alternating patterns coated every surface, with the white sections being white marble veined in gold, and the black sections being what looked like some kind of obsidian scales.

I wanted to poke around a bit, but before I could really explore much, I felt a slight shift again and was suddenly standing inside of a closet. I blinked. When I realized that was it, I shrugged and triggered Murmur, upgraded to B-rank with the staff. Then I waited.

Ten minutes passed, and I sat with my eyes closed, focusing on Azazel, waiting for…there. I stood, pushed open the door, then peeked out to check once more if anyone was there. When I confirmed I was alone, I stepped out, closed the door behind me, and headed up the stairs just outside the closet.

Downstairs, I could hear the mutter of conversation from Deanna and her dad, though I didn't pay too much attention to it. I had a job to do.

"Are you robbing someone?" asked my wife's voice wryly in my head. "And how messed up is it that I have enough experience with your mental state when robbing someone that I can tell when it's happening based on your emotions?"

"I am NOT robbing someone," I argued. "I'm retrieving someone's property for them. The person who sent me is the rightful owner of the item."

There was an amused pause. "And?" she prompted, knowing there was more.

Stepping into a long hallway, I felt some kind of detection field brush my pseudo Domain. I stepped into an alcove, slipping behind a marble plinth with a bust on it, settling in to let Murmur digest the environment. "And the owner MIGHT have tried to use to it assassinate the person I'm stealing it from. Which is impressive, really, since the owner is B-rank and the target is A."

A small, spectral doll drifted past, button eyes scanning the hallway as its head shifted back and forth. I sat completely still. Waiting. Finally, the doll passed. "Shane?" Callie asked worriedly. "What was that? And PLEASE tell me you didn't just admit to being in the process of robbing an A-ranker. Are you insane?"

"By most definitions," I admitted cheerfully. "But not because of this. Don't worry about it. We have an inside woman. Even if I got caught, her presence should help me get out mostly unscathed. And I'm not planning to get caught. I just evaded a patrol."

I got a feeling of fond exasperation through the bond. "Fine. Be careful, would you? I'm too young to be a widow."

My head suddenly felt…empty. Like a house that had no one else home. I shook off the momentary loss, then followed the directions down the hall until I came to a door. Closing my eyes, I incarnated Dan, boosting him to B-rank. Then I stood still, examining the door with all my senses. Finally, I tapped into Agares, pulling a few stones from my ring and reshaping them into a pair of refined lockpicks.

It took me about twenty seven seconds to pick the lock, and I pushed the door open and slipped in hurriedly just as another of those dolls came around the corner.

The door didn't make a sound as it clicked shut, Murmur preventing it, and I made my way across the room quietly, head on a swivel for any sign of security. I wasn't TOO worried. This was Maxis's bedroom, and almost no one would bother to trap their own room, especially when there was already a defensive strategy in place here. Sure enough, the room was empty, and I found no trace of security until we reached the closet and levered up the floor panel covering the safe I'd come for.

Closing my eyes, I released the incarnation, then summoned Agares and Dan. I still had Murmur going, so they were protected for the moment, and I nodded to the safe. "Alright, Dan, you map the thing out, Gary, you work with him to get it open. I'll cover you two while you work."

I'd also be playing lookout. Murmur made me an excellent lookout, because in order to erase traces of us for stealth, I had to PERCEIVE everything that was happening within a fairly large area. Stepping up to the door, I cracked it slightly and peered outside. Nothing so far. I closed it and dedicated a parallel to watching for patrols, then headed back over to the safe, kneeling down next to it to watch my demons work.

I had to admit it was fascinating to watch. Dan was analyzing the inner layout of the safe slowly, sketching out the details on a large piece of slate that Gary had created for him. As he scratched lines into the slate, the green glow of toxic magma leaked out, just like usual, making everything easily visible as he traced out complex mechanisms.

And they WERE complex. "How the hell are there that many parts in there?" I whispered as I stared at the blueprints. The construction of the safe's internals was made of thousands on tiny interlocking mechanical pieces, each one machined to absolute precision based on the artwork. Gears, levers, belts, runes, the whole thing was a work of art, perfectly balanced between form and function.

"Spatial expansion," he said absently as he sketched. "It's actually brilliant. The clockwork is spatially anchored. It's reminiscent of some of the dungeons we've seen. Any attempt to force the mechanism would shatter the space and drop the contents into the Void. Not a relative point to this world, either. Just a random Void spot. You need a stable world to construct a defensive emplacement like this."

I nodded. Mad Madigan had been famous for making similar constructs back on Callus. Abel had commissioned one under the circus he owned with his brother to store the WCP's deed to their territory. Infiltrating it had been one of the very first encounters I'd had with my mentor in his real form (as opposed to the eccentric sausage seller he'd been masquerading as). Obviously, this particular security system was much more advanced than that, but I got the gist.

Dan continued to sketch for several minutes, not just two dimensional renderings, either. He had Gary craft him a few blocks of stone and actually carved them into rough three dimensional models to demonstrate how some of the construct's parts fit together. "Alright, I think I've got it," he said after about a half hour of deduction. "There were several false starts. If I wasn't able to see the history and underlying user data of objects, this wouldn't have worked. Whoever made this set quite a few traps."

I clapped him on the shoulder. "Luckily knowledge is power. Though I'm surprised they don't have any defenses for this."

"This is a mass produced safe model," he clarified. "It's a brilliant high end design. But computational and analytical meta powers are extremely rare. It wouldn't be cost effective or economical in terms of power use to dedicate resources to countering such a niche problem. In design terms, it would be like cutting corners on your structural underpinnings to make your safe impervious to being opened by people whose names start with the letter Q. Undoubtedly useful in cases of Q based intrusions, but functionally pointless about 99.9% of the time."

I nodded in understanding. "And I imagine that actually DESIGNING defenses like that wouldn't be easy either."

"Or cheap," he agreed. "Like I said, computational and analytical meta powers are rare. In order to design a countermeasure you'd most likely need to find someone that HAS such a power, hire them to create countermeasures for their own ability, and then mass produce that. No one with any common sense would agree to such a task without enormous compensation. But we're getting off track. Agares, follow my directions exactly, and we should be out of here soon."

The big bearded man nodded, raising his hands, and a series of stones he pulled from the Domain through me manifested in the air, slowly melting into a sort of floating tar. Dan began to sketch out diagrams, slowly coaching him through the creation of a series of constructs designed to counter or bypass the security mechanics of the safe.

Finally, after an entire hour (which was decent time for a B-ranker to figure out how to bypass an A-rank safe), the safe clicked open. I reached inside, pulling out a small black case. Pulling it open, I peeked inside, seeing the card I wanted. I stood up, ready to leave…and then stopped. The safe wasn't EMPTY. There were a few things inside. I shook off the impulse to take more. Who knew if he had some kind of tracking mechanism installed on his other stuff. Finding the card once we returned it wouldn't be complicated, but that would be Wesley's problem. I nodded to the demons and they closed and reset the safe, then I pulled them back into the Domain.

It took me about ten minutes to slowly make my way back down to the closet and slip inside, and then I spent an hour under Murmur, becoming more and more imperceptible. Finally, I heard noise outside. "Goodbye, father," Deanna said blankly. "It was an enjoyable visit. Perhaps I will return."

I was standing exactly where I had been before, and I didn't resist or hide as Deanna's Domain swallowed me up, depositing me back inside the monochrome hall. Finally, about ten minutes later, I was deposited outside in the street. "Did you succeed?" Deanna asked with interest.

Holding up the black package, I smiled. "Mission accomplished. Now I just have to get this back to Wesley. Thank you. Truly. I know this was a big risk for you, and it means a lot that you agreed to help." I held out a hand, and she took it and shook solemnly. "You should get back, don't want to be linked to this when he eventually notices it's gone." She agreed, and we parted ways. Now I had my in to speak to the goddess, I just had to wait for Wesley to make it happen. Oddly, I was pretty sure the METHOD he was going to use wasn't going to be anything as direct as making an appointment. I had a feeling the problems were just beginning.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Wesley was waiting for us when we arrived. I wasn't sure if he had predicted our arrival with his cards or just had good lookouts, but I didn't care that much either. I'd gotten him his card back, and now he owed me his help. Bernadette didn't come with us this time, saying it was unnecessary and that my results might be better without her, but I HAD let Dayna out and brought my friend with me as backup.

When I passed him the black package, he took it gingerly, almost reverently, and as he slowly slid the card out, I could have sworn he looked almost afraid. As if he was worried it might vanish again.

"So, where did you get those cards?" I asked, noting the strange intensity.

He smiled softly. "Bernie made them for me. She painted them the week before our wedding. I've had them enchanted, upgraded, and altered, but I've never even considered changing to another set. They're the most precious thing I own."

I raised an eyebrow at that. "That's…interesting to hear. Her opinion of you isn't exactly complimentary."

He chuckled, his eyes sad. "Bernie is a devout believer in the church. She truly believes that the only reason to ever cause pain is to deepen mutual understanding and to help others grow. When I was younger, I made a mistake. I hurt someone very important to both of us. Not to help them, but because I was jealous and stupid. Lashing out in anger and hurting someone I was supposed to take care of was a betrayal of everything my wife stood for. She never forgave me."

I could smell the truth of that statement. He really meant it. Of course, I had learned from dealing with Roland that sometimes what people didn't say was more important than the truth of what they did. I knew better than to just take his word for it.

Anyway, none of this was really my business. I'd been kind of curious, but I had my own marriage to take care of, I didn't have time to get involved in someone else's. "So," I said, changing the subject. "You can get me in to see the Lady? If you plan to back out, I have to say I'll be disappointed."

He chuckled. "Of course, my word is my bond. But whether you can see her or not, I can't say. I can only create an opportunity. Since you can't go in through the front door, we'll need to take a road less traveled. Or rather, travel alongside others. You mentioned the Lady's other visitors. Well, one of her generals is welcoming them. Sheridan Dreykon is the driving force behind the push to ally with the Void, and he's putting his best food forward. Which, of course, means a lavish gala."

"And the Lady will be there?" I was surprised to hear their goddess just showed up at parties.

"Gods no," he laughed. "But it's being held inside the castle, which means it's an opportunity for entry. Once you're inside it'll be up to you. I can get you access, however." He glanced at Dayna. "Both of you. I have an associate who operates a catering company. They won the bid to cater the event, and you two can slip in with the wait staff."

I blinked. "Oh…ok. I mean, I kind of assumed we would impersonate guests or steal an invitation or something."

"I like your optimism," he laughed. "But this is a high level social event. Anyone who shows up is going to be a notable figure in local political circles. No matter how good your disguise was, there will be S-rankers there. Someone is bound to suss you out. The best way to hide in plain sight is not to hide at all. If you're under stealth or concealment they can and will be pierced. If you simply attend as you are…"

Nodding slowly, I started warming to the idea. "Almost anyone who has seen pictures of me will recognize my mask, but I almost never take it off. I doubt anyone is publishing pictures of me face if they even have them. What would be the point? Same with Dayna. Nobody really knows her here. So you're saying we should just go as we are?"

The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. Nobody was going to bother individually studying the wait staff, and even if they did the chance of us being noticed here was minimal.

"So…will we need to actually serve food?" Dayna asked cautiously.

"Not at all," he assured her. "Just grab a few dishes and carry them around, and you can go basically anywhere. No one questions the help. Of course, this only applies within the cordoned off area where the party will be taking place. But then again, there are other ways to move around the castle once you're inside."

Reaching into his coat, he pulled out a small envelope. "The inside of the castle is, as you might assume, quite large. And where there's expansive space, there's someone whose job is to traverse it unnoticed."

"There are BUILDING specific smugglers?" I asked skeptically. Then I paused. "Actually no, that makes sense." Having seen the palace, where whole cities were stashed inside rooms, and the Lodge, with forests contained in wings, it actually made sense to have castle smugglers. "Can we trust these people?"

"Not even remotely," he said cheerfully. "But I can. This particular smuggler owes me quite a few favors. If you can make contact he'll help you access the behindways, the passage network that runs throughout the castle. It won't get you directly to the Lady, but it'll get you pretty close. From there you're on your own."

I nodded slowly. "That should be enough. The Lady knows me. Once I get close, I have faith she'll be open to seeing me." Of course, I doubted she'd reach out proactively. Gods always preferred to stand back and let the rest of us do the work. I didn't imagine a goddess of torment would be inclined to make the process of meeting with her easier.

After we finished our meeting with Wesley, we said our goodbyes and headed back to the priory. I left Dayna to wander around on her own, heading back to the chapel where I'd found Chloe earlier. She was lighting candles there, humming happily, and her expression brightened when she saw me. "Mr. Mephistopheles!" She said happily. "It's so nice to see you again!"

"Shane," I said with a laugh, taking off my mask. I was going to be changing into civilian clothes for the waiter gig anyway, and I really didn't want to reintroduce the nickname "Fist" back into regular circulation. I had absolutely no idea what I'd been thinking the last time. "My friends just call me Shane." I held out a hand, grinning widely. "And I consider anyone who helps me break into their own dad's house a friend."

She snorted in amusement. "That wasn't me, silly, that was my sister. But I do like making friends," she took my hand and shook it firmly. "It's nice to meet you, Shane."

"Same," I laughed. "I just wanted to thank you both again. We're going to be heading out to this big party in the next day or two, and I don't think we'll be back anytime soon. You helped us out a ton, and I can't thank you enough."

"The party at the castle?" she asked excitedly. "The one Uncle Sherry is throwing?"

I blinked at her. "If that's Sheridan, one of the Lady's generals, then yes, that one. Dayna and I are going to be entering as wait staff. So if you see us, be sure not to approach or anything. We're going in undercover."

"That's amazing!" she squealed excitedly. "I won't use your real name if I see you though. Do you have a fake name I can call you? I want to be undercover too."

I sighed. "No, because you aren't supposed to know me at all. If you call me a fake name that'll still draw attention to me. My name isn't the issue here. Just ignore Dayna and I if you see us." She stared at me, heartbroken, eyes watering slightly, and I sighed again. "How about…you give me a signal to let me know when you notice me. Like turn a piece of food on your plate forty five degrees. That way I'll know you spotted me, but no one else will be able to figure it out."

She clapped her hands excitedly. "Oh, and I can take three bites of it. One small, one big, and then another small. Like a code."

"Sure," I responded quickly. "That sounds perfect. Do you have any advice for us, just until we can slip away, we don't want to be too obvious." The better we could blend in the easier it would be to get lost in the crowd. It would be important to break line of sight in the most natural way possible so we didn't draw any suspicion. Our whole approach was based on flying under the radar.

"Well, there are a few people you should avoid," she cautioned. "Like Amelia, Lord Sheppard's daughter. She likes to try to trick the waiters into spilling things on her and then torture them in the middle of the dance floor for entertainment. And Caleb Brensen. He steals utensils and blames it on the servants. Or Dan Garrett. He likes to stab people." I stared at her, expecting that to have some sort of followup.

When nothing was forthcoming, I prompted her. "Stab people…who annoy him?" The blase way she mentioned it was slightly concerning, though this WAS Mourne Kayze, and if anyone was going to dismiss stabbings it would be the people who lived here.

"Nope," she clarified. "It's mostly random. We all try to give him space. His mother is an S-ranker so it's really our only option." It was almost funny how incredibly believable that was, despite the absurdity of the entire concept. I could easily see some rich second generation developing a fondness for knifing random people and not being called to task for it. Hell, maybe there was a league.

I made a mental note to weed out any uncontrollable stabbers in the WCP regardless of parentage, then put the guy's existence firmly out of my mind. Thanking Chloe, I headed up to the room I was staying in, an old abandoned bell tower that Bernadette had lent me while I was in town.

Once I got up there, I summoned the Nine Phoenix Reincarnation Art and went about working on my body tempering for the day. After my big jump in power, I wasn't due for another drop to condense anytime soon, but it was important to work on it a little bit every day. Enough drops of water can wear down a stone, after all.

By the time I finished, it was late and I was tired, I reached out to say goodnight to Callie like I always did before bed, then closed my eyes and tried to drift off to sleep. Sadly, rest didn't come easy, but it came eventually all the same. By the time I woke up the next morning and gathered all of my scrolls for the day, I was already completely refreshed and ready to take on the world. Bernadette knocked on my door in the morning with a note from Wesley, and when I checked it, I sighed in annoyance.

Apparently in order to maintain appearances, we had to actually INTERVIEW for the job with this catering company in our civilian attire. Changing out of my armor, I went down to cook breakfast and then pick up Dayna, and then we headed out to the catering company. Despite the ridiculousness of the task, I couldn't help but smile a little. After all, this WAS my first real job interview.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The day of the party arrived quickly enough. Three rounds of scroll stockpiling, counting the one I'd just done, and other than that I just spent the whole time cooking and getting to know the kids. Finally though, it was time for us to begin the operation. We headed down town to the catering company, changed into the uniforms they provided us, and climbed into a large, boxy metal truck full of ingredients.

"This shirt itches," Dayna complained. "And the tie feels like a small animal is choking me with its tail."

