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

[Malcolm Tent]

Standing at the bottom of an empty sea bed as dark water poured from the sky was a bit surreal. I'd expected to be coated and submerged in moments, but the downpour didn't seem to be touching the ground. There was a strange effect where the drops were hitting the air itself. Not like there was a platform or an invisible wall, but like every piece of sky was solid until struck and then returned to being normal air.


It created a stilted, jagged visual distortion that gave me a headache to look at, but it was pretty clear what we were watching.


"This is the void corrupting the dungeon. It's still pretty high up, probably because it's spread across the sky, but it's dropping reasonably fast. I'd give it a day or two at that speed," I took the risk of flexing Dantalion, and while it couldn't extend enough to map what was happening, I was able to use its calculating powers to do a quick timing check.


"They probably used the void shattering that ejected us into the Shallow to trigger this," Callie said grimly. "Creating a negative pressure on the other side of the Dungeon's dimensional barrier to attract the void energy in the ocean even through the barrier. It's like when an explosion displaces as air and it all rushes back in to fill the hole."


"Shit," I cursed. I turned to Dayna. "How will the other godchildren react to this? Some of them are stuck in here, they can't be ok with the Void doing this while they're still inside. C-rank void army or not."


She shrugged. "I wouldn't be. Nor would most of Lord Verdyn's flock. The Wild Hunt is sacred, not to be disturbed. Raxus and Hatescream are another matter. Stralthrem, the god of Dread Fabrication, is fairly mercenary, and will work with anyone that benefits him. If any of the gods were involved it would be those three."


I grimaced. I'd had very little contact with Stralthrem's worshippers, but none of it had been good. From what I'd seen, the Vanished Gods were mostly remote and kind of dickish. Delthrys and the Lady seemed like they might be decent, and I hadn't seen much of Verdyn, but he seemed like he might be tolerable. Hatescream and Raxus were huge assholes who deserved to die, and Stralthrem was apparently a divine sociopath, joy.


We didn't have time to worry about that though. I reached into my ring, pulling out the mirror, but my attempt to use it fell flat. With the void distortion around us, we had no contact methods. I grimaced and turned to Callie, whose current unsettling void connection was our only source of information.


"What do we do?" I asked her directly. "I don't know enough about this situation to make a plan. I need some kind of heading, some semblance of a clue for how we get out of this. Do you have any ideas?"


She frowned, pressing her fingers to her temples to rub them, and I stepped closer anxiously, worried I was pushing her to hurt herself. She realized what she was doing and jerked her hands away, shooting me a wince that I was sure was supposed to be a reassuring smile. "Use Piece of Mind," I told her worriedly. "A few parallels will help process. It's too much, right? Lots of diffuse information and its hitting you all at once?" I could feel a bit of what she was experiencing through the bond.


Nodding, she closed her eyes and I felt her trigger Piece of Mind twice. With three active versions of her brain processing the pressure seemed to ease. Her soul was under a bit of strain, but at our level, two parallels was child's play.


After she triggered the skill, she took a minute to sort it out. "We came in sideways," she eventually said. "Used a portal Celia made. But there should be an exit. An actual departure point. If I had to guess, it'll be in the main city, under the control of Skartaris the Weeper. Skartaris who has literally a hundred C-rankers working for him."


I cursed. I'd been afraid of that. I scoured my mind for any details that might be important, anything we could use to escape. Any reason I could find not to give in to the thought that I'd just doomed everyone I love to becoming void snacks. Finally I remembered something. I turned to look at Carmichael. "Why were you fighting the Abyssal Lord? Skartaris puts on a front, but he seems like he's well aware of the Void's influence here. Why fight with them? You weren't a City Lord right?"


He shot me a sharp look, studying my mask, but since it was blank wood he didn't see anything, and he eventually shook his head. "No. I don't work for Skartaris. I work for Silent Sorrow."


Dezcarta gasped. "The Resistance? Dad what the fuck? Do you know what they would have done to use if they found out? How the hell are we alive right now? And how did you know?" Her tone was demanding as she spun on me. "You didn't seem surprised he said that."