I raised a brow at her. "It's just clothes. You'll be fine."

Of course, she was right, the starched white shirt felt like it was full of ants, but I was a chosen of the Lady of Lamentations and I could take way more than this little bit of itching. I reveled in my iron self discipline for about twenty minutes (because it gave me something to focus on to keep from squirming) until the truck came to a stop.

Making sure none of the other wait staff were suspicious of us, Dayna and I stuck our heads out the side windows, examining the checkpoint we'd stopped out. Outside, a pair of armored guards were talking to the driver. "Papers?" one of them asked gruffly.

The driver held out a sheaf of documents. The guard took them, flipped through the pages, then handed them back. I spotted a glint as he did, and it became clear this wasn't just a routine stop, it was also a bribe. "Everything is in order," the guard said sternly. "Be sure to take the servant's corridors so as not to disturb the guests. Your insurance is paid up, but that won't save you if one of the high and mighties decides to take exception."

"Of course," said the driver cordially. "Say hello to the missus for me. Nice seeing you Arn."

The truck continued up the long, cobbled road to the castle entrance. We turned off into a back alley, circling around and into an underpass formed by some sort of cobbled bridge. We drove for another twenty or so minutes before finally pulling to a stop outside a large door. As we climbed out, I became aware that the underpass we'd drive through had, in fact, been the entrance to an indoor street system. We were officially inside the castle.

"Alright, all of you line up outside the truck," boomed the supervisor. "You, you, and you, you'll be carrying the ingredients. You and you, you'll sanitize the preparation area. You three, begin preparing the serving trays. Remember, style reigns supreme. Let the chef worry about taste, your job is to make the most aesthetically pleasing presentation possible. Refer to your design guides for inspiration."

I grimaced, reaching back to start lifting out boxes of crab. Just to make sure I was taking the right one, I opened the box to peek inside, and had to yank my hand back when my Danger Sense went off, barely avoiding a claw snapping shut on my hand.

Dayna, meanwhile, had been assigned to sanitization duty. We'd been planning to slip off immediately, but with each of us roped into a different task, we ended up working about an hour before we found an opening in the form of making the rounds with the perfectly constructed trays.

Of course, we needed to EMPTY the aforementioned trays before we could move unnoticed, and that took another twenty minutes.

We saw Chloe with a woman who resembled her strongly, chatting with a few friends. When she spotted me she took a series of small bites of the melon slice on her plate and shifted it clockwise. That made me chuckle. Finally we disengaged, slipping into an alcove, and then extricated ourselves from the ballroom where the party was being held directly.

Once we were outside, I was able to trigger Murmur (cranked up to B-rank) and we began the slow process of acclimating as we made our way to the meeting spot for the smuggler. Or at least, we WERE doing that, until I realized we were about to stumble on a pair of people. Blinking, I grabbed Dayna, pulling her behind a pillar, making sure I was close enough to hear the conversation.

You might ask WHY I decided to eavesdrop on a random pair of people. Mostly because they were having their meeting in stealth.

Murmur, due to the nature of stealth, was perfect not just at keeping other people from noticing us, but noticing other people. Stealth was a factor of Perception, erasing traces to prevent anyone from taking notice. Since Murmur had to scan the surrounding area to maximize that erasure, that meant it also picked up traces others wanted to eradicate.

The second reason was that I recognized at least one of the people. The Void sympathizer girl who this party was honoring. "What do you MEAN you can't find her, you simpleton?" she hissed icily at the man cowering before her. "Sheridan assured us he would ensure all B-rankers attended the celebration. I don't need to remind you what I'll DO to you if she isn't located, do I Dean?"

"No milady," he said grimly. "But it doesn't change the outcome. We've been searching the guests thoroughly, but so far, nothing." He glanced around uneasily. "Are you sure we should be discussing this HERE of all places?"

She tapped a broach at her neck. "We're technically not here at all. This is a temporary Void cavitation, a specialty anti surveillance item our mistress spent quite a bit to procure from the god of secrets. Even SHE can't hear us. In order to pierce this stealth, the listener would need to be proficient in Void based surveillance and gifted with the ability to see through the veil. Plus they would need to be RIGHT on top of us."

Dayna shot me a slight smile, and I shrugged. I hadn't known I had special Void perception, but the pulse of smugness through the bond told me what was going on, at least.

The Vessel growled in frustration. "The point is we need to find her Avatar. The Avatar is a weak point in a god's defense. With access to a divine Avatar you can do some truly terrifying things. Kill the Avatar, cripple the god, TAKE the Avatar and the god is at your mercy."

"Of course, Lady Gwendolyn," drawled Dean. "And our mistress is well versed in the subversion of gods. I understand the need. I just…I can't locate her. We don't even know what she LOOKS like. The Lady is a subtle creature, and her favor is light on those she chooses. Are we sure there even IS a current Avatar?"

"We are," Gwendolyn confirmed. "The oracles paid a great price to confirm it. There is an Avatar, and she is female. That's all the information we have. As for finding her, that's why I gave you the Godscream Amulet, is it not?"

Reaching into his coat, the man removed a small bronze disk set with a single tear drop shaped red gem. The gem wasn't embedded in the metal, mind, but was floating in the intervening space. It radiated power, and was at least B-rank. Maybe C, it was hard to tell with all the interference in the area surrounding it. "It is, milady. It's just…I don't know if it works. It hasn't done anything since we arrived."

"Because it hasn't sensed an Avatar," she said impatiently. "The power of the gods causes a wail of desolation to emerge from the crystal. Only the wearer can hear it, but it's the single most useful item in our possession for this particular task. You're lucky you were chosen for this honor."

"I know, milady," he assured her. "I treat it with the utmost respect. As soon as I hear anything, I'll alert you. In fact, I shall return to my mingling, and hopefully trigger the effects of the amulet." He bowed deeply, then scurried away.

Gwendolyn sneered after him. "Spineless moron," she muttered to herself. "He'd better get the job done soon." Then she too strode off, leaving Dayna and I hiding behind the pillar outside their alcove, having been there long enough to be unnoticeable. Once she was gone, I turned to Dayna worriedly.

"This is bad," I told her bluntly. "I don't know their plan, but I can't imagine it bodes well for any of us. We need to find the Lady's Avatar." I paused. "Or do we keep going and warn the Lady in person and leave her to handle it herself?"

My head was spinning. All my instincts told me to go looking for the Avatar myself, save the day and then maybe pivot that into a meeting directly. But thinking about it a bit harder, those instincts didn't FEEL like Azazel or my Fate Sense. It felt like something…deeper. Something that had wormed into the foundations of my very soul.

It took me a moment to figure out what it was, actually. I usually didn't feel it quite so overtly. But I knew what this was. This was undoubtedly recursion. I'd spent so long running off half cocked and possibly getting killed that it had become part of my mythos, and beyond that part of my personality.

But the truth will set you free. I KNEW what was causing this, so I knew how to avoid the temptation. I would stay focused on the current mission, trusting the process and hoping I would be able to rely on my actual plan here instead of just hoping a reckless gamble paid off midway. Now that I was the Wishmaster I needed to be more responsible.

After confirming our course, we set out again. We made good time, since we knew exactly where to go, and eventually we arrived next to a statue of a large rampaging parakeet trainer. Reaching down, I tapped the toes of the statue in a specific order, and then the legs folded up to give access. "This is the entrance to the behindways of the castle, and this is where we're going to find the help we need."

I took out a card. This was another tarot card, but this one seemed weak and pointless. A two of cups. But it wasn't about the number, it was about how you used it. Flicking the card, it flowed forward and burst into flames.

The fire dispersed into a wave of brightly glowing wisps that ran off, presumably to look for a smuggler. Sure enough, it didn't take long for a lanky man with bright green hair to arrive. He held up a wisp, recondensing it into the card, albeit much dimmer visually, and showed it to us. "Wesley sent you?" He asked.

"I wouldn't say that," I corrected. "But we know him. This was his idea. He said you can be trusted?" He hadn't, actually, sort of the opposite, but I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.

He nodded. "He can trust me. Jury is still out on you all. Maybe you can trust me. Maybe it would be suicide. Depends what exactly you're planning to do."

It was essentially what Wesley had said, even if this guy made it sound much more eloquent. I'd dropped Murmur so I could interact properly. So I was having to process all that stimuli myself. I held out a hand. "We're just looking for a guide. I'm Shane by the way."

"Nice to meet you," he said, taking the handshake. "The card filled me in on most of it. You're trying to get to the Lady, hoping to bypass the divine blockade. Bureaucracy was always the biggest enemy of proper social networking. Nowadays no one sees the goddess without putting in years of work. But I can help you get around that. At least partly. Provided you can put in the work yourselves."

I nodded slowly. "Sounds like a good plan. Lead the way. Once we get close enough, I'll handle getting in to see her." At least, I hoped I would. It would be pretty sad to come all this way only to fail. But hey, no pressure.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The smuggler's name was Peter. It wasn't quite as dramatic as I'd expected from a green haired infiltration and transport specialist, but his demeanor more than made up for it. "The passages through Mourne Kayze are very special," he said as he led us to an entryway hidden behind a painting. "The paths of pain represent a trial created back when the world was originally manifested."

"Wait, then why doesn't anyone still use them?" I asked suspiciously. "The Lady loves her trials, passing one is a good way to gain her favor."

"They've been forgotten," he said with a shrug. "Not to mention they've grown stronger over the centuries. Each time someone dies inside the paths grow a little more deadly. The biggest part of the job is knowing which areas are most densely haunted, and knowing how to avoid them without having to circle too widely around and waste time. But the longer the profession remains active, the more the paths self select for the most extreme and talented painborn."

The more I listened, the more I felt like this might NOT be an accident. I wondered how aware a god needed to be for their world to attempt to tilt events in their favor. I didn't think she knew we were here, or she'd have approached me directly, but was it possible that the vortex of fate that seemed to form around the gods had a sort of intentionality this close to the heart of their power? Was I being funnelled into a dangerous test so I could prove myself to the lady, only to be rewarded by Mourne Kayze itself with access to her chambers once I passed?

With that suspicion firmly in mind, I turned to Peter with a long sigh. "What's the most dangerous region of the paths nearby, or at least the most dangerous below B-rank?"

Peter looked surprised, but sure enough, I felt Azazel and Fate Sense sit up and take notice when I asked that. "Probably the Soul Severing Bridge," he said after a moment. "The number of lower ranked Ascendants who have been lost at that bridge exceeds some of the most deadly battles in the history of this realm. It's all but considered forbidden."

"And let me guess," I sighed. "It's one of the closest physical locations to the Lady's throne room?"

He nodded. "That was one of the reasons that cordoning it off didn't cause much trouble. Prior to her resurrection recently, the Lady's soul had been shattered, and she wasn't really in attendance over Mourne Kayze. No reasons to make a pilgrimage."

And just like that, several things clicked into place. Because I'd almost forgotten that the vanished gods had vanished in their own worlds too. Their resurrections had been precipitated by outside forces for the most part. Of course once they arrived there was no way any of the faithful could resist, not in their own world, but if some of them DID want to push back, the Void would be offering the perfect chance here.

Sheridan was working with the Void, but I'd been unable to figure out exactly WHY he would be doing that. It made no sense, especially within Mourne Kayze, but if we assumed he was unhappy to have his boss back, that he was hoping to regain his old levels of authority. Hell, maybe he still HAD a bit of authority. I'd been experimenting with delegating to my demons, and I knew the operation of the god worlds during the era of the god's vanishing had relied on weapons of power.

That might even explain how they were keeping things from her to begin with. Maybe the S-rankers (or maybe just Sheridan) were using the objects of power to run interference. My entire basis for how god worlds work was my experience at the palace, but the old man was a full fledged deity with a full fledged clan who had been active for centuries. Comparing them might not be as valid as one might assume.

Which made my earlier suppositions even more likely to be accurate. If the Lady was being interfered with, it would make sense for Mourne Kayze itself to attempt to correct the imbalance. Even if she wasn't aware something was happening, the world would be.

The more I heard, the more sure I was of what I needed to do. "Can you take us to the Soul Severing Bridge?" I asked directly.

He looked surprised. "I…suppose. I won't be crossing it, obviously. But if you just need someone to lead you to the bridge itself, that I can do. Are you sure you want to go there? The danger is VERY real."

"We're sure," I confirmed. "Just take us the fastest way."

Dayna raised an eyebrow at me. "We're going to the Soul Severing Bridge? Because I don't know about you, but I like my soul in its current unsevered state. Especially since being mortal, we won't RECOVER from that."

I shook my head excitedly, certain we were on the right track. "No, see, one of the Lady's key virtues is fairness. Pain is inevitable, and it comes to everyone all the same. That's why the Order of Mercy are so intent on treating it as a medium of communication. Pain is the only true universal experience.

"The Lady reflects her Domain. She's a fair goddess. She always leaves a way out, always ensures that hard work is rewarded," I said confidently. "Because she ALSO embodies growth through pain. Not just the philosophy of the Order of Mercy, but of the other orders as well. There WILL be a way to get through the bridge, and once we DO get through we'll be rewarded. I can promise you that."

She mostly just looked concerned, but I stared her down. I KNEW I was right about this, and I had Azazel chattering in my ear nonstop to confirm it all. Dayna sighed, turning to Peter. "Yes, please take us to the terrible death bridge that may destroy our souls."

I brushed away an imaginary tear with a sniff. "That was so sarcastic. You're learning so much from me. I'm so proud. I can't wait to tell Bethy."

I turned and followed Peter as he walked off into the paths. "I was always sarcastic," she called after me. "Shane? Shane I was always sarcastic! You can't take credit for that! Stop walking away from me!" I just laughed, ignoring the increasingly venomous cursing from behind me. Eventually she got bored and caught up, and I was amused to see her refusing to interact once she did, acting like I wasn't even there when I tried to engage.

It didn't take long for us to make our way through the tunnel complex, finally stopping at what looked like the entrance to a large cave. "Well, this definitely fits the decor," I said sarcastically.

Peter shrugged. "There's bound to be unique locations in the palace of a god. This is as far as I go, I'm afraid. Are you sure you want to do this? I can think of a few other possible routes that would get you close to the throneroom. Not as direct, perhaps, but much safer."

"We're good here," I said with a smile, offering my hand. "And we appreciate your help, Peter. Tell Wesley we said thanks as well, I don't think we're going to be seeing him again soon."

He snorted. "I'm not going anywhere near him. Associating with people like that is terrible for my reputation. I'm not even going to tell anyone I spoke to you. I have an image to maintain. Good luck though, you seem like nice kids." Then he turned and vanished into the darkness.

I frowned after him, taking out my mask and slipping it on. "We don't seem like kids," I scoffed. "Do we?" Dayna rolled her eyes, and I stepped into a side passage and changed into my armor, then the two of us entered the cave.

We emerged onto a stone platform. The sky above us (because there WAS a sky) was filled with dark clouds crackling with strange colored electricity. In front of us was a massive chasm filled with mist, the only passage across a single rickety looking rope bridge that stretched MUCH too far and dipped much too low for me to be even remotely comfortable attempting to cross it.

"That figures," I grumbled. "Because of course the Soul Severing Bridge couldn't be a solidly built concrete construction with stable hand rails. I assume you want me to go first?"

She just looked at me, and I rolled my eyes. "Get in the Domain," I said in exasperation. She relaxed slightly, and I pulled her in. Realistically, it didn't matter. My Domain was part of me, if I died with her in there she would ALSO die. Still, I couldn't blame her for wanting to bypass this particular trip.

Walking to the edge of the bridge, I peered out over the chasm. It was deep. The mist didn't so much fill it as cover it, and I couldn't tell how far down it went. I tried dropping a rock from Gehenna in and listening, but I didn't hear anything hit the ground. I sighed. "Well, this is going to be fun."

Then I took a first step. As soon as my foot hit the bridge, something happened. A spectral sword manifested above me, swinging down at me mercilessly. I yelped and activated Mornax, and then immediately cancelled it as the bridge started to groan under the weight. The blade struck me head on and I groaned in pain, almost doubling over at the sensation of my soul being…the closest word I could come up with was 'scoured'.

I grimaced, checking on the condition of my soul through Gehenna. To my surprise though, it wasn't damaged. That had been excruciating, but it hadn't injured me. I took another step. This time two blades manifested, slightly different in each case, and they landed on me with prejudice one after the other.

This time I was paying more attention, and I knew exactly what these were. These were pain. Not physical pain, mind, spiritual pain. These blades were the condensed anguish and agony of the people who had died on this bridge.

Because I COULD die here. I could feel it. My body could only handle so much, and if I took too many of these it would give out.

Of course, I had another trick up my sleeve. I closed my eyes, feeling the hum of living fire in my veins. I took another step, and this time, I ran my Nine Phoenix Reincarnation Art. I couldn't summon Art himself (seemed like an appropriate name), but the life fire and the tempering combined allowed my body to acclimate to the pain. Three swords this time, and it HURT, but I felt the power in my body deepen from the pain. Pain made body tempering more effective.

And so began my trek across. Four swords, then five. Each step increased the pressure, slowly building an army of spectral blades that poured down on me. Without the body tempering technique, I was pretty sure I'd have died. Instead, despite the pain, I managed to condense another drop of phoenix blood, bringing me past the halfway point of the first template.

Finally, I reached the other side, collapsing against a wall as my head buzzed. Despite the body tempering, that had been hellishly painful. My head was a little fuzzy and I needed a minute.

I called Dayna out to keep watch, then sat down to rest and recover. After about an hour the regeneration inherent to the first template had helped me recover enough to stand. "Alright," I told Dayna. "We're all good. Are you ready?" She nodded and I turned towards the exit on the other end of the bridge. A set of black stone steps leading up into darkness. "Let's go say hello to a goddess, then." And up we went.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The stairs went on for far longer than expected. They weren't special or dangerous, they didn't hurt or slow us down. They just took FOREVER. I suppose the pain of neverending stairs was ALSO pain. Maybe this was another trial. Or maybe an elevator would have been thematically inappropriate and the Lady didn't care about a little walk. Still, by the time I got to the top, I was decidedly calmer than I had been.

Walking for so long made it hard to maintain a sufficient level of agitation or excitement. Maybe THAT had been the point. Still, when I stopped in front of the large black glass door, I was almost serene. Absent any other options, I reached up and knocked on the door. There was a slight pause and then it slowly creaked open. I fought the urge to roll my eyes. Gods were all drama queens. Stepping out of the door, I ended up on a rooftop. A familiar figure in a black glass chair wearing a mask sat alone on a stone platform.

As soon as I was through the door, it slammed shut with a boom. I sighed and strode out onto the rooftop. Approaching the Lady, I bowed at the waist, formally enough to be respectful without being obsequious. I had an image to maintain now. "Greetings, milady."

The eyes behind the mask were sharp and dark, like the black glass adorning the chair. "Ah," said a voice like dead leaves blowing across a graveyard. "My wayward chosen returns."

"It's been a while," I said politely. "I'm glad to see you're well."

That got a wheezing laugh. "An eyeblink, my chosen. But I suppose to one such as yourself, time is a fire that burns with more heat. And you've accomplished so much. Even I'm impressed. I speak to the leader of a universal faction. How novel, to warrant such attention from the six, and with the Void so interested as well. I feel so appreciated."

"You know about my position already?" I asked slowly. I'd suspected she was aware of what was happening, but this confirmed it.

"You are one of my chosen," she said bluntly. "Your pain is mine to taste. I know many things about you, some you don't even know yourself. Or at least, you don't acknowledge them. You have yet to truly embrace my gifts."

That was deeply unsettling to hear, so I ignored it. "The Void aren't going to honor any deals they make with you. You know that. Ultimately they're incompatible with anything but themselves. In the short term you might have common goals, but the day will come when you'll be an obstacle to them, and then…well, the Void aren't known for their tolerance."

"Perhaps," she acknowledged. "But you assume much, my chosen. We see the world from a far higher vantage point."

"Do you?" I asked bluntly. "Because I get the feeling you might not. At least not right now." I told her about the Void representative and their search for her Avatar. She didn't seem surprised. I had to ask. "You knew about this?"

She sighed. "You've guessed some of it already. When I was destroyed in the past, this realm was stabilized with an object of power. The process of my resurrection involved the use of this object. It greatly expedited my return, but it also placed certain limitations on me. Access to the object grants access and control over this realm that in normal circumstances would be impossible."

"Sheridan," I guessed. "He's working with the Void to find your Avatar because he has the object. You have ways of blocking it?"

"This is MY world, child," she laughed. "Permissions and access are well and good, but my power over this place isn't so easily shaken. He can prevent me from doing certain things, but so too can I prevent him."

I frowned at that. "Do you think he'll try to kill you again?"

"Unlikely," she said in a bland tone. "My presence vitalizes this place in a way it would be difficult to replicate. I suspect he merely wants to bind me to the artifact. There are several ways of using objects of power in that fashion. Having my Avatar would be helpful in performing such a ritual."

"Do you need me to protect her?" I asked worriedly. "I don't want the Void getting their hands on you. Who IS your Avatar, by the way?"

She snorted. "I don't have one. At least not in the sense they're assuming. I have alternative means to accomplish a great many things that might otherwise be borderline impossible for a god to achieve in isolation. My rapid recovery and ability to quickly recruit followers seem to be the effects of a powerful Avatar. In reality, I have simply taken another path to regaining my power. One whose very nature is so anathema to them that there is no way for them to conceive it."

I was transfixed. These were divine secrets. Sure, I'd probably never get murdered and have to come back. But that was just PROBABLE. I wanted to know more. "What path is that?" I asked in awestruck curiosity.

"Trust," she said with a laugh. "I sought help from Verdyn. And he from me. It is possible for a god to aid another god in regaining what was lost in death. But it requires a level of vulnerability and trust that would be unthinkable to those such as the Void spawn. Pain, my chosen, bridges many gaps. And shared pain can be a bond as unbreakable as any divine material."

"So where does that leave us?" I asked slowly. "I assume you're too limited by the artifact and Sheridan to unilaterally ally with us, even if you intended to do so. But you arranged this meeting. So, what are the hoops?"

That got a snort. "Sometimes, my chosen, you are shockingly perceptive. There are indeed, as you so crassly phrase it, hoops. I require your assistance."

"Not sure I can help you escape an S-ranker," I said doubtfully.

"I am sure you cannot," she agreed. "But I don't require your assistance in that matter. Do you remember the errand your great grandmother sent you on? The one which originally brought us into contact?"

It was my turn to snort. "Do I REMEMBER getting a divine scythe? Yeah, of course."

"You were able to handle that artifact because of your connection to Black Sorrow, and through the transitive property, because of HER connection to my father. Similarly, your wife's bond to you enabled her access to the artifact. Handling an object of power is not the same as using a normal item. It requires a certain resonance with the Domain of the originator."

I'd been told that before, actually, but I had seen a notable exception just recently. "What about the arrowhead we got from the shallowing." I assumed she knew about that, and I wasn't disappointed.

"A fragment," she dismissed. "And a diluted one. The intention is muddled. I assure you, had you attempted to procure that arrow in its full form you would have been summarily destroyed."

"Gee," I said lightly. "That's comforting. Do you have a point to telling me this?"

She nodded slowly. "I do. As I said, I require your assistance. You were chosen. You have been imbued with my power. As such, you are connected enough to me to handle one of MY objects of power."

"So you want me to steal whatever Sheridan has and bring it to you?" I asked with a long sigh. Another heist, and this one impossible, by any reasonable standard.

"Don't be insipid," she scoffed. "You are incapable of such a theft. And it wouldn't help in any case. But there IS another way. The connection between an object of power and a Domain or realm is complicated. But it isn't singular. It can't be, because no deity has only ONE object of power."

My eyes widened. "You want me to find ANOTHER of your objects and bring it here so you can use it to overpower Sheridan's control on you? Where would I even get one of those? I assume if you knew where one was you'd have had someone get it already. I can't be the ONLY one with a connection to you strong enough to retrieve it."

"You are not," she acknowledged. "But retrieval is a later step. Location is the first. And in that matter, you have something of an advantage. You just so happened to have recently come into possession of a powerful tracking based artifact of your own."

I froze. The arrowhead. Finding it so quickly and conveniently felt…too easy. Felt like someone was pulling strings. I had assumed it was the old man, but given what the Lady had said about feeling my pain…maybe not. I frowned at the thought. I didn't like that. Not at all. But if it was what I needed to do to get her onboard and save my family…

"Fine," I said with a sigh. "I assume you have some sort of general heading? Because trying to traverse the Void based on point based directions could be complicated and time consuming."

She nodded. "I do. Have you heard of the Chaos Chasm?"

"I have not," I said warily. "But it doesn't sound like a NICE place. I don't suppose it's one of those ironic nicknames and it's actually a really orderly mountain?"

"I'm afraid not," she chuckled. "It is…complicated. You know, of course, that there are higher realms? Dimensions above our own to which some aspire?" I nodded, confirming that I'd been told that. "Well, there are also lower dimensions. The Chaos Chasm is, for lack of a better term, a hole in the bottom of the Void. It LEADS to such dimensions. Many of The Hanging Lands circle the Chasm, drawn in by its terrible gravity."

I grimaced at that description. "A lower dimension. If you can go past divinity by ascending, wouldn't a lower dimension be…weaker?"

"In a sense," she acknowledged. "Which is why I require your presence. The closer you get to the Chasm, the more suppressed Ascendants become. For a C-ranker like yourself, the suppression will be negligible at the depths to which I intend you to descend. A-rankers, S-rankers, even gods are helpless before the horrifying weight of the Chasm. But you are weak, and your weakness is, in this particular instance, its own kind of strength."

I watched her carefully. "If I do this," I said slowly. "If I go to this dangerous place and retrieve your artifact. You'll back us in the war? Full alliance with both you and Verdyn?"

"Even so," she confirmed. "Such a feat is one worthy of alliance. But be warned, the pressures on my person are manifold. Even one such as I must bow to certain forces. I can maintain the equilibrium at present, especially with the Void's attention drawn by the false Avatar, but they WILL discover the truth eventually. At that time, resisting this alliance will become untenable. Should the Void gain a foothold within my realm, there will be many new considerations to weigh against your request."

Translation: hurry up because if we make peace with the Void spawn your plan is fucked.

"Alright," I said with a sigh. "I'll head out immediately. I don't suppose you have a map of a quick route to the Chaos Chasm?"

"I'll arrange a guide," she said blandly. "Act swiftly, my chosen. Or suffer the consequences."

I once again fought the urge to roll my eyes. Gods seemed categorically incapable of being polite about requests. But it was fine. I had other reasons to go on this trip anyway. The Chaos Chasm attracted some of the Hanging Lands, and prevented powerful ascendants from getting close. I'd considered looking for Atlas's realm fragment before, but it seemed like such a lost cause I didn't know where to start. Now, I might have a lead. I couldn't wait to tell my wife.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Slipping out of the castle was easier than expected. Mostly because no one seemed to care about people LEAVING, only people coming in. We changed back into our server clothes and just walked out, and no one questioned it. The perception was that if mere C-rank servants were in the deepest parts of the castle, they had been sent there for something, otherwise how could we have gotten in?

Once we were outside, we changed again, and I withdrew the scrap of paper the Lady had given me with the meeting place on it. It was a familiar location, and I grimaced as I took it in.

"Apparently we're going to be heading back to the priory, because this meeting is THERE, which is good because it's familiar ground, but I feel bad making the kids relive our exit like that. They seemed so sad when we left."

Dayna rolled her eyes. "YOU seemed sad when we left. Don't think I didn't notice you crying just because you were wearing that mask. The children were fine."

I rolled my eyes, but didn't respond, choosing to maintain my dignity and definitely not pouting about being called out on how big a softy I was. In any case, it didn't take long to get back to the priory, and to my surprise, Bernadette and Chloe were waiting outside. Chloe, specifically, was dressed in what looked like some kind of nun variant survival gear, with a wimple and some kind of tactical fatigues, as well as a large canvas backpack strapped to her back. The thing was so big I suspected if she wasn't an Ascendant she'd have fallen over, but as it was she obviously wasn't having any problem with it.

"Shane, Dayna!" she called cheerfully. "Are you ready to go?"

I blinked at her in incomprehensive shock. "I…what? Wait, are YOU our guide Chloe?" I asked with not a small amount of concern. Chloe had problems finishing SENTENCES much less guiding us properly through the Void Roads.

"Of course not," she giggled. "I've never studied geography. No, my sister is going to be the escort. She's not coming out yet though, because in order to actually reach the Void Roads, we need to take one of the secret exits. The messenger told me to let you know that all the normal exits are being watched. You'll need to get in touch with your friend Wesley, and he knows my sister as my father's daughter. I spent all my time growing up with mom, so I shouldn't be on his radar."

I glanced at Bernadette. "I assume that's why you're coming with us?" when she nodded, I blew out a breath. "You two found someone to watch the kids?" another nod. "Well then I guess my only other question is…what the hell is this emergency exit about? We were told there are only two ways in and out, that's why we came in through the Lodge. If there was another access point, how come we didn't hear about it from Mama Bel?"

"Probably because it isn't supposed to exist," she shrugged. "The darkways are a smuggling passage that the criminal element of Mourne Kayze uses to slip contraband in and out of the realm. Wesley's boss made a deal with someone high up in the Lady's confidence, someone with the power to open a small hole in the veil between here and the Void."

I grimaced. Sheridan. He was the only one with that kind of power. The veil between a godworld and the Void was much different than one between most of realspace or even a shallowing. I was able to use Callie's adherent fire to slip into a shallowing and she could use it to slip OUT of normal space, but a godworld was closer to a Domain than a traditional planet in realspace. Getting in and out of a Domain required contending with the being who created it, in this case a goddess of torment.

In the opinion of almost anyone outside of the gods themselves, that would be functionally impossible. But Mama Bel didn't know about Sheridan's little coup. The goddess would never open a passageway out of Mourne Kayze that could be easily used to circumvent her own security. Sheridan, apparently, had no such compunctions. But that led to another question. "If the exits are being watched, won't that one be watched too?" She might not know about Sheridan, but it was a reasonable concern in either case.

To my surprise, she shook her head. "Not possible. The exit isn't a location. It's an item. Wesley had it forged into an extra card in his tarot deck. He substituted it for another of the major arcana, but I made those cards myself. I know exactly how thick they are. It didn't take me long to figure out that one of them had been swapped with something slightly thinner."

"Well then we have our way out, then the question becomes, are you sure you want to come with us?" I grimaced as I glanced off into the distance in the direction of Wesley's underground tavern.

She snorted sadly. "Not really. But I can't be with you for most of this mission. Taking you as far as I can is the least I can do. I'll get you off world, and from there, you're on you own. After all," she winked. "I can't do EVERYTHING for you. Just…" her face fell. "Be careful, alright? Especially with Chloe."

"I'm right HERE," complained the younger nun. "You act like I'm some kind of idio- ooh a butterfly!"

I frowned at her suspiciously, almost positive that had been a gag, but ultimately decided that it didn't matter. "Fine. Lets go then. I guess we might as well head out immediately. We can worry about places to camp once we're on the road. I assume that's what's in the backpack?"

Chloe nodded cheerfully. "It is!" she chirped. "Void accommodations. You need special camping gear to sleep on the Void Roads. And we WILL have to sleep. It's a long trip to the Chaos Chasm." She squealed excitedly, clapping her hands. "Oooh this is going to be so much fun you guys! I've never been camping before. Or left Mourne Kayze. I'm going to chop down a TREE!"

She reached into her pack and grabbed randomly, pulling out a small fish. I was pretty sure it was a herring. I reached out and plucked it from her fingers. "No tree chopping, especially not with fish. Come on, we have to go." I was getting bad vibes. I wasn't exactly sure what would happen if we didn't hurry, but I had a sneaking suspicion it would be something, and I always trusted my instincts.

So we set off, heading down through the sewers to Wesley's bar. It didn't take us long to make it there, and when we arrived, I was surprised to find the place completely empty. Only two people remained. One was Wesley himself, and the other was a tall, weaselly looking man Wesley introduced as being his right hand man, Phillip.

Bernadette took charge of negotiations. "Wesley," she said solemnly. "Phillip." She frowned at the tall man. "Do we have to let him stay? Nothing personal Phillip, but I don't like anything about you and I find you disgusting to be around." She paused. "Actually I guess that is personal. Nevermind, sorry. Still, I'm not a fan. I know I might have been a bit subtle about that in the past-"

Wesley let out a bark of laughter. "Subtle? Bernie, you tried to train the sewer rats to hunt Phillip by smell. You've 'accidentally' set him on fire by spilling a drink on him no less than six times, and at one point, you attempted to sell him to a swamp hag."

"It wasn't a real swamp hag," she protested weakly. "It was just one of your spies in costume infiltrating a street gang."

"Yes," he said patiently. "But YOU didn't know that. Now, I take it from your presence here that you need something from me? Because as much as I would love to believe you suddenly decided to throw away old grudges and reunite with your dear husband for old times sake, the temperature is a balmy seventy four, and there are no demons within line of sight." I realized he was being poetic and trying to say it would be a cold day in hell before that happened, but I had to make an active effort to suppress the urge to contradict him about that.

Bernadette sighed. "Yes, very droll. But you aren't wrong. I am here for your…" she grimaced, swallowing visibly like she was about to choke. "Help. This is even worse than the first time. Look, the kids need an exit. We both know you have one, and if you help them, I'll…owe you. Dinner."

He perked up. "Really?" He said sharply. "You'll have dinner with me?"

"Yes," she said primly. "JUST dinner. And I'm not promising I'll ever want to see you again afterwards. How much you get out of it in terms of repairing our relationship is up to you. But I'm willing to be convinced."