"This place fucking sucks," I said bluntly. "It's a literal misery factory. I'd have bet my left arm that someone here was trying to stand up for the people Skartaris is torturing. But I also had a bit of a hint. The Ghost Bone Tranquility Tower. The tower master helped us, despite being ostensibly on Skartaris's side. We were actively working against the void, even if we didn't really know it yet. The Tower is a front for your group, isn't it?"


Carmichael grinned. "Smart boy. Normally I'd have had to kill you for figuring that out, but given the circumstances I think I can let it go."


It hadn't been me, really. Or not entirely. Dantalion had been active multiple times during this trip. Even when I didn't come to direct conclusions, I still internalized the data gathered, and the form helped me process data I'd already had. It had been hampered by the void energy and the fact that I couldn't use it much given the distortion, but it had still been plugging away at little details and problems I hadn't even realized I was thinking about.


He turned back to his daughter. "As for how you're alive, I imagine the boss swept my involvement under the rug. C-rankers are hard to come by here, and ones like me outside the general system are even harder to find. It DOES happen, even if it's rare, and he used me for a lot of sensitive missions. It would be just like him to watch your back after I was gone. I'm guessing your appointment to City Lord was much smoother than most others. You're young for a CL."


She frowned, presumably at the idea that she didn't earn her position, and he waved a hand. "Not saying you got a handout. C-rank isn't something everyone can do. Solid Paths are a pain in the ass. I'm just saying he might've put a thumb on the scale."


"So…we need to head to the tower?" I asked, getting him back on track. "You made it sound like external C-rankers aren't the only ones on the payroll. How many of the generals does Silent Sorrow have access to." I was starting to come up with a plan, but I needed to know if it was doable.


"Not enough," he said bluntly. "Maybe thirty. Could have fluctuated a bit in either direction, I've been gone a while, but the protocols for flipping a C-ranker or turning a potential are exhaustive. If Skartaris got word of what the boss is doing, a lot of people would die."


I noted that despite the tower being confirmed as a hub, Carmichael had never actually said the NAME of the tower master. In fact, I hadn't heard it anywhere. I'd heard that he was Skartaris's right hand, but it was possible they meant he was part of some kind of inner circle. Maybe they didn't even KNOW who was in charge.


But thirty C-rankers, while substantial, wouldn't be enough to take down sixty. At least not NORMAL C-rankers. I grimaced, considering my options. "I think we need to find the godchildren." I said after a minute of reflection.


"You want to flip them," Callie said skeptically. "You really think we can?"


"I think asking them all to spend their lives in here and asking them all to lock themselves in with an army of void creatures are different things," I said with a shrug. "I get the feeling Raxus didn't exactly share the immediacy of his plans with them. At least not all of them."


Chelsea cut in. "Ok, but why would they help us? They can't leave. If they do, they'll die, so if they side with us they're risking turning the central authority here against them, not to mention pissing off the Void Child and its spawn." She was right. We were operating on incomplete information. We didn't know what was going to happen when the Shallow consumed the dungeon. Maybe they would be welcomed by the Abyssal Lords and the incoming Void Children as the army grew.


Hell the C-rank Void Children would need to be able to escape, so maybe the Shallow would stabilize to let them out. But we had another card to play. Several S-rankers waiting outside for a big fight. If they came out with the Void Children they were risking death.


I reached into my ring and pulled out a scroll. "Yes, leaving here is impossible," I said smugly. "Or at least, it should be. We've seen powerful Ascendants drop and then regain Impact before. I can't trade Impact unless the other person has an excess, but I bet I can suppress it. We give them a way out. A clean exit and a job working for us. They won't be able to double cross us if they use their employment as payment. Two birds, one stone."


She froze, staring at the scroll, and her face lit up. "That's brilliant! I didn't even think of that. It also solves your recruiting problem in the same stroke. We still need a sizable chunk of C-rankers for the succession war. Thirty to forty should be MORE than enough. With all your A-rank slots filled we just need to find some more B-rankers."