He grinned wolfishly. "Just you wat-" he froze as the lights flickered slightly. His forehead creased. "That shouldn't happen. The only reason for the lights to feedback like that would be if something overclocked the shields. And not the normal shields. The lockdown protocols." His eyes snapped to Phillip, who sprinted across the room, leapt over the bar, and knelt down to open a cabinet.

The tall man cursed. "It's the scrying wards. Something is trying to pinpoint someone in here. Maybe multiple someones. Our anonymizers are the best on the market, so they haven't managed, but the shielding is cranking at max output. It's going to burn out within five or ten minutes at this rate."

Bernadette shot Wesley a pleading look, and he sighed. "Help me get the tables out of the way," he said as he started grabbing and tossing furniture to clear an open space in the center of the room. We did, each grabbing a table and moving it aside. As we did, Wesley knelt down and cut his hand, drawing on the floor. Apparently he was using a formation to boost the effectiveness of whatever item he had that could get us out of here. Probably. I wasn't going to question it.

He sketched out a series of patterns on the ground, withdrawing a few odds and ends from a space ring and positioning them at different points around the circle. Then he stood up and turned to face us. "Alright, this will only be open for about thirty seconds. This is a bypass I found to ensure there's no usage traces. Even if they show up and check the card they won't see any signs of passage." He reached into his jacket, pulling out a deck of cards, and shuffled them up before withdrawing a single card. It had no words or writing on it. Just a picture. A black door with a glowing outline.

Wesley flicked the card like he was planning to lodge it in the wall, and it flew out, snapping to a stop midair, sticking like flypaper in the empty space. Then it started to grow. Or rather, the door did. It outgrew the card in seconds, reaching full size, and then swung open, revealing an endless darkness on the other side.

Dayna, Chloe, and I nodded to the others. "Be safe, guys. See you when we see you. I'm sure we'll be back to drop off Chloe before we head home, so that shouldn't be TOO long, but it might be a while." Dayna and Chloe went ahead, forging ahead into the dark doorway. I took one last look at the room, at Bernadette, Wesley, even Phillip who I didn't even know. Then I turned and plunged into the darkness, leaving Mourne Kayze behind once more.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

It took us about two weeks to make it to the Chaos Chasm. Apart from stockpiling a hundred twenty six scrolls, I also spent the majority of the trip working on my body tempering, and I had officially reached six drops.

Aside from that, the trip had been pretty unremarkable. Brad had demanded to come out and 'experience the world' and he and Chloe had become fast friends (Deanna didn't like to stay out for too much of the day). Their back and forth reminded me of my friends. I'd really enjoyed camping out under the empty void in the expanded tents Chloe had brought along. It had been surprisingly peaceful, but unfortunately, the easy journey had come to an end.

Now, we stood at the top of a steep incline on the Void Road, leading down towards…well, it was hard to describe.

"You know, when I heard the term 'Chaos Chasm' I had no idea what it would look like." I pointed down into the massive vortex. " But somehow, THAT is exactly what I expected anyway. Like I can't think of anything that's more like Chaos Chasm than that is."

The area below us was the most confusing thing I'd ever seen in my life. The central point was a hole. I couldn't describe it as anything else. I could feel the weight of it sucking in my attention, consuming my vision. The hole itself was relatively small, but the vortex surrounding it was a riot of color, light, and sensation.

Impact, emotion, appearance, everything was being consumed. It looked kind of like someone had spilled water on a painting and then folded it into a cone. Reality itself was being dragged inside, and while something about it made it seem like it should be a black hole, somehow the consumption was so heavy that it was eating the lack of light. I'd never seen anything like it in my life.

Surrounding the vortex, however, was a ring of what looked like continents. The continents were a patchwork of complicated biomes and environments. Staring down at it, I was flabbergasted by the sheer SIZE of the ring shaped megacontinent surrounding the Chasm.

"Wait, why are they all just out here?" Chloe asked suspiciously. "The other Hanging Lands we saw along the way were sealed. You needed to enter them through doors."

She was right, I'd been so shocked I hadn't even considered what was wrong with this picture. Well, aside from the obvious. But now that I looked at it, this didn't seem right. I pondered it for a bit, but was only able to come up with one explanation. "Maybe the space around the Chasm is too turbulent," I said slowly. "Like it's impossible to create a subspace in the Void when it's being torn apart like that."

I took in the ring shaped continent, trying to see as much of it as I could from up here. Unfortunately, it was just too damned huge. While I could make out the whole thing, the details couldn't be seen. Partly because of the distance and size, and partly because the vortex in the center was still creating a sort of dimensional haze that blanketed the nearby area. Not enough to render anything invisible, but enough to make details hard to see.

Reaching into my ring, I pulled out a familiar shape. The arrowhead. Snagging a piece of twine I tied it off, then let the arrowhead spin freely on the end. It jerked back and forth very slowly, seemingly indecisive, but eventually stopped spinning point in a specific direction. I pointed after it. "We need to head there."

The Void Roads, it seemed, converged around the continent in a strange way, creating an outer ring around it. It wasn't anything big or fancy, just a circular track we could walk, and there were individual subroads connecting that to various fragments on the continent, which I assumed were the different Hanging Lands that could be accessed. So, when the arrow told us where to go, we descended the incline, reaching the ring shaped road and taking it around to the closest bridge we could find to the indicated direction.

We arrived at one of the bridges, and I held up the arrow. It wasn't pointing straight, but the degree of difference wasn't TOO extreme. "Remember," I said solemnly. "We can't go too far in. At the very edges, the suppression shouldn't affect us at all. Gods and S-rankers will be the ones having trouble. Then B-rankers, then A. We have some breathing room until we get to a point where we run into problems. Based on what the Lady said, her artifact should be within that area."

Of course, even if it wasn't, I had my own ace in the hole. Specifically, my Domain. My demons acted as extensions of myself, and I suspected that just like they could incarnate into me, I might be able to incarnate into them. I'd never TRIED that, because what would be the point, but since I had plenty of lower ranked demons, I should be able to expand the search much deeper than anyone would have predicted. That was ALSO my unique advantage in my other mission, finding the realm fragment of Adam Atlas.

Based on what I could deduce, having access to an object of power from a god was a pretty big step in resurrecting them. I was pretty sure the reason Atlas was able to be so active and interfere in the world even in death was because of the artifact he'd given Callie. When he'd told us about Hatescream and avatars, he'd neglected to point out that Hatescream needed a whole organization to pull off his resurrection. I suspected the main difference was that gemstone Callie had with her.

Whatever the case, I doubted that returning one of his objects of power to him would HURT anything. And the chances of the realm fragment having one there wasn't low. I could feel it.

Crossing the bridge, we entered the distortion, and as we did, I felt something brush over me. It wasn't a big problem, I didn't feel stifled or injured, it was just a little unsettling. This must be the suppression. At my current rank it wasn't even slightly inconvenient to me. Closing my eyes, I reached into Gehenna. With a slight effort of will, I pulled, and a dozen or so demons appeared.

I had more, but I was only bringing out the strongest here. We might still run into an A or B-ranker at this juncture, and I wasn't risking more of them than necessary. I'd let the rest out as we got deeper.

Chloe, who was the only one of us not up to date on my Domain, gaped at them. "Wow, you brought so many people with you! That's amazing! But we only have one arrowhead, right?"

I nodded. "True, but luckily, we have an expert in collating data." I nodded to where Dan was standing, chatting with Gary (Agares if I was feeling fancy). At my gesture, the old demon headed over to greet me. I explained the situation, and what I needed, and he nodded thoughtfully.

"A fascinating conundrum," he said with interest. "I won't be able to create any sort of long term detection array. But I should be able to stimulate the connections between the court to get brief flashes of connection to the fragment, at least enough to get a reaction. We can use this method to create a series of triangulations and narrow down not only a general direction, but potentially other information such as distance or elevation."

I gave him a thumbs up. "Sounds good, do your thing." I handed him the arrow, and then left him to send out the others so we could get a heading as soon as possible.

Sure enough, it didn't take him long to come back with a heading. Unfortunately, distance wasn't something he could pin down, but he was at least able to deduce the elevation and precise direction. I kept most of my demons out, letting them fan out to create a sort of wedge formation to search as we went, just in case we stumbled on it by mistake.

We had only been walking for about an hour when we came to something fairly unexpected. "Um…am I hallucinating or is there a city down there?" asked Brad helpfully.

"If you're hallucinating, it's contagious," I said bluntly. "Because I see it too."

I supposed I shouldn't have been surprised. The Chaos Chasm wasn't sealed or anything, and the bridges to get in weren't hard to access or locate. Other people can and did come here. In fact, I suspected a LOT of people came here, not least because it would be a great place to avoid being hunted by larger factions. I knew a lot of people in the Void were wanted criminals on the run, but some of the forces IN the Void had to have the same kinds of fugitives. Hiding in here from the five factions was one thing, but I somehow doubted you could get away from someone like Verdyn without taking extraordinary measures.

"Is the artifact IN that city?" Chloe asked warily, staring down at the densely packed cluster of buildings. The city had been built between two extremely sheer cliffs, blocking the entrance to some kind of massive canyon.

Which meant I had no answer for her. I frowned and shrugged. "Not sure. Might be in there, might just be past it. We'll need to head in and look around with the arrowhead to confirm. If not, we continue on through the other side." I was actually hoping the artifact WAS in there, but part of me was positive it wouldn't be nearly that easy. Hell, I still didn't know what this artifact WAS. I didn't know enough about the Lady's legend to have a grasp on what it could be. "Now, let's head in."

The entrance to the city was at the base of an extremely steep hill, one we were currently at the top of, and there must have been some other entrances to the clearing at the bottom, because when we got down there, it became clear that we weren't the only ones waiting to get in.

In fact, a huge crowd had gathered at the open gates, surrounding a B-ranked man standing on the back of a wagon, sneering down at everyone else.

"Let us in!" bellowed one of the men nearby. "We demand entry, damn it!"

The man laughed coldly. "I care not for your demands, fool! This is Prestiva, and I am its guardian. Should you wish to enter you must appease me!"

"In front of everyone?" sputtered one of the nearby men. "That's disgusting!"

Everyone froze, turning to look at him. His friend leaned in and whispered something in his ear, and he cleared his throat. "Er…yes. I knew that. I was just having you all on. And you fell for it, suckers."

His friend sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Can this just be over? What do you want to let us through?"

The guardian, who had been distracted by the stupidity on display, shook off his bewilderment. "A test of skill," he said loftily. "Only the best may enter Prestiva. SOME of the guardians think that a simple questionnaire is enough. But not me. My test is a true determination of worth, an unquestionable demonstration of aptitude in the adventuring arts."

"Just tell us already!" yelled someone from the crowd.

"Fine," he said acidly. "Your task for entry is simplicity itself. You must pass through a deadly labyrinth of traps and obstacles. Risking life and limb and your very sanity to-" He paused, leaning down as someone hopped up to whisper in his ear. "What? But they said I had fifty thousand in my budget. There was no time limit mentioned. It's NOT a waste of time! They can't just…alright. Fine." He turned back to us, his face set in a scowl. "Never mind. You're going to be fighting me. Good luck. I'm in a bad mood." Honestly, that felt like it would be easier anyway.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The fight with the guardian was surprisingly relaxed. He didn't try to go all out (probably because there were about a hundred of us) and mostly relief on physical combat. My strength wasn't up to his standard, but tapping into Abaddon put me in the right ballpark, and I had taken the time to stash my friends in my Domain before approaching, so once I passed the test we were all in.

Once I arrived inside, I took out the arrowhead, preparing to begin my search, but I was immediately frozen in place when I felt…something.

My head snapped up. I'd felt a connection. It was something like what I had with Callie, though obviously much less deeply entwined. Just an echo of the bond with my wife. Still it was enough to get my full attention. My eyes scanned the streets nearby, and I caught a slight blur of snapping cloak as a dark form fled around a corner.

Despite my speed, I realized quickly that I had no chance of catching this person. By the time I reached the corner they'd vanished around there was no trace of them. At least…not that a normal person could detect. Without blinking, I incarnated Dantalion, letting the information demon dwell within my body as I gained access to both his power and his years of experience.

Closing my eyes, I let the power sink into the dirt around me, resonating with the data under my feet. Then I opened them, focusing specifically on sorting the recent data in a way that I could easily contextualize. This was a trick Dan had learned during his years of illusionary training, and I hadn't really had a chance to use it before, but I was eager to see what it could do. On the ground in front of me, lights appeared. At first just a few twinkles, but they bloomed into full footprints.

I started eliminating prints, erasing those that had been here too long or belonged to someone who wasn't strong enough. Finally, I landed on the last set, glowing singularly on the ground after I'd erased all the others. I grinned to myself then set off, following the footprints down the street.

Following a trail of glowing footprints down the street was kind of fun. It made me feel like some kind of magical detective. I'd always had abilities like this from Dan, but this particular method was just aesthetically pleasing in a way the others weren't.

Of course, the person was much faster than I was, so it took quite a while to track them down. Up down, left and right, I wounds through alleys and side streets and even over a few rooftops, spending nearly twenty minutes tracking before I came to a small, broken down door at the end of a shadowy alley.

Despite being worn and falling apart, the door WAS still on the hinges, but I could see through it without needing to lean very close. Behind it was a dark staircase leading down into an underlayer of the city.

I sighed. What was it with Ascendants and underground lairs? Especially bad guys, they were basically allergic to aboveground real estate. I reached down and grabbed the handle, yanking it sharply, and the rusted metal snapped easily. The door creaked open, and I descended the stairs, arriving in a small tunnel.

Of course, I still saw the footprints in the dark, and I followed them along the hallways, taking multiple turns until I arrived at another door.

This door was in much better condition. In fact, it was beautiful. A pair of ornately carved dark wood double doors. I was surprised to see them. Mostly because they didn't really look like they belonged in the rough stone wall of the tunnel. Except upon closer examination, this tunnel didn't HAVE rough stone walls. Not far from the doors the texture had changed on the walls. Looking close at the seams I was pretty sure I was looking at the side of a completely different building than the one above, a building that had fully sunk underground.

As I stared, Dantalion's information gathering started to gather information about the doors, collating and cross referencing it with information I already had. It didn't take long for me to notice some things.

The carvings on the doors were beautiful, but not intricate. The stylistic flourishes were made using a very general sort of artwork. Still, I could tell what was happening with Dan's scan.

Apparently, the doors outlined the life of some kind of supreme being. It showed his humble origins, starting as a normal human, making a deal with some infernal power, serving it, then finally breaking free and defeating it.

The story itself was fairly general, but based on some of the details, I was able to puzzle out who the carvings pertained to. Adam Atlas. The Heretic God.

As I made that realization, something inside me shifted, something connected to the bond, and the carvings on the door blazed to life with blue black light, the flickering of the flames outlining the roughly drawn form of Atlas in a way that made it look like he was actually moving. Slowly, quietly, the handles turned with a click, and the doors began to swing slowly inwards.

I probably should have been worried, but I wasn't. I felt safe here. Like this was home. I stepped inside, and was surprisingly unsurprised when the candle sconces on the wall all blazed to life with that same familiar blue black fire. I glanced around, taking in the underground building, and was able to easily intuit where I was standing. "Huh," I said aloud. "Wouldn't have expected to see a temple to the Heretic God here. Or like…anywhere. For multiple reasons."

The temple was surprisingly well maintained, with a long purple carpet that reminded me of Callie's soulspace (albeit much more worn) and sturdy if somewhat threadbare pews on either side, leading to a semi familiar altar with a hooded figure knelt in front of it.

At my comment, the hooded figure, whose head had been bent, looked up and back over their shoulder. "That's funny, because I WAS expecting to see you. I've been dreaming about it for months."

"Sorry," I told him solemnly. "I'm happily married."

He snorted as he stood and turned to me. "I know that, genius. You're married to my god's Avatar. I guess that makes you like…the royal son in law? Or whatever." He threw open his arms, spreading the cloak to show himself fully. "Allow me to introduce my most humble and efficacious self. I am Henry Worthington-Smythe, the current and singular remaining oracle of the Heretic God."

Henry was short, but very thin. His hair was a wild black mess, like a midnight dandelion, and his overly pale face was pierced in multiple spots. Eyebrow, nose, lip, septum, he had more metal in hs head than a high yield copper mine. I raised a brow at him. "You know he's DEAD, right?"

"Wouldn't be much of an oracle if I didn't," he shrugged.

I snorted. "Not sure you're much of one either way. Didn't see you helping out during any of the messes Atlas got us into. As much as he's done for Callie, we've been swept up in a whole TRUCKLOAD of bullshit because of him. If he had a B-ranker lying around who could help why didn't he send you?"

"Because I would have died," he said bluntly. "I'm an oracle, the oracle has to dwell within the temple. It's why most gods don't HAVE them anymore. Very limited scope of interaction. Luring you down here like I did was already pushing it."

I grimaced, but that was a pretty fair reason, I stepped over to the nearest pew and sat down heavily. "Alright, fine. Say I buy that. Why bother luring me here?" I looked around. "I'm guessing there's no object of power here? Speaking of, where IS here, how did you even find this place? Like temple I get, but this isn't exactly on the tourist map they sell at the gate. And WHY is this here? Is this Atlas's fragment?"