"We can help with that," Sable said. "If you have that many C-rankers on the payroll, my grandmother will definitely sign up."


Dom nodded. "My ancestor too. And he might even commit a few other high ranking clan members. Plus you still have your intro with the popsicles. This actually might turn out to be a lucky break. Getting enough people in a short time would have been tough. You might get as big a bump off pulling this off as you would killing that C-ranker."


I had to make some time to leak that information, actually. The Ghost Bone Tranquility Tower could probably help with that. I hadn't gotten an influx of points in a while, and I was betting all this would net me some serious income. I was going to need it. I had almost given up hope of breaking through to C-rank during this mess, but I could still prepare to do it during the succession war.


"So, I guess we need to head for the nearest Ghost Bone Tower then," I said as I looked around. "I do have one question though. Does anyone know where the actual fuck we are? Because this whole area used to be ocean, and I have no clue how to get a heading here."


Everyone looked around in helpless confusion, and I sighed heavily. "Yeah, I was afraid of that. Let's head for the tallest nearby landmark, hopefully we can find something tall enough to catch site of the shore." And hopefully we didn't run into any horrible Abyssal sea creatures waiting out in the sands. Desert and ocean all in one, lovely.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The sea bed was…unsettling. The sand was black and crystalline, with strange purple flickers dancing across the surface of the grains when we looked closer. When we first emerged, the plants and coral around us had just seemed like normal sea bed stuff, but the longer we looked, the more upsetting it became. The coral twisted into unnatural shapes and the plants twitched and jerked when they sensed they weren't being looked at.

Among the forest of rocks sound echoed strangely, skittering and scratching bouncing off the walls of the formerly undersea canyon as THINGS darted just past the edge of our vision.

To keep us all safe, I triggered Murmur, covering the whole group, and as I did, I hung back to check in on Elena, Vesper, Ray, Desria, Chess, and Cavallo. It had been nonstop chaos since the rescue, and I hadn't had time to make sure everyone was alright. Bella had stayed with them, and they all seemed to have calmed down a lot on the walk, which was frankly astounding considering the shit that had been going on.

"Hey guys," I nodded as I fell into step with them. "How are you all doing? Sorry it took so long?"

Elena shook her head. "No. Don't apologize. This whole mess is our fault. I can't believe you came here to rescue us. I mean, we're friends, and we went through some things together, but this is above and beyond."

I shrugged. "You guys would do the same for me. And if you wouldn't don't tell me about it, that would bum me out." They all laughed, and some of the tension drained away. I was glad. Keeping score wasn't for friends, it was for business partners. That mercenary 'everything for benefits' attitude was part and parcel of the WCP, but that wasn't me. "How are you guys? It didn't exactly look like a picnic down there."

"No, though there were ants at one point," said Ray dryly. "I'm pretty frustrated by the whole thing, but we do appreciate the help. Seems like every time you get pulled into my business we end up butting heads with Raxus's people."

"Well, he's a dick," I said with a shrug. "I wouldn't worry too much. He's gotten on the bad side of some scary people. Let them deal with him. Des, Cavallo, how about you two? I know Chess has been too busy flirting with my apprentice to dwell," I turned my head slowly to regard Chester, making it clear I was watching him.

Bella sputtered. "Master! It's not like that! We're just friends, and you need to stop butting into my romantic life."

"You realize that you just contradicted yourself?" I pointed out helpfully.

She glared at me. "You realize shut up?"

I snickered, but my face went serious as I sensed something. "Stop!" I snapped loudly, and everyone came to a halt. Murmur was a combination Dantalion and Bael, but it was condensed and geared more toward the physical. The void static in the air didn't interfere too much with pure stealth, and even less now that most of it was raining down from the sky. Because of that, I could actually detect physical signs in the area through my domain.

Something was coming, something big. I kept my hand up, waiting and listening. The shake of the ground, the ripple of sound off rock, I was erasing all the signs of our passing, so detecting the signs of something else was doable.