"It is not," he confirmed. "But the Heretic God's reach was wide at the peak of his power. A temple in the Domain of a lesser deity, lost to time. As to how I found it, that's not a complicated story. I'm an orphan who grew up around here. Found my way into this place when I was running from some creditors. Decided to make a sacrifice to the Heretic God and made contact with a fragment of him. You know, the usual story."

"Yes," I said dryly. "That old chestnut. So how come you're not the Avatar yourself, since this clearly happened some time ago. I thought gods could only act through Avatars?"

He shook his head. "Gods act most DIRECTLY through Avatars. But not everyone touched by divine power is an Avatar. Once upon a time, there were a myriad of official positions you could have in a god's retinue. These sorts of things have fallen out of favor in recent years, however. Besides, there are obvious downsides." He gestured to the temple. "More than that, the universe isn't as suited for things like prophecy as it once was. The disruption from the Chasm makes reaching out like that easier."

"Understandable," I said with a nod. "But don't think I didn't notice that you never answered my first question. Why did you bring me here exactly? What do you want from me?"

Sighing, he took a seat in the pew across from me. "Mostly I just want to help," he said bitterly. "At least in any way I can. You're here looking for the Heretic God's remnant, are you not?"

"I'm here for something else," I clarified. "But I was planning to look for the realm fragment. I thought it might have something there that could help resurrect him. I take it from your interest in my presence there that IS the case?"

He shrugged. "I have no idea. I get visions from him, I don't chat with him. I just know that it's necessary that you find the fragment."

"And so you brought me a map?" I said hopefully.

That got a chuckle. He reached into his robe and withdrew a small glass sphere. Inside the sphere was a tiny diamond made of blue black fire. One side of it had an obvious emphasis like a pointer, and that side was aimed up and out of the temple. "Oh look. Another straight line directional tool. I love these," I said dryly. "Seriously, does NO ONE use maps anymore?"

"It's what I have," he said bluntly. "Regardless, it'll do the job. Simply follow the pointer until you reach the fragment."

I nodded. "I get it. Thanks either way. This will be helpful." I glanced around. "Do you need anything before I go?" I asked weakly. "I mean, you said you can't really leave, right? Even if you're limited to this city there must be something you want. Maybe some food or drinks I have on me?"

That seemed to take him by surprise. "I suppose I wouldn't mind if you have some to spare," he said with interest. "I'm curious about outside world food."

So I reached into my ring, taking out various foodstuffs I'd collected. I didn't cook anything for him, just gave him premade stuff, but once I was done, I gave him a supportive smile. "Maybe once Atlas comes back he can figure out a way to get you out of here." Turning, I headed for the door.

"Maybe so," he said, his voice sad enough that I felt he was humoring me.

"Hey, it could happen," I laughed, turning around as I stepped out the door. "You never kn-" but I stopped mid sentence. I was staring at a normal stone wall, more like the walls of the tunnel than the walls of the temple I'd seen. I chuckled, shaking my head. "Or maybe not. Good luck Henry. Thanks again for the help." And with that, I turned and left.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The Lady's artifact was not, in fact, in the city. It didn't take me long to get through the town and out the other side, headed beyond the city and out into the planes beyond it. That was the bad news. The GOOD news was the the planes beyond the city weren't as large as expected, and on the other side of them, we found a huge white marble castle.

Obviously, the arrowhead pointed right towards it, and I let out a whoop of excitement when I confirmed the artifact was inside. We headed for the entrance, ready to find and collect the item in question…but ran into a small problem.

As we tried to enter the castle, a pair of huge statues on either side of the entrance came to life, swinging their huge polearms down to smash them into the ground in front of us, blocking our way. From around us, a melodious, high pitched voice began to echo. "Let those who enter with hungry hearts, beware the venom of power's draw. Dismiss not the guardian's arts, lest what's inside digest you raw."

I blinked, looking around for the source. "Um, hello?"

There was no response. "Can I get like…a clarification on that? Because I'll be honest, you weren't super CLEAR. And if you're not going to tell us anything why bother with the warning. Like you might as well not have said anything."

A slight pause reigned, and I was about to try to push on, assuming no one would answer, before a peeved voice said. "Look, rhyming is hard, ok? There's valuable stuff in here, but it's guarded, and you have to pass tests to take it. If you try to steal something is going to eat you. How about that? Clear enough for you, Mr. Critical?"

"Crystal," I said sheepishly. "Sorry. But wait, what do you mean the stuff inside is guarded. And how much stuff? We're here for one item."

"Well there's more," the voice said in an annoyed tone. "You stand before the Hermetic Hall. This hall was previously the fragment of the great god Deveskane, god of restriction, and after his fall ended up here. The Order of Deveskane, in hopes of reviving their fallen lord, began a pilgrimage across the Chaos Chasm, collecting divine artifacts and fragments and placing them within the vaults of the hall."

That made me pause. "How did they move them? Don't you need to be connected to a deity to move their objects of power? Or are they all fragments."

"Some are fragments," the voice admitted. "But the Order possesses a powerful artifact of their own. The Seal of Deveskane. Stamping the seal upon an object will render it inert and harmless, at least temporarily. Once that was accomplished, the items were transported to the Hall, a powerful divine artifact in its own right, built to work in tandem with the Seal."

I whistled. That was actually really impressive. So the Seal suppressed things to a containable state and then the Hall kept them in stasis or something? Unfortunately only someone connected to Deveskane could use it, otherwise I might try to bargain for it. I DID have over a hundred wish scrolls. I shook off the distraction. "Fine, so we need to pass tests?" I asked with a sigh. "Of what? Combat? Cunning?"

The voice snorted. "Do you think the Order cares about your faculty for violence? No, the tests are purely intellectual. Deveskane, as a god of restriction, was a fierce proponent of wisdom and good judgement. To be deemed worthy of removing an artifact from this hall, you must prove your intelligence and character."

I blinked at that. "Huh, that's…almost responsible."

"And what is THAT supposed to mean?" demanded the voice angrily. "Do you look down on Lord Deveskane simply because his story has faded from memory?"

"Not at all," I assured it. "I've just met a lot of gods and they're usually not worried about being responsible. Or reasonable. Or much of anything really, barring things that are actively trying to kill them, and even then it's a toss up."

The voice paused for a moment, then sighed. There was a warping of the air, and a woman appeared in a blur of shifting wind. Pale white skin, bone white hair, silver white eyes. Between the coloring and the blurry legs, I had a strong guess what she was. "You're an Aeriad, right?" I asked casually, having seen plenty variations of spirit being before.

"The correct term," she said sharply. "Is Aurai. Though Aurea is also acceptable. But yes, I am a wind spirit, bound in service to this patch of sky. I act as the first layer of protection for this place. Should you attempt to pass by force, you will learn the error of your ways."

I believed her. The Aurai was an A-ranker, and a STRONG one from what I could tell. We'd ventured far enough into the ring that I was pretty sure S-rankers could no longer be present here. Considering what a Dryad could do with access to their tree at A-rank, I was seriously doubting whether any A-ranker who came through here would be capable of taking this woman down, and I was POSITIVE we couldn't.

"My name is Solomon," I said with a short bow. "This is my companion, Dayna."

She nodded solemnly. "I am Elodie, eldest remaining member of the Order of Deveskane. For twenty millennia have I stood watch over this hallowed Hall, acting as its caretaker and guardian. I bid you welcome, in the name of my lord." Her eyes pinned me in place. "Your earlier claim rings true, I sense many divine auras upon you."

"You can sense auras?" I asked warily.

"I'm an AURAI," she enunciated with a roll of her eyes. "Where do you think that term comes from? Regardless, you are the emissary or perhaps the descendant of a divine being, and as such, you are due a certain amount of respect, hence my formal greeting."

Nodding slowly, I turned to glance past the statues. "I wanted to get a friend of mine over here before attempting the tests, is that allowed?"

"Of course," she nodded. "The rules are as follows: A maximum of ten participants may enter. Once the participants have entered, they may not consult any outside forces. The participants may not leave the premises before the completion of their trial without forfeiting the attempt. One attempt is permitted per person per century. The item in question must be declared before the attempt, and if the item is unknown, the participant must describe its provenance to the best of their ability. Finally, should the participants fall, their possessions may be added to the Hall, provided they are of sufficient value. In order to be retrieved, the trial must be undertaken."

I hummed in concern. "Are you familiar with entities native to a Domain?" I asked hesitantly.

"Domain bound beings may enter, but may not leave the Domain. Domains will be sealed on entry.," she answered immediately.

That took me by surprise, but on further examination I got it. Any building that could bind a divine artifact could bind a C-ranked Domain, and probably anything else shy of a whole world.I nodded my understanding, then turned and walked away. I called out Chloe, Azazel, Dantalion, Piece of Mind, and Wisdom of Solomon. Turning to Chloe, I gave her a sheepish smile. "You think Deanna could help us out? We could use the extra Focus."

I could have brought three more people (Dayna and I taking up two spots), but honestly I just preferred it this way. I'd have been picking just to pick if I did it like that. These were the best possible helpers I could think of for a mental challenge.

Chloe nodded cheerfully, then blinked her eyes. From one moment to the next, everything about her changed, and her sister was left in her place, smiling confidently. I started to explain, but she waved me off. "I'm aware. I have to say, I'm looking forward to this challenge. It's been some time since I had some good old fashioned intellectual stimulation."

Dan chuckled. "I too am looking forward to this. Do we need anyone else for the attempt?"

"I don't think it would matter," I shrugged. "You're all pretty much smarter than me anyway. Except for Piece of Mind. He's about as smart as me, just a bunch of times over."

That got a laugh, but everyone knew it was true. We all headed back over to consult with Elodie. "Alright," I said as we returned. "This is our group. Seven of us is within the rules, right? Like we can all go in?"

She squinted at us. "The auras of these beings is very similar to your own. Fascinating. But yes, you may all enter. Simply remember the rules as stated." Her hand waved casually, and the two huge statues lifted their polearms away, uncovering the entryway into the Hermetic Hall. "Enter, challengers!" she intoned in a booming rumble that reminded me of a storm breaking over a silent forest. Then, with a whoosh of air, she dissolved into a gust of wind and vanished.

"Well that was dramatic," Dayna observed dryly. "Some might even say TOO dramatic."

"Dayna, don't mock the omnipresent A-ranker who lives in the wind," I told her flatly. "It's a poor life choice." I was about to head inside, but I froze, thinking over her last bit of advice. Remember the rules as stated. I cleared my throat. "We're looking for an object of power previously belonging to Felicity, the Lady of Lamentation, goddess of torment. Her aura should be the most recent divine signature on me, and if there are more objects, I just need one that I can access personally."

The air of the archway fizzled, snapping and popping like cold water dropped into boiling oil. Then it rippled, leaving a reflected image that reminded me of nothing so much as looking through a pond that had just had a rock dropped in it. I smiled at the others reassuringly, then remembered I was wearing a mask and none of them could sense me emotions like Callie, so I cleared my throat and said. "Alright everyone, I think we're good. Let's head inside."

Making sure the others were on my heels, I stepped into the rippling reflection, and between one breath and the next, I felt everything around me change. It was hard to quantify HOW it changed, to be fair, it just did. My post D-rank senses were intermingled with my ability to sense Impact, and my grasp on the world went beyond things that I was actively aware of or could categorize. Still, I kept my eyes peeled, watching the shadows of the nearby hallway carefully for a minute or two, and when I confirmed we were safe, I gestured the others forward.

My Domain was, as I'd been told, sealed. I wasn't sure how I even knew that, I could just feel it, like a limb I didn't realize I'd been using had fallen asleep. It was an odd and unsettling sensation.

We walked down a long white hallway, arriving at a large set of double doors. Once we pushed them open we found ourselves standing on a huge floor made of grid squares. As we entered and glanced at the squares. Each of them had a simple image, mostly an animal or shape of a specific color. The squares stayed as they were for about ten seconds…then blinked and went blank.

I frowned, stepping forward onto the nearest square. Nothing happened until I tapped down again with my foot, and then a red image of a badger appeared. I froze. "Shit," I said with a sigh. "It's a matching puzzle." I turned to the others. "Please tell me one of you memorized that?" Dan stepped forward, cracked his neck, then stepped onto the square I was occupying. He bent his knees, rocked his arms back and forth, and jumped about five squares, landing halfway into the room. He jumped once, and the square lit up with the same image. I laughed cheerfully. "Alright, looks like someone did. Let's get started then."

 

[Malcolm Tent]

After getting past the matching game, the next trial was some kind of math challenge. I had zero interest in participating, having never been much good at math, but Wisdom of Solomon passed it easily, so it wasn't much of an issue, and we moved onto the third room. This room was where things started to get a bit less straightforward.

The room itself was large and open, with a single clear pool in the center. In the pool was a small sand island, with a bridge leading both to and from it, and on the island was…a thing. It was tall and strong, lying in a sort of reclined position on all fours, back straight and head up. It had the face of a human being and the body of a lion, except the eyes, which watched us with predatory feline amusement.

"A Sphinx," said Oz (my informal name for Azazel). "Body of a lion, head of a woman. They like to tell riddles."

I grinned. I liked riddles. I wasn't great at math, but I could be pretty creative. "I think I'll take this one, if nobody minds," I announced. "Though anyone else can chime in if I get stuck, of course, this is a team effort. I just kind of want first crack."

No one argued, and I cheerfully strolled across the bridge out onto the island. The sphinxes eyes tracked me as I approached, and I got the feeling that she was just waiting to pounce on me and tear me apart. Those leonine eyes were disquieting in a human face. "Hey there," I said with a wave. "I'm Solomon. What's your name?"

The eyes blinked at me lazily. "I am hard, but soft. I am rare, but plentiful. Men war for me, beasts covet me, and lightning is my friend. What am I?"

I hummed as I took in the question. Starting right off the bat? Or was this her name? Was she answering my question? I went over the possibilities, finally settling on the obvious answer. "Gold. Soft for a metal, considered precious but easy to find, men fight over it, dragons collect it, and it conducts electricity well. So, gold. Or rather…Goldie? Is that your name?"

She smiled, baring extremely sharp teeth that did NOT belong in a human mouth. "Correct," she purred menacingly. "I AM Goldie. Of course, as you were the one who asked the question, this riddle counts not toward your goal. Three answers I seek, and three shall you give, all three correct should you wish to live."

I nodded. "Sounds fair. I mean, obviously if you try to kill us we're going to fight back. Don't think being B-rank means you can take us down easy," I cautioned. "But obviously NOT having to fight you would be preferable. Anything I should know about the rules before we start? I'd rather not break them by accident."

She let out a growling chuckle. "Ten minutes per riddle, that is your time, exceed that span, and pay a fine."

"The fine in question would be-" I started, and she cut me off.

"Death, yes," she said with a feline grin. "I was being poetic. Now, decide, challenger, are you ready to begin? Your time starts as soon as the first riddle is uttered, and does not pause until it is complete."

So the rounds were timed individually and I could pause between. Good to know. "Alright, go ahead," I said confidently. "Give me your best shot."

The sphinx inhaled deeply, as if scenting prey, and nodded dreamily, her mouth opening as a rumbling WAVE of sound crashed out. It was less like she was talking and more like she was a giant speaker, broadcasting a request for knowledge from forces beyond this world. "Two bodies have I, though both joined in one. The stiller I stand, the faster I run."

Her mouth closed with a snap, leonine eyes regaining their luster as if she had taken control of her body back from some mysterious force.

I closed my eyes, thinking over the riddle. I suspected she went with something easy to start out, but it still took me a minute to figure out. "An hourglass," I said after thinking for a bit. "You're an hourglass."

The sphinx nodded slowly. "Correct. You may request your next riddle at any time." She yawned broadly, showing off even more of those too sharp teeth. There seemed to be more of them in her mouth than should be able to reasonably occupy the space along her jaws. It was not a comforting sight.

I didn't choose to ask right away, deciding to go back and consult my friends. Sure enough, when I got there, Oz frowned at me. "You noticed the problem?" he asked grimly.

I nodded. "I don't know how old that sphinx is, or if it's just a regional issue, but I get the feeling the answers to these riddles are going to be…dated. The hourglass is a common symbolic motif in a lot of things I've seen, but no one USES them for anything anymore."

He nodded. "Which is an issue, because none of us are very old. We've mostly had simulated lives, but they were simulated based on your experiences. As for the non demonic members of our party, they're mostly in their twenties. The question is: does the sphinx give these same kinds of riddles to everyone or did she identify our party composition and target us for our relative inexperience."

"I'm not sure it really matters at this point," I frowned. "We're on the hook for two more riddles, and I get the feeling a fight wouldn't be to our advantage." I gestured around the room. "There's a reason this place is set up so you can just walk around the island. Without passing the trial there's no point in moving forward."

He nodded. "Do you have any confidence?"

"More than you would think," I nodded. "I have quite a few memories of playing Doom Sovereign, and there was plenty of anachronistic content in that game."

After conferring with the others, I headed back to speak to the sphinx again. "Alright, I'm ready for the second riddle," I told her, taking a deep breath to prepare. I theoretically had ten minutes each time, but obviously waiting until the last second was a bad idea.

Once again, her eyes went hazy and her mouth opened, with the riddle issuing forth as if called from another world. "It foams without anger, it flies without wings, it cuts without edge, and without tongue it sings." After she finished speaking her eyes cleared again, and she watched me carefully.

I winced. I'd been afraid of this. I was almost positive some of those hints were based on old style references to certain phenomena. Some of the words might not be in use anymore in the way they were being referenced.

But I knew some of them. The first one was obvious. Foam wasn't something you got many places, and it was pretty much exclusive to drinks nowadays. From there, the last clue was the next one that helped me contextualize. Sings without a tongue. Bottles could sing if you blew on them. As for flights, you could get beer in flights, more specifically ale for the most part. I didn't know what the cut thing was referencing, but three points is triangulation.

"A bottle of ale," I said slowly, ready for a fight if I was wrong. I'd kind of wanted to say beer, but I remembered the sphinx was going old timey with these, and ale was the more old timey way to refer to beer anyway.

The sphinx closed her eyes, nodding sagely, then returned to her composed waiting. That had been the right answer, apparently.

After a brief pause to regain my faculties, I prepared myself and then approached the sphinx again. There was no point dragging it out. I was as ready now as I would ever be. "Alright," I told her after swallowing heavily. "Give me the last riddle."

The same process occurred, but this time, the riddle that issued forth had a resonant, echoing quality. The air grew heavy, and I felt a charge in the atmosphere, like lightning was about to strike. The number three was significant, and it seemed this whole process functioned a bit like a ritual of sorts. I wondered what it was for. Was it designed to trigger if I passed or if I failed?

Regardless, I didn't have time to think about that, as the sphinx issued me my final test of cunning. "I was before the world began, and shall forever last; Ere father Adam was a man, Or out of Eden cast. Your youthful moments I attend, and mitigate your grief; The industrious peasant I befriend, to prisoners give relief. Make much of me if you are wise, and use me while you may, for you will lose me in a trice. As I for no man stay."

I blinked. Ok, that was a bit wordier than I'd expected. But wordy wasn't bad either. That just meant more clues. I went over each individual point. The last riddle had shown me that cherry picking clues from the content of the riddle and putting them together could make the solve easier, and I didn't need to go in order. So I tried to pick out the ones I knew.

Mitigating grief was my breakthrough point. Only one thing did that. Lasting forever and before the world began solidified my answer. The last segment made it a lock though.

"Time," I answered after a minute or two of thought. You make use much of it as possible to do things you want, use it while you can, and it's existed forever and always will. It mends grief, frees prisoners, and it's always passing, so it doesn't stay for anyone."

The only thing that made me unsure of my answer was the peasant thing. I wasn't sure how time would be useful to a peasant, their lives were pretty much the same level of suck all the way through as far as I knew, but it was probably some kind of poetic license thing that I didn't have the context for.

All the energy building in the air just sort of…burst. Like a bubble popping. There was a wave of force that covered the room, sweeping over all of us, and to my surprise, it wasn't just an effect. I blinked at the sphinx in shock. "H-how did you just do that?"

I'd gotten stat points for that. A decent amount of them. Ten thousand, which, granted, wasn't absurd, but they'd just been GIVEN to me. It almost felt like a wish, but not quite the same.

"A game was played, and stakes were set," she said casually. "But even victory incurs a debt."

Translation: that HAD been a ritual, and while I wasn't sure I wanted to know what would have happened if I lost, I had risked my life and played by the rules, and victory had gotten me a little something extra. I nodded solemnly to her. "Thank you. I had fun. Your riddles were very challenging. May we move on?"

She nodded lazily, closing her eyes as if dismissing me from her presence, and I waved the others forward. We passed through the island, then out the other side, emerging into the next room.

I felt…exhiliarated. It was nice to rely on something other than brute force or combat skill for once. Using my brain was fun, even if I wasn't convinced it was something that would happen too much going forward. At least not that directly. Still, we had more trials to get through, and I had a sneaking suspicion they wouldn't remain so easy. So we set off into the unknown, ready for whatever the Hermetic Hall could throw at us. And at the end…well, who could say? But I didn't mind that either. The surprise was half the fun.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The rest of the trials were in a similar vein. Puzzles, riddles, math, at one point a personality quiz that assigned us a color based on our food preferences, at which point we were forced to play a game of ten person chess against three constructs in order to pass the round. It was harder than it sounded.

Finally though, we came to the final room. We KNEW it was the final room because there was a big sign over the head of the person waiting there that said 'welcome to the final room'. Sometimes it was nice when people were direct.

The woman waiting for us was…strange. She had wide, unblinking eyes behind large round glasses, a light dusting of freckles, and wild curly hair that looked like hammered bronze more than any natural color. Her eyes were a mirrored brass color, and they shimmered with hopeful enthusiasm.

She was possibly a little TOO enthusiastic, actually, sitting at a table with a large cake and a pointed hat, multicolored decorations and paper plates surrounding her. "Congratulations!" she cheered. "You passed the test! Please, sit and have some cake!" I blinked at her in confusion, thanked her politely, and then moved to walk around her. "No, wait please!"

I paused. "Oh, sorry, was there another test?"

She slumped slightly. "No," she said desolately. "I just…don't get guests very often. There are quite a few of these testing paths, and mine isn't chosen even when we DO get trial participants. Plus when they DO come this way, they usually die. That Sphinx is an asshole. It's eaten the last eighteen people who attempted my trial path."

"Really?" I asked with a bit of surprise. "I mean, the riddles were kind of novel, but not 'kill eighteen people' novel. Nobody got them?"

She rolled her eyes. "They were easier this time. It's under review after what it did to the last party. Some of the riddles it used were weirdly ambiguous, and Elodie was suspicious it wasn't playing fair."

I frowned. That Sphinx had been pretty strong, but I was almost positive we could have taken it. I wondered if that had been part of the reason it had apparently gone easy on me. I was also pretty pissed hearing that. Those riddles had been pretty tough and I was proud of myself for figuring them out.

Looking at the sad girl in the party hat, I sighed and took a seat at the table. The others all sat down, and the girl cheered happily and started cutting slices of cake for us. "So, who exactly are you?" I asked. "Not to be too abrupt or anything."

"I'm Shayla," she said proudly. "And I'm four hundred and seventy third daughter of Deveskane!"

"Wow…" I said slowly. "That's…so many kids. You have almost five hundred siblings? And I thought my family was complicated. Not to be indelicate, but do you all have the same mother or…"

She giggled. "Not like that, silly. I'm a spirit of knowledge. My father manifested a new child every time he had a grand idea. There were eight hundred and sixty four of us total, so I'm an older sister. I am the spirit of destinium, created when my father discovered the recipe for his most prized alloy."

I blinked in fascination. "That's really cool. So were you part of his Domain? How old are you? How does your growth work?"

Something about the way she'd been born reminded me of my own Domain. I hadn't really heard of any entity manifesting creatures through the power of their Domain the same way I did, and even if he'd been a god and didn't exactly count in some ways, hearing more about someone who had taken a similar path could only be helpful.

She blushed. "I'm…not very old. It takes a long time for an idea to gestate into a living being. My brothers and sisters and I hatched from our memory crystals after our father had already passed away. I only know as much as I do because of Elodie. We were part of an experiment father performed in an attempt to use his sealing powers to store important memories to pass them on to his disciples. Sadly, the crystals were unable to transfer the memories directly, but Elodie says we were a happy accident and an even better result."

I was fascinated. The world of Ascendants was so wide and complex, so many of us had unique or unusual powers I'd never even considered before. Deveskane hadn't taken my path, but being able to create almost a thousand beings was impressive.

Azazel seemed just as interested. "I imagine so," he said eagerly. "I myself am a created entity." He jerked his head at me. "This is my king, though we don't profess any family connection, it was he who was responsible for my manifestation, as well the seventy one other demons in our court of Gehenna."

Shayla's eyes widened. "You're a progenitor?" she gasped. "At C-rank? That's fascinating. I've never heard of anyone creating life on a large scale that early before. Even many of the gods never reach progenitor status these days."

"There's a term for it?" I asked with interest. "My ancestor hadn't really heard of it before." I paused. Had he said that? I couldn't remember. Maybe he hadn't addressed it at all. He'd said Gehenna was unique, but that didn't mean he'd never seen anything SIMILAR, just that he'd never seen anything the SAME."

She nodded excitedly. "Elodie told us that father always dreamed of being a progenitor. Apparently it involves the secret of ascension to Overgod."

I froze, my heart almost stopping in my chest. "I'm sorry…to WHAT now?"

"Overgod," she chirped. "That's the rank after god, of course. There hasn't been an Overgod in this universe in quite some time, sadly, but father dreamed of being the first. Sadly he was destroyed before he could manage." I tried to pry a bit more into the details, but Shayla didn't seem to know any more than that. It was a shame but understandable given the subject matter.

There was a rank AFTER god? I mean, I had kind of assumed, given the desire the vanished gods had to Ascend the universe, but I hadn't heard of anyone MENTIONING it. How old was Deveskane? I knew gods didn't age, but I'd assumed he was maybe a peer of Suvaya or something. Knowing he'd been alive less than twenty thousand years ago, I'd assumed he'd been destroyed by the six like she had.

Except I'd forgotten something. This was the Void. The six had cleansed realspace of other gods in order to prevent the Ascension of the universe, but the old man made it clear that only had an effect when the god's world was connected to realspace. Hanging Lands, fragments, the hidden worlds of the vanished gods, it was clear there were a lot of ways to maintain a world in the Void without making that connection.

Deveskane could have been a god in hiding in the Void. Maybe from a time as far back as Atlas himself. The fact that Atlas's realm had ended up here showed that the Chaos Chasm was a place where various powerful fragments could end up. Hell, it was possible Deveskane had been hiding IN the Chasm. If anywhere was safe from the six and the Void Children it was here.

Which begged the question, what had killed him? Was it just a random Ascendant who had taken advantage of the suppression, or was there something really dangerous in here with us that we hadn't even thought to consider. Or maybe I was being paranoid again. I did have a tendency to do that, as earned as it might be to think that way. I decided to put it out of my mind for the moment and focus on the task at hand.

Still, even after refocusing my mind was racing, and I barely tasted the cake as I wolfed it down. I had so much new information to process. Shayla chattered away as we ate, talking to Azazel raptly, and I could tell my first minister was really enjoying the conversation, but sadly we didn't have time to chat about casual things, we had a job to do, and I had information to pass back to my family.

Before we left, Azazel passed the girl a small pad and paper. "This is a thaumaturgic tablet. The study of fate has a strong connection with linkage and connection. Basically, writing on one side of this tablet changes the destiny of the other side, which creates a corresponding text. I should function across any distance and even between realspace and the Void. After all, destiny is ever present. This way, we can keep in touch and you won't be quite so bored." He smiled at her in a way I recognized from my own face when talking to Callie, and I tried not to snicker as she lit up and snatched the paper away. Then she thanked him and gave him a hug, and we set off through the large door behind her, into the treasury of the Hermetic Hall.

Shayla, aside from waiting to have cake with us because she was absurdly lonely, had also been our guide of sorts. She'd told us exactly where to go and which item to take from the treasury. She had been EXTREMELY specific about what to do, informing is that if we tried to take something that wasn't ours, we would die horribly.

The treasury was so strict that even she couldn't enter. Only people who had successfully won the trials, and only to collect the single object that they had earned. Any deviation would mean destruction.

Upon entry, I was surprised how low key the treasury was. Based on the design and location I'd expected a huge hall with like…golden chests floating on clouds or something. But in reality, it was a small dark room with white stone pedestals on the floor. The stone was carved with faint reliefs of great battles and heroic rescues, but you had to get close to see them. The only reason they were visible at all was the bright pools of light shining down from above, casting shadows along the faint edges.

We followed Shayla's directions, turn left, down ten, turn right, up seven. We came to a stop in front of one of the pedestals, upon which lay an open wooden box with a velvet cushion inside. On top of the cushion lay a short wooden handle, nine black leather straps connected to the end, braided with the same black glass I'd seen on the Lady's throne.

I looked around to double check I was still ok, then stepped forward and reached into the light. I paused incrementally as I entered the illumination, worried something would happen, but it didn't. I withdrew the item slowly, gripping the handle tightly as I felt the energy pass out of it and into me. Along with the energy, I felt a surge of information. Tale of Nine Cats, a powerful beast taming relic. When used…

I groaned. Apparently strikes with the Tale would injure the wielder, transferring the understanding caused by that pain to the struck beast in order to form a bond. The more powerful the beast, the more lashes required. Of COURSE the Lady would invent a whip that tortured you to allow you to make friends.

Still, it WAS a powerful object. While you might theoretically need a whole bunch of strikes to tame something above your rank, you COULD still do it. If I was willing to endure the torture I could tame an S-rank dragon. It would require SO much pain, but it was possible.

Snickering, I tucked the whip into my belt, planning to drop it into Gehenna once we were outside, then turned to the others. "Alright, mission accomplished, now we're headed further into the interior. This is where the hard part begins."

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Leaving the Hermetic Hall was an interesting experience. I could feel the eyes of Elodie on me. I hadn't felt anything on the way in, but now that I knew what to look for, it was clear as day. I glanced back, not having any eyes to meet but feeling something as I stared into the sky, then continued on.

The Hermetic Hall had been functioning in the Chasm for millennia, and I was pretty sure, based on what Shayla had told us, that it was MUCH better defended than it looked. I'd thought them collecting god artifacts was some kind of holy mission at first, and that might be true, but I was pretty sure it was something else, too. Bait. Under the suppression of the chasm, no one above A-rank could exert power this deep into the ring continent. Given the sheer numbers and Elodie's power, the Hermetic Hall was basically unassailable.

I wondered how many people had attacked the hall hoping to steal god artifacts. How many forces had gathered and smashed themselves on the rocks of Deveskane's fortress unknowingly. I had a feeling the number wasn't small. I doubted there were many factions capable of challenging the hall at all, though I also doubted any groups that had been around very long were willing to try it at this point.

Fishing it the blaze of heretic fire that I'd been given at the temple, I set our heading, then settled in to check on my friends. Chloe, Brad, and Dayna were all out with me on the road, and I was concerned I'd been ignoring them all in favor of the mission. This was a stressful place to be, and I wanted to touch base at least.

Brad and Chloe were, unsurprisingly, fine, but Dayna was acting odd. I fell back to walk beside her, curious what was going on. "You alright?" I asked her.

"I'm not sure," she admitted. "This entire trip is…complicated. First I thought I was betraying Verdyn by working with you, and I made peace with that, then I found out I WASN'T betraying him, and I kind of made peace with that. But after a certain point, the back and forth kind of underlines an issue I'd been avoiding thinking about."

"Your freedom," I nodded. "But you work for Bethy, right?"

"I do," sighed the elf. "And I can never repay her for her kindness. But the thing is, she doesn't WANT me to repay her. She just wants me to LIVE. And that's the one thing I'm not entirely sure I know how to do. It was easy to write that off when I was just your tour guide, but returning to the Lodge, taking a stance, talking to Mama. It makes me wonder if I can't have more. Be more. And then I feel disloyal for thinking that and then I feel disloyal for feeling disloyal because I know Lady Bethany WANTS that for me and then I feel disloyal for THAT because part of me still feels like a supplicant to Lord Verdyn."

Whistling, I shook my head. "That sounds like a lot. Trying to be one thing while feeling like you should be trying to be something else. Maybe you should just…stop trying? Just be. See where it takes you."

She seemed thoughtful, which I thought was a good sign, but I wasn't able to follow up because I suddenly felt a MASSIVE surge of fearful warning. I froze in place, my eyes darting around as I scanned the area. Danger Sense was going INSANE. Ever since Gehenna, my Danger Sense, as an actual living being, had been able to filter out the minor annoyances more than it previously had, and I only really got hit with blasts of actual Danger.

This was more than that thought. Something terrible was here. I glanced around, searching for any possible danger and finding nothing. Waving a hand, I pulled the others into my Domain, then incarnated Sammael, Mephisto's Waltz, and Azazel, wincing at the extra strain. Three incarnations was a LOT, even if I only planned on it being momentary.

Without hesitation, I beat my wings, vanishing in a blaze as I flashed forward through space…and the area I'd just been standing was consumed in a rain of cutting energy.

Flapping again, I pushed myself further away even as I glanced back to see…"Oh come on!" I bellowed in outrage. "How is it YOU again?" I vanished again in another burst of fire, snarling in fury as I took in the implacable form of CLARENT, the swordmaster from the shallowing where we'd gotten the damned arrowhead.

Unfortunately, rather than answer he just tried to cut me in half again, forcing me to dodge. I cursed. He was strong, I'd forgotten HOW strong. I could tank those cuts with Mornax, but that would leave me a sitting duck, and I wasn't confident in my ability to resist long term.