It was coming from the left, and I looked over, as a greyscale form slithered past a rock, emerging from behind the stone in a sickly, twitchy, serpentine jerk that hurt to look at. The first thing I noticed was the size. The monster was C-rank, and HUGE. It was a disgusting slimy grey, with wet looking skin clinging tightly to an emaciated body that had WAY too many bones. It was build like a person in terms of shape, but the number of bones reminded me more of a centipede.

Despite all the bone, the skeleton seemed to warp and contract as it moved, allowing the limbs (too long and with eight clawed fingers each) to writhe and jerk in nonlinear ways. Its face was a nest of disgusting tentacles, all of varying widths and lengths, and a pair of burning red eyes glared out from inside, hidden in the darkness of the tentacle nest.

It slid along the ground toward us, swerving as it went like it was a dog trying to find a scent. Everyone tensed and Abel clenched a first, but I cleared my throat. "Stop," I told him again. "It's fine. Carmichael, if it notices us can you take it out?"

He shook his head. "That thing is peak C-rank," he said in an urgent whisper. "It'll butcher us. Unless you think your….giant rock monster thing can stall it."

"Not this time," I said with a sigh. "The godchild was newly ranked up. We can't take a peak C-ranker." Not yet at least. Once we were somewhere safe and had leaked the C-ranker kill, I needed to check my points. Hopefully all this chaos had gotten me a nice bump. "But that's not the issue. This thing is easy enough to avoid, it won't see through Murmur, not a bit of time for it to sink in. But why is it here? How did it find us?"

Callie cursed. "You think they alerted the Abyssal Lords. They contacted all the sea creatures still down here to have them look for us, didn't they?"

"It's what I would do," I nodded. "But that's going to make escaping tough. If that's an Abyssal Lord, there might be more. If one of them trips over us we're fucked. We need to move SLOWLY and methodically. I want everyone to follow me, don't deviate at all. Just do exactly as I do." I gestured for them to come after me, heading around the side of the monster.

It loomed over us, face jerking back and forth, sometimes coming within a foot of one of use, tentacles snapping so close we could feel the wind on our skins. I just ignored it, leading my people around and out of the canyon. I used Murmur to check the environment as we went, and soon enough I managed to find a path we could use to get up on top of a nearby rock formation.
I didn't know if that rock was going to be high enough to see the shore, but since the rainline above us was dropping slightly every minute we waited, I knew we didn't have time to be picky.

We reached the edge of a plateau, and had gone about halfway around when I stopped and palmed my face. "I'm an idiot," I announced loudly, turning to look at my friends. They all came to a stop, waiting for whatever crucial detail I'd missed.

"Well we knew that," said Abel. "But refresh our memory, what specific idiotic thing are you thinking of right now, there have been so many."

I flipped him off, then triggered Agares. Reaching out with the energy, I dissolved a few feet of rock off the plateau and reshaped them into a crude staircase. I rehardened them and then mounted the staircase, gesturing for the others to follow. I appreciated their attempts not to laugh as they climbed up behind me…mostly.

When we reached the top, I narrowed my eyes, gazing out across the sea of black sand and twisted rocks. Off in the distance I could see a line of hill that clearly ended at the top of a slope that I was sure was the shore. I tried to estimate the distance based on the height of the plateau and winced. "Alright, it looks like we're about a hundred miles out." In between the stones, I could see whipping, jerking shadows. Abyssal Lords searching for us.

I grimaced, trying to think of some way to get there fast. We didn't have time for this. The longer we stayed out here the closer this place came to being consumed. I was pretty convinced we had no chance to stop it, but escape was on the table if we could hurry up, but the C-rankers would make quick movement through the distance impossible, and by the time we got out we'd be screwed.

C-rankers couldn't enter this place, just like they couldn't leave, but once the Shallow consumed the dungeon, the latter would cease to be the case, and I was pretty sure the former would stop being an issue too. Not only would that mean we'd be stuck in here with a void army, it would mean we'd lose our leverage to flip any of the godchildren.