I was in shock. Clarent had plummeted into the void a few weeks ago, and I hadn't expected to see him again anytime soon. How had he gotten here? How had he found his way out of the far reaches of the Void at all? I'd been led to believe it would take him ages to get back. And I couldn't recreate what we'd done last time and even harder to beat him any other way. Brad had done away with him easily out on the Void Roads, but without access to those circumstances, it was going to be tough to beat him in a straight fight.

Luckily, I had another option. We'd been making our way inward, heading deeper towards the vortex, and the deeper we got the more the suppression affected us. All of us. I was a C-ranker, which meant at our current depth, where A-rankers were barely functional, only a B-ranker could threaten me. Clarent, of course, WAS a B-ranker, and rather than risk my life and my Domain fighting him head on, I was determined to lose him and make my way deep enough into the ring continent that no one above my own rank would be able to exert power.

At the same level, I wasn't afraid of anyone, so I doubled down, flapping my wings like crazy and letting Azazel guide me, pulling me toward specific spots in the sky as I flashed forward at my fastest pace, flickering back and forth in bursts of dark fire.

I made a note to consider Mephisto's Waltz as my second template. Sure, it was technically just a specific application of Mephistopheles destructive fire, but Life Nova was a subskill too. More mobility couldn't hurt at least. I was so wrapped up in the thought that I almost missed a dodge, and I cursed in pain as a sword slash tore a hole in one of my wings. As soon as it did, I went into a spin, my flight interrupted as I spiraled down towards the ground.

Another flash of Black Flame had me on the ground, and I folded my wings as I started to run, spamming the waltz every step as I bolted deeper into the continent. I could feel the suppression increase, and I was pretty sure we'd entered B-rank limit territory, but that wasn't enough to help. Azazel was whispering in my ear, guiding me along, and I cursed and followed his path until I came to a massive cliff. I stopped at the edge, looking down. "Are you fucking high?" I demanded of my first minister, despite him being inside my head right now. "I can't even see the bottom of that thing!"

The canyon in front of me was DEEP. So deep. Deep enough that all I saw at the bottom was blackness. Looking closer, I could catch a slight strip of shining light, but I had no idea what it was. I didn't have time to wonder though, because I got an intense warning from my Danger Sense. Cursing, I dove forward, turning in mid-air as I plummeted into the canyon to watch Clarent stop at the edge and stare after me. I watched him for a moment or two, then turned and aimed into the canyon, putting my hands out like a diver to increase my speed.

I felt another warning and waltzed again to avoid a slash, but before long, I'd gone so deep I was sure he couldn't see me. The darkness around me as I fell got deeper and heavier in a way that couldn't be natural.

Below me, in the distance, I started to catch sight of a thin strip of glowing light. It looked like a hair almost. But as I fell, it got bigger, and closer, and wider. And I realized that it wasn't a hair. It wasn't even thin. It was a HUGE glowing river. Some kind of massive waterway formed of what looked like liquid moonlight. As I fell, it got closer and closer, and I realized that it had looked small because it was SO far away. In reality, it was less of a river and more of a big strip of sea.

Grimacing, I turned my attention to one side, triggering the waltz again, and tried to spread my wings to steer. The big hole in one of them made it tough, but between the two movement techniques I managed to reach the wall of the cliff below where I'd jumped. I clung to the almost sheer black rock face, squinting down at the water below suspiciously.

I felt something from it. Something dangerous. Almost like heat, except it wasn't physical. I had a strong suspicion I didn't want to fall into that stuff. I was also half expecting Clarent to follow me down, he didn't seem like the type to give up easy. I was watching so closely, getting so lost in the whirl of the moonlight water, I almost missed the shadow. Almost. I managed to trigger the waltz and move aside at the last second as a colossal B-rank dolphin erupted from the river, razor sharp muzzle slashing open the cliff where I'd been hanging seconds before.

Staring at the cliff, I barely managed to pick up traces of vibration. Glancing up, I couldn't see through the darkness, but a brief flash of Dantalion let me get a vague impression of what was happening on the wall. Blades. Clarent was using swords to scale the wall, stabbing his way down. And I was in an even worse position now than I had been up there. If he reached me I'd be a sitting duck, and I didn't think Gehenna would do much good down here.

I stared at the wall where the slash sat. That was a nasty cut. Very nasty. These were sturdy cliffs. I reached down into my belt and withdrew the Tale of Nine Cats. I gritted my teeth, watched the water, and waited.

A shadow loomed, then exploded out, and I dodged, whipping my arm back to bring the lash down. I grit my teeth as the pain scored my back, and I felt a vague connection form. But not enough. Rinse. Repeat. Dodge and lash. It hurt. It hurt SO much. But I kept going. I heard the clang of the swords in the cliff getting closer, but I ignored it. Dodge and lash.

Finally, the connection solidified. The dolphin poked its head from the water, eyeing me suspiciously. I held out a hand and it rose closer, then, after it confirmed I wasn't going to try to attack it again it offered me its nose. I climbed out onto it, getting down to wrap my arms around it, and then released the hold on Sammael, Azazel, and the waltz. I focused entirely on Mornax, and on Leviathan to be safe, and then called them both.

The last thing I saw as the dolphin turned and dove into the water, carrying me away, was Clarent dropping the last few hundred feet toward me, eyes hard, sword drawn. Then the massive river sea swept me and my new companion away, and all I could see was blinding moonlight.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I rode on the dolphin's back for an hour. It was wild, dramatic, and if I hadn't been in Mornax, I'd have suffocated. Finally, I felt the sense of Danger vanish, and decided to come up for air. I reached for the link between me and the dolphin (who I decided to name Croissant for reasons that had nothing at all to do with missing Bethy or my other friends) and pushed him to resurface.

We surfaced from the moonlight water after a few more minutes, and emerged onto the bank of…well, a bank. Or a beach maybe? It wasn't exactly a big expanse of space. More than anything it looked like someone had bashed a dent in the bottom of the cliff and left the dust to settle at the base into some kind of sandbar. I hopped down, letting Mornax fade away as I turned to regard my new friend. "Thanks for the help, bud," I told him solemnly. Croissant the dolphin screeched in concern, but I just smiled and waved him off. "I'll be fine. Just be careful and stay low. I don't want you to get got by that sword bastard."

Croissant, snorted derisively, but then gave me a playful splash and dove back into the water. I grimaced as I wiped the liquid off my bare skin, noting the distinct burn where it had touched. Without Mornax I wasn't meant to be touching…whatever this stuff was. Luckily it was just a dash, and my body refinement had been moving apace, so it started healing almost immediately.

I watched him leave bitterly, sad to see my new friend go. I'd have to be careful with that Tale of Nine Cats in the future. It wasn't a one way connection. I genuinely regarded Croissant as my good friend now. The pain I'd endured had bonded us together tighter than I was bound to most of the subordinates I didn't know very well.

Turning away from the water, I took in the spot that I'd landed. There was a small crevice in the rock, almost a natural cave, and it led into the darkness of the cliffside. I called out the others. Dayna, Deanna (who had emerged during our flight because Chloe was afraid) and Brad. Along with them, I summoned Dan and Oz, hoping they could help me figure out what to DO.

"So, we can go into the cave or try to free climb it," I said bluntly. "But to be honest, I don't like the feeling I get from the cliffside. Also, I feel…trapped. Like my clothes are too tight."

"We're deeper in the vortex," Dan informed me. "The suppression has reached the limits of C-rank. As someone at the halfway point, you shouldn't be affected yet, but the deeper we go from here the closer you get to actual weakening."

I grimaced, but nodded. "Fair enough. Just means Clarent has no shot at taking us out anymore. So, what can you tell me about that cave?"

Dan looked into the darkness critically. "I get a strange feeling from it," he said slowly. "But I can't gather much information. Whatever is in there is too high ranked. The vortex suppresses active effects, but the inherent quality and Impact of items is still the same. To quote an idiom I heard during my research at one time 'a starving camel is still bigger than a horse'."

That was unfortunate. I turned to Oz. "How about you? Any idea what could be in there? You getting any danger vibes?"

He shook his head. "Nothing specific. It feels…dangerous. But not in an active sense? Maybe potential danger. Like there's risk but we won't necessarily come out the worse for it. The kind of risk that comes with reward."

I chuckled. "My wife is a bad influence," I said dryly. "Because hearing that makes me determined to go inside. You guys heading back into the Domain or coming with me?"

"That's a quality pit," said Brad with the tone of a professional appraiser. "Not too wide, but deeper than you'd expect, and very evenly worn. I'd love to explore it, I bet there's all kinds of treasure inside."

"I think you might be making assumptions based on personal experience," I said with a wry laugh. "But fair enough, Deanna, Dayna?"

Dayna rolled her eyes. "Don't ask stupid questions," she said simply.

"I'm coming too," Deanna said with interest. "I'm intrigued by the sensations I'm getting from this place."

I sighed after getting the final nod from Oz. "Alright, looks like this is a team effort. Look alive people, we have no clue what's inside. Danger and opportunity are great, but the danger is still there. I don't want anyone getting killed for no reason."

The demons would be fine, and would promptly return to my Domain. Probably. I had no clue what would happen to Brad, and wasn't excited to check. He SHOULD respawn the same way, but it seemed stupid to assume. Just to be safe, I activated Mornax again, taking the lead position. Under C-rank suppression, it was impossible for anything to hurt me down here anyway.

Stepping into the cave, I was immediately met with…more cave. It was just a normal rock corridor. I frowned, advancing forward. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing squared. Finally, the cave opened up, revealing a large chamber with a huge decadently engraved black stone door. On the front of the door was a massive engraving of a skull, its eyes blazing with eerie red light.

As soon as we stepped into the cavern, the red light blazed, and a menacing voice boomed. "Welcome adventurers, to the Tower of Zand!"

"Nope," I said immediately, turning to leave.

"WAIT!" shrieked the skull in a panic. "Please don't go! There's treasure in me! Riches beyond your wildest dreams! And more! We have…scones!"

I stopped, turning to raise an eyebrow at the skull door. "Scones?" I said dryly.

"And jam?" it offered desperately. "The butter's gone bad, even through the stasis, but the jam is very fresh."

I sighed, heading back into the chamber. "I ask, you answer, then MAYBE we go inside. And don't lie to me. I can TELL when people lie. Or…you know. Doors. I can just sense falsehoods so don't even think about it."

"Don't worry, I can't lie!" it chirped happily. "My name is Drexel!"

"Nice to meet you Drexel, I'm Solomon," I said politely. "Now, I have some questions. First of all, you said you're a tower? But…this is a cliff. We're underground. Towers are traditionally built…you know…up."

The skull sniffed, despite having no nose. "Obviously the tower existed before the cliff. I was buried under rock and dust, for millennia have I lain dormant, finally awakened by the arrival of the chosen few! Rejoice, travelers, for your fortunes have turned, within me lies the great treasure of the god Emperor Zand! Long did he reign and mighty was his power, across the vast planes of the galaxy did he roam, gathering treasures beyond mortal imagining, and today, you have the chance to receive these treasures!"

"This is starting to feel depressingly familiar," I sighed. "We have to take a test right?"

"NO," boomed Drexel. "You have only to take a te- oh…yes. That's right. How did you know?" He sounded a bit put out.

I shook my head. "Look, we aren't really looking to get caught up in something like this," I said apologetically. "I get it's your purpose or whatever and you feel like you need us to come in, but we have a quest to get on with, and we can't really stop."

"B-but the treasures!" he protested as. "The Great Zand requires a successor! If you pass, great wealth will be yours. Weapons of mass destruction, unimaginable elixirs, priceless artifacts! We have a Continuum Ant Nest, a Lamp of the Eternal Djinn, and even a Cosmic Phoenix Cinder!" He pled.

I stopped. "I'm sorry…" I said slowly, turning around. "What was that last one?"

"The Cosmic Phoenix Cinder?" he asked excitedly. "Truly a wondrous artifact. The Cosmic Phoenix was a unique creature who burned with a spatial flame. Nine Nirvanas did it undergo, and nine worlds did it birth. Though only an ember, the Cosmic Phoenix Cinder has the unique property of strengthening and enhancing the world or Domain of gods and mortals alike! Of course, it must be integrated with the body, but there are many methods to infuse a physical being with such power."

My mouth went dry. That was…a lot. I wasn't sure about the mechanism of S-rank, but I DID know that a large portion of it was dependent on Domain strength. I was strengthening my body with the Nine Phoenix Reincarnation Art to prepare it to merge with my Saga, and that fusion would have some affect on my Domain. I wasn't sure what kind, but I WAS sure that bigger and stronger was better for Domains. Especially stronger. Lark was known for his absurdly powerful Domain, but his method for strengthening it was pretty much impossible to copy.

And this wouldn't just be a one and done. If I used this to condense a template, the Cosmic Phoenix's flame would be PART of me. I would potentially have a method to continuously improve the size and quality of my Domain beyond what anyone my rank should have.

I glanced at Oz, whose eyes were gleaming, and whistled internally. Risk and reward indeed. My first minister knew what he was doing.

Turning back to the skull, I cleared my throat. "I have questions," I said tentatively. "First, will this tower lead to the surface? Second, if we pass, will I be required to STAY? Third, I already represent a god, will this interfere with your master's inheritance, and fourth, what does that inheritance entail and what are my responsibilities?"

Drexel's eyes pulsed excitedly. "Oh nothing too restrictive. You can indeed exit to the surface from the top of the tower, you won't be required to stay, and inheritance is a strong term. Rather it would be correct to say that Zand simply wishes you to keep the name of his ancient enemy and usurper in mind on the off chance you have an opportunity to avenge his downfall. It probably won't come up anytime soon!"

I squinted at it suspiciously. "And what about the tests? I assume they're very dangerous?"

"Moderate danger," it assured me. "Reasonably extreme at most. No real risk of death. You might be horribly maimed, or perhaps go insane, but that'll be the worst of it!"

"Comforting," I said acidly. "Give us a moment, please." To my surprise, the lights on the skull actually dimmed, and I looked at it suspiciously for a moment before turning to my friends. "Ok, so…I kind of need that Cinder. Anyone against going through this tower to get it? Because…yeah, I can't DESCRIBE to you how much I need that thing."

The others looked dismissive. "We told you we were coming along already," Dayna said with a snort. "You don't need to explain to us."

I grinned at her widely, knowing she couldn't see my face, I also gave her a thumbs up before turning back and approaching the door. "Drexel!" I called, my voice buzzing with confidence and power. "I want to attempt the trial in your tower. Will you permit me entry?"

The red eyes blazed to life, brighter and stronger than they had been before. "HEARD AND WITNESSED!" it howled triumphantly as the doors began to grind open. "Heard and witnessed by this humble spirit. Enter challenger, and beware, for within lies the makings of your doom, or of your ascension!"

Both doors stopped when they were parallel to each other, creating an empty, open dark space that led into the tower. Turning to confirm with my friends, I nodded to them and then stepped forward, ready to enter the tower and undertake the trial. I had a feeling this one was going to be a doozy, but I had another feeling too. A bubbling, rioting excitement in my gut. If I could pull this off, this would be a turning point in my life that I would never forget. And so I vanished into the darkness as the door slammed shut behind me, and the trial began.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The inside of the tower was dark. Not the kind of dark you see when you turn out the lights, or even the type of dark you saw in the Void. This dark wasn't an absence. It was a presence. It was like a terrible monster looming behind me with fangs bared. A suffocating blanket of blackness crushing down on me like some sort of abyssal gravity.

I reached into myself, calling for Zagan, pulling the power of my purifying flames of life through me as I incarnated the great demon into my body. My hair flickered to life with green flame, the flickers of cleansing fire driving back the unnatural darkness just as easily as I had hoped they would, illuminating the space around us so I could see where we were. "Drexel?" I called in annoyance. "Traditionally during tests you TELL people what you're testing."

There was a pause. "Do you?" asked the curious voice of the tower spirit. "How novel. I suppose that must be a recent development. Well, I suppose if that's how things are done now, I'm not in a position to argue. Very well. Welcome to the first grand game. This one is called 'enemy'. The rules of enemy are simple. One of you has been replaced, swapped out for a simulacrum while the real thing has been put in stasis. To get them back, you must discover the identity of the enemy. You have ten questions to ask anyone in the room determine who it is. If you fail, you'll be ejected, and the taken prisoner will remain for eternity."

"You could have mentioned that," I frowned. "Tell me the parameters of the questions." I was very careful not to ASK for them. I demanded he tell me so he couldn't take that as my first question.

Drexel's chuckle filled the darkness. Outside the pool of light from my burning hair, the dark remained, and in the flickering green firelight, the expressions on my friends faces were eerie and distorted, the whole thing giving the bodiless laughter a menacing and threatening air. "Clever," Drexel said cheerfully. "You didn't ask. Alright then, the rules for questions as such."