Abel stepped up beside me, shading his eyes with a hand. "I think I might be able to get us over there," he said after eyeballing the distance.

"What? How?" I asked excitedly.

He shrugged. "The Ragam Blood Body is the secret technique I created to optimize the Infinite Blood Sea, but it's not the only way to use it. I do paths of spatial lubrication all the time. I could use the blood sea for the same thing. I just need a little help actually creating the path. Also concealing it. Can you help with that?"

"The second one, yes," I nodded. "I can use Beelzebub to send some of my clones out as relays to connect a long form version of Murmur. With just a path to cover, it should be doable, if somewhat exhausting. But I can't help with structuring it, and if I'm going to cover it with my domain it needs to be homogenous." I glanced over my shoulder. "Bethy, you think you're up to helping with this? I know you got injured."

She snorted, taking her place next to us. "Pshaw, I'm fine. But we gotta work quick, ok?" We both smiled at her, and she grabbed Abel's hand. "Alright, everyone hold hands!" Abel tried to protest but she pouted at him and he rolled his eyes. I think he still appreciated the save from Sebastian. He sighed, then grabbed my hand, and I chuckled as I focused on the task at hand.

There was a ripple, and a red path began to manifest, a flat distortion of blood in the air. I triggered Beelzebub, then sent a clone with a parallel ahead to jump up onto the read path as it began to extend further out of the bubble of Murmur. Shaping it along the path as opposed to in a bubble was tough, and I tried to cover the surrounding area to allow us to remain concealed.

Bethy focused, imbuing her Domain into the path, helping to shape it and keep it straight as it extended. Abel bumped my shoulder. "Don't bother cloaking more than the path itself," he advised. "It's spatial lubrication. Once we step onto it we'll be flung down the length of it like a slingshot and be out of this sea before any of them can react. Getting it in place is the hard part."

I nodded, then sent another clone down the path, amused as I saw it whip past the first one and reach the edge, about ten miles out. He started to extend his own Murmur field along the length of the path, only using a bit to cover himself, and I beamed as we started to make progress. Finally, the path reached the shore, and we stepped back, gesturing for the others to climb on.

Chelsea was first up, and she hopped onto the red spatial distortion and rocketed off into the distance, slipstreaming through the space like a speeding shuttle. Then Callie, then the rest of my friends. Bethy went third to last, then me, and Abel hopped on behind me right after. I whooped with joy as we shot across the intervening space, bypassing the C-rankers as we flew over their heads. We landed safely on the shore, and I dismissed my clones as we let the path fade. It was nice to have a win with so much going wrong.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

It was a relief to be back on land. Or…well, back on normal land? The ocean was gone, but the area where it had been was twisted and creepy, even without all the monsters trying to hunt us down like dogs. "Alright, so, you two have any idea where we are?" I asked, glancing at Dez and Carmichael.


Carmichael frowned, then fished out a small red stone from a pocket. He squeezed it tightly, and I saw it glow a bit. He moved his hand around, and the glow strengthened and then waned, modulated by some unknown variable (though I assumed it was some kind of compass). Eventually, he settled on a direction and pointed. "Nearest Ghost Bone Tower is that way. We can contact Silent Sorrow there. They should be able to point you toward your targets."


I nodded, then turned to Dayna. "Do you have a method to contact any of your old companions? If you have a C-ranker we can get in touch with you might save their life."


The Heaven Murder Elf (and I STILL didn't know what that was) shook her head. "My honor required me to enter Bethany's service, but I still owed my master and the other initiates. To ensure I wouldn't be used as a weapon against my people, I informed them of my defection and destroyed all methods of communication to sever ties."


I shot her an impressed look. "That's shockingly upright of you. A bit inconvenient, but damned impressive. Would they give you a chance to speak on my behalf if we track them down through other means?"


She shrugged. "It depends which C-ranker we encounter. Each god sent three different representatives. Finding people at the peak of D-rank who haven't ranked up if they're capable is difficult. There's no real reason to remain at the peak of D if you don't have to." I nodded, I'd already figured that one out.


Three times six was eighteen, and we'd already killed one, so that was seventeen potential C-rankers, plus the thirty or more locals. Forty seven, almost fifty C-rankers. So we'd be down between ten and fifteen in terms of numbers versus the locals even in the absolute most ideal circumstances, which we definitely wouldn't get. The numbers disparity would probably be much worse.


I shook that off. We'd play the hand we were dealt. We had some nasty surprises, and I wasn't afraid of fighting a few myself to help even things out.


We followed Carmicheal across the island, moving much faster without fear of the Abyssal Lords hunting us. I wasn't sure if they COULDN'T leave the ocean or just hadn't noticed us escaping and were determined to box us in, but whatever the case, none of them seemed to have followed us, thank the gods for small miracles.


After about an hour we reached a city. We'd run across a few nasty sea creatures who HAD crawled up on land, but nothing too scary, and we'd put them down without much fuss. Still, it had delayed our trip, and the water line in the sky had already dropped a few inches. It wasn't much in the grand scheme of things, but operating under what was basically an hourglass of death wasn't pleasant.


When we reached the new town, Carmichael pulled us to a stop outside, and we all scoped out the location to see if it was safe to enter. Honestly, I wasn't sure, because the place was REALLY ominous looking, seeing as it was made out of bone.


The whole city we'd stumbled on was carved out of a giant skeleton. It wasn't humanoid, more…snakelike? Lots of ribs down the length, and each one had been hollowed out and turned into a building. The skeleton had been curled into a circle, so there was a literal wall of guard towers facing out from around city limits. The inward facing ribs formed the basic infrastructure of a network of towers connected by walkways, and there were woven metal cables covered in barbed hooks strung between the guard towers on the outside, forming a wall of jagged metal around the entire perimeter.


"Well that looks friendly," said Abel dryly. "What a cheerful and inviting place. Clearly the person who designed it was in a great place mentally and wasn't even slightly insane."


"Hold on," I said with amusement. "Let me guess the name. I think I've gotten used to the way they do them here, and I bet I can figure it out. Is it…Ribwall?" I couldn't resist a jab at the naming conventions.


Dez snorted. "Bonehook, actually," she said with a chuckle. "But you were closer than I'd like. At least I think it's Bonehook. I've heard stories, and it's pretty distinctive."


"It is," Carmichael nodded. "Bonehook is one of the oldest cities in the Shoals. It predates Skartaris's reign by quite a while. The city lord of Bonehook is…well, not independent, but in a much better position to protest orders he doesn't like. Even Skartaris steps carefully around Maxos. Those non general C-rankers I mentioned? Several of them live in Bonehook."


"So he's a friend of the resistance?" I asked excitedly. "We got lucky?"


He shook his head. "We didn't get UNlucky. Maxos is a mercenary at heart. He might work with us, but you definitely shouldn't trust him. Keep your eyes open. We need to get to the tower. It's in the inner ring so we'll need to take the bone bridge."


I was confused by what that meant, but it became clear pretty fast. All the ribs of the snake skeleton were towers, with the outside making up the guard towers and wall and the inside being part of the city infrastructure. The skeleton was so huge that the spin the ribs connected to formed its own road that ran the length of the inside of the city. Once we got closer I could see the bone bridge through the jagged wall, but we needed to enter before we could actually access it.


The only entrances were small gates latched into the weave at the base of the wall of hooks. They were about ten feet tall and there were only four of them, one at each cardinal direction, so guarding the gate was easy enough.


We had zero chance of bullying our way past, so we let Carmichael go first, since he didn't seem worried about entering. When he reached the gate, he waved to the guards cheerfully.


"Hello, I'm here to visit an old friend, is Chandra still living in the city?" As he spoke, he tossed the glowing stone up into the air and caught it. The motion was casual, like he was just a bored guy fidgeting with a stone, but I saw the guards eyes lock on the token.