"You may ask a question of any of the participants. The participants don't have to tell the truth, but they can't lie twice in a row. When you finally select the enemy, everyone aside from that person must unanimously agree that they're the suspicious one. Should you choose the WRONG target, that person will join the captive in stasis, and the process will repeat. Once only one person remains, the doppelganger will transform into a monster and attack. Oh, and you can't ask them if they're the doppelganger directly."

I grimaced, but nodded. "Alright, that's all I need."

He went silent, and I turned to look at the others. "Alright…here's the deal. I'll ask the questions, you just need to answer. Don't say anything except to respond to things I ask, and DON'T answer a question with a question."

They all nodded their understanding, and I started looking back and forth. Dayna, Deanna, Azazel, and Brad. Dan hadn't come along, which was kind of a blessing at this point. One less potential doppelganger to eliminate. I turned to the others, looking around suspiciously. Questions. Ten questions to figure out who was the fake.

I should have been able to cross off Azazel immediately, and probably Brad, given they were my demons, but something about this oppressive darkness had sealed my access to my Domain. Zagan I could access through incarnation, but with Azazel and Brad already OUT here the blockage from the dark force was preventing even that much communication. Whatever that stuff was, it was strong.

Shaking off the thought, I focused on the task at hand. Questions. What should I ask? I squinted around at my companions. Should I ask something only I would know about them? Or maybe some kind of general knowledge question? Instead, I turned to Brad. "What…is your favorite color?"

"Clear," he answered proudly. "Because there is no sight more glorious than the absence of substance contained within a pit!"

"Ok, it's not you," I said, immediately turning away. It was impossible for anyone to answer a question that stupidly and NOT be Brad. I turned to Azazel next. This one was tougher. Azazel was wise. He knew basically everything I knew, and more, but that made it even harder to come up with a question. "How many demons attend the court of Gehenna?" I asked slowly.

He blinked at me. "Seventy two," he answered after a moment of hesitation. I assume he was trying to figure out if there was some trick.

Nodding, I moved on. My eyes locked on Deanna. "What…is the name of my best friend?"

She smiled confidently. "Benny," she said with confidence. "You've known him since you were a child."

"Absolutely correct," I said with a wide smile. " Except I never told Deanna that. It's her."

The others glanced at her in surprise, but none of them argued. Announcing their decision to believe me. Her eyes went wide. "Wait, what? NO!" She lunged forward, but froze midair like a paused image on a screen. Before our eyes, she faded from existence, and she was immediately replaced by another Deanna, this one sleeping peacefully.

Around us, the darkness fell away, revealing a wide open space with stone floors and an extremely wide spiral staircase climbing the wall starting nearby. "Awww," said Drexel's. "You figured it out."

"It wasn't too hard," I admitted. "The obvious strategy would be to use up all my questions asking them two at a time. After I used one on Brad and Azazel, that left me two questions for each person. I said I'd eliminated them, but who knew if I was telling the truth. So the common sense move would be for the doppelganger to be honest for the first question and save their lie for the second. So rather than worry about whether it's true or false, I just asked the doppelganger something they shouldn't have known. That way, even the true answer gave them away."

As I explained everything, I began to steadily search the nearby area, calling Dantalion into me as I did. Something was wrong. Drexel was…different. Outside he'd seemed excitable and friendly, almost desperate for companionship. He'd reminded me of Shayla, actually, and that had put me at ease. But regardless of how easy that had been for me, Drexel's attitude just not had been radically different.

The voice that had responded to my questions was mocking and sadistic. He'd put on a show of being cheerful, but there was malice behind his words, and he'd taken Deanna without any mention. Then I thought back to Azazel's warning earlier. Risk and reward. These trials weren't difficult. The risk was probably coming from something else.

All of this information led me to a few conclusions. First, Drexel's reasons for wanting us here weren't what he'd said. I hadn't scented any direct lies, but he'd clearly been misleading me. Second, Drexel had to follow the rules of this tower just like we did, but there would almost definitely be some way for him to exploit them to his advantage later. Thirdly, Drexel had some means of gathering information about us.

He'd known EXACTLY what item to mention to draw me back when I was leaving, and that doppelganger had been far too aware of the details of my life.

The question was WHY would he want us here? What purpose did us going through the tower have for him? I thought back to everything he'd said. I couldn't think of any obvious loopholes. You'd think I'd have been more paranoid after the Roland thing, but he just seemed so…goofy and harmless.

Super competent badasses like Roland were suspicious, but I had a blind spot for goofy idiots. Bethy, Brad, so many people I knew fit into that category or were at least adjacent to it. Drexel had known that. Had figured out what buttons to press to get us in here.

"Drexel," I said slowly. "I still have seven questions. Your rules didn't mention the questions not being effective anymore after the game. I can ask anyone questions. And they can't lie more than once in a row. That includes you. I never thought to ask earlier, in fact, I think you made SURE I didn't think to ask. What is the name of the enemy that was responsible for the fall of Zand?"

There was a pause, and then the ground began to rumble. At first I thought it was an attack, but after a moment I realized what was happening. The tower was LAUGHING. "I already told you that, Shane. My name is Drexel."

Grimacing, I summoned my staff, preparing to fight if necessary. "This is a trap," I said flatly. "Is there really a Cosmic Phoenix Cinder here? And is there really a Cosmic Phoenix Cinder here? I'm asking twice." I would be able to scent the lie on whichever answer was inaccurate. I was really hoping there was.

"Oh of course," he said happily. "And yes, as I said. I never lied to you. For instance, it WOULD be correct to say Zand would want you to keep in mind the name of his usurper IF you had the chance to avenge his downfall. Because my name is how people summon me. You would be unable to obtain vengeance without it. Of course, you don't HAVE that chance, so keeping my name in mind would be extremely unwise for you at this juncture."

I frowned at that. "Ok, but we've been using your name for ages, why haven't you shown in up in the flesh?"

"I'm bound to the tower," he sighed. "You have to think my name OUTSIDE to release me. That's why I'm giving you such simple tasks. Once you're done and you get your prize, you'll carry me outside tucked into your dense little minds, and then I'll be free."

I frowned at the tower around me. "Who exactly are you?"

"Why, I'm Drexel," he said happily. "Your friendly dimwitted tower spirit. Or maybe I'm not. Maybe I'm something very old. Something awful. Maybe I'm a whisper of dark dreams in your waking mind. A seductive purr of evil desires in the back of your head. Maybe I'm a terrible god who you've unwittingly begun to release on this universe."

"That first part was a LIE," I hissed angrily. "So I'll ask again. WHO ARE YOU?"

"I am Drexel, the Mindplague," he cackled in a gleeful voice. "A god of corruption and deceit, trapped in this buried tower for eons uncounted. I am the darkness in the mortal heart. The sickness you hide from the world behind your mask of civility. Your minds will carry me from this place, will spread me once more to the worlds beyond. And the best part is that you have no choice. You are all my hosts, and you WILL transmit me."

I glanced around worriedly. This was my last question. "How?" I asked simply.

"You're carriers," he answered casually. "Anyone who learns my name becomes either a carrier or an infected. Infected can't spread the influence, so I didn't bother turning any of you. Once yo leave, I'll spread to anyone connected to you. You don't need to meet them face to face, even karmic connections will do."

My blood was ice. This was BAD. I'd gotten us infected with some kind of divine mind virus. And the worst part was that it wasn't even my fault this time. I'd love to berate myself for my greed or whatever, but honestly it had probably saved our lives and the lives of our friends. If we'd turned around and left we'd have spread the virus anyway, since we'd already learned his name. I wasn't sure why he'd wanted us to go through the tower at all, unless he'd been concerned we might die attempting to scale the cliff and wanted to make sure we made it safely back to the surface.

The question was, now that I knew all this what the hell did I DO about it? Because whatever it was, I'd better come up with the answer fast. Otherwise we were either going to be stuck here forever or potentially dooming the universe. Neither one seemed like my kind of party. Which meant now I needed to outwit a god. Fantastic.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Drexel's haunting laughter echoed through the tower. "Your faces!" he chortled sadistically. "I can see your little minds running rampant inside your thick skulls, desperately searching for a way out. I'm a GOD, children. You don't beat gods. You don't outwit them. You just submit. It's easier that way."

I frowned at him. Because that was the wrong tone. He wanted us to leave willingly, wanted us to spread his mind virus. He should be cajoling us, tempting us, trying to get us on his side with lies and false promises.

Mocking and bullying us in these circumstances didn't make any sense…unless he didn't have a choice.

Which is when I remembered where we were, and what the Lady had told me. Even gods couldn't run amok in the Chaos Chasm. That was why she'd sent me. Drexel being sealed in this tower was one thing, it meant his power couldn't extend outside, and that made sense. Drexel being sealed in this tower inside the CHASM was another. It meant even within the tower, he had the same limitations as anyone else.

He was bluffing because he didn't want me to notice that and fight back, because he knew that we had a real chance to break his influence.

I grinned nastily into the dark. "Bullshit," I said bluntly. "Dayna, come here."

She stepped up next to me as I triggered Zagan, laying a hand on her shoulder. But not JUST Zagan. I reached into Gehenna and called forth another friend. Genesis Burst. A soul healing, purifying demon whose bailiwick overlapped almost perfectly with this situation. Sammael was next, boosting me further. I didn't use my staff's boosting skill because I knew that C-rank was the limit here, but within C-rank I wasn't someone to mess with.

One of the drops of phoenix blood inside me, condensed from the power of life nova, roared to like, kindling like accelerant as it ignited under the fires of Zagan, and I felt the power pour through me, racing through my veins as I let it build and build and then pushed it firmly into Dayna's body.

She stiffened, but didn't move away or make a sound. Drexel was less sanguine. "What are you doing? Stop that!"

In my head, I saw an image. A black miasma of suffocating darkness like the stuff that had weighed down on us earlier, concentrated around Dayna's brain. As the flames struck the miasma, there was a sound like water hitting a ripping hot pan and a wail of hate and anguish. The miasma roared and expanded, puffing itself up like it was trying to ward off a natural predator.

A second drop of blood ignited, and the fire roared higher, burning back the darkness as it snarled and screamed and hissed.

"Stop this," Drexel screamed with a dreadful howl. "Decist immediately. You've no idea what you're doing! You'll regret this!" The miasma exploded again, expanding to triple the size, and I gritted my teeth, igniting one drop after another until all six were blazing, temporarily boosting the quantity of flames by an enormous degree.

The Nine Phoenix Reincarnation Art wasn't just a simple modifier manufacturer. It was more than that. It was the process of BECOMING a phoenix, of altering myself at a fundamental level. And a phoenix was more than just a fiery bird that liked one kind of flame. They were creatures of primordial fire, manifestations of the endless blaze. I'd seen that. FELT that. A phoenix's affinity for its flame was more than just a gift or a knack. It was an EMBODIMENT.

Finally, the last of the darkness was blasted away, leaving behind not even a speck of black visible in the spiritual vision I was somehow accessing. Dayna stepped back, her eyes glowing green with fiery exultation, inhabited by the lifegiving spirit of Zagan's purifying fire.

"I feel…whole," she whispered, flexing her hands. "My doubts. My unease. They're gone. I have a clarity of purpose I haven't felt in quite some time."

"Oh…oops," I said sheepishly. Technically speaking most forms of emotional trauma were minor soul damage. That was why my cousin Felicity had her soul scoured by the repeated emotional torture her dad had put her through. Genesis Burst was a soul healing technique, so it made sense it would cleanse things like negative emotional buildup. "That'll come back once the fire fades," I assured her. "Sorry about that."

She snorted. "Hardly anything to apologize for. I appreciate the surcease, temporary as it may be."

I nodded, then moved on to the others. Deanna, Brad, Azazel, one by one I burned them clean of the Mindplague.

"How dare you!" howled Drexel as I turned and headed back for the door. "You can't leave! Stop that this instant! I refuse to allow it!" I smirked as I approached the door, staring to push it open and walk back out, heading up the cliff instead…but I froze.

The door. The door was part of the tower, and Drexel controlled the tower. But I could open the door fine…which meant he wanted me to leave. I stopped, stepping back, and the voice cut off. "Something is wrong," I said slowly. "That was too easy. Rank or not, he's a god, gods are bullshit. He should have some form of response, some backup plan. Screaming impotently at us is too…mortal. Not to mention this door shouldn't be opening. What did you do?"

"Nothing at all," he said saccharinely. "You've beaten me. I'm completely outmatched. I can't stop you from leaving, and can only allow you to have your way, stranding me in this tower for eternity as I lose my only chance to escape."

And that was when I noticed it. He was lying. OBVIOUSLY lying, I could SMELL him lying. And he didn't care. But I hadn't smelled a lie before. I went back over his explanation in my head, considered it carefully, and my blood went cold as I realized what he hadn't said. The Mindplague had infected us, and all of us had been carriers instead of actively infected. All four of us. But there were five people in this tower.

"Chloe," I whispered. "Chloe is infected. She's a full host. The kind you can possess. You made sure you'd have a backup plan. You made sure we would bring you out even if we noticed something was wrong."

"Did I?" he asked innocently. "That doesn't sound like me. Far too sneaky. I'm a very straightforward deity."

I sneered at him. "Whatever, I figured it out, I'll just cleanse her like I did the others."

"Maybe," he said spitefully. "Or maybe as soon as she changes forms the contagion will erupt and you'll be forced to fight her to the death. You were right, I AM weakened here, and it WAS too easy. But in a host…well, that's more than just a matter of simple addition."

Deanna went pale. "What did you do to my sister?" she snapped.

"Why, I gave her a GIFT," he cooed. "She'll be so much stronger now. So much more. She won't be dependent on some parasite living off her body, stealing her life, her family, her purpose."

"First of all, we're not letting that happen," I told him bluntly. "Second of all that's not how she sees Deanna, and third of all, YOU would be that parasite. Like if you're going to try to undermine people's self esteem and be an evil manipulator you could at least be consistent."

He sniffed in annoyance. "You know, I really dislike you. I'm going to enjoy using that girl's body to crack open your chest and chew out your still beating heart." He said it mildly, like he was announcing that he liked the weather. But there was an undertone of malicious glee in the statement. He had us, and he knew it.

I closed my eyes, blocking out his mockery and Deanna's panicked shouts. There was a way out of this, there had to be. I went over the facts. Chloe was currently not in ascendance, and Deanna had been cleansed. The two of them counted as separate people to the Mindplague, but only one of them could have the body at a time, so Chloe was in a state of limbo where the plague hadn't been initiated because she wasn't in control of the body.

If Chloe emerged, she would be in charge of the body, and the Mindplague would take over her body, essentially allowing Drexel free access to the world at large. We'd be at the VERY least seriously inconveniencing the universe, if not outright dooming it. I mean sure, the other gods would probably deal with it…and then I froze.

Other gods. Chloe was possessed, she'd been infected with a fragment of hostile power. In order to cleanse her I would need to call her out, and then she would be strong enough to fight back and not ALLOW me to cleanse her. Purification wasn't what we needed in this situation. SEALING was. Restraint. My eyes lit up. "Let's go," I told the others. "I know what to do. We can save Chloe."

I hoped. Deveskane was probably our best chance, and even if we couldn't fully fix her, the sealing artifact at the Hermetic Hall should at least be able to stabilize her until we could find something more permanent.

"He's lying," gloated Drexel. "None of you can disperse my Mindplague. Not the TRUE Mindplague. Carriers are in a dormant state, but trying to cleanse me in the fullness of my power is futile. Especially once you leave this place. Exiting the Chasm will restore my true strength, and then you'll see what I'm really capable of."

I squinted at him. I wasn't lying. But he seemed to really believe that. I was beginning to suspect I had overestimated exactly how much information Drexel had been able to glean from us. His "mind reading" was seeming more and more like a parlor trick. I debated throwing Deveskane in his face to see his reaction, try to figure out what he thought of the idea, but I didn't trust him as far as I could throw this tower. Better to just end this interaction.

Kicking the door open, I waved to the others as I addressed the evil god. "Sure. Lying. That's me. We're all doomed, I'm gonna go cry about it."

"Wait!" he sputtered. "I mean, no, don't wait, I mean…this is a VERY frustrating interaction!"

I flipped him off as we walked away. I wasn't sure if he knew what the gesture meant, but I figured a big bad mind god would be able to figure it out. Once we reached the beach, I called for Croissant again, and the huge dolphin surfaced within minutes. We all climbed onto his back and I directed him back in the direction we'd originally come from. Clarent might be there still, but we had bigger fish. Both to fry and on our actual team now, so I wasn't really worried about that.

Once we were far enough away from the tower I explained my plan. Deanna, who had been silently staring into space during the ride (which was much slower because we stayed above water the whole time, I was NOT putting her back into my Domain until we got this whole godplague thing taken care of) lit up at the explanation, clearly hopeful that my solution might be a viable option.

Once we reached the mark on the wall where Croissant had tried to slash me open, I said goodbye to my Dolphin friend again and we began the slow climb to the top of the cliff. From there, we retraced our steps back to the Hermetic Hall. As the building came into view, I felt something in my get unclench, I just hoped they would be able to help Chloe. And more than that, I hoped whatever price they demanded was one we could afford to pay.