The one on the left (they were literally identical, and I couldn't tell them apart outside of position) nodded slowly. "Lord Chandra resides within. Do you seek his aid?"


Rolling his eyes, the other one sighed. "Sorry, Dave is trying to get promoted. Our watch commander is really into the old style noble speech, and he thinks having us all talk like we're a thousand adds gravitas. Yeah, Chandra is still running the Brawldom Butchery in the east district. Normally we'd charge for that info, but we have a standing order not to hold up anyone with a Ghost Bone Stone." He glared at his partner when he said that last part, and the identical man bristled.


"I wasn't HOLDING HIM UP," Dave protested. "I was fishing for information. Commander Jace will be curious, and yes, I do want to get promoted. SOME of us actually have ambition, Kyle. This is why mom likes me better."


Kyle snorted. "Mom likes you better because you're a suck up. Now stop delaying these nice people. Sorry about the wait, friends." He slammed his elbow back into the gate. "We've got a party entering!" He called up over his shoulder. "GBS holder here for Chandra." I chose not to point out that he'd just passed on our business like his brother had wanted to, right after criticizing him for the same thing.


The gates swung open with a metallic screech, and we were gestured in. The wall of hooks had very small gaps through which we could see the bone bridge, but they weren't wide enough to get a good look. Stepping through the gate was a much different experience, and the sight of colossal spine we would be walking down was breathtaking.


While it wasn't visible from inside or even really above, there was a flat stone wall on the opposite side of the gate that blocked off the interior of the city. We could still enter through the inner ring, though, and each of the interior towers had access points at the base, leading up to the network of walkways crisscrossing the city proper, spiderwebbing between the buildings as they towered above us.


This was the inner ring, whereas the guard towers were the outer ring. We circled the bone bridge for about ten miles before finding the right tower. "What was the deal with the guy you asked about? Chandra?"


Carmichael shrugged. "Chandra is a local C-ranker. One of the three bosses under Maxos. East, West, and South. Maxos himself lives in the North, but he's not the type to micromanage. Chandra is the Eastern Marshall of Bonehook. He's a Butcher by trade and by Job, and he's EXTREMELY scary. We knew each other growing up, and he had a bit of a soft spot for me, though who knows if he still does. I wasn't sure if the stone was still good, so I decided to hedge my bets."


We stopped at the base of a tower. While all of the towers were made from hollowed out snake ribs, they were also all very different aside from their basic shape. Carvings, paint, metal inlays, each tower had its own unique style and design.


The one we had stopped at had a series murals depicting specters and skeletons perched in peaceful repose, meditating under a brilliant moon.


Holding up the stone, Carmichael touched it to the plate of the nearest door. The black metal set into the dark wood started to glow cherry red, as if it was turning molten. There was a click and the door popped open, revealing a thin sliver of darkness past the entrance. Carmichael grabbed the door handle, which had returned to its normal color, and pulled it open, stepping over the threshold first with the stone palmed like it would ward off danger.


When nothing happened, he waved us inside. "Close the door behind you. We're not supposed to be able to enter without an invite."


Ray was the last person in, and he pulled the door shut, pulling and pushing a few times to make sure it anchored. The mechanism was completely silent, so it was hard to tell at a glance if it was actually closed.


Once we confirmed that, we all turned to look around the tower. The design was very different than the previous tower. This one was all one large open chamber, with a pair of stairways leading up the sides in a spiral. About twenty feet up there was a vaulted ceiling, and I got the impression this place was spatially expanded on top of its enormous size. How many floors did they have here?


Rather than approach the stairs, Carmichael carried the stone to the center of the room where a circular desk was built into the ground. He dropped it on the surface and the whole desk began to glow…and then dropped. As we watched, the desk descended into the floor, segmenting as it lowered into a set of spiral stairs.


Carmichael grinned. "See, secret organizations always have the coolest stuff," he gestured for me to take the lead. "Now, lets go talk to the boss, and see what we can do to get us all out of this. Personally, I'm just as eager to get the hell out of this dungeon." I'd never agreed with any sentiment more.